After the way season three of Breaking Bad ended, it almost feels awkward watching season four's much slower pace. The wonderful thing about Breaking Bad is that it can set whatever pace it wants and the quality of the program will not suffer. 'Thirty-eight snub', like 'box cutter' moves slowly, but is developing some key story points for later. One of these points is Walt's continuing character development. Remember in season one how all we wanted was for him to succeed? How bad-ass he looked at times playing the role of his alter-ego 'Heisenberg'? All of that is gone now. He has truly broke bad, and at this point it really is tough to root for him like we once did. Major props have to go to Bryan Cranston for portraying this change of character in Walter White as the series moved along. It really is unbelievable that this guy was once the dad from 'Malcolm in the Middle'.
In this episode we see how Walter is attempting to cope with his current situation, an uneasy relationship with his employer Gus. While the logical thing for him to do would be to just keep cooking and leave it at that (after all, he always wanted a professional relationship in the meth business). However, Walt has his own way of dealing with things and apparently can not co-exist with Gus anymore. Here we are treated to a nice scene portraying how Walt has changed from a moral stand point. Back in season one he flat out refused to commit murder, now? He is buying a gun with no cereal number, intending to use it on Gus. The Breaking Bad staff as usual does a nice job of making the scene feel realistic. I do not know much about buying guns illegally, but what I saw in this episode feels accurate enough. Ultimately Walt does not kill Gus, at least not in this episode, but who knows anymore? The reasons for this can be summed up in two words: intelligence and Mike. Gus is far too intelligent to allow him self to be vulnerable at this point as he has correctly guessed Walt's plan. On the other hand, Mike is way too skilled to let Walt even think of getting within 50 feet of Gus. This combination will make it difficult for Walt to do anything and when he tried to get Mike to betray Gus in this episode, he got a much deserved beating.
While this was happening the best character on the show (in my opinion) Jesse tried to get on with his life. As I continue to write these reviews I will probably overuse the phrase "Aaron Paul is a great actor". It really is amazing to watch his performances in this series. In this episode he ranges from quietly working at the meth lab, to throwing a two-day party at his house, to sharing an emotional moment with Andrea. And the thing is, all of the scenes I just described feel very real. Jesse's character has had the most realistic arc in terms of development and at this point I don't think there is anyone rooting against him. One scene that can not go unmentioned with Jesse was the very last of the episode when he is by himself. He breaks down emotionally and we see that the party and being with people kept him together. Granted, I would be pretty depressed too if my only friends were skinny Pete and Badger (who has the most annoying voice I've ever heard) but when we really look at things Jesse's life really sucks right now. He has no true friends, he has to cook meth to stay alive, his family shunned him, and his partner is doing him much more harm than good. What I am interested in seeing is what Jesse will do about this, because you can only keep a man down for so long. I trust the Breaking Bad writers to have a plan for him this season other than what we've seen so far and I can't wait to see what it is.
As for the remaining characters we get more of the same. Marie and Hank's relationship is being strained to the point where I honestly believe Marie will throw one of Hank's 'minerals' at him next episode. The acting by Dean Norris and Betsy Brandt is exceptional and feels natural, a credit to them both. We see Hank make more progress in his recovery, but it really does feel like he will only be able to get out of bed at the end of this season. This is really a shame because he is such a great character and to waste a season of him just being in bed does not make sense to me. However from a realistic perspective, recovering from the wounds he suffered in 'One Minute' probably takes a long time and the writer's are maintaining the realism. Lastly, the character of Skyler White. Sigh. The main point of her in this episode is to try and buy the car-wash that Walt used to work at. She fails however, when the owner recognizes who she is and says that for Walter White the car wash is $20 million! Clearly that dude holds a serious grudge. Did Skyler tell him they were divorced? Of course not, she just walked out of the room very offended. There is only one thing you have to know about Skyler in this show, and ill elaborate on it now. A friend of mine recently started watching the series and is in the middle of season two. Obviously I was eager to know what he thought of the show so far and I got the usual reactions of "Its great, awesome, etc." His thoughts on Skyler? Here is his exact quote: "The thing is about BB, every scene with Skyler is awful" I could not agree more. She has ran her course as a character and hopefully will join Rita's fate from the Dexter season 4 finale. But that's just me. This episode essentially picked up where the other one ended and continued to calm things down after the storm that was the end of season three. With this calm we get the sense that an even bigger storm is on the horizon and we can only hope that it turns out as good as we hope it will.
Overall Rating for this episode: 7.5/10 If we compare the first two episodes of season 4 to any other episode in the series (except "fly") I do not think they are as good, which really speaks volumes about how great this show is.
Best scene: Jesse's interaction with Andrea, although Mike punching Walt comes close
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