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| Left to right: Aaron Paul and Krysten Ritter |
Are you tired of long, tedious accounts of Breaking Bad episode recaps? Then look no further than Breaking Half: a weekly column that takes the good and bad from each week's episode of Breaking Bad and dilutes it down to the core necessities. Each Monday, Breaking Half will attempt to take a few key moments from the episode and boil it down to one juicy paragraph.
Season 2, Episode 7"Negro y Azul"
"Homey's dead. He just doesn't know it yet."
-Los Cuates de Sianloa
After the incident involving Spooge getting his head beat in with an ATM machine, Jesse (Aaron Paul) has become notorious as a killer despite not actually being one. Walter (Bryan Cranston) takes advantage of this new found fame and decides to get the empire growing with help of Combo (Rodney Rush), Badger (Matt Jones), and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) helping to distribute. Also, word gets out to Jane (Krysten Ritter) that Jesse used a fake name to get rent. Meanwhile, Skyler (Anna Gunn) went back to work for her old boss Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins), possibly to start a fling. Hank (Dean Norris) has a bizarre first day in El Paso in which everyone makes fun of him in Spanish, he hangs out with a dealer named Tortuga (Danny Trejo), and witnesses his entire D.E.A. squadron get decapitated by an exploding tortoise. Despite emotional turmoil, Jesse is convinced to get back into the business by Walter's persuasion. He buys a flat screen TV and opens up to Jane about his real name. The episode ends with the two holding hands in front of a blank blue screen.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
MVP: Walter (Bryan Cranston)
If you had any doubt that Walter wasn't using Jesse before, now's as good a time as any to change your mind. With an analogy involving blow fish, he takes the incidents of "Peekaboo" and uses it as fuel. At this point, Walter has become about economics and it is fascinating to watch his decision making build, as it is absurd. Still, the early form of Heisenberg is very much a student. the look on his face when discovering Jesse's notoriety almost suggested the horrible deeds that he could be doing later on somehow justifying his business. He's all about the money at this point, and while he shows some empathy, we are about to enter the quick evolution into one of TV's most fascinating anti-heroes in the medium's history. He is based largely on regret and failure to an extreme level, and that alone almost seems to justify the means.
Best scene: What is amazing is that it is only season two. Not every 20 episodes into the series, and we already have back-to-back iconic moments. With the ATM machine last week and now Danny Trejo's head on a tortoise, this show is going bleak real fast. It is a penchant that the show holds up for the rest of the run, but if Vince Gilligan wanted to impress you with imagery that you've never seen before, he is doing it so effectively. The explosion at the end is just the nice twist that humanizes Hank as vulnerable even more than shooting Tuco. Also, it is great to know that even if briefly, this show featured the great character actor Danny Trejo. That alone makes the twist seem even more impressive, if just because the typically bad-ass Trejo has a grizzly, iconic demise.
Come back tomorrow when we recap "Better Call Saul"
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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| Left to right: Matt Jones, Rodney Rush, Charles Baker, and Bryan Cranston |
If you had any doubt that Walter wasn't using Jesse before, now's as good a time as any to change your mind. With an analogy involving blow fish, he takes the incidents of "Peekaboo" and uses it as fuel. At this point, Walter has become about economics and it is fascinating to watch his decision making build, as it is absurd. Still, the early form of Heisenberg is very much a student. the look on his face when discovering Jesse's notoriety almost suggested the horrible deeds that he could be doing later on somehow justifying his business. He's all about the money at this point, and while he shows some empathy, we are about to enter the quick evolution into one of TV's most fascinating anti-heroes in the medium's history. He is based largely on regret and failure to an extreme level, and that alone almost seems to justify the means.
Best scene: What is amazing is that it is only season two. Not every 20 episodes into the series, and we already have back-to-back iconic moments. With the ATM machine last week and now Danny Trejo's head on a tortoise, this show is going bleak real fast. It is a penchant that the show holds up for the rest of the run, but if Vince Gilligan wanted to impress you with imagery that you've never seen before, he is doing it so effectively. The explosion at the end is just the nice twist that humanizes Hank as vulnerable even more than shooting Tuco. Also, it is great to know that even if briefly, this show featured the great character actor Danny Trejo. That alone makes the twist seem even more impressive, if just because the typically bad-ass Trejo has a grizzly, iconic demise.
Come back tomorrow when we recap "Better Call Saul"
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