Bad Nauseam: “Bullet Points” & “Shotgun”

Bullet Points (S4E4)

Skyler perfects her gambling cover story in order to explain to the rest of the family how she and Walt can afford to purchase a car wash.

There are very few episodes of Breaking Bad that I hate. I dislike Peekaboo (Series 2, Episode 6) because of its sensationalist portrayal of drug addiction. This episode has similar flaws but my real complaint is that it’s dull to watch. We are nearly a third of the way through the season and all Jesse has done is destroy his house, trying to distract himself from his emotional trauma – why are the writers dedicating so much time to this banal plot point? We don’t even learn anything interesting about the addicts Jesse invites to stay with him – they are just there to disgust the audience.

I will be slightly more complimentary towards Skyler’s subplot. I love the brief moment of elation on Skyler’s face when she thinks Walt is finally apologising for everything he has put her through, only to discover that he is reading from a script. Unfortunately, that is only a few seconds of an otherwise tedious scene. The writers have also developed an annoying habit of referencing events from the show’s past in order to please the fanbase. We had the callback to the uncut pizza in Thirty-Eight Snub (Series 4, Episode 2) and now this episode brings up Walt refusing help from Elliot & Gretchen and Skyler sleeping with Ted Beneke.1These events happened in Gray Matter (Series 1, Episode 5) and I.F.T. (Series 3, Episode 3) respectively. Television isn’t better just because characters reference things that the audience remembers – provide us with protagonists with consistent motivations and you will create thematic parallels without even trying too hard.

Odds and Ends

• Vince Gilligan discusses the opening scene where Mike hides in a truck on the Breaking Bad Insider Podcast. Gilligan talks about how the character is “a real badass” and this confirms my suspicion that the writers have started using violence for the sake of titillation, which in my opinion is a change for the worse.
• Back in my review of Sunset (Series 3, Episode 6), I argued that Gale could be interpreted as queer. There is some evidence for that claim in Season 3 – Gale lives alone and does not have any children for example – but I must confess that I was primarily thinking about the karaoke video Hank finds after Gale has been murdered. There is a certain flamboyance to David Costabile’s performance of the song that I think is noteworthy.

• I never made the connection before but Hank is right – Willy Wonka could be Heisenberg. After all, they are both excellent at chemistry and have a malevolent streak!
• The video game that Jesse is playing in his bedroom is Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing for the Xbox 360. As it happens, Alexandre Gillet – who dubs Jesse in the French version of Breaking Bad – also provides the voice for Sonic the Hedgehog.2Gillet also voices Frodo from The Lord of the Rings, Noah from The Notebook and Yes-Man from Fallout: New Vegas.

Shotgun (S4E5)

Jesse is forced to run errands with Mike. Skyler and Walt sleep together but almost immediately, Walt starts sabotaging their renewed relationship.

I enjoyed this episode much more than the last one, and I think that is because this is a story about Walt repeatedly and spectacularly failing to accomplish his goals. The writers have pushed our protagonist into a situation where he has relatively little power and while I think that is the right choice for this season, Walt should never be passive.3I’d argue that the inciting incident of the entire show is Walter deciding that he will no longer be passive. This man is arrogant and impulsive – he should be constantly scheming about how to undermine Gus, not whining impotently to Saul about how unprofessional everyone is being.

If you want a good example of how to characterise Walter, consider the opening sequence. We watch as Walt drives as fast as he can to Los Pollos Hermanos, manoeuvring so recklessly that he’s lucky he wasn’t stopped by the police – if that had happened, Walt would have found it hard to explain why he was carrying a gun with a defaced serial number. When he finally enters the restaurant, Walter demands to see Gus, only to learn that he isn’t even there. In these scenes, Walt is motivated, constantly improvising but also making mistakes – that is what makes him interesting to watch.

I also think that the writers created a believable scenario for Walter telling Hank that Gale wasn’t Heisenberg. The show isn’t contriving a way to force these characters back into conflict – Walt has done stuff like this before. We know that he alienated his old business partners at Gray Matter over basically nothing. One of the reasons he agreed to work with Gus back in Más (Season 3, Episode 5) was because he wanted to spite Jesse and stop him from selling his own version of the blue meth. Walt is desperate to feel important and hearing Hank describe Gale as “a meth chef … a genius, plain and simple” is just too much for his ego to bear. Even in death, Walter cannot allow Gale to outshine him.4In my review of One Minute (Season 3, Episode 7), I argued that Walt rejected Gale as a lab assistant because he felt threatened by the latter’s prowess at chemistry – I stand by that interpretation.

The episode ends with Hank studying Gale’s possessions, now convinced that he was just one part of a wider operation. Walt has given Hank a reason to get out of bed every morning, but this was no philanthropic gesture. Walt’s greatest weakness is his need for external validation, and he would rather be hunted by the police than have someone else take the credit for his work – there is no end to this path other than self-destruction.

Odds and Ends

• Michelle MacLaren returns as director and brings her signature care and detail to the screen. I particularly like the sequence where Walter is working alone in the laboratory and we get multiple perspective shots and close-ups of his face – it is an interesting way to convey just how much Walt is struggling without an assistant.
• I never thought that Mike was going to kill Jesse and bury him in the desert, but I don’t think it’s fair to blame the writers for that – the Netflix thumbnails are a bit of a giveaway that Jesse isn’t going to die yet.
• Mike shouts at Jesse while they are driving around New Mexico:
  “You are not the guy! You’re not capable of being the guy! I had a guy but now I don’t.”
  I presume that this is a reference to Victor but it is a weird choice considering we barely saw those two characters interact with each other.
• I appreciated Skyler asking Walt to tell her again that things will be fine – it is a very believable moment of vulnerability, and it reminds the audience that Skyler is still worried about her family’s safety.
• Jesse sings a song from his band TwaüghtHammër while waiting in the car for Mike. It is the same one he performed with his friend Paul back in Down (Series 2, Episode 4).
• Aaron Paul isn’t steering when the car rapidly reverses down the alleyway – it’s a stunt driver disguised as a car seat.
• The week this episode aired, AMC agreed to renew Breaking Bad for a fifth and final season.5Although this season would later be split in two with an eleven-month hiatus in the middle. From this point onwards, the writers know exactly how much time they have left to conclude Walter’s story.

Please use spoiler tags in the comments, as some Avocadians are watching Breaking Bad for the first time