Breaking Bad 5X02
I haven't watched the episode a second time but here is a review nonetheless.
Since Walt had Guss killed by the bell-triggered bomb, it's been all about cleaning. The opening episode had Walt trying to clean his mess, getting rid of the stuff he used to make the bomb, of the lily of the valley and of Gus' laptop, and the cleaning goes on in "Madrigal".
Cleaning is obviously the leitmotiv of the beginning season, that deals witht he aftermaths of Walter's victory over Fring, so it makes sense to have an episode mostly centred on... Mike The Cleaner!
This episode actually focuses on the mess Walt caused but is still unaware of, while that Mike is privy to.
The episode began with another cleaning, in yet another great cold open, that takes place in the German headquarters of Madrigal Electromotive. The lab scene was very funny, but so was what ensued.
The staff cleaned the walls, getting rid of the Pollos Hermanos brand.
When Herr Schuler saw that the polizei was waiting for him while checking the photo in which he was with Gus Fring - a nice call back to the Gus/Max framed picture that revealed the bank account in "Live Free or Die", and a echo to another photo showing Hank's boss with Gus as well (I wonder how many pictures like that exist!) -, he switched in sepuku mode (if only Madrigal had been a Japanese kereitsu instead of a konzern!), went to the WC to off himself...using a defibrillator. A suicide by electricity fits in the company name.
And of course in fancy European WC we have self-cleaning toilets! The last shot with Herr Schuler's fall that triggering the automatic flushing was hilarious. Pure dark comedy but also a spot-on metaphor.
After all this is an episode about the shit you must get rid of.
Cut to Walter, getting rid of the ricin cigarette that Saul handed to him back in the previous episode. Actually, Walt gets rid of the cigarette (in the toilet of course), but keeps the vial containing ricin and conceals it behind an electrical-outlet plate (electricity again!). By the way i loved the stylistic choice of having the Walt/Jesse phone conversation as a voice-over the scene in which Walter cooks a new lie, making up a fake ricin cigarette with salt. There is an economy of means combined to artistic choice that works wonderfully here.
And we meet Lydia - who is earlier revealed as being a Madrigal person during a meeting with the DEA -, who suggests that Mike should do a bit of cleaning work concerning 11 loose ends, that is people "in the know" who are on a list. The diner scene is again funny, since Lydia is portrayed as a fish out of water and Mike is his usual cool and efficient but exasperated self. However Mike refuses to kill them, because those are his men and are "solid" so they'l keep their mouth shut. No prophylactic murders needed...
It kinda echoed the "Ted won't talk" from last week. I wonder if it means to foreshadow something...
Turns out that Mike was wrong and the men in question aren't that solid. This is a world/business where you can't count on people, for everybody is here for selfish reasons, out of greed. Methinks that Mike is either naive or becoming soft and sloppy. Of course he's still a professional when it comes to kill in cold blood (the scene in which he kills Chris shows how deadly he can be) but he seems tired. And Mike does have a weak spot, his granddaughter.
Of course I loved the Hank vs Mike scene. I know that many viewers love Mike, but I adore Hank. I like the way he toys with people (at first Hank was introduced in the pilot as a bragging macho, but there's a lieutenant Columbo in that man!), plays the redneck for a while, just before striking. In this case the blow was telling Mike they know about the account in his granddaughter's name, Kaylee. The12th name on the DEA’s list of bank accounts belongs to Mike...Ehrmantraut.
BTW I love the way Hank pretends to ask permission to call the interrogee by his first name. When Mike replies“Mr. Ehrmantraut.” Hank just carries on “Here’s the thing, Mike.”
It seems that Walter and Mike have much more in common than one might have thought. It's likely that Mike, the former cop, broke bad for his family, to make sure that his granddaughter would get the money eventually. Except that she won't now. Basically, Mike is in Walter's shoes. They are both broke, and everything they have done "for the best reasons", that is, for family, was for nothing.
Since Mike's name is on the list, he is a loose end too, so it isn't a big surprise to have Lydia try to get rid of him. The thing is that he's a better cleaner than the others on the list...Among them Chris was asked to do the job and, unlike Mike, accepted. It's likefly that Lydia made the same offer to others, so now Mike must do the prophylactic cleaning he refused before.
I truly wonder if the whole thing was Lydia's plan, to make him do it. She took a big risk then, but I can't help thinking that the Lydia we saw at home was quite different than the Lydia in the diner. She was composed, capable to tell lies to the nanny and her own daughter.
I must confess that I have mixed feelings about that scene, and the scene with Kaylee. It was obviously a way "to humanize Mike" a bit more, to redeem a character who is already very popular thanks to his cool lines and professional way. Mike was already cool, now he's sensitive. The tough and merciless guy being "touched and moved" by a little girl is a big a cliché many films or tv series have indulged in (among several examples we the character played by Michael Ironside on V, or True Gritt, or Besson's Léon), so I'm a bit disappointed to see my refreshing tv show play that card.
So one way to read the scene at Lydia's place is that, although cold-blooded killer Mike is a hitman, he isn't that bad a guy, and might even be a better man than Walter White, because he does have a heart and they are lines he wouldn't cross. Having a 5 year old girl around, was like an echo to Kaylee, and Mike finally changed his mind, and spared Lydia so her daughter wouldn't have to face two horrible situations: finding her mother's corpse or thinking her mother has abandoned her. Mike picked a third option that prevented blood bath.
But now that I think about it, the scene might have tell us more about Lydia than about Mike himself. If she planned the whole thing, the scene is a parallel to the Walt/Jesse scene from "End of Times", when Walt had a gun on his forehead, took the risk of being killed, and used an innocent kid to manipulate Jesse. Mike, like Jesse, is a softie when it comes to vulnerable beings (chickens or kids).
Lydia would be much more intriguing if her nervous and ridiculous behaviour at the diner was an act, and she turned out to be Walt's female alter-ego!
Of course, we could also read the scene in a third way, this time about Mike again, but in a less postive light. Mike spared Lydia because all the talk about her daughter reminded him of Kaylee and that Kaylee's money was now lost. Yet if Lydia could provide the methylamine Walter insisted upon, cooking would resume and money would flow...providing for Kaylee.
I think that the three readings aren't exclusive. Banks played the scene in a way that allows Mike to be a man who can't bring himself to kill a mother with her daughter in the next room, and a man who is trapped and whose actions are based on selfish reasons. Anyway, by sparing Lydia it seems that Mike is improvising, Walter-style, and doesn't follow his own professional code: he chose a half-measure instead of going full measures.
As for Lydia, we'll see if I'm right. But the more I think about it, the more I see parallels between her and Walter. Even her nervousness and attempt to play spy with Mike at the diner, reminded me of Walter's clumsy first steps in the drug world, and how he used props too (hat and glasses) or play the gangster with true professionals, setting rendez-vous the way he thought they were meant to happen because of movies (the scene with Tuco in the junk yard).
No matter how Mike has become a "voice of reason" (he and saul) when it comes to Walter being a time bomb, he once did underestimate Mr White, so he might have completely underestimated Lydia as well. As Hank's boss learned, appearences are deceptive.
Personally, I'd like to have a woman outsmarting both Mike and Walter! Well, as long as my Hank wins in the end. :- )
The DEA also does some cleaning job, and Hank's boss is the obvious shit they decide to get rid of. Getting friendly with drug lord Gus Fring had compromised him, even though he is not a corrupted cop. This is a world in which it's worst to be a fool than to be a crook.
The scene isn't exactly subtle, especially with the boss saying "He was somebody else completely. Right in front of me. Right under my nose." and the camera lingering on Hank's face. I do believe that Hank is still clueless about Walt. In his mind there's no way that the man he has known for so many years can be anything else than what he had pegged him for so long. I think that the scene wasn't a way to raise suspicions in Hank's head, but to tell the viewers, this is what would happen to Hank if Walter was caught. Actually Hank's fate would be much worse since, not only Heisenberg was under his nose, but his medical's bills were payed by Heisenberg's dirty money!
It's such an inextricable web, and Hank doesn't even know he's stuck in it.
Keeping with the cleaning leitmotiv of the episode, we have the Walter/Jesse scene with the Roomba vacuuing its way around them and playing a key role in Walt's con.
Here I'm torn between thinking that emotional Jesse is getting old, and being completely enthralled by what I see on screen because this is a Walt/Jesse scene and their twisted relationship is my favourite part of BrBa.
Yes there's something easy about having Jesse break down again, but Aaron Paul is just so good at playing those emotions and crying that it feels so real and you forget the obvious strings. And the best, although creepiest, side of the scene is how Walter reacts, what he does and says to Jesse. also, I loved how it was filmed, with Walter behind Jesse, a presence, a voice, hands...not quite a person, but some dark force at work. And when Walt starts massaging Jesse's shoulders, it gets truly awful and heartbreaking. Such an affectionate gesture - the most father-like and tender we have seen Walt be with Jesse since the end of season 2 when the boy cried in his arms - combined with such an ugly manipulation. Worse, Walt is exploiting Jesse's distress to reinforce the bond between them and his power over the boy. Practical man he is, Walt is always working an angle.
But at the same time, I'm pretty sure that there's something genuine about Walt comforting Jesse, and the fact that Walter manipulates Jesse and serves his own interest doesn't mean that he doesn't love the boy. That's the reason the character and the situation are so human. Love is never the pure thing one would like it to be. Love can be ugly too.
As for what Walt said, it's highly manipulative but there's truth in his words too. As much as they hurt one another, the two of them have always had each other's back, and it isn't a one way devotion since Walter did protect Jesse's life more than once. Would Jesse be in serious danger again, I think Walt would try to help (maybe this is what the flash-forward and the machine gun are all about, another desperate move to save Jesse...).
Jesse beating himself up for his stupidity - btw as much as I'm sure that Walter feels intellectually superior and enjoys fooling everybody, including Jesse, I don't believe for a second that when he heard the word "stupid" he thought "you don't even know how stupid you are, you were just fooled again and you mistook salt for ricin!", I believe that Walt was indeed moved and touched by Jesse's sorrow -, and, above all, because of what he thought he did to his Mr White, his reaction tells a lot about how much he cares for Walt. It's interesting that Jesse's guilt wasn't about helping to kill Gus for a wrong reason, but about failing his meth-father, about threatening to shoot Walter. It's love that made him break down and cry, not his conscience telling him that what he did was wrong (unlike his phone conversation with Walt in which Jesse is in conscience mode, making himself sick with thinking of what would happen if anyone found the ricin cigarette, especially a kid).
I feel that, before the end, Jesse will have to choose between conscience and love. Maybe Walter will have to choose between his monstrous ego and love too.
The last scene with Skyler is quite similar, perhaps worst in the way it pictured Walt as a bad man. First, he's filmed walking in the dark of the corridor, and for the rest of the scene he is a shadowy figure, talking while undressing. Like Jesse before, Skyler's face is in the foreground. She's frightened and frozen, disgusted by the man she shares her bed with. But Walter doesn't care and goes on his bed routine, and I don't know what is the creepiest thing here: his telling her how it will get easier, kinda tutoring her on how to break bad and teaching her the White mantra that is "there's nothing to be worry about if you do it for the best reasons that are family", or his slipping off his underwear and kissing her petrified body, as he is seemingly about to intiate marital sex whether she wants it or not.
As usual with Jesse and with Skyler, Walt trusts his ability to convince by rationalizing, to voice the right combination of words so the others would embrace his way of thinking.
He behaves more and more like a guru, and as any good sect leader he instinctively knows that, sometimes, physical gesture can help to increase ascendancy, hence his touching both Jesse and Skyler, the former like a father, the latter like a loving husband.
I wonder whether Jesse or Skyler is in the worst place. The boy still has faith in Mr White, while the wife is aware of what Walter is doing now but is trapped with him. It's the nighmare of "I.F.T" all over again (and yes the monster who lies in bed with her was already there back in season 3), without her finding some control back in the end.
The tragedy again lies in the fact that this monster that Walter White has become, is not a robot following a programme, or an evil mastermind, devoid of any human emotion. Walter White is a human being who loves Jesse like a surrogate son, and enjoys being in bed with a wife he still desires and cares about. It's just that he doesn't care about having a clean conscience anymore, and feels so above any one or any rules that his god-complex turns him into the source of a new law, as well as the source of a new moral code.
If we followed Kohlberg's theory of moral developement , I'd say that Walter has either regressed to a sociopath level or reached the seventh stage (Walter would say the latter!).
Since Walt had Guss killed by the bell-triggered bomb, it's been all about cleaning. The opening episode had Walt trying to clean his mess, getting rid of the stuff he used to make the bomb, of the lily of the valley and of Gus' laptop, and the cleaning goes on in "Madrigal".
Cleaning is obviously the leitmotiv of the beginning season, that deals witht he aftermaths of Walter's victory over Fring, so it makes sense to have an episode mostly centred on... Mike The Cleaner!
This episode actually focuses on the mess Walt caused but is still unaware of, while that Mike is privy to.
The episode began with another cleaning, in yet another great cold open, that takes place in the German headquarters of Madrigal Electromotive. The lab scene was very funny, but so was what ensued.
The staff cleaned the walls, getting rid of the Pollos Hermanos brand.
When Herr Schuler saw that the polizei was waiting for him while checking the photo in which he was with Gus Fring - a nice call back to the Gus/Max framed picture that revealed the bank account in "Live Free or Die", and a echo to another photo showing Hank's boss with Gus as well (I wonder how many pictures like that exist!) -, he switched in sepuku mode (if only Madrigal had been a Japanese kereitsu instead of a konzern!), went to the WC to off himself...using a defibrillator. A suicide by electricity fits in the company name.
And of course in fancy European WC we have self-cleaning toilets! The last shot with Herr Schuler's fall that triggering the automatic flushing was hilarious. Pure dark comedy but also a spot-on metaphor.
After all this is an episode about the shit you must get rid of.
Cut to Walter, getting rid of the ricin cigarette that Saul handed to him back in the previous episode. Actually, Walt gets rid of the cigarette (in the toilet of course), but keeps the vial containing ricin and conceals it behind an electrical-outlet plate (electricity again!). By the way i loved the stylistic choice of having the Walt/Jesse phone conversation as a voice-over the scene in which Walter cooks a new lie, making up a fake ricin cigarette with salt. There is an economy of means combined to artistic choice that works wonderfully here.
And we meet Lydia - who is earlier revealed as being a Madrigal person during a meeting with the DEA -, who suggests that Mike should do a bit of cleaning work concerning 11 loose ends, that is people "in the know" who are on a list. The diner scene is again funny, since Lydia is portrayed as a fish out of water and Mike is his usual cool and efficient but exasperated self. However Mike refuses to kill them, because those are his men and are "solid" so they'l keep their mouth shut. No prophylactic murders needed...
It kinda echoed the "Ted won't talk" from last week. I wonder if it means to foreshadow something...
Turns out that Mike was wrong and the men in question aren't that solid. This is a world/business where you can't count on people, for everybody is here for selfish reasons, out of greed. Methinks that Mike is either naive or becoming soft and sloppy. Of course he's still a professional when it comes to kill in cold blood (the scene in which he kills Chris shows how deadly he can be) but he seems tired. And Mike does have a weak spot, his granddaughter.
Of course I loved the Hank vs Mike scene. I know that many viewers love Mike, but I adore Hank. I like the way he toys with people (at first Hank was introduced in the pilot as a bragging macho, but there's a lieutenant Columbo in that man!), plays the redneck for a while, just before striking. In this case the blow was telling Mike they know about the account in his granddaughter's name, Kaylee. The12th name on the DEA’s list of bank accounts belongs to Mike...Ehrmantraut.
BTW I love the way Hank pretends to ask permission to call the interrogee by his first name. When Mike replies“Mr. Ehrmantraut.” Hank just carries on “Here’s the thing, Mike.”
It seems that Walter and Mike have much more in common than one might have thought. It's likely that Mike, the former cop, broke bad for his family, to make sure that his granddaughter would get the money eventually. Except that she won't now. Basically, Mike is in Walter's shoes. They are both broke, and everything they have done "for the best reasons", that is, for family, was for nothing.
Since Mike's name is on the list, he is a loose end too, so it isn't a big surprise to have Lydia try to get rid of him. The thing is that he's a better cleaner than the others on the list...Among them Chris was asked to do the job and, unlike Mike, accepted. It's likefly that Lydia made the same offer to others, so now Mike must do the prophylactic cleaning he refused before.
I truly wonder if the whole thing was Lydia's plan, to make him do it. She took a big risk then, but I can't help thinking that the Lydia we saw at home was quite different than the Lydia in the diner. She was composed, capable to tell lies to the nanny and her own daughter.
I must confess that I have mixed feelings about that scene, and the scene with Kaylee. It was obviously a way "to humanize Mike" a bit more, to redeem a character who is already very popular thanks to his cool lines and professional way. Mike was already cool, now he's sensitive. The tough and merciless guy being "touched and moved" by a little girl is a big a cliché many films or tv series have indulged in (among several examples we the character played by Michael Ironside on V, or True Gritt, or Besson's Léon), so I'm a bit disappointed to see my refreshing tv show play that card.
So one way to read the scene at Lydia's place is that, although cold-blooded killer Mike is a hitman, he isn't that bad a guy, and might even be a better man than Walter White, because he does have a heart and they are lines he wouldn't cross. Having a 5 year old girl around, was like an echo to Kaylee, and Mike finally changed his mind, and spared Lydia so her daughter wouldn't have to face two horrible situations: finding her mother's corpse or thinking her mother has abandoned her. Mike picked a third option that prevented blood bath.
But now that I think about it, the scene might have tell us more about Lydia than about Mike himself. If she planned the whole thing, the scene is a parallel to the Walt/Jesse scene from "End of Times", when Walt had a gun on his forehead, took the risk of being killed, and used an innocent kid to manipulate Jesse. Mike, like Jesse, is a softie when it comes to vulnerable beings (chickens or kids).
Lydia would be much more intriguing if her nervous and ridiculous behaviour at the diner was an act, and she turned out to be Walt's female alter-ego!
Of course, we could also read the scene in a third way, this time about Mike again, but in a less postive light. Mike spared Lydia because all the talk about her daughter reminded him of Kaylee and that Kaylee's money was now lost. Yet if Lydia could provide the methylamine Walter insisted upon, cooking would resume and money would flow...providing for Kaylee.
I think that the three readings aren't exclusive. Banks played the scene in a way that allows Mike to be a man who can't bring himself to kill a mother with her daughter in the next room, and a man who is trapped and whose actions are based on selfish reasons. Anyway, by sparing Lydia it seems that Mike is improvising, Walter-style, and doesn't follow his own professional code: he chose a half-measure instead of going full measures.
As for Lydia, we'll see if I'm right. But the more I think about it, the more I see parallels between her and Walter. Even her nervousness and attempt to play spy with Mike at the diner, reminded me of Walter's clumsy first steps in the drug world, and how he used props too (hat and glasses) or play the gangster with true professionals, setting rendez-vous the way he thought they were meant to happen because of movies (the scene with Tuco in the junk yard).
No matter how Mike has become a "voice of reason" (he and saul) when it comes to Walter being a time bomb, he once did underestimate Mr White, so he might have completely underestimated Lydia as well. As Hank's boss learned, appearences are deceptive.
Personally, I'd like to have a woman outsmarting both Mike and Walter! Well, as long as my Hank wins in the end. :- )
The DEA also does some cleaning job, and Hank's boss is the obvious shit they decide to get rid of. Getting friendly with drug lord Gus Fring had compromised him, even though he is not a corrupted cop. This is a world in which it's worst to be a fool than to be a crook.
The scene isn't exactly subtle, especially with the boss saying "He was somebody else completely. Right in front of me. Right under my nose." and the camera lingering on Hank's face. I do believe that Hank is still clueless about Walt. In his mind there's no way that the man he has known for so many years can be anything else than what he had pegged him for so long. I think that the scene wasn't a way to raise suspicions in Hank's head, but to tell the viewers, this is what would happen to Hank if Walter was caught. Actually Hank's fate would be much worse since, not only Heisenberg was under his nose, but his medical's bills were payed by Heisenberg's dirty money!
It's such an inextricable web, and Hank doesn't even know he's stuck in it.
Keeping with the cleaning leitmotiv of the episode, we have the Walter/Jesse scene with the Roomba vacuuing its way around them and playing a key role in Walt's con.
Here I'm torn between thinking that emotional Jesse is getting old, and being completely enthralled by what I see on screen because this is a Walt/Jesse scene and their twisted relationship is my favourite part of BrBa.
Yes there's something easy about having Jesse break down again, but Aaron Paul is just so good at playing those emotions and crying that it feels so real and you forget the obvious strings. And the best, although creepiest, side of the scene is how Walter reacts, what he does and says to Jesse. also, I loved how it was filmed, with Walter behind Jesse, a presence, a voice, hands...not quite a person, but some dark force at work. And when Walt starts massaging Jesse's shoulders, it gets truly awful and heartbreaking. Such an affectionate gesture - the most father-like and tender we have seen Walt be with Jesse since the end of season 2 when the boy cried in his arms - combined with such an ugly manipulation. Worse, Walt is exploiting Jesse's distress to reinforce the bond between them and his power over the boy. Practical man he is, Walt is always working an angle.
But at the same time, I'm pretty sure that there's something genuine about Walt comforting Jesse, and the fact that Walter manipulates Jesse and serves his own interest doesn't mean that he doesn't love the boy. That's the reason the character and the situation are so human. Love is never the pure thing one would like it to be. Love can be ugly too.
As for what Walt said, it's highly manipulative but there's truth in his words too. As much as they hurt one another, the two of them have always had each other's back, and it isn't a one way devotion since Walter did protect Jesse's life more than once. Would Jesse be in serious danger again, I think Walt would try to help (maybe this is what the flash-forward and the machine gun are all about, another desperate move to save Jesse...).
Jesse beating himself up for his stupidity - btw as much as I'm sure that Walter feels intellectually superior and enjoys fooling everybody, including Jesse, I don't believe for a second that when he heard the word "stupid" he thought "you don't even know how stupid you are, you were just fooled again and you mistook salt for ricin!", I believe that Walt was indeed moved and touched by Jesse's sorrow -, and, above all, because of what he thought he did to his Mr White, his reaction tells a lot about how much he cares for Walt. It's interesting that Jesse's guilt wasn't about helping to kill Gus for a wrong reason, but about failing his meth-father, about threatening to shoot Walter. It's love that made him break down and cry, not his conscience telling him that what he did was wrong (unlike his phone conversation with Walt in which Jesse is in conscience mode, making himself sick with thinking of what would happen if anyone found the ricin cigarette, especially a kid).
I feel that, before the end, Jesse will have to choose between conscience and love. Maybe Walter will have to choose between his monstrous ego and love too.
The last scene with Skyler is quite similar, perhaps worst in the way it pictured Walt as a bad man. First, he's filmed walking in the dark of the corridor, and for the rest of the scene he is a shadowy figure, talking while undressing. Like Jesse before, Skyler's face is in the foreground. She's frightened and frozen, disgusted by the man she shares her bed with. But Walter doesn't care and goes on his bed routine, and I don't know what is the creepiest thing here: his telling her how it will get easier, kinda tutoring her on how to break bad and teaching her the White mantra that is "there's nothing to be worry about if you do it for the best reasons that are family", or his slipping off his underwear and kissing her petrified body, as he is seemingly about to intiate marital sex whether she wants it or not.
As usual with Jesse and with Skyler, Walt trusts his ability to convince by rationalizing, to voice the right combination of words so the others would embrace his way of thinking.
He behaves more and more like a guru, and as any good sect leader he instinctively knows that, sometimes, physical gesture can help to increase ascendancy, hence his touching both Jesse and Skyler, the former like a father, the latter like a loving husband.
I wonder whether Jesse or Skyler is in the worst place. The boy still has faith in Mr White, while the wife is aware of what Walter is doing now but is trapped with him. It's the nighmare of "I.F.T" all over again (and yes the monster who lies in bed with her was already there back in season 3), without her finding some control back in the end.
The tragedy again lies in the fact that this monster that Walter White has become, is not a robot following a programme, or an evil mastermind, devoid of any human emotion. Walter White is a human being who loves Jesse like a surrogate son, and enjoys being in bed with a wife he still desires and cares about. It's just that he doesn't care about having a clean conscience anymore, and feels so above any one or any rules that his god-complex turns him into the source of a new law, as well as the source of a new moral code.
If we followed Kohlberg's theory of moral developement , I'd say that Walter has either regressed to a sociopath level or reached the seventh stage (Walter would say the latter!).