(This piece was originally published on Chud.com)
No one does cold opens like Breaking Bad. Not The Shield. Not Lost. Not Buffy. Not The Wire. Those all did them well, don’t get me wrong. But we never know what we’re going to get from the opening of a BB
episode. It could be a flashback. It could be a flashforward, either
to the episode’s climax or the end of the season. It could be a brief,
impressionistic image foreshadowing something indeterminately awful. It
could be a video for a Spanish-language drug ballad. Often times it’s
more like a conceptual teaser trailer for what is to come than the
actual beginning of a story. But it’s pretty much guaranteed to be
striking and ominous and to have me muttering “oooohshit…” when the
smoke and periodic table and western guitar music comes up.
The opening of “Live Free Or Die” certainly lives up to this
tradition. Much like season 2, we are catching a glimpse of a grim
future, but we have a lot more concrete facts to go on than when we were
just seeing charred stuffed animals floating in a pool. We are roughly
one year from the “present day”, based on Walt’s 50th birthday being in
the pilot (where one of our first scenes had Skyler presenting him with
his veggie bacon arranged in a “50” shape) and him talking about having
been doing this for a year at the end of last season. We see that he
has grown a full beard and head of hair, suggesting that it’s been some
time since he was riding high as Heisenberg. This assumption is
bolstered by the fact that he seems to have actually driven in from New
Hampshire; his car has plates sporting the state’s famous motto, and he
doesn’t seem to be reaching for a story when he responds that it takes
30 hours driving with no stops.
And less tangibly, but significantly, observe Cranston’s body
language. He looks worn down, resigned, but not sickly to the point of
being physically infirm. Walt carries himself completely differently
after embracing the Heisenberg persona than he did in the first season,
but this is a completely new bearing for our man. I’d like to watch it
again to try to articulate exactly what he was doing, but I don’t have a
DVR, so suffice to say that I was left with the impression that
whatever failure or defeat has knocked Walt from the saddle he’s riding
in throughout the episode proper, it occurred a good while before the
Denny’s scene.
My guess at this point? When the cartel and/or DEA heat comes
bearing down on the Heisenpire over the next 8-16 episodes, Walt decides
to call up that vacuum cleaner salesman that Saul turned him on to. He
converts the Whites (or what’s left of them…) to the Lamberts and sets
them up with a new life in sunny NH. With the clock on his cancer
running out, Walt decides to come back to the ABQ to help Jesse out of
one last jam and check out in proper Scarface fashion.
Furthermore, I believe this plan will go off exactly as planned, with no
collateral damage, and Walt and Jesse will ride off into the sunset as
noble outlaws, because I’ve been watching this show carefully for
several years and have a pretty good bead on its M.O. at this point.
Okay, 1000 words or so in, maybe time to move past the opening
credits. I’ll move through this quicker, as brevity is the soul of wit
(or so some old British pervert says), and this is actually a fairly
mellow episode of BB, despite including the boys’ biggest caper yet. By BB
standards, it’s a light-hearted romp, with absolutely no intentional
harm to the well-being of innocents. Which is not to say it is not
incredibly destructive, dangerous, and damaging to the well-being of the
entirety of Albuquerque, but we grade on a curve these days.
Point being, the stakes, while ostensibly life and death for our
leads, never feel as tense as something like the Winnebago scene in
“Sunset” or even Hank interrogating Jesse in “Bit By A Dead Bee”. Part
of that comes from knowing that it’s the season premiere and the guys
will definitely be getting at least a temporary reprieve, but mostly I
think it comes down to Walt’s cocky attitude. “Box Cutter” was a season
premiere too, but Cranston’s palpable desperation in the superlab sold
that as a legitimately harrowing experience. But with where the
character is at now, it doesn’t make sense for Walt to be a ball of
frayed nerves even while carrying out an electro-magnetic assault on a
police station that I fully expect to reenact beat-for-beat as a mission
in Grand Theft Auto V.
Which brings us to the most distinctive aspect of this premiere, that
for the first time we’re starting the season with Walter in triumph.
The arc of previous years has always had Walt slowly embracing the
badass Heisenberg persona, but then the next season has to quickly
humble him so he can go through a similar transformation over the next
12 episodes. Heisenberg makes his first appearance in “Crazy Handful of
Nuthin”, but the following episode makes it clear that his chemistry
sneak attack has not given him the upper hand in dealing with Tuco. In
season 2, he enjoys his time as a drug lord, has his “stay out of my
territory” moment and becomes a millionaire, but in the end his minions
are dispersed, his partner is catatonic, his wife takes his children
away from him and his pool is befouled by Insta-Karma Brand’s patented
Accusatory Stuffed Animal Eyeballs (give me a drowned opossum any day of
the week). He spends several episodes in season 3 denying that he’s a
criminal and refusing to cook, but of course by the end he’s capping
dealers in the head and out-maneuvering Mike and Victor. Then Gus
quickly brings the hammer down and Walt spends the majority of 4
impotently rattling the bars of the cage the Chicken Man has
constructed.
This year looks to be very different. Rather than immediately
knocking Walt down a peg so he can spend the year transitioning from a
reactive role to a more assertive one, we have him in Heisenberg mode
from the get-go, with the cold open to suggest that we will be seeing an
opposite trajectory. It seems that we will be going from a premiere
with Walt as a crime boss smugly in control of his little empire to a
finale where he is a beaten down, desperate shell. Conjecture? Sure,
but again, the way he carries himself and looks at that machine gun does
not look to me like a guy slotting one piece into some brilliant master
plan. It looks like a guy who has already checked out.
Also starting off the season in the catbird seat? Hank, who barely
appears, but does look more mobile than we last saw him. Which is
fitting, since it was clear all along that at least a portion of his
difficult recovery was psychosomatic. I’m very interested in where they
take Hank in the home stretch, as his character is the one whose
handling I’ve most been impressed with over the years. I didn’t find
space in the previous season reviews to mention how brilliantly the show
has positioned Hank, so let’s do that now.
Hank’s an incredibly difficult character to handle properly in
concept, as his story potential seems major but limited. It ratchets up
the tension to have him be the one chasing Heisenberg, but if he ever
actually figures out the truth then the entire show comes crashing
down. But the longer he can’t figure it out, the more he loses potency
as a threat and becomes Wile E. Coyote. How is it that we still view
him as a credible lawman after 5 years of failing to see what’s right
under his nose?
A few ways. For starters, he’s come out on top of the two biggest
shootouts in the show’s run, taking out 2 of the biggest 3 threats to
ever come at our heroes in the process. It doesn’t hurt our ability to
take him seriously to see that when it’s time to showdown, the man can
handle himself. But mainly, the show has been great at finding ways for
him to be good at his job without actually accomplishing his primary
goal.
It does this by making the rest of the DEA much more credulous about
all the smokescreens the meth-makers have thrown up, so that he has
spent most of the series running his investigation all on his own. His
having to drag his colleagues kicking and screaming along for the blue
meth ride makes his constantly coming up just a little short much less
damning of his capabilities. Basically, the show won’t ever let him win, but it always allows him to be right.
Most excitingly for this year, we’ve reached a point where the DEA has
no choice but to recognize that this Cassandra in their midst has been
proven completely correct about every “wild hunch” they have dismissed
over the previous year. He didn’t buy that the guy they sent to jail as
Heisenberg in S2 was the real deal, and he was right. Excuse or no, he
was right about the blue coming back to ABQ in S3, and while his
assault on Jesse created a legal clusterfuck for the department, the
fact that the Marie misdirection occurred at all strongly suggests that
he is involved in some fairly high-level dirt. And of course, Gustavo
has been posthumously outed as the biggest meth dealer west of the
Rockies. I have a hard time seeing Gomey or Colonel Saltstache
poo-pooing any of Hank’s hunches this year. It just remains to be seen
what that will be now that the laptop is trashed.
Is it Sunday yet? Is it? Now? What about now? Huh? Man.
….Now?
Estimated Profits: $400,000 ahead. But Walt says he
doesn’t have any cash for a magnet? Of course, he’s probably lying,
because he’s a lying liar what lies at midnight and also before and
after. But he may have been hit harder by S4’s expenses than I
estimated. Let’s say $200,000 ahead.
Murders – Emilio, Krazy 8, Jane, two of Gus’s dealers, Gale, Gus, Tyrus, Hector “Tio” Salamanca, two other Fring goons
Lesser Included Offenses - Possession of illegal
firearms, breaking and entering (police station), obstruction of justice
(normally I don’t list stuff like evidence tampering, but in this case
they screwed up all kinds of cases that don’t have anything to do with
them)
Collateral Damage – One innocent janitor loses his
job and goes to jail on a bullshit marijuana charge. Hank had to kill a
guy, even if he was an insane, degenerate piece of filth who deserved
to die, giving him fairly severe PTSD. Combo was killed dealing for
Walt. Jane’s father’s life is utterly ruined. 167 passengers on two
planes are dead. Skyler is forced to become an accessory after the fact
(or take down her son, sister and brother-in-law with Walt). 3 broken
Pontiac Aztek windshields. Jesse’s RV is destroyed (I’m actually
suprised how sad I was to see it go, since it’s not like it hosted a ton
of good times or anything). On their mission to kill Heisenberg, the
Cousins kill 9 illegal immigrants and their coyote, an old woman with a
handicap-accessible van, a grocery-shopping bystander, an Indian woman
and the Reservation sheriff that investigates. Also they shoot Hank
multiple times, forcing him through a long, painful physical therapy
process. Andrea’s kid brother is murdered by Gus’s dealers due to
trouble Jesse and Walt stirred up. Jesse murders Gale, crushing him
with guilt and destroying his hard-fought sobriety. Gus murders Victor
to send a message to Walt and Jesse. Three Honduran workers get
deported (or maybe worse). Walt purposefully wrecks a car, straining an
already-injured Hank’s neck in an unspecified fashion. Ted Beneke
breaks his neck fleeing from Heisenpire goons. Brock is poisoned and
nearly dies. Tio blows himself up, but no one’s weeping for that
vicious old fucker. The staff of an industrial laundry is out of their
jobs. Dozens (hundreds?) of criminal prosecutions are compromised when the guys wreck the APD evidence locker.
Heisenberg Certainty Principle - “We’re done, when I say we’re done.”
Best Lie – Mike impersonating a US Postal inspector while talking to the cops.
The Erlenmeyer Flask Is Mightier – The boys improvise a giant magnet device to wreck up the evidence room from outside.
Official Walter Jr. Breakfast Count: 13 (“Pilot”,
“Cat’s In The Bag”, “Gray Matter”, “Crazy Handful of Nothin”, “Down”,
“Negro y Azul”, “Over” x2, “ABQ”, “No Mas”, “Green Light”, “Cornered”,
“Salud”)
We Are Done, Professionally – Both Mike and Saul attempt to extricate themselves from dealing with Walt. Both fail to do so.
It’s The Little Things – Walt and Horace Shapiro,
Landfill Attorney* assuming that Jesse has a cock ring. Mike named his
favorite Mexican chicken Wendell (for some reason, this is funnier than
if he had given them Hispanic names). “Yeah, bitch! MAGNETS!!!”
*I’m sure that the character has an actual name. Just as I am sure that name will never appear in this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment