Walter White Wednesday 26

. . . which is the one where the game changes.  Irrevocably.  If you haven't already seen this week's episode of Breaking Bad, which is entitled "Dead Freight," please - please - stop right here.  "Dead Freight" is a masterpiece of storytelling and the shock of it deserves to be seen unspoiled.

A freight train is key to this episode and we hear the long, low whistle of the train in the cold open, long before we see it.  American folk music is littered with lyrics about lonesome train whistles.  In the songs, trains move through empty country, taking people from one place to another, where (hopefully) they'll find contentment, be reunited with loved ones, forget about that girl back home, or whatever.  Train whistles are promises that we can always be somewhere else.  Walt can relate to wanting to be somewhere (and someone) else, but what's a kid on a dirt bike have to do with any of this?  The kid's just out in the scrubland, tearing up trackless territory on the aforementioned dirt bike, stopping to gently pick up a tarantula and stuff it into a jar.  Remember that desert spider - they look dangerous, but actually tarantulas are quite timid. Sort of like kids on dirt bikes.

Turns out that Nervous Nellie, sorry Lydia, actually didn't plant the tracking device on the barrel of methylamine - the DEA in Houston did, and they did a sloppy job of it.  With that supply line cut off, a frantic Lydia (Jesse doesn't want to kill her, but he's in the minority - Walter and Mike both see her as a growing liability) offers a wackadoodle plan.  Pull a train job and boost an "ocean" of the necessary precursor for large-scale pure meth-making.  Walt loves this plan - it's big and bold and really pretty hare-brained - and he doesn't, under any circumstances he can conceive of, want to go back to cooking trash meth with pseudo.  Mike points out that there are two kinds of heists - the ones where the guys get away with it and the ones where there are witnesses.  Mike will kill - we know that - but he would prefer not to get involved in schemes that make killing a necessary component.  So it's Jesse who comes up with a way to avoid killing the train crew.  Note that Jesse does not want blood on his hands.  Surely there's a way to cook hundreds of pounds of meth on a regular basis without getting violent!  Oh, Jesse.

So the crew goes into action.  Crazy stuff here - in addition to the Duke City Three, others are brought in from Vamanos Pest.  How big a circle of secret-keepers is Mike willing to risk?  A single weak link can bring them all down.  The problem is, no matter how well you plan, your strategy can't cover all the variables in a plan with this many variables.  A Good Samaritan shows up to push the diversionary truck off the tracks.    Walt won't stop until his thousand gallons are siphoned off.  And a kid on a dirt bike happens along this madness in the desert.  "The ones where the guys get away with it and the ones where there are witnesses."

Kid on dirt bike or spider in jar?

As Breaking Bad has illustrated time and again, deserts are places to forget.  Blood on the sand can be covered up in a few minutes.  But what's done is well and truly done - and I don't think Jesse will be able to forget.  Walt has been reassuring Skyler that their family is safe - that their children are safe.

But no one else's children are safe from Walt.

Wow.

Walter White Wednesday 24

Season 5A is really cooking now!  Literally.  In the third episode of this season ("Hazard Pay"), Walt and Jesse hit upon a new cook scheme - they'll hide in plain sight and cook in houses that are being tented as part of pest extermination.  No one is in the house during the process anyway, it's a loud process, so no neighbors will think anything of the extra noise, the smell will be chalked up to the toxic fumes used to rid the house of earwigs, roaches, and other nasty critters, and what's a couple of extra guys in jumpsuits?  Taking a page from Gus Fring's Mexican operation, there's a "tent within a tent" for the cook and all the equipment is moved in with the pest equipment - cunningly hidden in giant roadie cases.  (Who knew Skinny Pete had the hands of a concert pianist?  Ah, secrets.)  But Hank's on the scent of the "hiding in plain sight" plan, and I suspect that things are going to get very sticky for the new meth kingpin of ABQ.

There are several chilling, chilling moments in "Hazard Pay," and one of them is in the soundtrack.  As Walt & Co. are discussing the cook plans, we hear the sound of children playing near the house.  Later, we see stray meth fumes being vented into the backyard of the house which contains a swing set and a kiddie pool.  People are becoming collateral to Walt, and collateral damage, well . . . sometimes things happen.

For instance, what does Brock know?  Brock has always been a quiet kid - he's a little like the child in "Peekaboo" in that respect.  Watch the interaction of Brock and Walt on that striped couch - which echoes the striped tents of "Vamanos Pest Control."  On the couch, the stripes are almost like a boundary line - Walt has his space and Brock has his - but  both the striped tent and the striped couch are very toxic places to be, due to Walt's presence.  I was watching that scene with this growing sense of dread - if anything threatens Walt's world, we know that he won't think twice about removing the threat.  Permanently.

Walt's not the only one who knows that, either.  Skyler is terrified of what her husband has become.  She may not be entirely sure what that is, but she knows enough to be scared of it.  Look at her face when she comes into the living room to find her son watching (and quoting) Scarface with her husband, who's dandling their baby daughter on his lap.  "Everybody dies in this movie, don't they?"  Life's not a movie, Walt.  Skyler's box is getting smaller and smaller and she cracks in this episode.  Walt, by the way, doesn't hesitate a second before throwing Skyler under the bus to keep playing the victim to Marie.  (There's an interesting interview with Anna Gunn, who plays Skyler, here.  It's well worth checking out - Skyler is a character who drives many fans crazy and, while I have never understood the Sky-hate, she's got an interesting perspective on it.)

We also know that Walt doesn't do well either handling the business end of things or trusting anyone else to handle that end of things.  He doesn't see the need for "hazard pay" for Gus' old network just as he didn't understand the concept of "breakage" back in Season 2.  That stack of cash is his, all his, and I suspect his failure to understand certain realities is going to cause him to do something deeply stupid.  Like cut Todd out of his share of the pie, at which point Todd might just forget to disable a cleverly-hidden "nanny cam" in some house being treated by Vamanos Pest.

By the way, if you haven't been following my co-author Ensley Guffey's take on Season 5A, bookmark his blog as well.  He's added in "Meth Mondays" for his thoughts, comments, and rampant speculations, and we generally pick up on some different things, so it's a good idea to check up on both of us every week!  And of course, you can follow us both on Facebook and Twitter as well!  Love to hear from you as Wanna Cook? continues.