Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Fred Armisen, Zach Galifianakis, Brian Posehn, Nick Swardson
What you missed out on: After Bob Odenkirk and David Cross decided to put a bullet in their HBO sketch comedy series, “Mr. Show” (that’s right, it was their decision, not the network’s), the guys attempted to go their separate ways, with Odenkirk setting up shop at Fox with a pilot for a new sketch comedy series. If you think the above names are impressive, consider that several other “Mr. Show” alumni were in tow as well, including Jerry Minor, Jay Johnston, and Jill Talley, with Patton Oswalt also participating in some capacity or other. And, yes, if you’re wondering, Cross made an appearance in the pilot, too. So what happened? Apparently, Fox basically flipped a coin to decide which new sketch comedy series they’d add to their lineup, and “Cedric the Entertainer Presents” won the toss. Oh, what might’ve been…

Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Poehler, Kevin Hart, and Judge Reinhold as himself
What you missed out on: Judd Apatow has never been ashamed to admit that the only reason that this pilot ever came into existence is that Fox refused to let him cast Jason Segel as his lead in the short-lived but highly-regarded “Undeclared,” but you can’t say he didn’t do his best to surround Segel with top-notch talent. Segel, Amy Poehler, and Kevin Hart played roommates, with Segel a struggling actor, Hart a struggling actor/comedian, and Poehler serving as Judge Reinhold’s personal assistant. There’s a more detailed look at the pilot here, but the long and the short of it is that, although Apatow admits that he really didn’t know if there was a decent series to be had in “North Hollywood,” he thinks the pilot’s pretty decent, but its tone didn’t match the sitcoms filling ABC’s lineup at the time, so they took a pass on it.

Starring: H. Jon Benjamin, Sarah Silverman, Todd Barry, Mitch Hedberg
What you missed out on: Created by Loren Bouchard, best known to animation fans as one of the creative forces behind “Home Movies,” “Saddle Rash” seemed to have all the elements necessary for a successful Adult Swim series, so why didn’t it make it beyond the pilot stage? Was it that westerns weren’t exactly in vogue at the time? Was there some sort of stigma attached to the project because they brought in country artists to continued voice work (including Waylon Jennings as a very special guest in the pilot)? Whatever the case, the pilot got aired – no doubt mostly because Adult Swim has a tendency to air just about every pilot it orders, whether it actually ends up going to series or not – but that was the end of the trail for the series.

Starring: Nathan Fillion, Leighton Meester, Moon Bloodgood, Geoff Stults, Rockmond Dunbar
What you missed out on: Director James Foley has got kind of a weird track record, having helmed “Glengarry Glen Ross,” “Who’s That Girl,” “At Close Ranger,” and “The Corruptor,” but there’s enough good stuff in there to make you take note when he directs the pilot of a series. Yes, it was probably at heart just another cop drama, but there’s no denying that there was going to be plenty of talent in the squad room. There was, at least, a happy ending: series co-creator Barry Schindel went on to serve as a writer and executive producer on “Castle” a few years later. Guess he and Nathan Fillion got along.

Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Alyson Hannigan, Sara Gilbert, Ed O’Neil, Christine Baranski
What you missed out on: The premise of the series involved Hewitt playing a single-mom sports producer who ends up as highly successful on-air talent, but despite taking two stabs at a pilot, the show never gelled properly. On the other hand, while she was filming one of those pilots, the producers of “Ghost Whisperer” came by and pitched Hewitt their show, thereby providing her with an instant fallback position which she was more than glad to take when “In the Game” fell apart.

Starring: Peter Dinklage, Dave Foley, Busy Phillips, Tina Majorino
What you missed out on: Although I loved him on “Threshold,” I certainly couldn’t begrudge Peter Dinklage for moving onward when that show was canceled and taking a shot at headlining his own series. Given that it took place in a high school, the possibilities for “Testing Bob” would seem to have been endless, but it never got off the ground.

Starring: Paul Giamatti, David Hyde Pierce, Patton Oswalt, Molly Shannon
What you missed out on: Unlike the rest of these pilots, the one for this animated series actually received a DVD release, thereby showing the world at large just how completely bizarre it was. It’s not like anyone can possibly be surprised that even Sci-Fi thought the show was too kooky for mainstream audiences to ever embrace it, but at least we can take comfort in the fact that it’s built a small but loyal cult following over the years.

Starring: Heather Locklear, Illeana Douglas, Peri Gilpin, Brittany Robertson
What you missed out on: Several years before Scott Bakula, Ray Romano, and Andre Braugher offered up their TNT series, the opposing gender had already made an attempt at getting on the air under a suspiciously familiar title. It would’ve been nice to see Gilpin somewhere other than ABC Family’s “Make It or Break It,” but it was not to be.

Starring: Paul Reubens, Jane Lynch, Bruce McGill, Matthew Lillard
What you missed out on: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to guess the premise of this sitcom: it was intended to show all the shenanigans that go on inside the top-secret government base reputed to be the home of alien lifeforms. Did we say “reputed”? Given that Paul Reubens was credited on IMDb as “The Alien,” maybe it’s not so reputed after all.

Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Blythe Danner, Robert Wagner, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jonathan Groff
What you missed out on: Nowadays, you’d be hard pressed to find a network that would take a pass on anything with Ryan Murphy’s name attached to it, but in his pre-”Glee” days, Murphy was mostly still viewed as “that weird ‘Nip/Tuck’ guy,” and this series – about a married man with two sons who has to tell his family that he’s a transsexual – probably didn’t do much for that particular reputation. Probably the only surprising thing about the non-pickup for “Pretty/Handsome” is that the network that turned it down was the same one that put “Nip/Tuck” on the air in the first place. Presumably there were no hard feelings between Murphy and FX, though, given that it remains the home of his “American Horror Story.”

Starring: Catherine O’Hara, Mae Whitman, DJ Qualls, Gary Cole, Jeffrey Tambor, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Treat Williams, Marilu Henner
What you missed out on: Based on the New Zealand series “Outrageous Fortune,” “Good Behavior” would have followed the life of a family of criminals who decide to live life on the straight and narrow after their father ends up behind bars. If the premise sounds familiar, it’s because it ended up being revisited a few years later as “Scoundrels,” which only lasted eight episodes. You’d like to think that “Good Behavior” would’ve lasted longer.

Starring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Nate Corrdry, Molly Parker, Adam Scott
What you missed out on: Although HBO is known for putting some seriously great series on the air, they’re pretty picky about what makes the final cut. For instance, this show about three siblings – played by Gellar, Corrdry, and Parker – adapting to life after the death of their parents, never saw the light of day. On the other hand, though, if it had, then Scott (who played Gellar’s ex-boyfriend) wouldn’t have been available for “Party Down,” so it all worked out in the end.

Starring: David Tennant, Jerry O’Connell, Abigail Spencer, Jane Curtin, Jeffrey Tambor
What you missed out on: In the waning days of his stint on “Doctor Who,” David Tennant decided to expand his horizons and make a break for American television, headlining an NBC series about an attorney who, due to his recurring panic attacks, starts coaching his clients to defend themselves in court…or something like that, anyway. Tennant put on his best American accent – you’ve got to have one if Jane Curtin’s going to play your mother, haven’t you? – and teamed up with a solid supporting cast, but although NBC kept it in play for a decent while, the series never made the schedule.

Regrettably, it’s unlikely that I’m going to be blogging each and every episode of this season I have over the course of the past couple of years, but that’s not to say that I won’t still be offering up the occasional piece about the show. I mean, after all, I meant it when I said – repeatedly – that it’s the best show on television, so I’m rarely without something to say about it. Indeed, having been fortunate enough to check out a screener of the Season 5 premiere, I thought I’d devote this week’s column to desperately avoiding saying too much about what goes on while still giving you as many reasons as possible to make you want to tune in.

But first, AMC’s official look at what’s ahead:

Now that you’ve watched that, prepare yourself for a list of 20 things that you probably won’t want to read if you want to go into the episode being as surprised as possible. Trust me, though: although arguably all 20 things qualify as spoilers on some level, I really haven’t told you much of anything…which you’ll realize after you’ve watched the Season 5 premiere on Sunday night. Once you have, I hope you’ll check back in. I’m curious to know what you think.

1. Walt spends the pre-credits teaser in a Denny’s, looking like he hasn’t had to deal with chemo in quite some time.

2. The only other familiar face in the pre-credits scene is someone we’ve only seen once before on “Breaking Bad,” but we’ve seen him plenty of times on other Bullz-Eye-friendly shows. Hint: during my chat with Cranston for the AV Club, I dropped this person’s name as someone who did outstanding work in Season 4, and Cranston admitted that we might be seeing him again in Season 5. I just didn’t expect it would be so fast!

3. Despite what our friend Mr. Cranston claims, the episode does not pick up right where we left off. Mostly it does, yes, but not entirely.

4. Walt, Jr. reflects on the death of Gus Fring.

5. At one point, Walt says, “Oh, shit.” And with good reason.

6. While exploring the rubble that once was the Super Lab, Gomez offers Hank the chance to say “I told you so.”

7. Mike probably isn’t completely back up to full strength after the season finale, but his reaction to the news of Gus’s death will absolutely have you believe otherwise.

8. Mike and Walt spend a fair amount of time arguing over semantics.

9. Jesse has a good idea.

10. We also see the return of a one-off guest star from Season 3.

11. The car wash is continuing to kick ass.

12. Saul gets Skyler riled up.

13. We find out Ted’s fate.

14. Walt executes Jesse’s aforementioned good idea with decidedly strong results.

15. There’s at least one moment where you will laugh even as your heart skips a beat…or, in another words, a good old-fashioned “holy shit” moment.

16. Jesse says, “Yeah, bitch!”

17. Gus might be gone, but his storyline nonetheless rages on.

18. At one point, Saul says to Walt, “I’m your Huckleberry.” He’s probably being sarcastic, though.

19. No, seriously, Walt really no longer needs the hat to channel Heisenberg.

20. Walt’s last line of the episode would’ve been poignant if he’d said it last season. Now it’ll just make you yell, “I can’t believe he just fucking said that!”

Jordan Peele: We’ve done a couple of these so far, Will, and I’ll just go ahead and pre-empt your request to have us announce our names…

Bullz-Eye: I don’t know what you’re talking about. It never would’ve occurred to me to ask you to identify yourselves before speaking.

JP: [Laughs.] Well, this is Jordan speaking, and…I guess I’m the one that sounds more like Bert. And he’s the one that sounds more like Ernie.

BE: I’ll try to remember that during transcription.

Keegan-Michael Key: [Laughs.] Yeah, just put B for one, E for the other. That shouldn’t be too confusing.

BE: Yeah, especially not when “BE” is the abbreviation for Bullz-Eye.

JP: [Laughs.] Well, just to be safe, we’ll keep announcing ourselves, anyway. You can also identify me as the tired one. I’m Jordan.

BE: Right. If someone’s slurring, it’s probably Jordan.

KMK: He’s Eeyore, I’m Piglet.

JP: Piglet? Oh, come on. You’re Tigger.

KMK: Oh, God, what am I talking about? Of course I’m Tigger. [Laughs.]

BE: So you guys obviously worked together for many years on “Mad TV,” but did you know each other at all prior to that series?

KMK: We did. Yeah, we met in Chicago when Jordan was at Boom Chicago, which is an improv theater in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. [Laughs.] As opposed to Amsterdam in New Mexico or something, right?

JP: Hey, there’s also an Amsterdam in New York.

KMK: All right, all right. [Laughs.] Anyway, I was at The Second City, and our casts had a swap. There’s two theaters at the Second City, so one of our casts went to Amsterdam, and Jordan’s cast from Boom Chicago – which is just a really incredible theater – they came to Chicago. So they flipped, and that’s where we met: I was performing on the second stage at Second City, and Jordan’s cast had come in to visit us for a week.

JP: This was back in the day when…I had lived in Chicago for a couple of years but then had left, and in that time, Keegan had moved to Chicago and pretty quickly become the most talked-about, exciting improviser in Chicago. He won a couple of Jeff Awards just for his work on the Second City reviews, and I remember seeing that and…it was really inspiring, Key.

KMK: I didn’t know that.

JP: Yeah, it was so awesome. I saw a couple of characters that…

KMK: …that I subsequently used at “Mad TV,” yeah.

JP: So, yeah, we met each other, and we got along famously from the very get-go.

BE: So when you got to “Mad TV,” did you instantly forge a bond based on already knowing what each other’s strengths were?

KMK: Yeah, I think that’s true. Well, actually, not immediately, because we did a lot of…I mean, we improvised together in Chicago a couple of times and watched each other’s performances, but I had no idea what a consummate idea-man Jordan was until about a year into “Mad TV.” And then, if I wasn’t in a scene that he was in that he had written, I would just sometimes sit on the sidelines and go, “What…? How did he think of that?” Just really tremendous stuff.

JP: In both of our first years, towards the end, we collaborated on a scene where we played these two superstitious high-school or college basketball players who end up doing sort of fully-choreographed step dancing.

KMK: Yeah, anytime something “unlucky” would happen to them… Every scene would take place during an event in their lives, so the first scene was the regional championship for their basketball team, so, y’know, a black cat walks through, a mirror breaks, people speak at the same time, and they’re so superstitious that they’ve got to do a little dance every time to break the hex of whatever said superstition was. It was a fricking blast.

JP: In the old days, with Keegan and I, he was the guy that I knew… We both had the interest in sort of over-rehearsing before the table read, so I think we kind of bonded on the amount of work we were willing to put in. Everybody was hard workers there, but, you know ,we were just birds of a feather who had the same work ethic and everything.

BE: When “Mad TV” wrapped, did you leave with the agreement that you’d be ready to work together again whenever the opportunity arose?

KMK: I don’t think we’d formally spoken about it. We just knew that it was going to happen at some point in time.

JP: It was a given.

KMK: That’s a good way of putting it, Jordan: it was an unspoken given.

BE: So how did the series for Comedy Central come up, then? Was it something that was pitched to one of you and they brought in the other, or…

KMK: We were both working on separate projects at the time, and, um, both of the projects fell through. [Laughs.] Jordan was in a pilot that didn’t get picked up, and I was on a TV series that got canceled. And we have the same manager, so our manager said, “Would you guys like to do something together?” ‘Cause there was interest from Comedy Central and from…

JP: …from lots of different places. We were real fortunate to have had a couple of interested parties and be able to really be able to essentially pick Comedy Central as the perfect home for us.

KMK: Amen.

JP: And I think it really is perfect, too, because we like to sort of push things a little bit to a slightly irreverent point, but we also like making comedy for comedy nerds. [Laughs.]

KMK: And, also, we’re both comedy nerds, too. [Laughs.]

JP: Yes. I use the term “comedy nerds” very lovingly, because that’s what we are.

KMK: We would never say “comedy nerd” in a pejorative way. [Laughs.] But we’re also big lovers of…like, I’m a big lover of the classics, so I love silent comedy, physical comedy, pratfalls and slapstick and stuff like that. So the perfect comedy sandwich is to have a scene that has some nice and silly stuff in it that still might have some social bite to it.

BE: So what can we expect from the series as far as its content? I’ve seen the first episode, which is great, but since you guys have built a pretty decent stable of impressions over the years, will it be heavy on those, or will you be doing more original characters?

KMK: Um…that’s a good question.

JP: That’s a very good question. We’ve sort of developed a unique style. One thing that does sort of overarch our work is…we’ve got what we like to think of in comedy as a slightly unique point of view, being biracial and kind of living in between different worlds, sort of growing up and having to adapt to our surroundings. Well, not having to adapt, but choosing to adapt. And we sort of explore that. So we do a lot of racial humor, partly because, y’know, race is such an absurd concept in itself, and there are some aspects to it that we can tap that haven’t been overdone.

KMK: Or done. [Laughs.]

JP: Right. Or done at all.

KMK: I think, Will, to answer your question…I guess the best and most vague way to answer your question is that there will be a smattering of impressions. [Laughs.] There will be character work, definitely. The interesting thing about our job, especially in sketches, is that you have to wait a season before you have any idea whether or not a character catches on in the kind of “Saturday Night Live” or “Mad TV” vein. We’re not even really going for that. There are places where there are characters…where characters feed the conceit of the scene, and the conceit of the scene fuels the characters. But seldom have we done scenes in this season of the show where we were, like, “This is an outright character, and I just want to play it in a scenario.” Unlike something like Coach Hines on “Mad TV,” or Stuart on “Mad TV,” or something like that. I think the character of the show…there’s an overriding character to the show, as opposed to a bunch of well-recognized characters in the show. But you will get – and correct me if I’m wrong, Jordan – but you will get a healthy dose of Obama.

JP: Yeah, we do a good amount of Obama. Just enough. [Laughs.]

BE: I have to say, a show that is not necessarily a precise point of reference but which did leap to mind at times when I was watching the first episode was “Mr. Show.”

KMK: Oh, God, you just gave us the greatest compliment you ever could.

JP: Yeah. Thank you!

KMK: If a television critic wrote the words “a black ‘Mr. Show,’” I might quit my job. [Laughs.] Because we’d be done.

BE: And I’m not saying it’s precise – based on the episode I saw, it seems like it might be a bit more relationship-driven than “Mr. Show” was – but there are certainly some similar elements. Or, at least, I think there are, anyway.

KMK: Yeah, and you’ll see that, too, Will, that there will be episodes where – and I’ll use the word “smattering” again – there are callbacks, where characters will kind of appear and overlap a little bit. That’s an accurate depiction, wouldn’t you say?

JP: Mmm-hmm.

KMK: Not every show. But you’ll see that. It’s something that’s part of our pedigree.

JP: I think one of the things we really admire about “Mr. Show”…I mean, we’re fans of the great sketch shows in general – “In Living Color,” “Chappelle’s Show,” “SNL,” “Mr. Show” – but since you bring up “Mr. Show,” yeah, they do the heightening thing, where they’ll sort of latch onto a comedic game, and then they’ll heighten it through the roof in a way that I think no one had ever seen before. Or since.

KMK: You saw, Will, a good example of it in the first sketch of the show. Not the phone call, but after the live segment, where the two guys are afraid of their wives. I think that’s almost directly influenced by them. When I think of “Mr. Show,” I think of the scene where David Cross goes into the party store and asks Bob Odenkirk for change. Same thing. Like, I would say that this scene was influenced in my brain by that scene.

JP: The chef scene has that element as well, almost like David Cross’s famous audition sketch. The game doesn’t get past the first sentence without having to evolve. But, yeah, thank you for saying that.

KMK: We take that as a high, high compliment.

BE: Given that there are a fair amount of sketch comedy shows out there, what are your hopes for Key & Peele? From your perspective, what do you think will make this show stand out?

JP: Well, I think this show’s going to have a real new, fresh feel to it. It’s unlike any sketch show that I’ve ever seen before, and part of that is because we’ve hired some amazing people. Our director, Peter Atencio, has really made everything look very filmic and, uh, expensive. [Laughs.] We don’t have a lot of money, so we’ve done some really great sleight of hand. Also, our writing process has been so amazing. We’ve got amazing writers. So my hope, ultimately, would just be that people enjoy it, and that, at the very least, it becomes a cult classic. I mean, of course, the real hope is that we get hugely rich and famous. [Laughs.] If the comedy nerds approve, I’ll be a happy man.

KMK: I guess my hope would be that… I just hope that we’ve created a show – and I really do hope this – that we can be proud of, in the tradition of Godfrey Cambridge and Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor. I would really like… I want it to provide belly laughs and also be socially relevant. And I feel like we have an ability to do that, based on something that Jordan had mentioned prior, which is that we are representing a segment of the population that is new and is not going to stop growing. And not only is not going to stop growing, it’s not going to stop evolving. And that’s the biracial American, and, y’know, where do we fit in the fabric of the society?

JP: I’ve got another point that I’ve just realized. We’ve noticed something about black comedy, namely that most of our heroes as black comedians are stand-ups. Both Keegan and I were trained in improvisation and sketch comedy, so I think being so inspired by “In Living Color” myself when I was a kid, it would just be such an honor to be able to inspire young black comedians to go the sketch-improv route instead of stand-up, or to do it as well and just branch out. Because there really is just a wonderful world of comedy there. So that would be lovely.

KMK: That would be lovely. That would be a really lovely thing if that were to happen, yeah.

BE: You cited “Chappelle’s Show” and “In Living Color.” Would you say that your show is still going to be multifaceted enough as far as its comedy that it won’t just be black audiences who are enjoying it? Is it going to be across the board as far as the type of comedy goes?

KMK: I guess the answer to that question would be, “Absolutely.” It’s for a multicultural audience, definitely. I think there’s a few scenes that happen later in the season. Well, also, another example…like, we used as an example before the “bitch” scene – that’s what we call the sketch where the guys are afraid of their lives – and I think wherever they have wives they’ll enjoy that scene. [Laughs.] It’s just a very cross-cultural…well, that’s not even a cultural scene. That’s a human scene. And I think our show is populated with human scenes as well as specifically-targeted cultural scenes.

BE: And that’s the perception that I had from the first episode – even the first scene, with you guys on your respective phone calls, speaks to more than just a black audience – but it’s so hard to tell from just one episode.

KMK: Yeah, I know what you mean. But don’t you think, Jordan, that we tier things? It’s about…oh, God, this makes me want to talk about “Auction Block,” but I don’t want to tell him. I want him to see it. But…

JP: But you can guess with a name like “Auction Block.”

KMK: [Laughs.] And there was something about that first scene you mentioned that we really enjoyed, which is that it’s about putting on a façade. Humans put on facades. It’s just being filtered through a particular cultural filter.

JP: I think we give everybody a little bit of a jab at some point during the season. I think one of our comedy rules is, “You don’t make fun of the underdog.” There’s not a lot of comedy to be had by being a bully. You want to sort of…you want to take the rug out from under the people that have some sort of status in their community, or who are boastful or are bullies themselves.

KMK: Also, another thing is that…I mean, Will, I have to say that my partner, Jordan, is just extraordinary at this, to the point where it’s uncanny, but…there could be 100 people in a room, and 99 people would say, “Oh, look at the bloom on that rose,” and Jordan would say, “Oh, look at that leaf with that brown spot on it.” Do you know what I mean? He always sees something different than anybody else sees. And you’ll see that. It’s like he’s reading a defense in football, and he always sees the crack. And in our process, it has been invaluable. Just invaluable.

JP: That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard. [Laughs.]

KMK: So I say that to say that there’s going to be, I think, some situations where you’ll go, “Oh, my God, I’ve never, ever thought of it that way.” Whatever “it” happens to be. [Laughs.]

Ahem.

When we first see Walt this evening, he’s making a mad dash through the parking garage to remove the bomb from the underside of Gus’s car, which he promptly carries into the hospital and up to the waiting area. It’s an unabashedly slapstick moment when the magnet on the bomb sticks to the elevator door, followed by a hilarious back-and-forth between Walt and Jesse about the decision to bring the bomb with him (“What, was I supposed to leave it on his car?”), but things get serious immediately thereafter, with the ABQ police showing up and requesting an audience with Jesse about his statement. As the boys with badges walk away with Mr. Pinkman, Walt looks positively pale. Is it just from being in close proximity to the cops?

The conversation between Jesse and his new friends is predictably tense. “We’re just talking.” “So if I get tired of talking, I can get up and leave?” Sure, that’s how it always works. Jesse’s being seriously grilled over the fact that he offered up a very specific poison as what was causing Brock’s illness. His explanation? “I musta seen it on ‘House’ or something.” Awesome. Time to call Saul, but there’s so much shredding going on that his secretary can’t hear the phone when he calls…or when Walt calls, for that matter, as we discover when he busts through the bottom pane of the front door in a desperate effort to find Saul. It’s an unexpectedly hilarious scene between Walt and H.T. (as Saul dubbed her last week), particularly when Walt is initially completely oblivious to the fact that the $20K pricetag for the repairs ain’t nothing to do with repairs. Okay, so it was a little slapstick-y when Walt left the office the same way he came in, but that didn’t keep me from laughing, anyway.

Walt heads home to find the $20K, but he approaches slowly and cautiously (as one might when they think there’s a good chance that they’re being watched), checking out the joint with spyglasses first. I didn’t recognize the name Becky Simmons – is this the first time we’ve ever heard her name mentioned? – but once I realized she was his neighbor, I all but laughed out loud at his plan. As I’m watching, I was thinking, “Why do I feel like we’re going to see a gun go off from a distance? Or see the house blow up when she walks in the door?” But, no, it’s just a couple of goons who slip out the side door when Becky comes in. It was a potentially cruel tactic, but you can’t deny its effectiveness. Still, things go awry when Walt slips in to retrieve the money and the goons pop back in. (Nice shot of their feet gliding past the window, btw.) Thank God the crawl space offers an escape route, eh?

Jumping back to Jesse, our Mr. Pinkman still has nothing to say about his poison suggestion except that he was “trying to be helpful.” Amazingly, Saul comes through for his client, swooping in to save the day, and in their discussion, Saul tells Jesse about Walt’s near-miss, and in turn Jesse steers Walt toward Casa Tranquila, where Hector resides. “They’re enemies, not friends,” muses Walt, and, man, you can just hear the wheels turning…

Walt blows into Bingo to see Hector and offers him the opportunity for revenge. I’ve got to say, it’s a brilliant plan, and damned if Walt isn’t right: the odds are looking good that Hector hates Gus more than him…until, following Hector’s laborious process of getting a message through to his nurse, he offers up two words that I didn’t see coming: “Need DEA.” Seriously? Is he really going to play the narc? I don’t believe it…but with this show, you just never fucking know.

Time for the obligatory check-in call from the family, with Junior demanding to know when Walt’s going to join them and Marie continuing to pile on the guilt, but Hank’s oblivious to it all, and when Gomez pops by the safe house, we find out it’s because he’s been focusing on the excess electrical units at the laundry. But Hank’s mind goes elsewhere as soon as he learns that Hector’s suddenly of a mind to talk to him, and although Marie unsurprisingly views it as a ploy to get Hank out in the open, you knew damned well that as soon as she said, “There’s no way you’re going to do it, end of story,” there’d be a quick cut to Hank in the office…and so there was. What I didn’t expect was that Hector’s only reason to take a trip to the DEA was to ultimately lure Gus to Casa Tranquila…well, and perhaps to offer one final “fuck you” to Hank in the process.

Nice family portrait in Hector’s room, huh? Boy, those Cousins sure were cute once upon a time. It looked for a moment like Tyrus was going to do the dirty work and take out Hector himself, but, no, he’s only here to check the place for anything suspicious…and there isn’t, unless you count Walt, who’s hovering right outside the window and beats a hasty retreat.

Hey, what do you know? Brock wasn’t poisoned with Ricin. Jesse claims he isn’t surprised, but he clearly is. He’s even more surprised, however, when he walks out of the police station and is promptly tasered by a couple of Gus’s goons…as if anyone else’s goons would be quite so brazen. (Gus really gets off on his goons tasering people on his behalf, doesn’t he?) Whether Gus knows for a fact that Jesse is involved in this whole Hector mess or not, he’s clearly not taking any chances.

Tyrus gives Gus the go-ahead to come down to Casa Tranquila, and although he offers to take care of Hector himself, Gus unsurprisingly declines this kind offer (“I do this”) and gets all spiffed up to head over and take care of business. After one more sweep by Tyrus for good measure, Mr. Fring allows himself the tiniest bit of excitement that the time has finally come to extract his final revenge Hector…but will he even make it in the door? I really wasn’t sure. But, yes, he makes his way into Hector’s room, shuts the door, and immediately gets dramatic, asking, “What kind of man talks to the DEA? No man. No man at all.” Suddenly, it’s starting to look worse for Hector than it is for Gus, but we know something’s going to happen…and when Hector can no longer resist making final eye contact with Gus, we realize that the end has come for Gustavo Fring. Or has it? Damned if it didn’t look like he’d managed to survive for a second…until we saw the other side of his face. Biggest “holy shit” moment in “Breaking Bad” history? Certainly the most bad-ass, anyway. Leave it to the Chicken Man to spend his final moments of existence straightening his tie. Goodbye, Gus…

Walt, of course, cannot resist the opportunity to look smug when he hears the news on the radio. But there’s still five minutes left. What’s going to happen? Well, first of all, we’ve got to check in on Jesse, who’s back to making meth – someone’s got to do it, right? – and not looking at all happy about it. Fortunately, he’s moments away from being out of that line of work. Walt blows in, blows away Gus’s underling, and tells Jesse, “Gus is dead. We’ve got work to do.” So long, SuperLab. You’ll be missed.

I was convinced they were going to walk out of the laundry and right into Hank and/or Gomez, but, no, they got away scott free. It seemed like too happy an ending when Jesse found out that Brock was going to make it, but I admit that I was still convinced that the poison wasn’t Walt’s doing. The look on his face sold me as well as it did Jesse, as it implied to me that he wasn’t 100% certain that Gus actually did have to go. I was wrong wrong wrong. I admit it. But how long will it take Jesse to figure it out?

It’s always an excruciating wait between seasons of “Breaking Bad,” but while Season 4 doesn’t end with the sort of scream-inducing cliffhanger that we’ve been handed in the past, it does close with tremendous possibilities for what Season 5 might bring. As ever, Vince Gilligan delivered a fantastic 13-episode run this go-round. Only a few episodes ago, I was complaining about how the whole Mr.-Chips-to-Scarface transition seemed to have fallen apart, with Walt having become a pathetic mess, but damned if things didn’t turn around…as I should’ve suspected they would all along, obviously. So what can we expect from Season 5? For one, I have to believe that Gus’s Chilean connections will turn up to avenge his death. I don’t believe the destruction of the SuperLab is so complete as to negate the possibility of the DEA finding their way back to Walt…and if even if it is, then there’s certainly still his office at Los Pollos Hermanos to explore. And what of poor Mike, last seen recovering in Mexico? Bet on Jonathan Banks’ name in the credits of Season 5.

Damn, that was a good season. Hope you folks agree. See you back here next year, okay?

Wait, scratch that: Walt’s not going.

“All that matters is that the rest of you are safe,” Walt tells Skyler. “And that’s why I’m not going with you. I’m the real target.” Ever the naïve one, she can’t quite grasp that being under the watchful eye of the DEA isn’t enough to keep everyone protected, but Walt knows better, just as he knows that he and his family are only being included in the DEA’s protective of Hank because Marie has demanded it.

“There’s got to be another way,” sobs Skyler.

“There isn’t,” Walt says, matter-of-factly. “There was. But now there isn’t.”

And so Walt steps outside and calls Hank, playing his brother-in-law like a fiddle with the suggestion that Marie has a history of overreacting, and assures him that somebody’s got to keep the car wash up and running. Hank isn’t thrilled, but he doesn’t sound suspicious, even when Walt’s voice cracks with emotion as he tells him to keep his head down. The look on Walt’s face as he says goodbye to his infant daughter is heartbreaking, if only because we know that, in his mind, he believes this could well be the last time he ever sees her…but, y’know, you can’t really blame the guy for thinking that, can ya?

Walt sits poolside, a location where we’ve seen him more than a few times before, and when he’s there, it invariably results in a dramatic and/or traumatic moment, ranging anywhere from Walt Jr. puking from too many tequila shots to Walt digging an eyeball out of the drain or, lest we forget, Walt having to jump into the water to extinguish his flaming bathrobe. This time, however, we see a man who’s spinning both his firearm and his wheels, waiting to figure out how little future he has left. When the pistol spins toward one of the potted plants, however, it’s clear that Walt has gotten an idea. I’ll freely admit, however, that I didn’t know what the hell it was at the time.

Meanwhile, over at Casa de Schrader, Walt Jr. has quickly shifted out of the respect he’d started to give his father for being honest with him (or at least sounding like it, anyway) during their discussion at the apartment and has gotten pissed off at him again for ostensibly sticking with the car wash when his life could be in danger. Predictably, Marie’s pissed about it, too, and wants to know why they didn’t just haul Walt’s ass into custody. Hank briefly tries to calm everybody down, but then he proceeds to get everybody right back up in arms again when he starts up with his theories about Gus Fring. Gomez is still as skeptical as ever, but Hank finally talks Gomez into checking out the laundry by roughing up his ego, suggesting that he was never any good at the ol’ knock-and-talk routine.

What a surprise: the next shot is of Gomez at the laundry.

First and foremost, it’s nice to finally see Steven Michael Quezada get a nice, meaty scene for a change. The guy’s been a consistently dependable player, turning in solid work since the early days of the series, but he rarely gets the opportunity to be the star of a scene, so this was a pleasant treat…for us and for him, I’d expect. I can’t say as I really expected the dogs to find anything during their sweep of the facilities, but when the camera went between the machinery, down through the floor, and into the SuperLab, I admit that my pulse quickened a bit, and it only got quicker when Jesse got the phone call from Gus. “This is all the result of your former partner,” snaps Gus. “Do you understand now? Do you see why this can’t continue?” Jesse still isn’t willing to sign off on Walt’s death, however, and when he asks Gus what he plans to do as an alternative to killing Mr. White, Gus offers six painfully ambiguous words in response:

“There will be an appropriate response.”

Shuddering as we take in the possible ramifications of this statement, we see Gomez drive away without having found anything to back up Hank’s theories, followed by Jesse being dropped off at his car at a location which is, presumably, a significant distance away from the laundry. It’s a move which further shows how well prepared Gus is, but it also reminds us just how frustrated he must be with the way his empire now seems perpetually on the verge of collapse as a result of one man. (Well, you know, it’s technically two, but Gus clearly would’ve knocked off Hank by now if it wasn’t for Walt, so there’s little question that all of the blame lies first and foremost on Walt’s shoulders.) You know things are bad if Jesse’s actually trying to get in touch with Walt, but there’s a momentary bit of comic relief when, after failing to reach Walt, he checks his messages and receives a series of increasingly frantic voicemails from Saul Goodman, and the humor continues into Goodman’s office, particularly with the line, “‘Sugar tits’: I say it’s endearing.” But as their conversation continues, Saul’s dialogue becomes less punctuated with punch lines, and Bob Odenkirk’s delivery grows increasingly nervous. If Saul makes it out of Season 4 alive, I have to wonder just how much we’ll be seeing of him in Season 5, because this is clearly a man who fears for his life and has no intention of sticking around ABQ any longer than he absolutely has to.

As Hank continues to ponder Gus’s guilt, Skyler is, as one might expect of someone in her situation, increasingly twitchy. Like Jesse, she finds herself unable to get in touch with Walt, her anxiety reaching a point where she steps outside to enjoy the smooth, refreshing taste of smoldering tobacco. (I know we’ve seen Skyler smoke before, but I’m blanking on the last time it happened. Was it in 2.10, a.k.a. the same episode where Walt, Jr. puked in the pool?) Further emphasizing that she and Jesse are in the same boat, we get that nice cut to Jesse fiddling with his lighter, which in turn takes us into a development which I didn’t see coming in the slightest and which leaves us seriously wondering whether Gus is as evil here as we know he can be, if Walt’s being as paranoid as we know he can be, or if Walt’s reached such a point of desperation that he’s decided, “Well, if it takes the possible death of a child to get Jesse back on my side, then so be it”…and I’ll be damned if I can tell which it is.

Either way, I didn’t immediately think that someone had gone after Brock, but I did initially think, “Wow, this seems kind of out of nowhere,” and when Jesse pulled out his cigarette pack, I believe I actually did say out loud, “Oh, no…” But when Jesse showed up at Walt’s house, I didn’t expect him to suddenly turn on Walt the way he did. Frankly, when Jesse saw that the cigarette was missing, I figured he thought that Brock had decided to try a cigarette and accidentally picked the wild card in the pack, so from my point of view, it seemed like a hell of a leap of logic to think that Walt had somehow been involved in giving the poison to Brock. Even after Jesse explained away my theory, I still don’t think I would’ve figured, “Oh, Walt’s responsible.” I know Jesse isn’t exactly the Mr. Spock of “Breaking Bad,” but even after having survived the bloodbath down Mexico way with Gus and Mike, I still would’ve probably wondered if perhaps Tyrus might’ve had something to do with it…which, of course, is what Walt theorizes. I obviously didn’t believe for a second that Jesse was going to kill Walt, but given Jesse’s skewed theory of what had happened, nor did I necessarily know for sure if he was going to accept the possibility that Gus might be guilty of the charges Walt was making against him.

Quick side note that I was reminded of when Jesse made one more visit to see Brock in the hospital: this was a rare TV portrayal of a nurse who wasn’t being a complete and total bitch. You get so used to seeing nurses getting shitty about the whole “only spouse and family” rule that it was actually somewhat shocking earlier in the episode when this young lady seemed almost sympathetic about not being able to let Jesse go back with Andrea, and she kept her same general tone here even when threatening to call security. It’s the little things on this show that really stand out, and this – which had absolutely nothing to do with the plot – was one that really caught my eye.

Okay, back to business. I can’t believe Tyrus got so pissed off with Jesse for not going back to work that he actually committed a bit of laying-of-hands in the middle of a hospital. Dude ain’t no Mike, that’s for sure. Clearly, Gus knows that, too, or else he wouldn’t have deigned to come to the hospital himself and “suggest” that Jesse come back and finish up the batch of meth before it goes bad. After hearing about Brock, however, Gus assures Jesse that he needn’t come back until the boy’s situation is more stable…as long as he gets stable by next week. (That was a perfect Gus moment.) The fact that their meeting took place in a chapel cannot be ignored, though I’m not sure what we’re supposed to take from it.

Can you smell what Walt’s cooking? It’s an explosive of some sort, obviously, not entirely unlike a pipe bomb. I’ve no doubt that the chemistry of the explosive is spot-on, but as for the mechanics of blowing it up, that’s not Walt’s field, so when it took more than a few tries to get any sort of reaction from the detonator, I knew there was at least a 50% chance that it wouldn’t work when the time came. I did not, however, expect the hairs on the back of Gus’s neck to suddenly stand on end, as if he somehow sensed that Walt had placed a bomb on his vehicle, and send him out of the parking garage and out of harm’s way. Not that Gus doesn’t have the tendency to plan for every possible eventuality, and not that he wouldn’t be continuing to expect Walt to try and take him down, but if we’re really supposed to believe that he sensed a disturbance in the force or whatever, I’ll be really depressed, so here’s hoping that next week will reveal that he hesitated because he had a brainstorm and turned around so that he could put it into action.

So what of next week? Will Brock pull through? Will we see Mike make his triumphant return to some semblance of good health? Will we finally get definitive confirmation that Ted is dead? (Every other critic seems to think he is, but I need someone on the show to actually say it before I can believe it…and nobody’s actually said it.) Will Saul Goodman successfully make it out of town, or will he take his final bow on “Breaking Bad”? And will we want to scream at Vince Gilligan for offering up a flurry of cliffhangers that we’ll have to wait for many long months to see resolved? I think the only one we can definitively answer with a “yes” is that last one, but I’m resigned to that, so I’ll be back here next week no matter what…and here’s hoping you will be, too.

Ah, I’m just kidding. I know you’ll be here. Hell, if you’ve made it this far, there’s really no reason to think you’d be anywhere else. See you then!

This is not hyperbole. This is fact.

And with this having been said, let’s get to talking about the proceedings, shall we?

What’s going down ‘round the hospital? Oh, wait, this isn’t a hospital: these are some of Gus’s guys, a rag-tag team of doctors who were clearly prepared for the eventuality that his preventative measures might not do the trick. Unfortunately, they’re not nearly as interested in helping out poor Mike, as evidence by when Jesse says, “This man needs help,” and the lead physician replies matter-of-factly, “This man pays my salary.”

Meanwhile, back at the SuperLab, Walt’s continuing to make with the meth under the watchful eye of Gus’s right-hand man, but as Walt reminds him for what must surely be the hundredth time, “If Pinkman’s gone, I’m done.” So what’s up with Walt’s figures being off? Is he just frazzled and not paying attention? If so, you have to admit that’s a little understandable, what with everything going on in his world…like, for instance, teaming up with Hank on a stakeout of the Los Pollos Hermanos warehouse. Walt’s less than subtle when asking about the status of the cartel, but it works: Hank’s heard rumblings that a major massacre went down, big even by cartel standards. In return, Hank starts asking about the bruises on his face, once again offering him a friendly ear, but Walt stiffens and snaps, “I’m done explaining myself.”

Looks like they found time to help Mike after all. Jesse discovers just how much advance planning Gus put into the goings-on in Mexico, and it’s clear that, although he’s shocked, he has considerable respect for the man. Moments later, the man himself emerges, looking tired but on his way to recovery. Unfortunately, Mike’s still going to be laid up for a week or more, but Gus assures Jesse that he’ll send for their friend as soon as he’s well enough to travel. The lead doc smiles and prescribes water and rest to Gus, and I swear, I think this was the most human I think we’ve ever seen Gus look. I don’t know how far they go back, but it’s got to be pretty damned far. And speaking of far, it’s a hell of a stroll back to the border, and it’s even longer once Gus casually comments that Jesse can run the lab himself. Jesse understands the implications…and he does not appreciate them.

Is the White’s daughter making an effort to rival the kid in “Raising Hope” for Cutest Baby on TV? If so, it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. This show could use a bit of lightening-up right about now. The discussion between Ted and Skyler is horribly tense, and it only gets worse when Ted writes Skyler a check for $617K, refusing to pay off his debt with gambling-won funds. She argues that it’s no less wrong than her book-cooking. He disagrees. They reach an impasse when he won’t accept her theory that everybody’s going to prison if he doesn’t use her money to pay his debt. “So what you’re saying is that you can’t accept the money I gave you but you could accept a larger amount?” No, no, it’s about doing the right thing. She thinks he’s blackmailing her. Yes, this has gone horribly, horribly wrong, which is the only way it ever could have gone. So now what? Better call Saul!

There’s got to be some significance to Hector watching “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” but all I could identify on the spur of the moment was the unabashed joy in Gus’s voice when he greeted his old “friend.” I actually laughed out loud when I heard the jangling of the Don’s necklace, but it was more than a little bit disconcerting to see Gus so unabashedly using Jesse as a prop. Say goodbye to the Salamanca name. “Look at me, Hector.” For a second, I actually wondered if Gus was going to hit Hector over the head with the folding chair. Jesse clearly doesn’t understand what’s just happened, but the impact is in no way lost on us.

Gus’s right-hand man is hanging out by Hank’s house again, eh? Well, that’s another case of “you can’t blame him.” Once Hank’s in the car, Walt continues to press his brother-in-law for details on the cartel situation, which – given Walt’s lack of subtlety – is tense enough, but when Hank wants to swing by the industrial laundry that serves as the front for the SuperLab, you can see the sweat beading on Walt’s brow even as Hank’s grinning from ear to ear about his discoveries and musing on how his life is turning into “Three Days of the Condor.” When Walt completely freaked out and not only intentionally missed the turn into the laundry but, indeed, veered into an oncoming car, my blood pressure was through the roof. Things are getting RIDICULOUS.

So Hank can barely walk, and now he’s in a neck brace, but he’s still looking suspiciously calm, calling Walt “Mr. Magoo.” Walt claims the other driver came out of nowhere, Hank points out that he absolutely did not, but the end result of their disagreement is that Marie orders Hank to stop having Walt drive him around…which is fine with Hank, since he’s ordered himself a “Gimp-Mobile.” It’s only a few moments after that when Skyler gets a callback from Saul, who’s sending some of his boys over to Ted’s place to threaten him into writing a check to the IRS. Ted’s freaking out, whining, “Skyler would never do this to me.” But, then, Ted doesn’t know Skyler nearly as well as he thinks he does. Sure, Saul’s muscle gets Ted to write the check to the IRS, but even as I was saying to myself, “There’s going to be repercussions, no doubt about it,” Ted made a break for it, tripped on the rug, and, uh, ow. Also, can I get a “holy shit”? You know, swear to God, when Ted tripped on the rug earlier in the episode, I thought, “Ha, that’s funny, I bet that was an accident that they decided to keep in because it felt real.” After almost four full seasons of this show, you’d think I’d know better by now than to think that anything in “Breaking Bad” is ever accidental.

Now that Hank’s got his eye on the laundry, Walt’s got to slip into the place under cover, resulting in a quick but classic exchange: “Does the laundry have to be dirty?” “Nope.” But if Walt’s grumpy about this, then you can imagine how pissed he is when he realizes that Jesse’s been making meth without him.

Cue the fast-forward to Jesse’s place, and…my God, it’s a whole new Jesse! He’s actually hanging out with his girl and her son. Unsurprisingly, given their previous encounter, Jesse has nothing to say to Walt, but Walt won’t give up. He’s desperate to apologize, and he wants to find out what’s going to happen now that Jesse’s cooking in his absence. Jesse snaps back, “The time I asked for your help, you said, ‘I hope you end up buried in a barrel in the Mexican desert.’” That’s got to hurt. Maybe not quite as much as being tasered and taken down by Gus’s boys, but, still, ow.

Cue another flash-forward. Walt’s in the desert, his hands are tied behind him, and he’s got a bag over his head. Gus, looking ever dapper and more than a little bit crazed, rips off the the bag and whips out a rapid-fire warning: “You are done. Fired. Do not show your face at the laundry again. Stay away from Pinkman. Do not go near him. Ever.”

Fucking Walt. He had to ask, “Or else you’ll do what?” But the man’s got a point: if Gus could kill him, he already would have, which means that Jesse, no matter how much hatred he may still have for Walt in his heart, still doesn’t want to see Walt dead…at least for now. “He’ll come around,” Gus says ominously, then proceeds to clarify exactly what’s going to go down. In a nutshell, Hank’s going to be taken out, and Walt’s not going to do a damned thing about it, because if he does…well, I’ll let Gus’s clarification speak for itself:

“If you try to interfere, this becomes a much simpler matter: I will kill your wife, I will kill your son, I will kill your infant daughter.”

FUCK.

That’s what I’m saying, mind you. But it’s probably what was going through Walt’s mind, too. And Saul’s, for that matter, after Walt blew into his office and screamed, “Gus is going to murder my whole family!” Understandably, Walt’s decided that it’s time to move forward on the whole identity-wiping thing. God bless Saul Goodman: I wouldn’t have thought anything could break the tension, but damned if he didn’t get a laugh out of me when he asked, “What’d you expect? Hadji’s Quick Vanish?” My anxieties all came rushing back, however, at the horror on Saul’s face at the thought of having to narc on Gus to the DEA. Of course, we know from later events that he makes the call, but the bigger question is whether or not there’ll be any repercussions for our favorite ambulance chaser. Maybe Gus will figure Walt’s the one who made the call, as well he might, but given the way this season has gone down to date, I find myself fearing the worst for Mr. Goodman.

And so we venture into the crawlspace…and, holy shit, what can I possibly say about this scene? Any sentence beginning with the words “if Bryan Cranston doesn’t win an Emmy” is pointless, as at this point I cannot imagine a scenario where he would not earn one for Season 4 of “Breaking Bad.” Vince Gilligan has spent ages telling us how he was taking Walter White from Mr. Chips to Scarface, but what we’ve got on our hands now is one of the most pathetic individuals I’ve ever seen in my life…and his wife is nipping at his heels. Skyler may have started the season strong, but her actions in the past few episodes have only served to confirm my theory that it’s never a good thing to find one’s inner Heisenberg. (Maybe I shouldn’t have bought that pork pie hat after all…) The sight and sound of Walt’s laughter in the crawlspace is one of the creepiest things I’ve seen since Tim Curry’s portrayal of Pennywise in “Stephen King’s ‘It.’” It’s nothing short of horrifying…and it’s going to be haunting me for quite some time.

So what do you say? Do you agree with me? Was this one of the best “Breaking Bad” episodes of all time? Discuss. And after that (or possibly during), please enjoy this possible new theme song for Walt…

Things kick off with Gus, Mike, and Jesse loitering in a field, but their loitering is short-lived, as a candy apple red airplane flies down and waits for them to embark. Gus and Mike do so without hesitation. Jesse…? Not so much. He does indeed step aboard, however, and after Mike closes the door, they’re off the ground and into the wild blue yonder. You can practically hear Jesse’s jangling nerves, which is no doubt why Gus offers him four words delivered quietly but with certainty: “You can do this.” What are we to make of the look on Mike’s face? Is he less confident of Jesse, or does he perhaps think the whole thing is a bad idea? We shall see…

“You have reached Walter White. At the tone, please state your name, number, and the reason for your call. Thank you.” No, thank you, Walt…but where the hell are you? Not with your wife and child, anyway, that’s for sure. As a result, he’s not there to see Junior’s face when Skyler presents him with his birthday present…which, all things being equal, Skyler probably wishes she’d missed, too. Clearly, her efforts to pick out a car that was actually in a price range that they could afford have only served to remind him of the car that his dad bought him that he wasn’t allowed to keep. You can kind of understand his reaction, but you can see the hurt it’s caused Skyler, and it’s pretty depressing, actually.

Saul Goodman looks nervous and antsy. We’ve seen him look like this when he’s getting twitchy about Gus or Mike, but why would Ted Beneke inspire such a reaction? Possibly because he’s been tasked with selling an incredibly ridiculous story: that the monetary holdings of Ted’s late great aunt from Luxembourg, who died eight years ago, are now his. Of course, this is a relative Ted’s been completely unaware of up to this point – possibly (but not definitely) because she doesn’t actually exist…although if this is Skyler’s plan, I have to believe she’s done the research and can at least back up the genealogy – but that doesn’t stop him from getting a big, fat smile on his face when he hears how much money he’s come into. Will he grow suspicious of the timing? We’ll see…

Back on solid ground, Gus, Mike, and Jesse are blindfolded and in a humvee, heading to the Mexican cartel’s translation of the SuperLab. Unsurprisingly, Jesse looks a little nervous about the fact that he’s surrounded by guys with guns, and he’d probably be even more nervous if he’d realized that the head chemist had, upon learning which of them would be teaching him the meth formula, said, “Is this a joke?” Clearly, the cartel doesn’t do things quite the way Walt’s been doing them, which Jesse discovers when he learns that, rather than bringing in pre-prepared henylacetic acid, they make their own in-house. Although Jesse doesn’t habla Espanol, he does habla the tone of someone speaking insultingly of him, and he doesn’t take kindly to it, which is why, as soon as he realizes that the head chemist comprehends English, he’s off and running with more self-confidence than…y’know, I think this might be the most we’ve ever seen in him. I have to admit that I was either smiling or laughing throughout Jesse’s taking control, but never more so than when they cut to the expressions of Gus and Mike. Suddenly, I could hear the voice of Trent from “Swingers”: “Our little baby’s all grown up.” Which is only appropriate, because the smile on Gus’s face at the end of the scene? That was money…and more than a little bit paternal, unless I miss my guess.

Oh, right, that’s why Walt didn’t answer the phone: because Jesse beat the living shit out of him last week. (How soon we forget…) I was left dumbfounded by this scene, although when you consider how much has gone on in the past 3+ seasons and how much Walt’s had to keep from Junior, it’s no wonder that he finally lost his shit when, in the wake of his ass-beating from someone he’d come at various times to see almost as a surrogate son, he’d missed his real son’s 16th birthday party. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s just the father in me speaking. But I really do think that that’s what led to the emotion on Walt’s part as well as the closest he’s come to touching on what he’s being doing behind Junior’s back. He begs Junior not to tell Skyler that he’s been in a fight, but given his emotional breakdown and the look on Junior’s face at the end of the scene, you know that if he doesn’t tell his mother about it, he’s sure as hell going to tell his uncle Hank.

Meanwhile, back at Laboratorio Estupendo, they’re filming Jesse’s every move as he goes through the motions and makes the meth precisely as Walt has trained him to do. Hooray! It’s a success! Decidedly less hooray-worthy: when success inspires the words, “You belong to the cartel now.” I reckon my jaw would’ve dropped at that news, too.

Thank you, Saul Goodman, for relieving a little bit of the tension with the laughter from your suggestion that celebrities need their cars washed, too. As we sensed earlier, Saul’s of the belief that the Ted’s-dead-aunt scheme has been brought to you by Bad Idea Jeans, but Skyler’s comfortable that she’s helped a pal out of a tough spot. Except, uh, not so much. Rather than paying off his tax debt, Ted went and bought himself a new Mercedes. Well, okay, he’s only leasing it, but you can’t blame Saul for being unable to completely hide his cheery demeanor when telling Skyler, “I told you so!”

When Walt rouses himself and crawls out of bed, he finds that Junior has opted to stick around and have a siesta on the couch. First Walt’s concerned that Skyler’s going to be worried sick that Junior didn’t come home, then when Junior tells him that he called her, Walt gets worried on a whole other level. He needn’t have been concerned, however: Junior didn’t narc on his dad. What follows when Walt begins to talk to Junior is the sort of scene that gets sent to Emmy voters as a reason to nominate someone for the Best Actor Emmy, and although Bryan Cranston generally has these kinds of moments throughout any given season of “Breaking Bad,” this is definitely his tour de force for Season 4. Maybe it’ll topped sometime over the next couple of weeks, but I’m not holding my breath. Between Walt’s speech here and Jesse’s speech in the lab, this whole episode has got Emmy written all over it…oh, but, wait, we’re not even done talking about the scene. First of all, you can see the wheels turning in Walt’s head when Junior makes the comment about how he seemed more “real” last night than he’d seen at any point in the previous year. Is he going to tell his son what’s going on? Surely not…but then again, you never know with Walt. Then, after Walt drives off, Gus’s right-hand man pulls up and asks, “Somewhere you should be…?” I couldn’t quite read the look on Walt’s face, but I can’t imagine that even the prospect of making meth for Gus is enough to bring him down from the high he’s gotten from this chat with Junior.

Watching Skyler’s encounter with Ted was one of the most painful scenes I’ve had to endure in quite some time. Seriously, it was agonizing. Ted just wasn’t going to concede that she was right about what he should do with the money, letting his ego get in the way of his common sense, and in the end, Skyler’s ego took her down as well, forcing her to effectively say, “Look, you dumbass, who the hell do you think gave you the money in the first place?” I admit that it was almost predictable that it ended that way, which is something that “Breaking Bad” almost never is, but it’s also the only way it really could have ended. Skyler was never, ever going to let Ted get away with that.

The expression on Gus’s face as he stood beside the Don’s pool might’ve been inscrutable to anyone who hadn’t seen Episode 4.8, but for us, it was obvious what memories were at the forefront of his mind. For all of tonight’s great speeches, Mike got the best one-liner of the night when telling Jesse the status quo as far as his having to stay in Mexico: “Either we’re all going home or none of us are.” Funny how the Don actually looked older 20 years ago that he does today…but, then, he’s probably been able to afford a considerable amount of plastic surgery, what with his ever-growing criminal empire. Gus’s stiffness during the Don’s embrace is apparent, as is the look on his face when the Don makes the comment about how Jesse will have plenty of time to learn Spanish. When the Don spotted the gift, I couldn’t imagine it was a bomb, just because I knew that the guy had way too many people on hand for anyone to have been able to slip in an explosive device. Indeed, it was…a bottle of tequila? Well, fair enough. Nothing wrong with a little tequila. Poisoned? If so, it’s got to be something that Gus has got an antidote for…but, no, it seems to be fine and dandy.

I’m not sure who looked more awkward: Jesse when the bikini girl sat on his lap and gave him a cigar, or Gus during the Don’s “business is business” speech. The tensions in the scene really started to run high post-tequila. If Mike’s right, we know that Gus has got to be planning something. We just don’t know what, but as far as the when, we know it’s got to be soon. Clearly, the Don is as suspicious as we are when, after getting the verbal “spanking,” Gus’s first reaction is to visit the lavatory…and as soon as Gus puts his finger down his throat, we know that the shit is about to go down. Watching all of the Don’s team go down – with his right-hand man getting a little added assistance on that front from Mike and his piano wire (or whatever the hell the preferred method of strangulation is nowadays) – was awesome, albeit in a really dark kind of way, and I’ve got to say that the seething anger on the Don’s face was fantastic, so kudos to my recent interview subject, Stephen Bauer. And then to follow that with Gus’s scream of warning / cry of victory to everyone within earshot, and an ending which left us uncertain of the ultimate fates of both Gus and Mike…?

I’ve only got nine words for you:

Best goddamned episode of the season…for now, anyway.

We begin the proceedings with a flashback to Episode 3.8, which took place in the wake of the Cousins’ attack on Hank. What we didn’t see at the time, however, was Gus’s visit to see the Cousins’ uncle, Hector “Tio” Salamanca, and tell him of their fate, saying, “This is what comes of blood for blood, Hector.” And then we get a shot of the viscous red substance in question, floating through a swimming pool. If you’re like me, you were already thinking, “Oh, this is gonna be good,” and if so, then surely you weren’t disappointed by episode’s end.

Hey, what do you know? “Breaking Bad” finally takes time to acknowledge that Walt is still being treated for cancer. This scene really underlined how much he’s changed since his initial diagnosis, however. So Walt’s living his life as if he’s in charge, huh? Yeah, he talks big, instantly dismissing the fears and concerns of the poor bastard who’s sharing the waiting area with him, but the second we see him back in his usual environment, he looks completely lost and mostly hopeless…which is, at least momentarily, a look he shares with Gus when the latter gets a phone call to pop ’round the ABQ police department. With Walt, though, I have to wonder if he got a report on a cancer that he wasn’t expected. But we’ll get back to that.

If Gus looks mildly stricken when he first gets that phone call to come into the station, you can see something approximating horror when his eye lands on the poster of Victor posted on the bulletin board. It appears to be utterly gone from his system when he steps into the office with Hank and the gang, however, and he manages to prove highly convincing with his effortless responses to all of the questions and couched accusations thrown his way. It’s nonetheless an incredibly intense scene, however, because although we can’t really imagine that Gus won’t be able to keep himself afloat, we also know what a pitbull Hank can be, and having seen the way he kicked ass with the police work to place Gus at Gale’s place, it’s equally hard to imagine that he’s going to let this go until he gets his man. It isn’t until we see him in the elevator post-discussion and get the close-up of Gus’s fingers tapping / twitching and the look on his face that we get a feeling of just how upset and angry he is; that such a small gesture says so much about the man’s rage and fury is a testament both to the development of the character and the performance of the actor (Giancarlo Esposito). It’s no wonder that everyone but Hank bought Gus’s stories, but it’s also no surprise that Hank is refusing to accept Gus’s assurances at face value.

This must be the week for “Breaking Bad” to play catch-up with semi-dismissed storylines: in addition to revisiting Walt’s cancer, we also saw Saul pop in to check on the status of Andrea and Brock, who – as we soon discover – are living in a nice pad that Jesse is quietly paying for. In a slightly unexpected moment, Saul proves to have more emotion at the surface than Jesse, asking him why he doesn’t just go and talk to Andrea and Brock if he wants to know how they’re doing. In response, Jesse jumps out of the car to avoid any further discussion. He might be the hero, but that doesn’t mean he’s fully recovered from all of his recent emotional trauma.

Too funny: Skyler tries her best to “launder” the excess money by vacuum-sealing the cash inside some of her clothes and hanging them in the closet, only to find that the cumulative weight of the outfits breaks the bar in the closet. Instead, she throws the bags under the house, which feels like a spontaneous decision doomed to cause problems in the future. But maybe that’s just me. Either way, it’s pretty worth an additional smirk when, moments later, Marie casually says to Skyler, “You’ve really taken to this whole being-your-own-boss thing…” Speaking of “maybe it’s just me” moment, I’m just not entirely confident that Walt’s cancer scan came off as scott-free as he claims during dinner. He looked so hopeless during that first post-scan shot that I can’t just write it off as being the result of his situation at the SuperLab.

Time for another intense scene. Actually, make that several intense scenes back to back. When Hank had Walt pull up in front of Los Pollos Locos and said, “We’re not here for the chicken,” it was a heart-stopping moment, but then things got even crazier, with Hank asking Walt to put a tracking device on Gus’s Volvo station wagon. We can only imagine what sort of emotional storm was going on inside Walt’s head during all of this, first pretending to put the device on the car, then going inside to talk to Gus, only to have Gus tell him to put the device on for real. And to have Mike hovering in his line of sight while he’s trying to decide what he’s going to do? Awesome. But, oh, is Gus pissed…and, oh, is Walt scared shitless. After the speech to the camera, in which Walt desperately tries to save his own ass and avoid throwing Hank under the bus while backpedaling on every bad thing he’s said about Gus since the beginning of the season, Walt runs to Jesse’s place and immediately wants to know where they stand on the whole killing-Gus thing. It’s a rather sad scene, when you get right down to it, because it serves to finally confirm to Walt that Jesse, who he’s arguably done more for in the past few seasons than he’s done for his own son, is now more dedicated to Gus than he is to him. It’s not like it’s not warranted, but it’s still sad, because it’s painfully clear that Walt realizes he no longer has anyone on his side.

Time to jump back to Gus, who gets an update from Mike on the situation with Hank and the ABQ police department. Feeling confident (but not cocky) that Hank won’t be able to do anything if he finds and removes the tracking device from his car, Gus does so, driving off to visit Tio…and, oh, what a visit it turns out to be. Not the visit itself, of course, but the flashback that it inspires. “Is today the day?” Gus asks Tio. Cue the rippling of the water – itself a sly tribute to the rippling effect used as a typical TV trope before bouncing back in time – and a sepia-toned look into Gus’s past which features Steven Bauer, late of “Scarface.” (You know damned well he enjoyed getting to wear the track suit and the jewelry as an old-school coke boss.) Sure, the tension isn’t sky-high when Max gets taken out – given that we haven’t seen him in the present, it was semi-inevitable that he wouldn’t live through the scene – but the whole event helps to underline both how Gus became the man he is today and why there’s so much bad blood – no joke intended – between Gus and Tio. But who is Gus? What does the Don know about him that we don’t? I can’t wait to find out.

Best episode of the season to date? Your mileage may vary, but it’s certainly my favorite.

It’s 3:01 AM, and Skyler’s having a restless night’s sleep. Why? Is it because her mind is filled with ideas on how to take advantage of this new business situation in which she’s found herself? No, it’s because she’s so concerned about the web of lies that she’s involved in spinning and wants to be damned sure she can cover her ass at every turn. Take, for instance, the story she told Marie about how Walt made all of these ill-begotten gains through gambling: time to back that up with making Walt attend Gamblers Anonymous meetings and display a mastery of Blackjack. Unfortunately, in addition to his consistent refusal to concede that he’s wrong about anything ever, Walt seems to be getting a trifle annoyed with Skyler’s continual attempts to maintain the reigns of command…though in fairness, it’s hard to imagine anyone not getting annoyed with Skyler, giving how anal she’s being about following the incredible in-depth script she’s composed for the impending fake admission to Hank about Walt’s gambling and the buying of the car wash. Great scene in principle, but it went on so long, with Skyler getting so increasingly specific with her plan, that it’s hard to imagine anyone making it to the end without thinking at least once, “There’s no way everything’s going to go according to plan.” And it didn’t…though it wasn’t because of the script. (Again, a classic case of “Breaking Bad” zigging when any other show would’ve zagged.)

Time for a family dinner at Hank and Marie’s place, and if we hadn’t seen their relationship slowly disintegrating over the past several episodes, it would be easy enough to believe that everything was normal between the two of them. Boy, Hank really got annoyed when Walt unintentionally showed him up by displaying a superior knowledge of rocks…sorry, I meant minerals. Things quickly got heart-pounding, however, when Hank broke out the DVD of Gale singing Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom.” Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been hilarious, but it was hard to laugh knowing how horrified Walt was…so horrified, in fact, that he totally went off-script when they made their great revelation (and you could see that it threw Skyler a bit), excusing himself and running to the restroom. Of course, where he really went was to rifle through Hank’s files. Although he didn’t get busted, Walt did encounter Hank in the hallway, who, bless him, used the moment to remind him that he’s there and, most importantly, that he’s not going anywhere. Yep, looks like the return to work has reinvigorated his spirit. But, damn, it sure felt despicable when Walt’s response was to basically play Hank and get him to show him all of the files. Hell of a scene, though, especially with the funny revelation that Gale was a Walt Whitman aficionado…but that doesn’t mean that W.W. was definitely referring to Mr. Whitman, of course.

Petrified at the thought that Jesse might get caught as a result of having left fingerprints at Gale’s place, Walt rushes over to warn him, only to discover what a rathole Casa de Pinkman has become over the past several…days? Weeks? I’m not quite sure, to be honest. But it’s not terribly relevant at the moment, so let’s move on. However long it’s been, it’s still not long enough for Jesse to want to mentally revisit the event that sent him into denial in the first place, which makes it easily worth $100 to get Walt the hell out of his place. Now that the topic of the casing has been brought up, it makes me wonder if Walt’s onto something…but, again, this is “Breaking Bad,” so I just can’t imagine that they’ll go down that route, as it’s something we’d expect. Still, Walt immediately goes to Saul to see if he’s got any suggestions on how to handle the situation, who tells him not worry, but there’s so much to worry about that Walt can’t possibly accept this as a viable option. Saul eventually concedes, “You do have a little shit-creek action happening,” then mentions that there is a fallback position with a “disappearer.” I can’t see Walt ever disappearing, but I can picture him thinking that’s his only alternative. We’ll see if he takes Saul up on the plan.

Jumping back to Jesse’s pad, I knew the moment we saw the lucid eyes of the guy on the couch, Jesse’s money wasn’t long for the world. I did not, however, expect such a total and utter lack of initial reaction from Jesse, nor did I expect that Mike and Gus’s new associate would turn up, having retrieved the money and tied up, gagged, and blindfolded the gentleman who swiped it. Mike may be right in his threat that Jesse’s on this ice, but it’s growing increasingly clear that Jesse would be quite happy if someone put him out of his psychological misery. Cue the visit to one G. Fring – good to see you onscreen again, Mr. Esposito – but we’re left wondering if Gus has given Mike the go-ahead to take down Jesse, or if he’s just driving him somewhere to get him the hell out of ABQ.

Either’s possible. We’ll see what happens next week, I reckon.

Random closing comments:

* As Walt flipped through Gale’s files, I don’t know which was funnier to see: the “Far Side” comic or the Ron Paul sticker.
* Another one of those tiny but perfect Walt moments: when he corrected Hank’s pronunciation of the word “learned.”
* “Goes after him how? On his Rascal scooter? That, uh, perhaps sounded a bit insensitive…” BWA-HA-HA-HA!
* Also funny: Saul casually querying, “My name never comes up with those guys, does it?”
* The way Walt observed the camera following Jesse, thereby leaving him unwatched, I wonder what plan he’s concocting…

But that’s not what this episode is about. Not really, anyway. It’s much more about the two husband-and-wife relationships of the series – Walt & Skyler and Hank & Marie – and, to a lesser extent, poor Jesse, who’s never seemed quite so alone and adrift as he does this week.

Skyler wants to talk about the car wash. Walt doesn’t. Given her persistence to get him to come to the door in the first place, it’s fair to suspect that she would’ve shoved her way past him in annoyance eventually, but once she spotted his bruised eye, it’s notable that her first reaction was concern…not for what it might mean to her and the kids, but simply for Walt. Further confirmation that no matter what kind of ass Walt might be, she still loves and cares for him. Unfortunately, as far as Walt’s concerned, she cares a little too much, dismissing her suggestions to go to the police, then getting grouchy and accusing her of undue passive-aggression. Even when she makes him swear that he’ll go to the police if things get really, really bad, his response of “absolutely!” is utterly devoid of any ring of truth.

Marie’s looking for a new place…? Well, why not? It’s not as if Hank hasn’t put her in a position where she ought to be. But…oh, hell, she’s just making up shit again. It’s like Season One all over again. It’s so sad to see her shift back into her lying ways, yet at the same time, they’re so elaborate that you can’t help but be in awe of her creativity. Meanwhile, however, Hank’s just sitting in bed watching porn. The second she walked into the room, though, he once again ripped her to shreds. That final comment about how the fantasy football catalog was useless was downright awful, making it no surprise that she promptly went out and started on another round of lying to real-estate agents, this time seriously upping the level of unbelievability. Peace Corps? NASA? Hand modeling? Good lord.

The height of brazenness, however, came when she swiped the spoon, which was so incredibly obvious that you have to feel like her subconscious was trying to get her arrested. Cue the phone call to Hank, who proved once again that, despite his surface nastiness toward his wife, he still can’t help but be moved by her tears. But when she’s told that no one’s going to be pressing charges and that she’s free to go home, the horror at the mere thought of returning to Hank causes her to burst into tears again,

Of course, she still goes home, anyway, and the next time we see her, it seems at first as if nothing’s changed. When she retrieves Hank’s virtually uneaten dinner, however, the reacts to his annoyance at the fact that she wants to leave the rice pudding for him to eat later by snapping, “Don’t eat it, then.” Funny thing, though: the next time we see Hank, he’s eating it. If she notices, though, any excitement at the moment is killed stone dead when he reacts to the arrival of his cop buddy – who, thankfully, is there to see Hank rather than her – by saying, “What happened, did she rob a bank?” Ouch. As I suggested at the end of my season-premiere blog, Gale’s lab notes have indeed fallen into Hank’s hands…but he doesn’t want them. Or so he said. I knew full well that his curiosity would get the best of him by the end of the episode, and so it did.

Let’s check in on Jesse for a minute, shall we? His desperation to keep himself occupied has reached the point where he’s actually asking Walt to hang out. Wow, that’s really sad. Walt begs off, but when he spots Jesse’s disappointment, he offers a rain check and asks, “Is there anything we should talk about?” Unsurprisingly, Jesse immediately deflects the question and asks about Walt’s eye, then turns Walt’s question right back at him and follows it with a great (if sad) line: “For what it’s worth, getting the shit kicked out of you…? Not to say you get used to it, but…you do kind of get used to it.” The next time we see him, he’s enjoying a little primal-scream therapy on wheels, then heads home, where we see that his place has turned into a debauchery-filled haven for addicts and drunks, full of fucking, fighting, stealing, and, oddly enough, painting. By the end of the episode, we truly see how far he’s come when he throws a not-insubstantial wad of cash into the air. Hard to believe it was only last season when Jesse looked aghast at Walt and asked, “What’s more important than money?”

Okay, to finish up, let’s look back in on Walt and Skyler, who are meeting with Saul Goodman – though not in his office, notably, underlining that he’s clearly still paranoid about being listened in on – about their continued lack of a money-laundering facility. Saul’s still trying to sell them on the nail salon, but, nope, Skyler’s not backing down on the car wash, despite the fact that she was “wrestled into submission by (Bodgan’s) eyebrows.” (Nice one, Saul.) To defend her position, Skyler offers the surprisingly dark observation that Bogdan “lacks the appropriate motivation,” clarifying that she’s looking to give him not so much an offer he can’t refuse as an “attitude adjustment.” Boy, she’s really getting the hang of this stuff quickly, ain’t she? Saul, as ever, goes sleazy, considering first painting him as a terrorist, then suggesting violence, but Skyler’s not having anything Saul has to say…or that Walt has to say, for that matter. She’s unabashedly making a power play against Walt, basically saying, “I don’t like him, and that’s why I want his car wash.” Daaaaaammmmmmnnnnnn…

Seeing soap bubbles slide slowly down the drain gives Skyler a sudden brainstorm on how to get Bogdan to sell the carwash. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on at first – did she really turn him in to the authorities? – but after the cut to her feeding lines to the guy, I obviously realized that the call to Saul was to find someone to help her perpetuate this premise. I can’t believe Skyler was that devious. I think I’m in love. Walt, however, is still a little sketchy on the whole thing and finds it incredibly easy to say, “Well, he’s obviously not calling.” Except he does call…at which point, Skyler grows an even bigger pair of balls than she’d already been sporting, refusing to let him take her previous offer. You can all but see the steam coming out of Walt’s ears…but damned if he doesn’t call back and say, “Okay.” And how awesome is it that she lets it ring four times before she answers it?

The last time we see Walt and Skyler in the episode, they’re battling over Walt’s seemingly-frivolous decision to buy a really expensive bottle of champagne to celebrate Skyler’s deal. She’s got a really good point – how can he explain being able to buy it, given that they’re supposedly as broke as broke can be? – but he poo-poos her paranoia. Why do I think we’re soon going to see this come back to bite him in the ass?

Just a quick pair of closing comments:

* “I didn’t retaliate because he’s a much older man.” HA! Nice spin on getting clocked by Mike, Walt.

* Every time they showed Saul’s tie hanging out of the bottom of his jacket, I laughed out loud.