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"Breaking Bad" Recap: "Buyout"

Michael Chasin |
August 20, 2012 | 3:59 p.m. PDT

Contributor

After fifty-two episodes, Jesse finally makes it inside the White house. Cue awkwardness. Courtesy AMC.
After fifty-two episodes, Jesse finally makes it inside the White house. Cue awkwardness. Courtesy AMC.
We open on an appropriately somber and disturbing montage of Walt, Jesse, Todd, and Mike disassembling the motor bike of the murdered boy so that they can dispose of the evidence in an all-too familiar barrel of acid. No one speaks, because there's nothing to say. They ready a second barrel for the boy himself.

Outside, Todd joins Jesse for a smoke. He tries to make small talk, but when he flippantly brushes off his slaying of the child, Jesse punches him.

Todd tries to defend his actions to his three bosses. He thinks he did what was absolutely necessary, and though he didn't want to do it, he thinks it was the right call. Jesse obviously disagrees, but Todd stands by his decision. He did what was best for the team, and he would do it again. Walt asks him to wait outside, and Todd makes it clear how much he wants to be a part of the business, saying he's motivated and has an uncle with some sort of prison connection.

Jesse immediately calls Todd out as a psychopath (fantastical referring to him as Ricky Hitler), but Walt thinks there was certainly an argument to be made for killing the kid, though he doesn't say this explicitly. The bottom line is, they have three options: Fire Todd, kill him, or keep him on the team. The third option is the simplest, and the one Walt and Mike vote for. Sorry Jesse, but democracy can't work for everyone all the time.

Mike gives Todd the good news, but makes sure to shove him against a wall and tell him exactly how unpleasant things will get if he ever repeats the mistake of bringing a gun to a job without permission. Todd goes to his car to leave, and we see he's kept the kid's tarantula. How sentimental.

Gomez and another DEA agent stake out Mike and his granddaughter at the park. Mike scribbles something on a note and stashes it under a trash can before leaving. There's no one else around, so Gomez goes to retrieve it. It's a simple "F--k You." And AMC even blurred it, because this is a family show.

Mike listens in on Hank's office, and confirms the DEA has no intention of halting their surveillance on him until they get some solid evidence.

At Marie's, Skyler holds Holly and lies to her sister about making progress in therapy. She then starts crying over how much she misses the kids, and Marie of course tells her that she can take them back home at a moment's notice. That simply won't do, though. The kids aren't safe. Naturally, Skyler can't elaborate, and she alludes to horrible things that she can never speak of. Marie reveals that she's perfectly aware of the affair with Ted, which she thinks Skyler needs to forgive herself for. Skyler takes the out, and pretends that this "confession" has made her feel better.

In a tented house, Walt and Jesse watch How it's Made while they wait to continue manufacturing their own specialty product. Just when it's time to keep cooking, Jesse switches over to a news report on the missing boy (14-year-old Drew Sharp) and wallows in his misery. Walt tells him nothing can change what happened, and that he hasn't been able to sleep the past few nights himself. But now they're finally self-sufficient. They have to keep their heads down, keep working, and make sure that this sort of thing never happens again. Walt offers to finish the batch while Jesse takes the rest of the day off. The way he whistles while he works makes it abundantly clear that he hasn't lost a minute of sleep.

Walt arrives at Vamanos Pest to drop off the batch, and finds Mike and Jesse waiting for him. Mike divulges that the DEA has been tailing him, which Walt is none too pleased about. They both know it can't go on. Mike is out, which Walt immediately agrees is the right decision. But then comes the real bombshell: Jesse is out too. He's had enough. Mike has a connection who will pay five million to each of them for their shares of the methylamine. He'll pay off his guys in lock-up, taking care of the legacy costs, and Jesse will go his own way as well. Walt sees this as selling to his competitors, and can't believe Jesse would give it all away for so little. The methylamine is worth nearly $300 million when cooked, but Jesse points out that the five million would be more money than he's ever seen. Are they in the meth business or the money business?

Out in the desert, Mike and Jesse meet with their contact, a man by the name of Declan. He's willing to pay ten million for their 666 gallons of methylamine, provided "Fring's blue" will be off the streets for good. But they can't promise that as long as Walt plans to keep cooking. The new offer, then: $15 million for the thousand gallons, or no deal at all.

Jesse calls Walt to talk, and Walt invites him to his house, of all places. Jesse tells him the situation, and Walt refuses the offer again, to no one's surprise. Jesse tries to reason with him. They would never have to kill anyone again. Walt would have all the money he needed—more than he ever thought he'd have when he started out. He could spend time with his family. But to Walt, this would just be selling out. He won't throw the business away for what he calls nothing. When Jesse says $5 million isn't nothing, Walt tells him the story of Gray Matter, the company he started with Gretchen and Elliott that hasn't been mentioned for seasons. When some sort of love triangle-type fallout happened between the three of them, Walt took a $5,000 buyout and left the company. It's now worth 2.16 billion. Walt checks the net worth every week. That was his potential. His children's' birthright. He's not in the meth business or the money business anymore. He's in the empire business, and he won't give it up for anything. So nice to hear him finally admit it. Just as Jesse asks whether a meth empire is really something to be proud of, Skyler returns home and sees Jesse for the first time in four seasons. Understandably, he tries to leave, but Walt insists he stay for dinner. Well this should be good.

Jesse does his best to compliment the cooking, but Skyler shoots him down when she tells him the green beans he's lauding are from the Albertson's deli. She pours herself a huge glass of wine while Jesse laments the disparity between the pictures on frozen food boxes and the actual product. No response, so he compliments her on the car wash. Skyler wants to know what Walt has told him about her. Good things, he says, but they don't usually get too personal. She asks Walt if he told Jesse about the affair, prompting Jesse to dive into his glass of water like he's just spent a few weeks wandering the Gobi desert. Skyler leaves (taking the wine) and Walt reveals that the kids are gone and his wife wants the cancer to come back. The business is all he has left.

Walt arrives at the headquarters to move the methylamine, but Mike is there waiting for him. The deal goes down tomorrow, no matter what. They're going to stay at the office all night and make sure Walt doesn't put a stop to that. Walt offers Mike double the money to let him cook it, but he shrugs away the offer. "You know I have never seen anybody work so hard not to get five million dollars." He refuses to listen to anymore, and has Walter sit down.

The next morning, Mike has some business to take care of before the deal, but obviously Walt can't be trusted. Mike cuffs him to the radiator and actually apologizes before leaving. Sure enough, Walt immediately tries to break free, and eventually succeeds by stripping a wire and using it to burn through his restraint, horribly charring his wrist in the process. At least no one can question his commitment.

At the DEA, Hank and Gomez meet with Mike and his esteemed lawyer (been a while, Saul), who managed to get a temporary restraining order to keep the police off of Mike. It should only hold up for about a day, but that's all he needs.

Or it was. Mike arrives back at Vamanos to find Walt has made the methylamine disappear. He comes closer than ever to blowing Walt's brains out, but Jesse manages to hold him off once again. Walt's got a plan, and apparently it's a good one. They'll each get their five million, and he'll gets his methylamine. "Everybody wins."

Follow Michael on twitter, check out his blog Story is God for more on all things fictional, or reach him at mchasin@usc.edu.



 

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