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| Aaron Paul |
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 4, Episode 5
"Shotgun"
"Since when do vegans eat fried chicken?"
-Hank (Dean Norris)
Walter (Bryan Cranston) gets worried about Jesse (Aaron Paul) and decides to confront Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) at Los Pollos Hermanos. Some coworkers claim that he isn't there, though he refuses to leave on the account that he sees his car in the parking lot. Mike (Johnathan Banks) calls him to confirm that Jesse is all right, though he'll have to cook all by himself. Mike is babysitting Jesse as they do money pickups from various places in the desert. Walter and Skyler (Anna Gunn) land the car wash deal and decide to celebrate with dinner at Hank (Dean Norris) and Marie's (Betsy Brandt). Hank is confident that he has closed the Heisenberg case. While Mike is searching for money at one of the pickups, Jesse notices a man with a shotgun coming their way. He does a hit and run, leaving Mike to walk back. He lightens up to Jesse and decides to make him his partner on these runs. This makes Walter upset, as that means he will have to work alone more often. During dinner that night, Walter drinks a bit of wine and decides to claim that Hank's insistence on Gale being Heisenberg is wrong. This opens the case back up and Hank notices that Gale is very much a vegan and wonders why he has an advertisement for Los Pollos Hermanos in his notebook.
Rating: 4 out of 5
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| Jonathan Banks |
At the start of this episode, everything is going crazy. Thanks to an aggressive Dave Porter score, the world sounds like its coming to an end. However, it turns out that this is the episode where Walter's world falls apart. Not in that he was found out, but that he is losing Jesse to Mike. This is the most crucial aspect of the show, as Walter cannot manipulate Jesse if he likes someone more. Still, Mike's mysterious plan to drive Jesse into the desert is an interesting series of events. It takes him until the end to warm up to Jesse, and then there's the realization that a friendship was born. He may seem downtrodden for most of the episode, but if Gus is the physical threat to Walter, then Mike is now the emotional threat. How crucial is this? I am confident that if Mike didn't steal Jesse away from him, the story of Heisenberg would probably be over. In a sense, Mike perpetuated Walter's desire to be respected, though in the wrong direction.
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| Bryan Cranston |
Best scene: Just when you think that everything is over. Gale is penned as Heisenberg and Hank is ready to close the case. Just when everything looks like it is about to clear Walter, he decides to take a few drinks and perpetuate the case. He doesn't give himself up, but his ego keeps him from letting someone who he finds inferior to take his reputation away. There's even the sense of Skyler in the background becoming annoyed at him, which could ruin the relationship that they are in the process of restoring. It may seem ridiculous, but Walter wants to be respected for what he does no matter what. It will be his downfall eventually.
Come back tomorrow when we recap "Cornered"
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