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"Breaking Bad" Recap: "Gliding Over All"

Michael Chasin |
September 3, 2012 | 1:46 p.m. PDT

Contributor

I am Walter White, king of kings. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair. Courtesy AMC.
I am Walter White, king of kings. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair. Courtesy AMC.
The last episode of the year begins with the buzzing of a fly. The Vamanos Pest office, to no great surprise, isn't the purest place around. Walt sits and watches it. For the first time in far too long, he looks genuinely remorseful. And with no one else to blame.

Todd shows up and tells Walt he got rid of the car (thanks to the junkyard guys) and now all that's left is for the two of them to dispose of Mike's body. As they look on the corpse, Walt gives the usual "It had to be done", and it's a good thing Todd has no interest in asking questions, because—while by no means the least deserving of Walt's victims—Mike's death is truly unjustifiable, even by Heisenberg's cold logic.

Jesse chooses that moment to arrive. Thirty seconds later and they would have been stuffing Mike in a barrel. Walt tells him Mike is gone, which of course isn't technically a lie. Now Jesse asks what they're going to do about the nine guys, who now have plenty of incentive to talk. Walt cuts him off. They're not a team anymore; Walt will handle it. He closes the garage door, turning his back on Jesse with an eerie sense of finality.

In the shower, Walt goes for a towel to dry off. His hand passes over Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." Fitting, seeing as this episode's title comes from one of the man's poems.

In jail, Mike's guy with whom we have the most familiarity, Dennis the laundromat manager, tries to work out a deal with Hank, but it's not going too well for him. With eight others plus the lawyer willing to talk, none of them have enough leverage to get anything close to immunity.

Lydia prepares her coffee just the way she likes it when Walt, in full Heisenberg garb, strolls into the restaurant to meet her. He wants the list of names, which currently resides in her head. She doesn't want to turn it over just yet, even though taking care of the men would save them both. She's worried he'll kill her after he gets the names if she's no longer of use. To protect against that, she makes herself useful by offering a new business proposition: They work together to get the blue stuff to the Czech Republic, Europe's most demanding meth market. They've never seen anything like Walt's product. He seems interested, but Lydia keeps pushing. "Learn to take yes for an answer," Walt says, delivering exactly the same advice Mike gave him last season. She gives him the names and they shake on the deal. "We're going to make a lot of money together," she promises, parroting Tuco's promise from so long ago. After she gets up to leave, we see her suspicions were confirmed. Walt had the ricin with him, fully intending to kill Lydia until she proved that she had more to offer.

Back at his house, Walt once again hides the poison behind an electrical outlet. He then calls Todd and says it's time to meet his uncle.

Walt, Todd, and a lot of hard-looking men talk in a motel room. Todd's family and friends work on the logistics of Walt's request: Taking out all nine men in under two minutes. They tell him it'll be tougher than taking out bin Laden (who isn't dead yet according to the in-show timeline, but never mind), but Walt's busy wondering where motel artwork comes from. He's seen this one before (it hung in the hospital after his fugue state in season 2). They ignore him and make it clear that the men can be killed, but not in the way he wants. He switches on Heisenberg and tells them that it can be done exactly how he's requested. The only question is whether they're the men to do it.

At home, Walt clicks his stopwatch and triggers two minutes of bloody and brutal precision as Mike's guys are taken out in a series of grisly assaults culminating with Dennis's immolation after his cell is drenched in lighter fluid. It's all set to Nat King Cole's "Pick Yourself Up," and makes for one of the best, most disturbing montages of the series.

Walt plays with Holly while a newscaster reports on the killings. Marie comes in to turn it off so that Hank doesn't see. He arrives home and offers Walt a drink. Like Mike used to, Walt takes it on the rocks. They sit, and Hank, with a faraway look in his face, talks about the summer job he used to have—tagging trees with a spray can so they could later be cut down. "Tagging trees is a lot better than chasing monsters," he finishes. Walt's only response? "I used to love to go camping."

He bends over and sits up in his yellow cookware, kicking off an even better montage of Walt's thriving empire. He and Todd cook, Todd gives the product to Declan's guys for local distribution, Lydia ships her share to the Czech Republic, Saul gets his cut, Skyler launders the money, and it all runs like clockwork, set to "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by Tommy James and the Shondells. How long have they been sitting on that one, I wonder?

A few months pass without incident, and Holly is learning to walk. Since everything seems fine, Marie wonders if perhaps it's time for the kids to finally go home. "Maybe at this point the best way to repair the family would be to repair the family," she says, and Skyler is clearly considering it.

At the White house, Skyler finds Walt staring out at the pool, bathed in that blue glow. She tells him to take a drive with her. Their destination is a storage shed facility where Skyler rented out a unit to house their funds. They have a massive, rectangular stack of cash. She gave up counting it. It's too much to launder. Tens of millions, at least. More than they could ever spend. Skyler wants the kids back. She wants her life. "How much is enough?" she asks. "How big does this pile have to be?"

In a shot that evokes the pilot, Walt gets scanned for any sign of returning cancer. He looks at himself in the mirror of the hospital bathroom, and we see the very same towel dispenser he bloodied his fist on in "Four Days Out" after learning he was in remission.

At his sad, empty home, a cigarette burns Jesse's fingers, waking him up. Then Walt knocks on the door. Jesse lets him in and they talk about the nine killings. Walt, naturally, said it had to be done. Jesse says he's not coming back, and Walt doesn't expect him to. Then why is he there? Walt recently saw an RV that reminded them of their first lab, and they reminisce about how much trouble it was. Why did they keep it after they started making money? "Inertia," says Walt, answering so very much. As he leaves, he tells Jesse he's left something for him. Jesse retrieves duffle bags of cash from out front, and collapses, relieved. He tosses aside the gun that he had ready, just in case.

Skyler washes dishes when Walt comes up beside her and turns off the faucet. "I'm out," he says. "I'm out." And walks away. She looks truly hopeful.

In the Whites' backyard, Junior pushes Holly around the pool while Marie and Skyler discuss their hair and Walt and Hank talk about the mineral collection and Hank's home-brewed beer. A sense of normalcy and peace truly seems to have returned. In a different world, this could be the last scene of the series. If paths weren't set. If there weren't consequences. If it was possible that this story could have something like a happy ending.

Instead, Hank excuses himself to go to the bathroom. He sits on the toilet and grabs something to read: Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." Inside, there's a note of gratitude written to "W.W." from "G.B." Hank flashes back to the conversation he had with Walt about Gale, Whitman, and those initials. Shock and clarity wash over his face

With eight episodes left, Hank finally knows the truth.

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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