Someone must pay the price for the murder of Gus’ employees. Walt makes sure that it isn’t him or Jesse.
This might be an unusual way to start a review of the season finale, but I want to discuss Breaking Bad and its philosophy towards violence. This show is a crime drama so seeing people get hurt is to be expected but I do think the writers’ attitude towards violence has changed over time. Earlier episodes treated murder as an act that is disgusting and degrading. Consider the death of No-Doze in Seven Thirty-Seven (Series 2, Episode 1) – the man’s corpse is left to rot underneath a pile of scrap metal and Walter is so disturbed by what he has witnessed that he goes home and assaults Skyler. In more recent installments though, the writers have used violence as a source of spectacle.
I bring this up because Mike’s shoot-out with the cartel members is a classic example of violence for the sake of titillation. I don’t think that is always a bad thing but if done poorly it can drastically undermine the tone of a piece. Robocop is full of blood and viscera but it uses framing in order to elicit appropriate emotions from the audience – we laugh when an executive is blown to pieces by a badly-designed robot and are horrified when a similar fate befalls Alex Murphy. What emotion am I supposed to be feeling when Mike walks into a warehouse and kills four people without remorse? I’m going to suggest that having a “badass” character who is unaffected by the violence he inflicts is a poor addition to a story about an ordinary man who loses his soul to the meth business.1I think this is another reason why I dislike the Mexican cousins – in a 2010 interview with Alan Sepinwall, Vince Gilligan praises them as “two implacable Terminator type killers”, which is not something I want to see in Breaking Bad.
This scene feels even more incongruous when placed alongside the main plot of this episode. Walt realises that Gus now sees him as a liability, someone who can threaten his interests and therefore someone who needs to be replaced. Gale is the obvious candidate to supplant Walter and this forces our protagonist to make a decision – is he prepared to kill Gale in order to protect himself?
The writers make a point of telling us that Walt does not have to kill Gale. He could go to the DEA and ask for witness protection in exchange for giving up Gus and the rest of his operation. Walt dismisses this option out of hand and I like that the reason is left ambiguous – he could just want to keep his drug money but he could also see going to the police as an unacceptable blow to his pride. We also learn that Walt will not get any personal satisfaction out of murdering Gale. It is purely a strategic move for him, the kind of ruthless decision that Gus might make.2When we discussed Mandala (Series 2, Episode 11), one commentator suggested that Gus might have always been planning to kill Walt once he learnt the secret of the blue meth – that wouldn’t be out of character for Gus.
The person who experiences the most emotional turmoil in this episode is in fact Jesse. Not only has he broken his sobriety, he feels deeply conflicted over how much he should help Walter. Jesse could just flee Albuquerque, but there is no guarantee that he would be able to stay one step ahead of Gus’ minions. He also doesn’t think Gale deserves to die but he knows that if he refuses to help, Walt will be murdered. Jesse doesn’t have any good options anymore – he’s been reduced to a pawn in someone else’s game.
This is why I find the final scene so powerful. When Gale opens his front door and sees Jesse on his doorstep, it isn’t a moment of triumph. Jesse was prepared to give his life in order to avenge Tomás, the child who killed his best friend – instead, a few days later, he is compelled to shoot an ordinary person in their own home while they beg for mercy. This is what happens when people value power and control over preserving human life, and it isn’t pretty.
Odds and Ends
- The opening flashback isn’t really necessary but I approve of how the writers characterise Walter – he’s affable and enjoying Skyler’s company, but his ambition is slightly off-putting. You can tell that this is a man who covets wealth and prestige and (under the right circumstances) he might do unethical things in order to attain them.
- I love the negotiation in the desert between Gus and Walt. It was Cranston’s idea to wear the iconic black hat again – he described it as Walter’s “anchor to Heisenberg. When he puts that on, he feels different. He looks different. His attitude changes.”3The hat was last seen in Negro y Azul (Series 2, Episode 7) – Cranston wore it initially to protect his head from the New Mexico sun. This idea of Walt as a performer who needs props to get into character is an interesting one and it will come back in the next season.
- The song that Gale is singing before Gus visits his apartment is “Crapa Pelada” – a Milanese song about a cook who is losing his hair.
- I enjoyed the reveal that Saul had planned ahead and wrote down a fake address in case Mike or another one of Gus’ men came asking about Jesse. Saul is mainly used for comic relief but I appreciate it when the writers reminds us that he is actually pretty good at his job.
- There was debate among fans over whether or not Jesse actually shot Gale – the counter-dolly shot was interpreted by some people as Jesse moving the gun to the side before he pulled the trigger. Vince Gilligan later clarified that he did not intend the ending to be ambiguous but looking back, I don’t think it is rude to say that Gilligan made a poor directing choice that confused his audience.4This was the first Breaking Bad episode since the pilot that Gilligan directed, so a mistake or two is to be expected.
- This episode was watched by one and a half million people when it first aired. To put that number in perspective, The Walking Dead premiered a few months later and that managed over five million viewers. As incredible as it might seem in hindsight, Breaking Bad did not become a cultural juggernaut until the show was almost finished.5Almost seven million people tuned in to watch the first episode of Better Call Saul but the audience had shrunk to two million by the time the second season was airing.
Spoilers
- Victor observing Walter the entire time he cooks could be considered a precursor to the camera that Gus installs in the laboratory in Open House (Series 4, Episode 3).
- In Hermanos (Series 4, Episode 8), Hank has worked out that Gale’s death was a targeted assassination and speculates that Gus (the man he is currently investigating) got “a dunce to pull the trigger” – a harsh but accurate summary of how Jesse was manipulated into committing murder.
- This is as good a time as any to recommend this superb video which discusses Aaron Paul’s performance on Breaking Bad – it has spoilers for all the remaining seasons, but the author pays particular attention to Jesse’s response to the deaths of Tomás and Gale:
