WARNING: Full Spoilers Ahead.
Breaking Bad continues to impress after its slow start to the season. Last week offered us a background episode on the show’s most secretive character, Gus, and gave us insight on why he’s such a badass and why he despises the cartel. In the latest episode, titled “Bug”, we were back on track with the current story. The title may sound familiar to the bottle neck episode (one with a lower budget) in season 3, “Fly”, and whether you hated or loved that episode, you should know that this episode is nothing like it. In that episode, Walt and Jesse were trapped inside their lab for the whole episode trying to catch a fly so that it does not contaminate their product (you can see how that episode could deal with a lower budget). In “Bug”, there is a lot of violence, a lot more blood, and it is overall a much better episode.
Walter’s role in the series has somewhat diminished recent episodes. He is no longer the big man, feeling in control of the situation or feeling like he can even do something about it. He has only a few scenes in this episode, with the final one being the most entertaining. He’s still scared to death about Gus killing him off and knows not what to do except for continually asking Jesse if he’s slipped Gus the poison he synthesized in the lab. He’s becoming increasingly annoying and I’m starting to feel worse and worse for Jesse. He’s putting a lot of pressure on Jesse to kill Gus, while Jesse, besides helping Walt cook, is constantly doing jobs with Mike and becoming more stressed and scared for his life as well. Jesse is also continuing to look for ways to slip Gus the drug without getting himself killed. And he almost gets killed as a sniper from the cartel attacks them, killing one of Gus’s people right in front of Jesse, only to make him remember what he had witnessed when he shot Gale. On top of that, Walt put one of Hank’s tracking devices on Jesse’s car because he was suspicious that Jesse had not yet been able to slip the drug to Gus. It’s really a lot for Jesse to handle and I wouldn’t have reacted any other way than he did at the end of the episode. While Jesse was at Gus’s house, Gus asks him if he can cook Walt’s recipe. We find out that Jesse is still loyal to Walt when he tells Gus that if he intends to get rid of Walt, he might as well get rid of him as well. However, as we find out, Gus’s plan for Jesse is to cook for the cartel because they are clearly too dangerous for Gus’s business and Gus does not want a war to break out. At the end of the episode, Jesse calls Walt to tell him of Gus’s plan and to ask for reassurance. Walt completely ignores him and attacks him for being at Gus’s house without slipping him the drug. When Jesse finds out that Walt bugged his car, he yells out “After all that I’ve done for you?”, and if you think about it, Jesse really has done a lot for Walt, risking his own life for him more than once. I’m glad he attacked Walt, and I’m glad he was the last one to get a punch in, before he told Walt to get out of his house and never come back. I don’t know what’s going to happen with their relationship, but Walt’s actions have really crossed the line and he didn’t deserve any less than what he got.
As a subplot in the episode, I really don’t think they needed to bring Ted, Skylar’s old boss and fuck buddy, back into the show, unless she gets sick of Walt and starting fucking Ted again. Audits are generally not as simple as the show made them seem, but it was nice to see Skylar stepping up and saving someone’s ass yet again (Boy, she really does know how to choose them, doesn’t she?). Just like Jesse, Skylar is struggling because of the faults of others and I can’t not feel bad for her. Usually, her scenes are incredibly boring, but in this episode, it was a nice change to see that even though the character herself is dull, there is some hope that she’ll be able to stop making the show worse.
The show has been moving in a positive direction with the last 6 episodes, and hopefully the season will finish off just as strong as the show prepares itself for a fifth and final season.
Best Scene: Walt’s and Jesse’s confrontation at Jesse’s house.
Score: 9/10
Editor's note: A special thanks to Jovan for filling in on this review and doing a superb job. For more of his work (which primarily focuses on Entertainment) look for him on Twitter @ FunSocialJovan
Nicely done
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