Open spoilers about discussion of this episode.
We’re left with Walt back to working in the superlab. Walt is convinced that Gus still intends to kill them, but Jesse seems to think that maybe Gus has them sufficiently scared as to be obedient and may let them go back to having a working relationship. Which may be true - except that Walt is going to go on the offensive and ruin any chance of that happening, I’d imagine.
Great episode. I was a little worried after what I felt was a stumble coming out of the gate, but this was good. A great improvement over the premiere.
I only wish Mike had truly beat the shit out of Walt. He got off very light considering what he was attempting to do.
EDIT: That opening with Jim Beaver as an arms dealer was fantastic. His character only had a couple minutes of screen time, but those couple minutes were memorable.
I certainly enjoyed eps 1 and 2 of this season, but I’m starting to feel a bit…restless.
The only real event that has happened in these two episodes has been Gus’s shocking murder of Victor
I appreciate the slow burn BB is building this season, and the two episodes so far this season have been good, but I’m really hoping for some actual plot movement next week.
That said, I loved the scene tonight with Walt and the gun dealer.
Also Jesse’s near weeping, then hardening into dead-eyed stare that closed the episode. Seriously, seriously, that was some good acting.
Well, it looks like Hank will get jerked back to the real world and out of self-pity mode next ep, which is good since at this point I’m wishing he and his wife would just slit their respective wrists.
Jesse is in a serious downward spiral to depression and re-addiction after witnessing the murder of Victor and pulling his own trigger. Can he be flipped by the DEA?
You mean Straight Dope poster Jim Beaver, of course.
I so do not get you people at all. You are living on a different BB planet than I am, that’s for damn sure.
Whom I kinda freaked out… I answered his add a couple of years ago giving away moving boxes. I told him I was a Doper and I remembered his posting here. He was nice but a little freaked that someone would know him from Deadwood AND the Dope and be standing in his yard.
I’m probably coming from a different place - I watched all of season 3 in a marathon run over a weekend shortly before season 4 premiered. So the slower episodes went down easy because I could just queue up the next. That said, the only episode from S3 I thought was weak was “Fly”, though even that episode had some heart-breaking moments (“Jesse, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Jane … I mean, I’m very sorry.”) Great scene, great moment between Walt and Jesse, but still - the ep was slow and didn’t do much else.
I’m not saying I didn’t think the S4 episodes were good, I’d just like the plot to move a bit. I can only take so many artfully shot scenes of silence and tension. S4 has built up well so far, now let’s see where it will take the characters.
Season 3 started off relatively slowly too, and then tore my face clean off.
You can’t go wrong with Jim Beaver. I think he could play the lead in Agnes of God and be convincing.
I love the “black holy” effect of Jesse and the woofer. No idea if it was deliberate or not.
What’s up with Walt and the [del]rocks[/del]minerals? He did mention one was blue, but I can’t imagine what blue crystals would tell him about blue crystal meth.
I don’t think Breaking Bad would do this, but I hope Mike doesn’t have the Incurable Cough of Death (TV Trope link: a character coughs in one scene, reveals they’re terminally ill two scenes later then dies when inconvenient).
Gus had three words (“Go home Walter”) and no face time tonight but still managed to be chilling. The age of GPS sort of puts an end to the effectiveness of parking around the corner.
Was that Gus on the phone? I wasn’t sure. The voice was ambiguous. I thought maybe it was the new Victor keeping watch on Gus’ place.
I thought it was Gus.
It was definitely Gus.
Skyler really doesn’t get the “telephones can be listened in on and the evidence used against you in a court of law” (or by scarier entities than law enforcement) does she?
Why is Hank being such a dick to Marie? I get that he’s suffering/mad/scared and all that, but she could hardly be a better wife to him right now.
I’m thinking the same thing. It sounds only vaguely like Gus, and it sounds nothing like Mike. You can hear it again in this this video (Inside Breaking Bad: Thirty-Eight Snub). It’s either the new Victor, or it’s some henchman that we haven’t seen before.
She wasn’t saying anything incriminating, though. Saul was justified in acting skittish when she was blabbing about the actual meth operation, but talking about buying the car wash isn’t something she’d have to keep secret. It’s just Walt, totally not knowing what the fuck he’s doing, which, now that I think about it, sort of sums up the entire episode. Walt not knowing how to carry a gun; Walt mistaking the new Victor for Gus; Walt thinking he can just roll up on Gus’ house; Walt thinking he can convince Mike to roll over on Gus.
Her interaction with Hank following the departure of the physical aid therapist was as heart-breaking as anything I’ve seen from the show. She so clearly wanted to support him, and he shut her down in about the coldest way possible.
Hank’s filled with self-pity right now. That’s surely the source of his bitterness. He was always the big protector in the family and now he can barely walk. Next week it looks like he’ll get something to jar him out of his funk and back to realiity.
The point about this season starting a bit slower is not without some truth. You gotta remember that Season 3 started with the Hit Brothers. Between them and Hank working hard to track down Heisenberg there was a constant element of danger to Walter for just about the whole season. So far the biggest danger to Walter is Gus and that threat got defused after Victor was taken out. To me, the most exciting scene in this latest episode was when Walter became Heisenberg (you can see the transformation in his face) and then headed straight to Gus’ house to take care of business. What suspense! We know that Walter’s life is still in peril, but we don’t get the same level of apprehension or edginess because we know that Walter will be fine until Gus finds a replacement for him. When they put Hank back on the hunt for Heisenberg that’ll add some suspense for the show.
Thirty-Eight Snub is an excellent episode. It showed Walter trying to take matters into his own hands and getting slapped down, Jesse spiraling down a rat hole again, and other meaty developments for the other characters.
For a while now I’ve been saying to friends and family, “why are they just assuming that Bogdan will sell the carwash?” They’re making all of these plans for laundering money through the carwash and they haven’t even approached the guy yet!
So tonight my concerns were vindicated.
On a different subject, last week Hank’s interest in mineral crystals seemed harmless albeit uncomfortably similar to his previous pursuit of meth crystals, but now it’s become an uncomfortable to watch (at least for me) obsession; with 15 or 20 boxes of rocks being delivered in one day.
If you guys wouldn’t mind, I’d like to make a request to put stuff about next week’s previews in spoiler boxes. I avoid the previews and I know a lot of people do because they’re made by the marketing team and not the writers, so they’re often either misleading or they give spoilers. Either way it hampers the enjoyment of the next show. I’m not asking you not to post about them, but just for the stuff relating to the previews for the next episode please use a spoiler box. Thanks.
Definitely sounded like Gus to me.
it sounded like new victor, to me anyway.