I hate to criticize the best drama on TV, but I’m gonna anyway. Was there any reason other than shock (and a nice explosion) for the two guys to shoot everyone in the truck? I get that the kid recognized the boots, but so what? Who’s he going to tell? That was disappointing. Also slightly disappointing was the guys stealing clothes. What if it hadn’t been laundry day? What if the clothes didn’t fit? Why not just bring a change of clothes?
Other than that, I thought it was a fine episode. I especially loved the beginning, trying to figure out why that guy was crawling, and then more people crawling.
Walt’s still in denial and it makes him fascinating to watch. Skyler looks great – I think she’s put on some weight and it suits her.
Not the best season opener for BB, but still a great episode. I also thought the two new baddies were a bit over-played. Non-talking cool as a cucumber drug-lord sociopaths… feel like I’ve seen it all before. As with the other kingpins, they were wild, unpredictable and felt real. These two guys feel like they’re out of some action movie. Perhaps they’ll become more grounded as the season rolls on.
Other than that, as true as ever to the tone and pacing of the series. I wonder which way Jessie’s gonna dive? He says he’s done with using, but has accepted he’s a “bad guy”. Does this mean he still wants to cook? Obviously Walt is trying to get out of it, but we know he’ll get pulled back in.
I wonder if those twins aren’t looking to kill him, but to nab him… to cook for them?
In the preview for next week:
They knew his real name.
ETA: Also, how cool was it that Skylar just came out with “You’re a drug dealer.”?
Remember how the second season included scenes that were flash forwards to the events of the final episode of the season. So it’s possible that the scenes with the two Mexican gunmen were meant to be in the future. And I don’t think they shot up the hay truck simply because the other guy recognized them. I think that must have been their plan all along. One reason for thinking so is that they must have made plans to get picked up, or else they’re going to die of thirst in that desert.
The opening scene in the Mexican village was really weird, though.
My guess is that those guys are Tuco’s cousins. Wouldn’t be too far fetched for him to have known Walter’s real name and told his cousins as insurance if it were as easy as Saul said it was.
I’m always amazed at how realistic the show is. They don’t shy away from showing all the collateral damage caused by Walt’s decision to enter the drug trade. They really drove the plane crash home with all of its consequences. The media attention, the ribbons that people are wearing, the school assembly, and all those horrified students (at least some of them were).
The guy who killed his own daughter I didn’t see coming. I had the same perception as Jesse had about the guy and then he pulled a 180 on both of us.
Walt’s self delusion is played brilliantly by Cranston. I have high hopes for the rest of the season.
Absolutely nothing happened in this episode. It was a bit boring. There was no character development and the plot didn’t really move forward. Those two bad guys are completely uninteresting. What’s with Walt’s son? He’s a complete tool.
I think a lot happened, actually, even though it was low key in the sense that no one was blown up.
Skyler had clues to figure out what Walt was up to, and half the drama in the show was him hiding his secret life, and the fact that she got around to figuring it out was a pretty huge deal for the show. And so too was the fact that he confirmed it. They went from being a seperated couple that maybe would’ve had the chance to work things out and went to having her threaten to turn him into the police unless he never saw his family again.
We had Walt passing up a golden opportunity - the best opportunity he’s had to date, where he could use his skills as a cook without having to worry about the nastiness of distribution - and he could’ve made a nice, clean 3 million dollars. But he decided to turn his life around and get out of the business despite that. That’s a huge character change.
We have Jesse having to deal with the guilt of thinking he solely caused the air disaster, whether that will indeed motivate him to stay clean, or what other effects that may have. We may have a building tension where Walt is tempted to claim responsibility to relieve his guilt, should he start going a bit nuts.
We had Walt crackling under the strain of denial about what he’d caused. He sort of tried to confess to Hank.
And we probably saw the introduction of the main villains of this season.
Since first episodes are usually slower paced setup type episodes, this actually had a decent amount of stuff actually happen, even if none of it was action exactly. Drama, the resolution of hanging threads, and a change in the situations of the major players.
I don’t agree at all that nothing happened. Skyler moved forward on the divorce and she learned the truth about Walter’s activities, which is a huge development. Walt is dealing with his guilt about what he does (hence the attempted burning of the money and turning down a really lucrative offer). Jesse seems like he’s going to stay off drugs now.
I don’t think she figured it out at all. I think she guessed! She knew Walt amassed a large sum of money to pay for his treatment. Who here WOULDN’T have guessed drugs were involved in obtaining a large amount of money? Her first guess was Marijuana!
I say if they keep Jessie clean, and yet he accepts that he’s just a ‘bad’ person; this season could really be an exciting one. He’ll be a lot more formidable character than the one who says “wire” when answering Walt’s question about the final piece needed to make a battery (Walt is looking for the answer “copper,” but Jessie answers “wire” in a hilarious scene in 4 Days Out: Flight of the RV.
I was not disappointed, as both things I thought would happen actually did happen. Walt knows that he caused the crash, and Skyler finds out the truth about Walt’s income. I thought she might have a moral dilemma but this way is good too, where she’s absolutely against it. It’s a good contrast to Walt who justifies it, and it probably wouldn’t have worked if she was on the fence about it.
What was up with the school assembly about the crash? Would they really do that with the entire student body? I remember in my senior year another student died in a car accident, and they had an optional thing for any students that wanted to go, but it wasn’t the whole school like that. Anyway, that scene was kind of weird for me.
Anyone else notice that Walt is the only one not wearing one of those ribbons? I guess his souvenir eyeball is good enough.
Well, they were already separated. Walt had been an ass for most of the second season and Skyler was kind of clear about the separation. So the divorce wasn’t really something new.
You had to figure that she knew he was dealing drugs. How else do you get all that money to pay for treatment and a top notch oncologist?
I’m sure that, on some level, his BIL knows too. He’s a DEA agent, how could he not?
I like how Skyler is written in a very plausible way. It’s very fufilling, in a way, that she reacts as any smart woman/long-term wife would. It makes the show better for me, actually, because I’m so trained to see predictable tropes coming from a mile away. But this show has a real aspect (except for the airline crash) that makes it compelling.
Still can’t convince people I know to watch it, though. “It’s a show about a guy who decides to become a meth cook… No, really, it’s good!” I need to start describing it as an allegory about pride and how the decisions you make have a ripple effect.
I thought his best line in that ep (although “wire” was funny) was when Jessie was trying to motivate Walt to use his science know how to get themselves out of that situation. He starts rambling off a bunch of crazy ideas, including building a robot. And when it occurs to Walt that he can create a chemical battery, he says somethin like, “that’s it!”, and Jessie says, “what, a robot?!”*
Even if they make Jessie a lot darker, I hope he still retains that childlike naivity.
Well, they made it pretty clear that Hank really underestimates Walt. Hank’s experience in the Drug business is actually hurting his ability to see Walt as the very guy he’s looking for. Hank is biased to be looking out for the stereotyipocal bad guy. Also, anyone might dismiss the thought that the guy he’s been searching for is not only right under his nose, but family he’s known for a long time.
Besides, he’s not privvy to the same info Skylar has.
I meant, he should see that Walt is dealing drugs, not that he’s Heisenberg. He also knows a lot of the things that can be used for making meth have been stolen from Walt’s lab.
I agree. Throughout the episode (and much to my husband’s dismay, I’m sure) I kept telling him, “Have I told you how much I love this show?”
I don’t think the brother-in-law (his name eludes me at the mo’) has linked any of these things together yet. I agree that he’s too close to Walt to suspect him.
BTW, have I mentioned how much I love this show? I missed it. It’s like a good friend, and I’m glad it’s back!