Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Breaking Bad Granite State Recap

tv:  Last weeks episode of Breaking Bad was all about consequences.  It was the consequences of Walt's actions over the last five seasons played out in action.  Hank was shot.  His money was stolen.  He and Skylar had their final confrontation that cut the family to shreds with a knife.  Jesse was forced to live out his life in some sort of meth cooking hostage purgatory.  It was all of what was coming to pass for Walt and those around him as a result of all his horrible acts played out in the worst possible ways.  In Granite State, we were given a different kind of consequence.  We were given emotional consequence.  Gone was the horrifying gut wrenching fights and shootings and kidnappings and in their place were nothing but the faces of those beaten down characters left to stare down the wreckage and wonder how they would go on.
The episode begins with our introduction to the vacuum cleaning company.  While he may not be in any imminent danger, Saul is there to get out of town before it is too late.  This is a wonderful end for Saul who had been saying since the end of season four that it was time to run.  And now he has the right idea.  Just go.  But before he leaves he has to spend a couple of days with his former client.  Walt is still scheming and plotting to kill Jack and Todd and the rest of their family, still clearly in denial of the end of his criminal enterprises.  And even as Saul pleads with him to just give up and leave he refuses.  He even thinks at one point Saul should come with him!  But with a cough that weakens him to his knees he relents and lets Saul go to his Cinnabon future in Nebraska.
The episode picks up with Marie and Skylar facing their own aftermaths.  Marie is being driven home by a DEA detail.  The plot of the scene is centered around the fact that Jack stole Jesse's confession DVD from Marie's house in order to see if the DEA knows about them but the real point is the scene in the car.  It is just silence with the camera as tight on Marie's face as possible.  And as she stares out the windshield all the is on her face is devastation; over the sadness of what happened to her husband and the devastation over the irreparable damage that was done to her's and her sisters family.  Meanwhile Skylar is lost, staring into space as Lawyers are trying to get her to tell them something about the whereabouts of her husband.  That Skylar is telling them the truth when she says she doesn't know anything seems to be an impossibility to those questioning her.  And the blankness on her face as she listens to those around her, distant while she wonders how this became her life, replaying the wreckage, and accepting her fate, having to say over and over to those who will never believe her that she knows nothing about where Walt went should officially end all of the Skylar hate out there as she oozes sympathy and sadness.
From there we jump to our first moments with Mr. Lambert.  When the door opens on the truck and our vacuum cleaner, played with brilliant restraint by Robert Forester, welcomes Walt to his home he covers  his eyes to the blinding reflection off the snow.  I must admit that I live in a place that gets lots of snow during the winter and even I felt the need to shade my eyes after having adjusted to the stark heat of the New Mexico Desert.  Walt is told that he is not allowed to leave his new home for fear of being recognized.  But as soon as he is left to his own devices he dons the black hat and walks up to the road.  With a brutal cough he stares down the road and decides tomorrow would be better.  When the vacuum cleaner returns a month later Walt is frail, sick, and losing his sight.  And as he finds his new glasses with his beard and head of hair we seem him become the Mr. Lambert we have seen.  He is brought his chemo by a man who he pays fifty thousand dollars to do so.  And then he seems to get it.  He realizes that this is fate: a sick man that will die alone.  And in a moment of desperation pays ten extra thousand dollars to have him stay for an hour.  Desperation is no longer a plan to fight enemies.  It is a plea to not be miserable.  Walt's final blow to his hope is when he asks if his money will be taken back to his family when he dies.  The answer is blunt no from the man who is feeding him his treatment and playing cards with him because he was payed to act like a friend.
There is not enough that can be said about Bryan Cranston in the scenes in Vermont.  While the superlatives are running out for how great he has been throughout Breaking Bad, watching him transform over the course of those scenes from the man we knew to a broken and ruined and sick man were just beautiful.  And while there has been plenty said of Cranston's brilliance as Walt, I feel like with so little time left to talk about it, finding standout moments to mention should be relished and talked about.  He is and will forever be on the Mount Rushmore of TV actors.
Once Walt settled in for a slow and sad end to his story, Jesse was turned to.  And of course his moment was maybe the worst.  Jesse was still fighting, trying to find an escape from Jack and Todd.  What he gets for his trouble is a batch of meth good enough that he is expected to stay a captive as long as there is material to use for cooking along with his punishment for an attempted escape.  That punishment was to was Andrea get unceremoniously killed.  There was no sound of the gun, no close up, no tears, and only same charm from Todd there always is.  The loudest thing in that scene was Jesse's head banging against the car door window.  And while it may not have been as bloody or internet-rage-inducing as something like the Red Wedding, it was at least as swift and brutal if not more so.  Just a quiet puff of red from the distance.
The episode ends with Walt taking what we think will be his final step towards contrition before he dies.  When he wakes up to find out he has become so frail his wedding ring won't even stay on his finger anymore he packs the only box he has left with money to send back to his family and finally leaves the reservation.  He doesn't care, he's dying.  He smartly addresses it to Lewis, Flynn's bff and calls to let Flynn know that it is coming.  Instead of the thanks Walt was expecting for the money and the hope from his son that he was OK, all he gets is "You're an asshole!" and "Go to hell!"  After a brief fight for the idea that what he is doing is right, Walt gives up.  And in a season full of phone calls he makes a last one.  He calls the DEA to turn himself in.  While waiting for his escort back to Alberquerque he decides to have a drink and watch some TV.  Big mistake.  Walt comes across an interview with his former Grey Matter partners about their association with him.  They explain that Walt contributed very little to the company besides its name, which we know is a lie from that arc back in the first season where Walt is pushed out of the company despite the fact that his research was the basis for their work.  They also talk about the fact that his blue meth is still being made.  This may have been the saddest moment of a very sad episode.  We have known for a while now that Walt would leave then eventually go back.  I always assumed that is would be because Walt gained some knowledge of a catastrophe that he had to go back to deal with.  But as we watched his face twist and tighten with hatred over what he was watching, we realize that it is something far worse and sad than that.  He is being driven back by the same thing that forced him to begin cooking meth in the first place.  After doing great work in his field, then chemistry and now drug manufacturing, he is now being forced to sit around and watch people belittle his talent and take credit for his work.  And that resentment towards those doing it and the ego to prove them wrong drives him back home.  Not the need to save Jesse or settle a score with Todd and Jack, but his ego and insecurities.  Maybe he is still the same pathetic guy he was in the beginning.  And in that moment we see what was said on TV.  We watched Walter White die.  And Now only Heisenberg is left to head back home to meet his own end.
And now we come to it.  The final episode of this great show is airing Sunday.  Predictions are flying everywhere about who will live and who will die.  I am willing to admit that I have no clue.  But there are two things we know that have to play into our expectations.  The first is our villains.  While Gus Fring may have been the best and most interesting villain on the show, no one has been as ruthless as Todd and Jack.  Between them and Lydia, whose concerns about Skylar should not be taken lightly after the nine man hit she put out in the Madrigal episode to keep herself out of jail, we know that these are people ready and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure they're the last ones standing.  The second is that Vince Gilligan has spent the season setting us up for this by showing us eight of the most emotionally difficult hours of television we've ever seen.  The question of who dies and who lives may not even be important since based on what we've seen we know that it is just going to be awful to watch.  So sit back, relax and brace yourselves for the end of one of the best shows ever made.  Oh, and call your therapist.  You will probably need them.

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