What’s worked very well during the past two episodes is the show’s ability to let us not only see but understand and sympathize with opposing points of view.
Last week, it was Walt and Hank, in the wake of Hank’s discovery of Walt’s true identity. Â This week, it was Skyler’s turn – and she made a choice in the seasons-long question of what she would do when forced to make a decision. Â Aside from the cold opening, featuring an old man finding the stacks of cash the guilt-ridden Jesse was tossing from his car followed by Jesse himself lying on a merry-go-around, the episode began where the last one ended. Â It is Hank’s garage, with Walt now standing outside. Â But bluster aside, Walt is in a panic, especially when Hank reaches Skyler before he can and she agrees to meet him alone.
Hank’s meeting with Skyler is a classic miscalculation. Â He presents himself as her knight in shining armor, but instead he blunders through a conversation in which he pushes for an immediate confession without considering that Skyler might not be so eager. Â Hank has a selective memory, recalling Skyler’s walk into the pool and her racing to his home with the kids but failing to consider her own possible culpability in Walt’s crimes. Â It’s understandable, in a way, especially given that Hank is amped on the adrenaline of his confrontation with Walt and sees a chance to solve the mystery that has vexed him for more than a year. Â Still, I had a bit of a problem with Hank’s Good Cop approach, as he wasn’t dealing with some uneducated meth dealer but an intelligent woman who might want to talk to an attorney – even if she is as innocent as Hank imagined. Â His insistence on taping her statement right there in the diner was just too much. Â It’s not clear if a softer approach would have worked any better, but this one was doomed.
Meanwhle, Skyler is thinking something very different as the conversation continues. Â She is realizing, because Hank tells her, that Hank doesn’t really have much actual proof. Â She knows that she isn’t some damsel in distress, but a woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide. Â Further, Hank reveals information that Skyler does not know, that Walt told him the cancer has returned. This will take a while for her to process and assess, but Hank charges right ahead. Â And the panicked woman at the beginning of the conversation turns into a calculating one by its conclusion, repeatedly yelling, “Am I under arrest?” Â She makes her escape.
The Schrader who gets the most information out of Skyler isn’t Hank, but Marie. Â Hank drives her to the White home in the hopes that Marie will get her to cooperate. Â But Marie, asking a series of questions that go beyond the previous few months, quickly discovers that Skyler is no innocent, that she knew all about what Walt was doing even before her husband was shot and nearly killed. Â Marie tries to take the baby, an over-the-top reaction that Walt prevents.
Meanwhile, Walt – unable to reach Skyler and afraid to speak to her, not knowing what she has told Hank – moves the huge pile of money in the storage locker. Â He gets comic assistance from Huell and his buddy, who take the time to lie on the bed of cash before bringing it to Walt in a van (and grabbing a few bucks for themselves). Â At this point, we need to suspend disbelief a bit to buy the idea that Walt can dig a large enough hole in the New Mexico desert to bury his loot. Â One guesses this will be its final resting place.
The last, pivotal conversation takes place after an exhausted Walt returns home and collapses on the bathroom floor. Â When he wakes up, Walt promises to turn himself in if the money goes to their children (the original, ostensible reason for his meth cooking). Â But Skyler knows better. Â They can’t keep the money if he gives himself up. Â The only option, as she sees it, is to keep quiet and wait it out. Â The decision may not be irrevocable, but for now, Skyler has thrown in with Walt.
Meanwhile, Lydia is taking action, with the help of the polite killer Todd, to take out Declan and his entire gang with the help of Todd’s Aryan Nation uncle. Â As is usual in the show, there are clever artistic choices – Lydia’s fancy shoes in the desert, Jesse on the merry-go-round – that often seem intended to amuse the producers as much as the audience. Â These folks could be Walt’s most serious problem. Â Unless it’s Jesse, picked up after his Robin Hood act and about to be questioned by Hank at episode’s end.
But what made the episode memorable was its focus on Skyler, the show’s wild card. Â She is a villain now, even though it likely means a permanent break with her sister (not to mention Hank) and life on the other side of the law. Â But her actions are fathomable, as she follows her own logic to its own reasonable conclusion.
I love this shot.
I actually paused for a sec and tried to figure out how in the world they filmed that. How do you get the camera and the playground spinner to rotate at exactly the same rate?
It had to be a pole the camera was on, which was later erased digitally…right?
They don’t spin at exactly the same rate though. The wheel and Jesse move a small but noticeable amount counterclockwise relative to the frame over the course of this clip.
They might have just filmed a larger field of view with a stationary camera, and then corrected the image by a rotation to put it roughly in the wheel’s frame of reference.
to do it exactly, you make the play spinner stationary, attach the camera to the ceiling, and have the dirt on a rotating platform that jesse’s moving with his feet. put a light on a pole attached to the dirt platform to complete the illusion.
more complicated ones have been done.
dammit. shoulda watched the vid before i posted. i wanted the one from 2001…
Ah, brilliant!
I don’t think it would be too hard to rig up a rotating platform for the camera and sync it to the merry-go-round.
I wouldn’t say Hank’s meeting with Skyler was as much miscalculation as it was desperation. After his face-to-face with Walt, Hank realizes that knowing the truth now simply isn’t enough to get Walt arrested, and furthermore, that if he presents anything less than an ironclad case to his bosses, it will be Hank that sees the hammer dropped upon him, not Walt.
The Marie-Skyler scene was superb, in part because it’s Marie’s sisterly intuition which correctly deduces the extent of Skyler’s complicity, not Hank’s cop smarts…all without Skyler saying a word.
Several scenes this week featured wordless protagonists…Skyler to Marie, and Jesse to the first two cops interrogating him. The question is whether Jesse can retain that implaccability when Hank gets into the room with him…if he even wants to. As someone I read noted, their past antagonism notwithstanding, it’s possible that Jesse and Hank’s mutual hatred of Walt might just be strong enough to get them collaborating.
Alternatively, Hank could go in there and claim that he’s got a case against Walt and that Walt wants to flip on Jesse.
As for Hank’s meeting with Skyler, I wonder if there’s an element of concern on Hank’s part that he played his hand too soon with Walt. He thought he was tougher than Walt and that Walt would collapse into a scared, blubbering mess when confronted. Instead, Walt showed strength Hank never knew he had. Which probably helped convince Hank that he was right, but also kept him from getting anything useful out of Walt.
I heard a lot of crap about how Anna Gunn acted that Marie/Skyler scene horribly, but I don’t see that at all. I thought she did a phenomenal job at showing Skyler trying to keep a lid on the black tar that’s slowly but surely bubbling out.
I agree completely, I can’t imagine how anyone can see that scene as having been badly acted.
I imagine that Hank bringing up Walt will at least get some rise out of Jesse, but I honestly have no idea what it will be.
The pace of this godforsaken show has been beaten to death, but my god, it’s still blowing my mind. Any other show would have had Hank and Walt chasing each other’s tails until episode 6. They go for the jugular 40 minutes into episode 1. Any other show would have saved the family stuff for episode 7. They knocked that one off in episode 2.
Speaking of pacing, I watched an episode of “Emergency!” from the early 70’s with my boyfriend the other day.
As a preface, he said, “Now THIS show is ALL ABOUT very little happening while VERY OMINOUS music plays. That’s why I LOOOOOOOVE it so much!”
When I was a kid I used to watch it every day. I used to get mad at our dog because she was laying on the couch and the couch was my vehicle to ridy along with Gage and DeSoto.
I talked about it with my mom a couple nights ago, and she said she used to watch reruns of it with me when I was a baby and toddler.
In just the one episode I watched, I had two different double deja’ vu’s… I realized that as a toddler, I must have liked Gage, and sublimated that (a few years later) into an inexplicable fandom of Graig Nettles. I also remembered that I had had an inexplicable deja vu’ at the age of 7 when I first played the game “Impossible Mission.” The kitchen layout in one of the kitchen rooms tripped me out. Turns out it was a lot like the kitchen in the firehouse of Emergency!, and now I know where the deja vu came from almost 30 years ago. Trippy, eh?
I added one minor thing to the recap, about Hank telling Skyler new information – that Walt said his cancer had returned. I meant to mention it while writing it, then forgot and was having trouble editing my post.
Walt’s cancer returning has major implications for Skyler. And while it feels like a long time ago, it was only six episodes back that Skyler said she was powerless against Walt, and could only wait “for the cancer to come back.” In real time, we’re talking a few days or weeks.
One possibility, and I thought about it but didn’t focus on it as much because of her supportive posture, is that Skyler is again thinking that Walt’s death would solve her problems. He would be dead. She would have the money. In the meantime, Skyler just has to stay on his good side, and stymie her brother-in-law and sister.
Except now the money is buried and only Walt knows where (unless someone figures out the mexican lottery ticket clue).
Also, how many people do we think have actually gone there, and did the show leave them an easter egg?
That’s one reason for her to be so supportive.
But didn’t she show Walt the giant storage locker of money in the first place? My understanding was the he wasn’t even aware of it until she took him there. It seems like she did that as a push to try and get him out of the meth business. If she just cared about biding her time and having money after Walt was gone, she never would have taken him there.
Skyler has more money than she will ever need. She took him to the storage locker to illustrate that point, as you say. She wants to reduce the risk to herself, and doesn’t see the point in more meth production – which at this point poses more risks.
But it’s too late. And they both know it.
Meanwhile I’m still an idiot.
No you aren’t! Thank you for your insight, babe! You did an amazing job!