Such a great episode. I think this was the climax we waited 5 seasons for. Everything has fallen apart for Walt. He's lost his family. It's only a matter of time before the whole city--maybe even the whole
country--knows about his secret life. Seems like the kind of thing that would make a great national news story. "Loving husband and father turns out to be murderous drug lord, find out more at 11."
Looks like those of us predicting Hank's exit last week were right. Hank was probably a dead man due to his wound, anyway, but seeing Walt plead for his life was great. Nope, Walt, this is one thing you
can't control, even though it is entirely your fault. Jack's Nazi Pack knew they couldn't let Hank go, not after engaging in a shootout with DEA agents and killing Gomez. There's just no way Hank would let it go, Jack knew it, and Hank knew he knew it. Walt was the only one who thought there was some kind of "out" here.
And then, with Jesse helpless and marked for death, Walt decides to turn his grief into petty vengeance, twisting the knife in Jesse by telling him about Jane.
It was amazing to see Flynn's transformation in this episode. I think we saw him go through most of the stages of grief here: you had the denial ("you're making this up!"), the anger ("how could you lie to me?!), the bargaining ("maybe Dad can explain and this will all be ok!"), the depression (the quiet ride in the car with his seatbelt off), and then he moved right on to acceptance by stopping his parents from killing each other and calling the cops on Walt. Skyler's the one who grabbed the knife first, and it's possible an earlier-season Flynn might have taken Walt's side, but not now. His entire image of his father is shattered, and there's nothing to do but cast him out.
Walt taking Holly was particularly scummy, but totally believable as a rash thing for him to do in the moment. His phone call toward the end was a great performance. He actually fooled me the first time around. On a second watch, it was much more obvious to me that he was putting on one final performance to shield Skyler. Even if she hated him, he wanted to do that one last thing for his family. It could easily be argued that it was a product of arrogance, though. It's Walt exerting his control just one more time. Rather than let Skyler cop to her part in everything, he took that way from her, so it can be all his. If his legacy is to be a ruthless drug lord, then it is to be a legacy that entirely belongs to him, with no aid or accomplices.
I feel bad for Jesse. He is totally the Miles O'Brien of this show. He just gets tortured, over and over. He did the right thing by working with Hank, and all it did was get him turned into, essentially, a slave. The photo of Brock and Andrea sure wasn't subtle.
Looks like those of you who speculated Walt bought the M60 to rescue Jesse were probably right. Although it's hard to imagine what kind of horrible state Jesse will be in after almost a
year being forced to work for Jack's Nazi Pack.
I also wonder what Lydia's take on all this will be. Dead DEA agents, Walt's life ruined, Jesse a prisoner, forced to cook--none of this is going to fit into her neat little world where everything is tightly-controlled and runs like clockwork.
A brief shout-out to the flashback in the opening: I like how Walt had to rehearse his lie, to drive home how good he got at lying, later on. That said, he was never
that good of a liar. Even his adoring son could see through his lies a couple episodes ago. He just got better at spinning them on demand without the need to rehearse.
Finally, an interesting visual motif:
Those moments dovetail nicely in terms of who was involved, too. Here we have two men, on the ground, crying at the sight of men they loved having just been brutally murdered. But the differences are what make it so intriguing: Gus was broken at the beginning of his career, and Walt was broken at the end. If there is a lesson from all this, it is a simple one: if you're going to break bad, don't care about anyone,
ever, or it will ruin you.
