“If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

There’s a ridiculous amount to discuss from “Gliding Over All,” the midseason finale of “Breaking Bad,” but for now we’ve just got to cut to it. What’s it? The chase. The ending. The cliffhanger. The biggest revelation by a fictional character since “Einhorn is Finkle.” That’s right, Walter White is Heisenberg, and Hank finally knows it, only Walt doesn’t know Hank knows. What else?

It was the single biggest Chekov’s Gun in a show full of seemingly nothing but. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click the link, or reread the quote up top. In any half decent piece of narrative art, there is no wasted space. When it comes to a show like “Breaking Bad,” that means not a single element is simply thrown in. Not a scene, not a line of dialogue, not a single shot, not a single piece of character background. When it comes to “Breaking Bad” specifically, that means the country’s best meth cook wasn’t going to not be found out by his DEA agent brother in-law. There was never not going to be a final confrontation between the two.

In case you missed any part of it, let’s recap: Just prior to the ending, Walt has more money than he knows what to do with and is finally out of the meth business. The family’s having a nice barbecue when Hank decides to drop a deuce. Once on the porcelain throne, he absentmindedly reaches back for some reading material to find a collection of Walt Whitman poems. Boring. Except that Walt was given this particular collection by one Gale Boetticher, his former partner, a man whose obsession with him bordered on religious.

You see, after he was killed, Hank was given Gale’s file to look over. What he found was enough to convince him that Gale was Heisenberg, a notion Walt helped back up with some insightful chemistry knowledge in the fourth episode of season four, “Bullet Points” (if you’ve got Netflix Instant, click this link and skip to the 20:50 mark). There was just one problem, the notebook included a dedication to “W.W.,” and for the life of him, Hank could not discern who it referred to. “Who do you figure that is,” Hank asks Walt, “Woodrow Wilson? Willy Wonka?” before jokingly adding, “Walter White?” Walt flipped the pages and found a spot where Gale had written down a poem, and told Hank that its author, Walt Whitman, was his W.W.

Fast forward to the finale. Hank finds a book of Walt Whitman poems, with an inscription from “G.B.” to “W.W.” in a handwriting he recognizes. Everything comes back to him as he suddenly recalls Walt’s response to his joking accusation, “You got me.” Hank realizes that not only has Heisenberg been staring him in the face this whole time, he’s made the same mistake his former boss did with Gus Fring. Recall what that supervisor had to say, “That whole night we were laughing, telling stories, drinking wine… and he’s somebody else completely… Right in front of me… right under my nose.”

This is heavy stuff, because for Hank, the “Heisenberg problem” is beyond personal. In “Bullet Points,” when Hank thought Gale was his man, the fact that he was dead still wasn’t enough. “God, I wanted to get this guy… I mean me, personally, you know?” he tells Walt. “I wanted to be the one to slap the handcuffs on him, that kind of shit. Popeye Doyle waving to Frog One.” Walt points out that in the first “French Connection” movie, Popeye never catches the bad guy, to which Hank responds “Yeah, I guess, me and old Popeye, huh? A day late and a dollar short.” Hank may have been a day late, but now his chance to come out more than a few dollars ahead, and we can be certain he’s not going to make the same mistake as his supervisor, not twice, not now that he sees the problem’s been hiding in plain sight this whole time. In so many words: Shit’s. Gon’. Go. Down.

“I’m out.”

It took Walt a long time to finally get where he wanted: a place that could satisfy his terrible arrogance, one where he was in total control, answering to no one, and making more money than Skyler could count, let alone launder. After Walt spent the first half of “Gliding Over All” tying up what he thought were his final loose ends, the second half showed him occupying the position he’d wanted so badly. But Walt finds that the “empire business” is just another grind, a feeling made more poignant by his conversation with Hank regarding a summer job the latter had back in high school. So when Skyler shows Walt the pile of green paper on the storage room floor, he’s ready to quit, and he returns to his original goals: family, security, stability.

As that first half rolled along, we all waited patiently for something to go wrong, for that arrogance to be Walt’s ultimate undoing. What we got was, well, nothing. It seemed Walt really was as good at running a criminal empire as he though he’d be. Lydia’s offer to make Walt the foremost methamphetamine supplier of the Czech Republic makes him a boatload of cash and allows him to put aside his plan to use ricin to poison her. He engineers a prison massacre, as the ten people with enough knowledge to put him behind bars are killed within two minutes. Walt even pays Jesse the $5 million he owes and stays a while to reminisce. Jesse is surprised as we are to find nothing but cash in the duffel bags left outside his door. A discovery which causes him to toss his gun and fall back against a wall, almost in tears. All the stars align and everything is right in the universe. Walt’s going to get out , arrogance in tow.

But he doesn’t. He can’t. As the Whites and the Schraders sat around the table in the backyard, we still knew that something was going to happen. It had to. The fucked-up mind this show has given me had me searching everywhere, would Walt Jr. slip and knock the baby in the pool? Was there poison in that sunscreen that Walt had forgotten about?

Nope. In the end, it wasn’t anything like the first half’s enormous displays of hubris that were Walt’s undoing. Instead, it was another, smaller event that occurred in the third episode of this season: As Walt unpacked his things after moving back into the house, he finds a Walt Whitman book, his lips curl into the tiniest of smiles, and he places it on his bedside table. After all that’s occurred, everything Walt’s done over the past four and a half seasons, it was this casual act that will lead to his downfall. As of yet, it seems the biggest tragedy of Walter White’s life has not been “flying to close to the sun and getting his throat cut,” but returning to Earth and realizing that he was his own loose end, that he couldn’t stick the comfortable landing he’d worked so hard to create, and that the lower you are, the harder you fall.

So that’s it, another ten months without “Breaking Bad” are before us. Since you’ve got all that time to spare, you might want to go back and watch the first four and a half seasons before returning to this last episode. “Gliding Over All” contained so much imagery and so many parallels that I couldn’t begin to list them here (let alone launder them). I also recommend checking out FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” (the first three seasons are on Netflix Instant if you need to catch up). Check back here on September 12, the day after the show’s fifth season premier, and you’ll find a post just like this one discussing it. “Sons” is no “Breaking Bad,” that much is certain, but it’ll help kill the time.

Watch the cast and crew go inside “Gliding Over All” below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.

The Aftermath: Bikes, Bodies, and Hydrofluoric Acid

Alright, we’ve got to talk about the cold open, again. Everything about it was fantastic: the near complete lack of dialogue paired with that ominous music, the methodical way Walter, Todd, and Mike, go about decomposing the bike (and the body), all of it. But that’s not really what I want to discuss.

Rather, let’s think about what it says about the quality of the show and the way it has shaped the thinking of its viewers that we don’t need dialogue explaining what’s going on. This week’s “Story Sync” tells us that the young boy’s body is the fifth dissolved in hydrofluoric acid thus far. The first time Walt and Jesse did it, after Walt strangled Krazy-8 way back in the first season, they spent nearly a whole episode weighing their options and ultimately completing their task. At that point, killing and disposing of a human being was still something of a big deal for Walter, and as a result, the viewer. Now, not so much. The guys weren’t so adept at the task back then either, recall Jesse making the mistake of putting aside the plastic bins because he had a perfectly good bathtub. We all know how that ended.

Now, in much the same way the gang (minus Jesse) efficiently and meticulously go about the process of permanent evidence disposal, almost as if it’s routine, we watch them fully expecting and understanding their actions. There is no need for explanation. The fact is at this point, it is routine. That is just what they have to do. They know it, so we know it. They have no qualms with it, so neither do we.

Moving on. When Todd attempts to justify his actions, he says, “It was him or us, and I chose us.” The line was eerily and intentionally reminiscent of what Walt said to justify killing Gale: “When it comes down to you and me versus him… it’s gonna be him.”

Walter, Mike, and Jesse then vote on what to do with Todd. For perhaps the first time ever, Walt and Mike agree on something, and it’s Jesse who’s left out in the cold. It’s decided that the man who will now be forever known as “Ricky Hitler” will be kept close, because they don’t want to pour acid over yet another body nor pay him off and hope he keeps everything to himself. That’s probably a good decision given that when Todd gets in his car, we see he’s held onto a creepy souvenir.

At first, I couldn’t figure out the significance of showing Todd looking at the tarantula in the jar. My first thought was it was meant to show that despite his seemingly nonchalant attitude, Todd really does feel sorry for killing the boy. Perhaps that is part of it, but a show like “Breaking Bad” doesn’t waste a single moment of screen time, and Todd already voiced what I believed to be genuine regret (not necessarily for the murder itself, but for being put in that unfortunate but necessary position). Then it hit me. In a missing person investigation, one of the first things the authorities will do is collect the boy’s prints (likely from his home), so they have something to work with. The old jar o’ spider has the victim’s prints as well as Todd’s, and maybe even another member of the crew as well. That’s my guess anyway. There’s a reason for using a method of complete destruction of any and all evidence. But this time it wasn’t allmthe evidence, and that’s got to have some kind of significance later on.

There is no Walter White. There is only Heisenberg.

This whole season, well, the whole series really, has been about the transformation of “mild-mannered” Walter White into the meth kingpin Heisenberg. This week, we got another piece of a puzzle we didn’t even know we were building, or a glimpse into the psyche of what really drives Walter White.

When Jesse comes to his home, Walter tells him (and us) a bit about his past at Grey Matter. It seems he took a $5000 buyout from the company he named and co-founded, which is now worth “billions, with a b.” Walter now checks Grey Matter’s stock value weekly, still haunted by the decision he made to “sell his childrens’ birthright.”

Part of what made us root for Walter in the beginning was the feeling that despite all the horrible things he was doing, it was for a good cause, or at least out of self-preservation. He was a good man who got a bad rap. Then he got cancer, and as Jesse points out, he wanted to cook meth in order to secure $737,000, which would set up his family for life.

But this new information puts things in a different light and helps explain why Walt tries “so hard to not make five million dollars.” As well his describing that amount as “nothing” and “pennies on the dollar.” And, of course, why he works with an almost animal instinct to burn off his handcuff, steal the methylamine, and calmly tell Mike that everybody can win, you know, with a gun to his head.

At the very least, Heisenberg is no longer working for the well-being of his family, and it puts into question if Walter White ever was. This is a man driven primarily by arrogance and jealousy. Where before he could hide it, it has now consumed every facet of his life. As he tells Jesse at the dinner table, his children are gone and his wife is counting down the days until his cancer returns, “This business is all I have let now. And you want to take it away from me.”

By taking the Grey Matter buyout, Walter gave up the opportunity to prove to the world what he’s known all along: that he’s just plain better than the rest of us. In the pilot, Walt saw the tremendous amount of money to be made by cooking meth during the news report on Hank’s bust. With his introduction to Gus Fring, he saw just how far one can go in the meth business, and learned some lessons about how to get there. There’s no way Walter will take the buyout, to make that same mistake twice. While it seems Mike has forgotten his own advice about “half measures” (how many times has he had a gun to Walt’s head now?), Walt has not. He’s going to make himself forget Grey Matter ever existed. He’s going to make all the money there is to be made. But I believe he has simply come too far. All the money in the world wouldn’t satisfy Heisenberg, and that’s why he’ll go out with the bang that was hinted at in this season’s first scene.

A Few Extra Bits:

I can’t say I’m certain what Walt’s plan is going to be. How can everybody win? He’ll cook by himself and then pay off his partners? But they want their money and they want out. Now. There’s no time for such things. Based on some small hints in this episode, listed below, I’m thinking the plan might have something to do with putting out fake blue meth.

-Over the wire, Mike overhears Hank going about his new responsibilities at the DEA. One of his conversations is about the difference between mayonnaise and its imitation, Miracle Whip.

-The TV report just prior to the one about the boy Todd shot was about a caviar knock-off made of kelp.

-Jesse’s lines about frozen lasagna during the (hilariously uncomfortable) dinner scene. The food never looks like it does on the box. “It’s like yo, whatever happened to truth in advertising?”

One last thing: after that news report, Walt tells Jesse that he’s lost sleep over the boy’s death and tells Jesse to go home, saying he will finish the cook on his own. When Jesse returns downstairs Walt is whistling a startlingly upbeat tune, and you can almost see the gears in Jesse’s head start turning. Walt doesn’t care about the dead child. What else has he lied about? Maybe his mind even goes back to his original (and ultimately correct) suspicions that Walt poisoned Brock. Then there’s the imagery, standing outside of the tent listening to Walt whistle, Jesse is quite literally on the outside looking in.

Watch the cast and crew go inside “Buyout” below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.

The Cold Open

The cold open for “Dead Freight,” the latest episode of “Breaking Bad,” was a strange one at first glance. It showed a young boy riding a dirt bike through the desert before stopping to scoop a tarantula into a glass jar. Then bam! All of a sudden, well, that was it. At first glance. It was a surprising and seemingly dull way to begin an episode that had been the subject of a great deal of hype, including Aaron Paul (who plays Jesse) tweeting that “On tonight’s episode of Breaking Bad shit gets crazy.”

Of course, by now we all know that “dull” opening set up the first real “whoa” moment of the show’s fifth and final season, but we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s consider that just before cutting to the title sequence, a train whistle could be heard in the background, foreshadowing the arrival of the episode’s all-important locomotive. Not to mention that the scene included point of view shots of the dirt bike’s handlebars, later echoed by similar shots of the oncoming train just prior to the robbery (like the one seen above). That’s just damn good directing. And how crazy is it that “Breaking Bad” has so warped my mind that as soon as I saw that innocent child I was positive he would die or be the victim of some horrible fate? I know I’m not alone in that.

Say What You Will Mike, Walt (and Jesse) Might Just be Jesse James

When the commercial break ended, the first scene of the episode showed Walt strolling into DEA headquarters, ostensibly to discuss his marital troubles with Hank. Of course, the truth is that the man we knew as Walter White (you know, this guy) is all but dead. The criminal mastermind Heisenberg is now occupying his body, and it was he who took a page out of Gus Fring’s playbook by walking into the office of the very man hell-bent on finding him out.

Mike may not be giving Heisenberg enough credit. Walt knew that if he shed a few fake tears, Hank would duck out to avoid the perceived awkwardness of a man displaying outward emotion. As soon as he’s out of the room, Walt’s pushing wires into Hank’s computer. Then, in another moment of foreshadowing, he’s still struggling to plant a bug behind a photograph as Hank’s walking through the doorway, completing the task just in time to make it look as if he’s studying the picture—a symbol of Hank’s “perfect” marriage—and yearning for better days with his own wife. Heisenberg is a man who refuses to let the unforeseen hiccups of reality disturb his perfectly thought out plans, whether that means planting the bug in the nick of time or refusing to stop the train robbery before he gets exactly the 1,000 gallons he set out to obtain. Ah yes, the 1,000 gallons of methylamine, that whole train robbery thing, let’s talk about that.

We’ve heard the name Jesse James thrown around more than a few times this season. So when our favorite meth-making trio make the decision to rob a train, it’s almost expected. Almost. I mean, of course that’s what Heisenberg would do. After all, he fancies himself quite the criminal mastermind. He’s Don Vito, Jesse James, and a Nobel-level chemist all wrapped into one. He’s invincible, or so he thinks. Last week, he made it clear that nothing would stop the train that is their production and distribution of methamphetamine, and this week, we found out that meant not even literally stopping a train.

But this time, it’s one Jesse Pinkman who perfects the plan for the Great Train Robbery of the 21st century. Jesse might be the only one who’s thinking clearly at this point, and he’s the closest thing to a moral center “Breaking Bad” has left. He’s got more cash than he knows what to do with, while Mike needs the money to keep flowing so he can pay off his “guys” and maybe even have a few dollars left for his beloved granddaughter. And Walt, as we find out in the promo for next week’s episode, is “in the empire business.”

Mike insists that there are only two kind of heists: “those where the guys get away with it, and those that leave witnesses.” Not wanting to kill two innocent men, he suggests switching back to cooking with pseudophedrine. Walt shuts that plan, and though he doesn’t come out and say it, we already know he isn’t afraid to sacrifice a life or seven. It’s Jesse who finds a way for them to have their cake and eat it too.

The plan is this: take just one of the 24 thousand gallons of methylamine in the train’s tank and replace it with a slightly smaller amount of water (because it’s heavier). No one at the train depot will be any the wiser, because the weight will be the same. When the folks at Madrigal do eventually notice the chemical is diluted by 4 percent, they’ll blame their Chinese suppliers. The prospect of the train having been robbed will never even cross their minds. As Todd points out “you guys thought of everything.”

It all goes almost perfectly. There’s just one problem that couldn’t possibly have been planned for, a nice man with a pick-up truck rolling up and offering to bump the truck they’ve got blocking the tracks out of the way. As mentioned, Walt refuses to let something as fickle as reality interfere with his plans, so Jesse ends up lying below the tracks as the train passes overhead, and Todd is forced to jump off as it moves. It’s all very close, but the team pulls it off and Jesse lets out a triumphant “yeah, bitch.”

Everything’s perfect. That is, until the Chekov’s Gun that is the boy from the cold open reappears, and Todd well, Todd follows orders. Recall what Jesse said when he explained the plan, “Boosting methylamine from a train is like a major rap. The point is no one other than us can ever know that this robbery went down. Nobody. You got it?” Todd responds in the affirmative, and when Walt asks if he’s sure, Todd responds “Yes sir.” And let’s not forget Mike’s orders when the insect guys first got involved in the meth game, speak only when spoken to and say only “yes sir” or ” no sir.” It seems Todd’s something of an upstart. He’s the guy who noticed and shut off the nanny cam the first time Walt and Jesse cooked inside a fumigated house. When that kid showed up, he probably thought he’d get a pat on the back for his quick thinking. That won’t be the case.

Children have always been Jesse’s biggest weak spot. He freaked out when Gus had kids involved in street level dealing. He freaked out when he figured out that Walt poisoned Brock, although Walt convinced him otherwise, because “everybody sounds like Meryl Streep with a gun to their head.” And now, Todd’s gone and shot an innocent child who just so happened to witness the gang celebrating a successful robbery. Oh, and it’s no coincidence that innocent child bore a striking resemblance to Jesse’s younger brother.

Since Mike decided he wanted in on the new enterprise, he and Walt have been at odds. That whole time, Jesse’s been caught in the middle, trying (and usually succeeding) to get his two father figures to coexist. Now they’ve got blood on their hands—a child’s blood. Next week, Walt and Mike will keep arguing, they’ll all try to figure out what to do about Todd (and the body), and Jesse’s likely to have another one of his breakdowns, which is unfortunate given that up to this point he’s been the most composed member of the team. As Aaron Paul says in the “Inside the Episode” clip below, “next episode, shit hits the fan.”

I can’t wait.

Watch the cast and crew go inside “Dead Freight” below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.

Q: What was it like to go from being a stand-up comic to a tough guy on “Breaking Bad”?

A: I loved it, it was a great opportunity to be on a hot show. There were a lot of directors and they wanted to shoot so many angles — like the scene where I had to take a dump? They made me do seven different takes! They were like, “Do a little more, act like it came out a little more.” I was, like, “Jesus Christ, I’m about to crap on myself!”

Q: What did you think when you showed up on set to find that you were actually one of two comedians playing Saul Goodman’s henchmen?

A: When I walked in and saw Bill Burr (Kuby), I thought it was hilarious. We’ve worked together as comedians, so he laughed and I laughed too. It was so funny that we were playing these guys that were going to scare the hell out of Ted.

Q: Did you get a chance to do stand-up in Albuquerque?

A: No, we didn’t have any time for that. It’s so cloak-and-dagger that you don’t get your script until the night you get there, so after that you’re getting your mind together for the show. Us comedians are very meticulous and we want to do it right on screen, you know, so if I’m choking a guy or whatever, I still want to practice.

Q: What was your prep like for the big scene where Huell and Kuby go to collect from Ted Beneke?

A: I just played intimidating, like my daughter was going on a date with somebody I didn’t know. Or like I was working security and my feet hurt and I didn’t want to be there. I used to be a turnkey in the City of Pagedale Municipal Courthouse, when they’re putting in the prisoners with misdemeanors or traffic tickets or gangster-type folks and all that. So it kind of came naturally.

Q: What’s the secret to looking intimidating?

A: You really gotta look like you got a little bit of gas. Almost like you want to say something real rude but you’re holding it in. It’s not a real grimace — it’s just a state of mind, like you’re looking right behind that person and you’re in another world, where you look like you’re mad but they don’t know if you’re going to kill them or you’re sleeping.

Q: You ever use that look to your benefit in real life?

A: I do it to my 15-month-old son all the time. It works sometimes.

Q: On “Breaking Bad,” which characters crack you up?

A: I always liked Gustavo. He was so cool even to the last drop, when he came out straightened up his tie and fell down. And then my man [Tio] who talks with the bell, that was just genius. He was snitching with his bell, he pissed on the floor — he could do so much without saying anything.

Q: Huell and Kuby are part of Saul Goodman’s “A-Team.” Who from the show would be on your A-team?

A: I like the twins, man. They didn’t say nothing. They were pretty hard. I really like the bad guys so the twins would be on my “A-Team” because ain’t nobody going to be able to mess with me if they’re hanging out with me.

Check out the rest of the interview with Crawford – and other “Breaking Bad” material – over at AMC.com!

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t entirely coincidental. Look, I’ve been smitten with Natalie Zea since she first crossed my radar as part of the cast of ABC’s “Dirty Sexy Money,” and I had the chance to talk to her in a perfectly legitimate capacity. So sue me.

Also, just so it’s out there, I should probably also mention that I sound like a complete doofus a couple of times, responding to her responses by simply saying, “Really?” I’m not usually like that, but, hey, this is what happens when you’re blindsided by a beautiful woman…

Bullz-Eye: So what was it like when the cast gathered back together for the first table read of Season Three?

Natalie Zea: We, uh, don’t do table reads. [Laughs.]

BE: [Surprised.] Really?

NZ: Regretfully. I think they’re very handy. I think it’s that Graham (Yost) is not a fan of table reads. I’m not sure why. So, yeah, you kind of get thrown back into it on the first day. My first scene of Season Three was a love scene. And it’s, like, “Oh, hello, haven’t seen you in six months! How are you doing? Great! Let’s get into bed!” [Laughs.] And then, y’know, after the first 15 minutes, it’s like I never left.

BE: There’s at least a slightly different dynamic with your character this season, owing to her pregnancy, but you indicated during the panel that you’re not planning to play her a whole lot differently.

NZ: No, I’m not. Also, in regards to the pregnancy, what I realized but didn’t say is… We’re not really talking about the pregnancy as much as we are the baby. So I think probably Winona’s pregnancy is going quite well. [Laughs.] She’s having a really easy time of it. Which I like. I think…y’know, if there are concerns with viewers – and I think there would be, given the nature of this show – that it’s going to turn into this, like, “Baby? Pregnancy? I want ice cream and pickles! My feet hurt!” [Laughs.] It’s not happening. The pregnancy almost never gets addressed. But the issues…the outcome and the issues regarding the outcome, those are discussed. Because it’s life. And you have to discuss it.

BE: Speaking of ice cream, that was a great line Raylan had at the end of Season Two. As if anyone would ever believe that he’d settle down and sell ice cream. Ever.

NZ: It could happen… [Laughs.]

BE: Sure. Sure it could. [Laughs.] So when you first started “Justified,” did you get any indication about where your character was going to be going?

NZ: At the very beginning? No. And I was actually somewhat hesitant to take the job because of that, because I had run into a situation where I had been on a show and the character seemed to not quite find its feet, and I didn’t want a repeat of that. Graham was actually very honest with me, though. He said, “Look, I can’t make you any promises, but I can tell you that there’s a reason that we want you on permanently, so you can trust us or you can take a hike, but we really would like to have you.” So, uh, I was in escrow… [Laughs.] And I was, like, “Well, I’m not gonna say no to that!” So I really did sort of jump in quite blindly.

BE: That kind of parallels Anna Gunn’s experiences on “Breaking Bad,” where she wanted to make sure that Skyler White wasn’t just going to be the harried wife, and Vince Gilligan basically assured her, “She’s going to start off in the dark, but eventually she’ll be in on the crime.”

NZ: Right. Because, you know, it’s an archetype that has become… [Sighs.] …troublesome, playing the reactive significant other to the hero just because of the need for dramatic conflict. It happens a lot, and I think actresses – at least the ones who’ve been doing this for awhile – are concerned that they’re going to sort of become that trope. And it’s happened with Winona. At times. I mean, there’s no way for it not to have happened. But it’s something that you try to avoid at all costs, I think.

BE: Sure. But, like, for instance, when the series first kicked off, I think most viewers figured, “Oh, here’s his ex, she’s back in the picture, you just know they’re gonna get back together…”

NZ: Yeah, I mean, I assumed it as well. But I certainly didn’t think it was any kind of guarantee.

BE: I think the most surprising plot development with Winona came last season, when she stole the money.

NZ: And…that was a bit of a misstep, I thought.

BE: Really?

NZ: Yes, because the reason behind all that wasn’t fleshed out enough, only because there was so much else going on. I just think it kind of got lost. And I don’t think I’m telling tales out of school when I say that. I think it just didn’t resonate the way we had intended for it to, because the buildup was…not quite right.

BE: How quickly did you and Timothy Olyphant find your onscreen chemistry?

NZ: [Long pause.] I would say…I mean, I think it’s all subjective, but probably about halfway through the season. I would say “Hatless,” which was Episode Six of the first season, when we got to spend a lot of time together as our characters in the episode. I think that’s when we really locked into the rhythm and sort of began to understand the relationship.

BE: For a second, I thought you were trying to say, “I’d say we have more chemistry when he’s hatless.”

NZ: [Bursts out laughing.] Well, I have to say, I do enjoy him more without the hat. Just because I can see him, you know?

BE: “Justified” obviously has a ridiculously talented writing staff, but have you yourself brought anything specific to the character of Winona?

NZ: For me…as superficial as it might sound, I tend to work from the outside in. Nails are really important for me for any character. The voice is really important for me for any character. And, of course, the hair and the makeup. But I try to take care of what you see, and then I let them sort of take care of what I say and think and feel. [Laughs.] And hopefully the combination makes a fully realized person.

BE: How has it been working with Elmore Leonard?

NZ: I, uh, met him today.

BE: Really? For the first time…?

NZ: Yep. And he was wonderful. [Laughs.]

BE: I know we’re up against the wall, but I attended my first TCA tour when “Dirty Sexy Money” was being presented, so I was just wondering about your thoughts when you look back on that show.

NZ: I have such fond memories. You know, I get approached all the time on the street by such disparate, interesting people – just such a wide array of people – who really seriously lament the fact that that show went too soon. And I have to say, as much as I enjoyed it and as great an experience as it was, I sort of relish it in the fact that it went out on greatness. You know? I think we could’ve done another season. I think after that it would’ve… [Hesitates.] My fear is that it would’ve just gotten to be too much. It would’ve been too over the top, too campy, too ridiculous. So I sort of like that we went out in a blaze of glory. And I loved that character. But I was fine to let her go.

BE: How was the experience of working on “Hung”?

NZ: It was a challenge, I have to say. It was one of the more challenging projects that I’ve worked on. But, conversely, it was also the project that has gotten me the most acclaim in my career. So I guess it was worth it. [Laughs]

BE: Lastly, I can’t remember: did you and Walton Goggins ever have any scenes together during the brief period when you were both appearing on “The Shield”?

NZ: No. In fact, Walton and I have never in our lives ever acted together in the same scene. [Laughs.] We’ve been in the same scene, passing each other, but that’s it!

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.

I don’t mean that as a spoiler. Indeed, when I wrote that sentence, I didn’t know whether I was being facetious or not. I was just playing the odds, baby…and when the first thing we saw this week after the aforementioned warning was a broken pair of glasses and droplets of blood falling onto a hardwood floor and the toe of a shoe, you’ll forgive me if I felt relatively confident that those odds were in my favor. As it turned out, I was right: someone in Gus’s camp did bite the dust. It just wasn’t anyone we particularly cared about. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

Hank is positively giddy at the thought of heading over to Los Pollos Hermanos to pick up the tracking device and see where Gus has been driving for the past week…so giddy, in fact, that he’s crooning Survivor’s signature hit pretty much all the way to the restaurant. Walt, however, is more than a little bit antsy about being on the premises, refusing even to step inside the establishment, telling Hank, “We’ll grab something from the drive-thru.” When they get back to the house and check the device’s history, however, Hank is pissed at the “chicken-slinging son of a bitch,” dismissing Walt’s suggestion that maybe he might be innocent, declaring, “A guy this clean’s got to be dirty.”

Leaving Hank’s house, Walt runs into Gus’s right-hand man and makes the remarkably ballsy decision to call the cops on him right in front of him. Anyone think this is going to come back to bite Walt in the ass? Yeah, me, too. Then when Walt pulls up outside the SuperLab and gets into conversation with Jesse, he endeavors to make small talk, smoking cigarettes and talking “Ice Road Truckers,” though it’s clear the only thing he really wants to know is the status of Operation Fringdown. “Don’t you have enough cancer already?” snaps Jesse. “Look, I said I’d do it. I’ll do it.” “What does it matter?” asks Walt. “We’re both dead men, anyway.”

Skyler’s at the car wash late, doing the books and smiling at the realization that the business is actually on the verge of turning a profit. Calling Walt under the auspices of suggesting that they buy Junior a car for his birthday (this time one that fits more realistic into their present financial scenario), she suggests that maybe he might want to consider an “exit strategy” from his second job. “I’m working on it,” he says. End of conversation. Cue the glance at the tracking device sitting on his bedside table, which, come the morning, is out of its packaging and…well, we’ll get to that. For the moment, let’s just focus on the freakout Walt has when Hank calls him up and asks him to give him a ride over to Los Pollos Hermanos’ distribution center, a.k.a. the home of the SuperLab. It’s a testament to how thrown Walt is that the best excuse he can come up is to follow Hank’s theory and say that, yes, in fact, he is taking a dump. Explosive upset stomach, courtesy of Tex-Mex cuisine. “I get it, you don’t have to paint me a picture,” says Hank, with a cringe in his voice. Panicked, Walt nonetheless manages to talk Hank down from getting another ride, convincing him to wait until his stomach is in better shape, then calls Mike to warn him. He gets hung up on. So that’s how that relationship is going…

Jesse’s found himself on a new task: washing the chicken batter off bags of meth. “Where’s all this going?” he asks, uncertainly. “Elsewhere,” replies the ever-talkative Mike. Fair enough, then. But “elsewhere” is clearly “to the cartel.” Just sayin’.

Meanwhile, Skyler’s continuing to keep up the actual business as well as running through the payment of fake car washes, all the while providing the requisite dialogue as if there were actually customers coming through the line. Whether she’s doing it to make herself feel better or because she thinks she might be bugged, the end result is the same: her ass is more or less covered. But…who’s this walking in the door? Why, as I live and breathe: it’s Ted Beneke! Is this a social call? Far from it: dude’s being audited. Tomorrow. It’s a criminal affair, and he’s looking for help, so who better to ask than the woman whose signature is all over the cooked books? The way she handles the situation is – let’s face it – a little bit sitcom-y, but you can’t argue with success….or the way her breasts were popping out of that top. Where things started to get dodgy, though, was when she learned that Ted couldn’t possibly pay the money he owed the government. Yes, it might keep her out of court to give Ted her ill-begotten funds from the crawlspace, but it’s opening a whole other mess of potential problems.

Jesse’s trying to chat with Mike about whether or not Hank’s going to get whacked, but Jesse won’t shut his mouth and Mike’s just staring blankly at him from the shadows. It honestly sounds like Jesse wants to defend Walt, but in the end, he says, “Who really cares what I think?” As they step outside to start loading up the truck, shit suddenly starts to go down. Time stands still as Jesse realizes that one of his fellow employees has just been shot right in front of him, and he’s literally half a second away from getting shot himself when Mike saves his life with a hard and fast tackle. But just as Mike says, “Get comfortable, kid, we might be here awhile,” Fring steps into the fray, and with bullets zinging by him, he stands fast, staring down the sniper, his eyes ablaze and his arms outstretched, offering a look which can only be described as saying, “You gonna shoot me, motherfucker?” The answer to that question is “no.” The answer to the question that had been asked of Gus by the cartel, however, is “yes.” And what was the question? Well, I wasn’t 100% accurate when I thought that the cartel was after Walt. That was a bit too specific. All they want is the recipe to the meth…and Walt isn’t the only one who has it.

After the nasty incident outside, Mike and Jesse wheel in the body of their deceased co-worker. Walt sneers, “So, what, is this going to be a regular thing now? Meth cooking and corpse disposal?” Mike tells Walt to get a barrel for disposal purposes, adding, “If you ever plan on calling the cops of one of my men again, you go ahead and get two barrels.” D’oh! And Mike’s not done with dispensing advice: to Jesse, he suggests that the next time he’s under fire, he should “move your feet, run and so forth,” and when Jesse asks about Gus’s “Terminator shit” earlier and wants to know if there’s going to be further target practice, Mike’s straightforward response is, “You got questions? Ask ‘em yourself.” So he does, heading over to Gus’s house for dinner, fully prepared with his cigarette of doom. It’s a scene that’s knowingly reminiscent of Walt’s dinner with Gus not so very long ago, except that there is precious little cheer in Gus’s tone tonight. There’s really only one question that Gus has for Jesse: “Can you cook Walter’s formula?” Jesse’s initial claim is that he can’t do it without Walter, and that if he’s going to kill Walt, he’s going to have to kill him, too. That, however, wasn’t exactly what Gus was asking…

As usual, the last few minutes of the episode proved to be wracked with tension. Walt’s been tracking Jesse, so he knows that Jesse’s been to see Gus, and when Jesse calls and asks for a meeting, Walt’s clearly chomping at the bit to nail Jesse for his transgressions. As it happens, however, Jesse’s totally freaking out about this whole cartel situation, now that he’s learned that Gus wants him to go south of the border, down Mexico way, and teach the cartel how to make the meth. Why not send Walt? If you were Gus, would you send Walt? I didn’t think so. As Jesse begs Walt for some sort of assistance, Walt has no concern or remorse, instead just throwing it in Jesse’s face that he knows he’s been to see Gus and has unabashedly chosen not to kill him. Jesse gets pissed that Walt’s been tracking him. Tempers flare. Punches are thrown. It’s an epic battle, one that’s been shaping up all season, but tonight was the night that it finally went down.

“Can you walk?”
“Yeah.”
“Then get the fuck out of here and never come back.”

Is this really the end of the Walt / Jesse partnership? Hard to say with those guys. But the future isn’t exactly looking bright, that’s for sure.