The pest control guys already do this 3 to 4 times a week. If homeowners regularly went back inside their poison-filled houses, the pest guys would have warned Walt and Mike.
I didn’t understand why they’d leave the meth lab assembled inside while doing the real fumigating, but maybe they are afraid of picking up whatever infestation they’re treating in the meth lab. If I were Walt and Jesse, I wouldn’t casually watch TV in that roach motel. They could bring it home in their clothes.
Definitely. If there’s one thing we learned from seasons 1 and 2, it’s that distribution is the primary bottleneck for Walt.
So, this episode is about 1 year earlier than the opening scene of season 5. Just before Skyler’s meltdown, Marie was asking about plans for Walt’s birthday and mentioned it has been just about a year since he was diagnosed.
Thanks for that. I didn’t notice this, but it does add a nice bit of background. It shows that Skinny Pete at least (no idea about Badger) wasn’t born as a meth addict and dealer, that once he was an ordinary high school kid who took piano lessons. It reminded me of the lives that have been wasted.
I agree that there’s no way that Walt can make a go of it without Mike, both as the supplier of the precursor and as the person most involved in distribution. Also, Mike is the muscle of the team.
As for this, the tented house might actually make the sets easier to set up; they only need to show a few shots of a tented house (which can even be the same one every time) and some shots of Walt and Jesse working in the hospital tent in the house. But there is the slight danger that they leave behind some piece of equipment or some chemical residue that makes someone suspicious.
I smell a rat with Todd. How’s this scenario: perhaps he’s an undercover cop who was gathering evidence against the Vaminos Pest people and their crime contacts. Now he realizes that he’s stumbled into something perhaps much bigger, but doesn’t yet know what it is. He starts ingratiating himself with Walt in order to find out what it is they’re up to.
I think the opening scene from the season premiere (Walt’s 52nd birthday in Denny’s) is going to take place next season. I really don’t see how they can cover an entire year in just 5 more episodes.
I took the Victor comment that Walt made as a reference to Mike taking liberties he shouldn’t have taken. Not sure if Walt is plotting to oust Mike, but it would seem that way.
I think Brock recognized Walt - that’s why Walt planted the seed in Jesse’s mind to end it with Andrea - if Jesse found out that Walt poisoned Brock, Jesse would kill him instantly. No doubt about that.
And Todd is going to get fired (and maybe turn rat?) because he spoke to Walt - disobeying Mike’s strict orders for the crew not to speak to them unless spoken to first.
Nitpick: I believe it’s “Vamonos.” Actually it’s kind of odd, because so far as I understand it, “vámonos” means “let’s go.” It seems to me that the more appropriate word would be “Vete!” or “go away!” But then again, I don’t really know much Spanish, so I might be wrong on all of this.
Seriously. Mike could have handled that better. Just saying these guys need to be made whole because they are MY men isn’t really going to sway anyone. But pointing out that if they talk, there goes the distribution network and the supplies and all of a sudden people start understanding.
There’s a power struggle going on there, and Mike doesn’t want to have to explain himself to Walt. That would make him more like Walt’s subordinate, and he’s not having any of that. Hence the “I handle the business and you don’t tell me how to do my job” bit.
This wasn’t stated in the show, but while I was watching I just assumed it was because they were trying to get everything set up quickly. Jesse and Walt were busy getting equipment and Mike was busy with business stuff, so Jesse sent two guys he could trust to get the cases.
But also I think it was to show us how Jesse’s changed. He used to be a kinda goofy guy, often joking around and laughing with his friends. But this time when he saw his friends, he seemed a bit sad.
I’m not positive, but I don’t think Brock recognized him. I didn’t see any glimmer of recognition, and kids aren’t usually that good of actors. And we still don’t know how Walt poisoned him, it might have been another third party doing it.
I think it was just Walt covering his bases. If Jesse ever started to distrust him, he might think back on how it was weird that it seemed like Brock was poisoned by ricin and might talk to Brock more about what had happened. Or Saul comes to visit Jesse with a henchman and Brock might recognize the henchman.
I agree with this. If Brock had recognized Walt, he would have given some indication. Walt was just being careful.
If Mike wasn’t a major character this season, the show would suck. They better get somewhere with this.
ETA: Anyone notice the bug crawling around inside the tent? Plot point? Some house doesn’t get completely fumigated and an investigation is triggered?
The house wasn’t fumigated until they left. I think it was just setting. They really were working in a bug infested house.
Walt didn’t poison Brock directly. He had Saul do it (it’s not clear if Saul did it or Huell did).
So there’s no chance Brock would recognize Walt, but Walt might have noticed how uncommunicative Brock was, and realized that’s part of why he’s gotten away with this till now. If future Brock becomes less traumatized and starts talking about how he got sick, that’s nothing but trouble for Walt. Better to get rid of a loose end that could easily get Walt killed.
But he is, so it doesn’t, so what’s the problem?
That’s the thing about roaches, right? They’re survivors. Plus, they hadn’t fumigated yet. They turned the foggers on after they were done with the cook.
This was definitely a setup episode. There wasn’t much action, but we now know many of the basics for this season: the guys have a new scheme and they are back in business, but tensions are emerging. Hank is going to get back on the case, tensions between Mike and Walter will rise, Skyler is going to continue to struggle with her expanded role in this. Walt and Jesse’s relationship is the strongest it has been since early in the series, but that won’t last through the remaining episodes.
Yes. Walt had no logical reason to be such a pain in the ass over the hazard pay thing; if he’d been interested he could easily have understood that these guys are potential liabilities. (Incidentally didn’t someone predict last week that we’d seen Dennis again?) Even if they don’t know anything about Walt and Jesse, they know more about Fring’s operation and anything they tell the cops could become damaging to Walt and Jesse in addition to Mike. Even if it were only bad news for Mike, they do need Mike. This was Walt lashing out because he just has to have his way and be the boss, and it’s why he is not good at the business side of the meth thing. I don’t know if the tent plan is a good idea or not, but it’s clever and it’ll change things up for the show.
It didn’t occur to me at the time that Walt was actually manipulating Jesse as opposed to being honest from his own experience, but in hindsight that must’ve been what he was doing. It keeps Jesse reliant on Walt and it also means Walt won’t have to come near Brock again. I thought he was uncomfortable during that scene. He doesn’t want to have to think about what he resorted to in case he starts feeling guilty.
I did like the use of Scarface here. It looked like Walt just related to the exciting parts and badassery, but Skyler saw the unintended meaning in “everybody dies in this movie.” This show is very good at using symbols that mean different things to the characters at the same time. Walt even had the baby on his lap.
The cockroach wasn’t inside the tent, was it? I thought it was on the kitchen counter in teh foreground as the establishing shot of Jesse and Walt watching TV.
I read that in order to use the Scarface clip, Gilligan had to get permission from not only the movie studio, but from Al Pacino himself. He was apparently very cool about it.
I am kinda curious about potential bugs (heh) in the tent-house plan. If they leave the hospital tent up while fumigating, could insects inside the tent survive and reinfest the house? For that matter, since these insects were present during a meth cook, they could be, like, superbugs, man.
I suppose the process could be:
They bomb the house after Walt and Jessie are done cooking, it looked to me that it included the tent as well.