Breaking Bad Countdown: Season 5, Ep. 12 – “Rabid Dog”
This is an episode recap by Thought Pollution writers Colin Neagle and Liam Green.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
Walt and Jesse’s relationship has finally caught up with them. We’ve all known this would happen, for at least a couple seasons. All along, particularly at the close of last week’s episode, Jesse and Walt seemed destined for an explosive, violent collision. I predicted it in print, and I was dead wrong.
The Breaking Bad writing crew knew this, and teased us with this expectation in this week’s cold open – Walt creeping around with a gun drawn, turning and pointing it in anticipation of Jesse, and finding nothing but strange evidence of an apparent change of heart.
So, the final showdown between Walter and Jesse will be more deliberate and carefully planned than it seemed. This was almost disappointing, learning that we would neither get to see Jesse set fire to Walter’s house nor Walter bust in and murder him. I wanted to see this, at least, because I knew it would be the most devastating thing Walter could do. As much as he’s manipulated and demeaned Jesse, Walt’s proud of what he’s done with him – civilizing the drug addicted lost-cause from his classroom and turning him into a success – relatively speaking. He even called his own son Jesse once. This week, we saw just how painful it would be if Walter were forced to murder Jesse like some uncontrollable rabid dog (get it? you guys? get it?).
What’s interesting is how Jesse and Walt have changed roles in their relationship, now that the biggest secret between the two – Brock’s poisoning – is out. Walter is Jesse’s biggest advocate, even though he has every reason to dispose of him. Just days ago, he was pushing a relatively harmless Jesse into a new life, effectively killing him without actually doing so. Now Walter can’t even consider committing that murder, for which Skyler made a sound argument when she said, a la a wearier Lady Macbeth, “What’s one more?”
Considering the theory that the term “breaking bad” applies to everyone Walter loves, remember that the last time Skyler inferred that her family was in danger (when she was in the dark about Gus Fring), she freaked out and demanded that Walter run to witness protection. She was rebuffed, at the time, by Walt’s show of bravado in the “one who knocks” scene.
Now, she’s demanding Walter actually prove that he is “the danger.” In this final run of episodes, Skyler has been warming to crime – she smiled coyly at the idea of buying another car-wash to launder her incalculable pile of money, and she took it upon herself to bully Lydia away from her husband. Skyler seems, ironically enough, quite willing to commit whatever atrocity it takes to ensure Walter’s crimes remain in the past.
A similar claim can be made about Hank and Marie. The former thinks death would be “getting off easy” for Walter, but doesn’t bat an eye at the thought of letting Jesse get murdered in his wired-up meeting at Albuquerque City Plaza (in a brief but wonderfully tense, 70s-thriller-indebted) if it gives Hank leverage to nail Heisenberg. The latter, meanwhile, is fantasizing about poisoning Walter, and says so to her psychiatrist. That’s really the only reason to include that scene with Marie – to show that even she’s been corrupted, to some extent, by this ordeal.
Walter has actually been the most resistant to crime in Breaking Bad’s final chapters. He was incredulous at Saul’s suggestion that he send Hank “to Belize,” and could hardly process Skyler’s exhortations that he clip Jesse. It wasn’t strange that Walt refused to murder Hank. Even though Walter had ordered the butchery of 10 men in prison not so long ago, it was explicable. “Hank is family,” Walt insisted, and family is his stated reason for having done all this.
But, Walter was almost offended when Skyler demanded that he murder Jesse, even though Jesse had just stormed through his family’s home with gasoline and a lighter. Here’s a question – if Walt had been home one night, as a random meth-head broke in and tried to set the house on fire, would he think twice before killing him?
Of course not.
So, the plot was orchestrated to ensure that he didn’t. Walt insists that he’s only ever committed justified murders. He’d convince himself and Jesse that there was no other way. And, every time he went through with such acts, he’d convince himself and Jesse that nobody else would suffer after this last felony. Every violation and corruption was a means to an end, an end that never seems to come.
Had this week’s episode played out as I expected it to – with Walt murdering Jesse after catching him in the act of arson – Walt could have remained removed from his life of crime. Walt did want Jesse gone at one point, nudging him toward Saul’s hidden-identity service, so he acknowledges that the kid’s a liability. So, if Walt had found himself face-to-face with Jesse in that moment, he would have been able to justify this one last murder, just as he would if a stranger was pouring gas on his living room floor.
Instead, Walter had to painstakingly mull it over, resistant all the way. But he ends up reluctantly bringing Todd and his Aryan connections back into his life. Once again, his back is to a corner. It’s Jesse or him, and nobody else will suffer after this one last transgression. Right?
CRAZY-ASS THEORIES
Colin: I was humbled this week. It didn’t even take two minutes for my bold predictions from last week to be proven wrong. So, this week I’m going to tread lightly (Ha! You get it? We at Thought Pollution love our puns).
Liam: Shit, man, I feel like I got nothin’. I have long-game predictions that might still bear (violently strange) fruit, like, Jesse maybe being the one to end Walt’s life, but that aside…shit! VINCE GILLIGAN, YOU SNEAKY GENIUS.
Colin: I want to talk about two scenes that kind of stuck out this week. First is that psychiatrist appointment with Marie. With just four episodes left after this one, it seems like a strange time to write a lengthy scene just for characterization. Might Marie get violent at some point? Of all the people involved at this point, Marie is the greenest. She’s had a history of psychological problems, and she’s now researching poisons and rambling about how good it feels to think about violence. It would require some fancy writing to work it in, but Marie could become something of a wild card in these final episodes.
Liam: I honestly think that might be a bridge too far. Not a shark-jump, but it’d definitely be a lapse into truly pulpy territory. Marie is fastidious as hell, a periodic shoplifter and a bundle of jangled, anxious nerves, but I don’t see her as capable of actual violence. I could, however, maybe buy her being complicit in some plot to kill Walt without doing any of the legwork herself.
Colin: I think there’s more to that scene between Walt and Walter Jr. at the hotel pool. I know it was meant to remind Walt that he has a biological son, who probably won’t burn down his house. By extension, it greases the wheels for Walt to murder Jesse. But, how did Walter Jr. know his father was sitting there in the middle of the night? What are the odds that they just cross paths? Part of me wishes Skyler was shown lurking around the corner around the end of that scene. Imagine if Skyler had sent Walter Jr. in to give his dad a big hug and implicitly persuade him to murder the criminal son he’d brought in earlier. This could still happen, too – we could have a quick flashback next week, showing that Skyler has become just as manipulative as Walter.
Liam: Interesting idea, and now that the show’s proven its willingness to fuck with structure within episodes – not just in cold opens – I could see that happening. Even if it doesn’t, I definitely think we’re in for a lot more of Skyler smoothing her descent from complicit accompaniment into actual criminality.