This is a commentary on Breaking Bad; see the full list of commentaries here. Please be warned that the show gets pretty intense and the commentaries may include strong language and references to violence, sexuality and drug use.

S01E04: Cancer Man

We open with Hank going over the findings from the investigation of the cook site from the pilot with other DEA officers… or, well, we actually start with office banter about the name of the operation - Gomez thinks “Operation Icebreaker” sounds like a breath mint, Hank fires back saying every time he’s on a stakeout with Gomez is Operation Breath Mint because his breath is so bad he could knock a vulture off a shit wagon. We’ve been getting little tastes of the sort of crude, macho environment of constant ribbing and one-upmanship the Albuquerque DEA office is, which will have some relevance later.

Hank explains that Krazy-8, full name Domingo Gallardo Molina (he gave Walt his real first name, in other words), was “way smarter than your average cheese-eater” - he used to be a street-level dealer, but moved up in the business thanks to snatching up customers from dealers that he turned in. Hank also confirms that it was Krazy-8 specifically who turned in Emilio, his own cousin.

Now, however, both of them are missing and presumed dead. “Normally I’d say someone did the world a favor” (see what I mean about Hank’s utter disregard for the humanity of criminals) - but the cook site and the meth they found in the car, as well as traces of the same meth on the gas mask found at the scene, make it clear there’s a new player in town, someone who cooked up the purest meth their lab has ever seen (99.1%).

And as Hank tells them Albuquerque might just have a new kingpin, we cut to Walt in his underwear, brushing his teeth like the world’s biggest middle-aged dork. Such kingpin.

Revelations

In the afternoon, Walt and Skyler are having Hank and Marie over for a barbecue. Walt zones out staring at the meat he’s barbecuing, having some uncomfortable flashbacks to the last time he dealt with meat, until Hank snaps him out of it.

They talk casually over food, although Skyler seems distracted. After Walt offers wine to Marie, Walt Jr. says he wants a beer, but Walt just pats him on the back, and Hank says that ain’t happening. Put another pin in this. (God, there’s a lot of foreshadowing and setup for things in later seasons that I never noticed before watching all this for the fourth and fifth time. I’m guessing it’s not necessarily always the case that it was originally written to be setup so much as that they wrote later episodes with these earlier scenes in mind, but I actually could believe this one was written as setup; I’ll probably talk about why when we get there, assuming I remember.)

As the discussion around the table goes on, Walt coughs lightly and Skyler is silently alarmed. Hank is telling Walt Jr. that he’s got the looks of a movie star (I enjoy the way that Hank keeps casually trying to make Walt Jr. feel good about himself), but what he really needs to get a girl is confidence and persistence. He explains how he and Marie got together; he nagged her endlessly about a date while she kept on saying no, and she makes a joke about how it was before they tightened the stalking laws. (This is, of course, very not okay. Don’t be Hank. They seem reasonably happy together right now and all, but don’t be Hank.)

This leads into Walt telling the story of how he met Skyler; he used to frequent a coffeeshop where Skyler was a hostess, and noticed she was always doing the New York Times crossword, so he started deliberately coming in when she was there and doing the crossword as well, using it as an excuse to talk to her. He proudly recalls how much better she was at it than he was. As Walt talks, Skyler grows more emotional in the background, and finally after he finishes she breaks down crying. As the puzzled Hank and Marie ask what’s wrong, she tells them to ask Walt and retreats inside.

Walt glares after her. He’d told her not to tell anyone else about the cancer, but it’s been 48 hours, and of course it was incredibly difficult and upsetting for her to know this and not be able to talk about it. Even then, after she has this involuntary breakdown, she doesn’t actually tell them, just tells them to talk to Walt while she composes herself - which gives him a chance to lie if he really wants to, though obviously she hopes he’ll just admit the truth (and he does, reluctantly). She really is making a best effort to respect his choices in this, given that of course she can’t help being upset and emotional when reminiscing about how they got together while she’s the only other one there who knows he’s dying. The contingent of fans that hate Skyler really tend to miss the extent to which she keeps trying to accommodate him and be mindful of what he’s going through and the way he feels for most of this and the following episodes; I’ll be pointing out more of this as the season goes on.

Hank and Marie stick around until the evening as they talk about it. Hank asks why he didn’t tell anyone; Skyler adds, “Walt, don’t you see? Everybody just wants to help you.” But Walt looks intensely uncomfortable. As Hank asks how he got lung cancer when he doesn’t even smoke, Skyler theorizes that maybe it’s all about inadequate safety at the lab twenty years ago, that this one time Walt was complaining they didn’t give him the right kind of ventilation hood. She’s clearly just been desperately grasping for a reason, something to blame for this other than sheer accident - yet another very human reaction to tragedy. But Marie steps up and is on top of this, talking about next steps, getting a second opinion, talking to her radiologist friends and getting the absolute best doctors on his case, which calms Skyler a lot.

All this is exactly what Walt didn’t want, and feared would happen if he told them about his diagnosis. He doesn’t want help; the very idea of people believing he needs help grates on him. And he certainly doesn’t believe any such thing as that he got cancer because of the wrong ventilation hood at the lab or whatever. He has a very rational, scientific worldview and has already accepted that he was just unlucky - but he also doesn’t want to just be a victim of inadequate safety measures, a victim of anything at all. For him it’s just supremely awkward listening to Skyler emotionally trying to argue they should get a lawyer on it, and he looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there. But Walt loves his family, and he knows they mean well, so he tries to just smile and nod.

Even Marie’s suggestions about getting him the most amazing oncologists aren’t nearly as reassuring as he’d like: the best doctors, thanks to the American health care system, tend to be expensive.

As Skyler and Marie go to talk to Walt Jr. (who’s been brooding in his room listening to loud music since the barbecue), Walt is left alone with Hank, who very sincerely tells him that “Whatever happens, I want you to know that I’ll always take care of your family.” And Walt looks so, so bitter and exasperated. The last thing he wants is Hank taking care of his family. Hank, his son’s cool uncle, the one who’s made it somewhere in life instead of teaching high school, the one who doesn’t have cancer, rubbing it in his face by saying he’ll be the one to support his family while Walt wastes away. All he can will himself to do is the barest hint of a nod.

Walt’s reactions and expressions and body language throughout this scene are really good (Bryan Cranston, guys), and also incredibly revealing, especially this last part. What Walt desires isn’t that his family be cared for and supported after his death; Hank and Marie have money and would make sure they get by okay, and he knows that. What he really wants is to be the one who cares for them. He needs to feel as if he has provided for them, as the man of the house. This isn’t really, and never has been, about his family so much as his desire to provide for his family, which isn’t actually quite the same thing. He considers himself to be doing things nobly out of love for them, for them, but his actions increasingly don’t actually quite rhyme with that idea, as we will be exploring in the next few episodes (and throughout the entire series).

At this point we’ve got all the pieces of the big fundamentals about Walt’s basic character and what makes him tick. He’s ruthlessly smart and pragmatic and reason-over-emotion on the small scale of how to achieve his goals, but on the larger scale of his motivations that form those goals, he bubbles with suppressed bitterness and pride which is what really drives most of his important decisions. For now, though, we’re largely reading this off Bryan Cranston’s face. Next episode will be showing this much more clearly.

Paranoia

Meanwhile, Jesse has Combo and Skinny Pete over at his house, the first time we see the two of them. (It feels funny today that it’s not Badger and Skinny Pete together - we don’t meet Badger until next episode, and in season one he’s not associated with Skinny Pete at all. They may not even know each other yet; I can’t for the moment recall if they’re established to already be friends in season two, which I haven’t rewatched again yet.)

Combo sees the giant hole in the ceiling of the hallway and asks about it; Jesse tells them the house is just settling, it’s caving in left and right, some of it even hit him in the eye (sneaking in a mundane explanation of the black eye, which is a lot better now but still there; he must have been a little worried they would ask about it and grabbed this chance to make it sound totally uninteresting). Skinny Pete suggests his dad could fix it; he’s “a contractor or something” - implying Skinny has an okay relationship with his dad.

Just when Jesse thinks he’s smoothly skirted around talking about any of the horrible traumatic experiences of the last week, Combo asks Jesse if he still cooks a little crystal. Jesse tenses a little, but says yeah, maybe, from time to time. Skinny Pete says he heard he lost his partner Emilio; Jesse freezes, eyes wide. “Didn’t he get locked up?”

Combo answers before Jesse has to: “No, man, he’s out. His cousin bailed him out. I think he skipped town or something.” They have no idea Emilio and Krazy-8 are dead.

Jesse quickly says he doesn’t know anything about any of that; he’s just kind of been doing his own thing these days. (He leans forward in the chair and clasps his hands together in a totally casual but actually super nervous and on edge way. Jesse’s body language is also very good.)

Combo and Skinny start asking if he’s got any meth and they could really go for some right now. Jesse’s silent for a couple of seconds, a tiny little exhale… but then he smiles as he starts talking. “Well, maybe it just so happens that I just recently cooked the best batch ever.” He says he came up with a new recipe - more like a formula. “It’s like, way, way more chemically…” And then he realizes no, he has no actual idea how to bullshit about whatever it was that Walt did, and also Combo and Skinny Pete would probably just think he’s a huge nerd. So instead he just says, “Shit, you know, it’s just the bomb, so.”

This episode is where we start to properly establish Jesse’s character, after he’s largely taken a backseat to Walt for the first mini-arc. We saw a bit of the small scale in the first couple episodes: that he’s more emotionally driven, tries to act like he fits in with people like Krazy-8 when he really doesn’t as well as he’d like, really does not like dead bodies or killing people, and is addicted to meth and uses drugs under stress. Here, though, we start to see his real driving motivations coming through: Jesse is desperate to be wanted and liked and praised and validated, by anyone. (This is why he tries so hard to fit in, to cling to the idea someone like Krazy-8 is totally his pal, right, even though he’s actually kind of terrified of him.)

He made something really cool with Walt. Okay, meth-cooking isn’t most people’s idea of high art, but as far as he was concerned it was breathtaking and he’s so proud of it and he wants his friends to know about it. There are obvious reasons to absolutely not tell them about Walt under any circumstances, so it’s to be expected he doesn’t mention him, but specifically talking about the formula and the chemistry while making it sound like that was all his own doing is very much him just wanting his friends to be impressed and think he’s cool.

As much as he’d like to have done it all himself, though, he has very much not forgotten about Walt. Walt, who blackmailed him, and murdered a man, and just last episode kicked him and wrestled him and chased him down for using their meth. “It’s worth nothing if you smoke it all!”

…So he transitions that awkwardly into saying actually he’s been thinking about laying off the meth for a bit, because it’s kind of been making him paranoid lately. (Paranoia is an actual symptom of meth use, it absolutely did contribute to his paranoia last episode, and we’re about to see it give him full-on paranoid hallucinations, so he’s not exactly lying about that bit… but he’s really saying this because he’s worried Walt’s going to have his head if he wastes any more of it.)

Combo and Skinny pick up on how goofy it is to wax poetic about how great his meth is and then immediately move on to claiming he’s laying off it for health reasons so they can’t have any. “Yo, if you’re not into sharing, man, just tell us to piss off, it’s cool.” Jesse goes no, no, that’s not it at all! He’s got plenty of pot? Do they want some pot? But they just stand up preparing to leave, and… Jesse immediately, frantically plays it off like he was just joking about that whole thing. Ha-ha, like he’d ever be paranoid! Maybe Walt’s going to have his head later, but his friends not wanting to hang out with him anymore is immediately terrifying. It’s a ridiculous, obvious lie, but Combo and Skinny don’t care.

Cut to Jesse, later, in the morning when they’re gone, sitting curled up on the floor by his window, restless, smoking more meth, staring outside, and managing to see some innocuous Mormons as armed motorcycle gangsters come to murder him. The way this is presented is a bit silly and over-the-top, and it’s not something the show ever does again in this way, so this scene sticks out, but on the other hand this is some excellent terrified Jesse so I will give it a pass. In his panic, he grabs the big bag of crystal from where he was hiding it, jumps out of a window with it, and runs the hell away.

(He does not go for his car, but that’s probably because he’s hoping to escape unnoticed - he also crawls under the RV rather than going around it and potentially becoming visible from further out. Given last episode I’m not sure Jesse has the sense not to drive while extremely high. Jesse no.)

Money problems

Walt’s morning routine now involves disinfecting and changing the bandaging on the multiple stab wounds on his leg; it doesn’t go awesomely, some blood seeps through his pants, and he ends up with his pants in the sink, trying to get the blood out with a toothbrush. The small annoyances of the criminal lifestyle. (Has someone made a gifset yet of all these moments in season 1? There should be a gifset.)

While he’s doing that, he starts coughing; Skyler hears from outside, asks if he needs any help, and when he waves it off, says she’s right there if he needs her (Walt tries to cough quieter). Skyler continues to really make an effort to be considerate of him - reaching out to help, reassuring him she’s there, but still giving him space and privacy when he wants it. For the moment, she’s prepared to assume all of the Walt acting strange recently was because of the cancer diagnosis, which is a fairly reasonable hypothesis.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom, Skyler is on the phone with the office of one of the top oncologists in the country; Marie pulled strings to get him to see Walt. He overhears her quietly asking to pay by credit card, despite her best efforts to not worry him with the money; she reluctantly admits it’s $5000 for just the first interview (what the actual fuck, American health care). She tells him not to worry about it, that they can always borrow from Hank. (“Absolutely not.”) Or maybe his mother? But Walt hasn’t even called her to tell her about the cancer yet. (This will be coming back.)

Skyler emphasizes that money should not be an issue here, and eventually, he relents and says he’ll take care of the deposit, that he’ll borrow some money from his pension. Obviously, this is an excuse; he’s going to pay it with Krazy-8’s meth money from the first episode, which he stored in the air vent inside the baby’s room.

Just as he’s trying to deal with the money accidentally getting sucked into the vent as he’s trying to retrieve it (the little indignities of the criminal life, again), Walt Jr. walks in, probably speaking to Walt for the first time since he revealed his diagnosis, and asks what the hell is wrong with him, why he’s acting like nothing’s going on, and then leaves again as Walt stands there in stunned silence. Just to underline Walt’s bad feelings after all this, this is when his eyes happen to fall on the crib, reused from when Walt Jr. was a baby, which is indeed from Tampico Furniture, Krazy-8’s dad’s store. He may very well have killed the person who sold it to him.

(Walt Jr. insists on taking the bus to school rather than being driven by Walt, but by the end of the day he’s feeling a bit less mad and lets Walt take him home.)

Walt really does act like nothing is going on. It’s just not in his current nature to be openly emotional or worried or scared, even when he’s got cancer - he’s spent all his life bottling things up, pretending there’s nothing wrong. And so, even as everything that’s happened is absolutely taking a toll on his emotional state - the murder, the reactions of his family, the looming money issue - he continues to act normal; it’s all he knows how to do.

He sets out to make that deposit, tense and on edge; apart from the tow truck person from episode two, this is the first time he’s about to actually use his drug money. And as luck would have it, as he’s driving along, he hears police sirens behind him, despairs, and tries to hide the money before pulling over - only for the police car to drive right on past (of course; how would they know?). Walt laughs breathlessly in relief, almost crying.

As he arrives at the credit union, an asshole lawyer steals the space he was going to park in, then talks loudly on the phone while in line about how $40k isn’t even a proper bonus and how some woman his interlocutor likes is a cow. Walt gives him a silent death glare from his spot in line. Here he is, desperately depositing the drug money he almost got killed for so he can pay for his cancer treatment, while this pure douchebag is swimming in money and doesn’t even think that’s enough. But he stays quiet and ignores him and has the teller write his check. Bottling things up, pretending there’s nothing wrong. That’s all he can do, right?

Family

Jesse arrives at his parents’ house and immediately gets his leg stuck in a lawn chair, leading to an awkward hello when his family comes out to check on the commotion. His parents have just been showering his little brother Jake with praise and attention, but seeing Jesse, his dad just says, “What the hell are you doing out here?”

We get to see a couple of Jesse’s childhood drawings hanging up on the walls of his old bedroom, still there, untouched alongside photos of him as a kid. Would Jesse have chosen to decorate his room with drawings and photos from when he was little? Seems kind of unlikely; it’s tempting to conclude his parents have turned his room into almost a shrine to the sweet, talented son that they used to have in his absence - though they could also just have put up these pictures when they were made and Jesse was just never quite embarrassed enough by it to want to take them down.

(He really was very talented; Jesse was born in late 1984, so these drawings from 1991 and 1994 are from when he was approximately six or seven and nine or ten respectively. The 1994 drawing shows the Hindenburg in flames, in complex perspective, with the words “Oh, the humanety!” [sic] written below and the silhouetted, writhing shapes of people falling from the blazing ship; it’s both technically incredibly solid for such a young kid and quite evocative. There’s a recurring theme of horror and danger to these drawings as well as some of the later ones we see a bit later in the episode. We’re getting into pure speculative headcanon territory now, since this is never addressed again and we only see a few drawings, but my own interpretation of this is that Jesse’s high empathy makes him naturally strongly affected by people dying and suffering, and especially as a kid, before developing more of a filter, he’d just be morbidly captivated learning about something like the Hindenburg, and specifically the tragedy of it, the loss of life, the sheer horrible idea of people jumping out of an airship in flames to meet a quicker but no less certain death on the ground below. I think the emphasis on the quote and the helplessly falling figures in the image suggests that’s the bit that stirred him to draw it, compared to your typical kid drawing of explosions and violence. But disclaimer, coincidentally this also describes me, so feel free to dismiss this as flagrant projection on my part and move on.)

Jesse is exhausted enough when he gets there to just plomp down on the bed in all his clothes to sleep, and sleep all night and through the entire next day. (It’s evening when he arrives, but was presumably morning when he fled his house; wonder if they live a while away or if Jesse just stopped somewhere else on the way that we didn’t see. Or potentially the continuity people just weren’t thinking very hard about the times of day here.) While preparing dinner, his parents discuss why he’s sleeping so long, assuming it must be drugs one way or another, though they don’t know or want to know much about exactly what drugs he might be on or what effects they would have. His mom suggests checking his arms for needle marks. His dad asks if they should let him stay; his mom suggests maybe if it’s on condition that he attends NA meetings.

Jesse finally makes his way downstairs as they’re talking and asks what time dinner is, as if nothing were more natural; they answer. His mom offers to wash his clothes, but he says maybe later - I think she may have offered as a way to get a look at his arms without outright asking about that. His dad objects when Jesse’s left the kitchen, saying they’re not doing this again, that they need to be consistent in laying down the law, and they follow after him - but hesitate when they see Jesse is laying the table for them. His parents silently return to the kitchen. Jesse stops, too, for a moment, obviously having noticed them coming after him - but then continues laying the table anyway.

The dynamic between Jesse and his parents is pretty interesting here. They obviously still love him, but they don’t trust him at all anymore; he’s On Drugs, and they can’t just enable him, they need to do something. They want to set firm boundaries, but it’s pretty hard to actually tell your kid who’s returned to your home for unknown reasons that he can’t have dinner or stay the night - especially when he’s being sweet and helping out.

Jesse knows exactly how precarious the situation is and how close his parents are to kicking him out, but he’s desperate - so I suspect he acts kind of oblivious because it silently nudges his parents to err on the side of their love for him and just let it go. If he came down the stairs asking if he can stay for dinner, they might say no or start to lay down conditions; when instead he just asks what time dinner is, they go along with it because they feel weirder about it if Jesse seems to have no conception that maybe he shouldn’t be able to have dinner with them. Similarly, he knows that if he starts helping out laying the table as if nothing were more natural, it dissuades his parents from just kicking him out then and there, and that’s why he went straight to do that before they could talk very long, and why he determinedly keeps doing it like he hasn’t noticed them while they’re looking at him and then breathes easier when they’re gone. But then he still continues, with more diligence if anything. He does want to help out in return for staying, and he’s not trying to use them. He just knows that they’re really suspicious of him, he really needs a place to be right now, and in order to have one he has to stay far on the safe side of this delicate teetering balance - and, well, if they really don’t want him there, all they have to do is say so.

Inadequacy

Later, Jesse pays a visit to Jake’s room. He looks at all the awards and trophies on top of Jake’s set of drawers (he clearly hasn’t really been here in a while) - “Most Distinguished Mathlete”, “Environmental Consciousness Award”. Did he get the latter by recycling cans or something? Nah, by writing to the Albuquerque Journal asking about the chemicals used to bleach their paper, which prompted an article about it in the paper. Jesse responds with great enthusiasm, not entirely genuine but clearly trying very hard to be: Right on, little bro! Making mad inroads with the business community! But then he adds, pointing to his head, “Now, remember, not all learning comes out of books.”

This scene is one of my favorite bits of Jesse in season one. Clearly he’s feeling pretty outclassed and inadequate next to Jake’s array of achievements at half his age, redoubled by the constant looming awareness that his parents adore Jake and shower him with praise and support while being inches away from kicking Jesse out of the house. As he looks at all this stuff, he’s jealous of Jake, for being so perfect and amazing and good at everything. But despite this, it doesn’t occur to Jesse for a moment to react by bringing his brother down, or dismissing his achievements, or resenting him, or even just not being super enthusiastic about it. (Mad inroads with the business community!)

Instead, all he wants is just for Jake to still think Jesse is cool. He tries to talk himself up - there are other ways to be smart, and Jesse’s got that! He’s not a total loser even if he doesn’t have twenty trophies to show for it! - but he will not take his jealousy out on Jake; Jake deserves all his accolades, and Jesse just wants the best for him and to be a good brother that Jake could like and look up to (again, being liked and wanted is one of Jesse’s core motivations - very likely significantly rooted in the way he’s entirely lost that from his parents, or at least feels that he has). The very next thing he says is that they should hang out more, like if Jake ever needs advice - in the midst of Jake triggering all of Jesse’s insecurities, he wants to spend more time with him, not less. And from there he proceeds to excitedly ask if Jake can play some Jethro Tull on the piccolo. He so wants to just have something in common and bond with him and be best bros, and it’s precious.

(Unfortunately, Jake doesn’t appear to have a lot of interest in Jesse and spends most of this scene working on something on his computer. Jesse doesn’t let that stop him.)

They’re interrupted when their mom opens the door and asks how they’re doing. She makes a point of asking Jake after Jesse answers that they’re good, obviously implying Jesse might have been up to something or making him uncomfortable one way or another; Jake confirms that yeah, they’re fine. She pointedly leaves the door wide open as she leaves.

Jesse looks towards the door silently for a moment, then glances at Jake. “You know, what the hell. You see this? What am I, some criminal or something?” Which, I mean, he is. But this isn’t so much him being in denial about that - he just hates, hates that his parents are treating him like one in front of Jake, and is hoping Jake will at least agree that this is silly, that Jake doesn’t think of him that way.

“Whatever,” Jake mutters.

“Whatever? You think that’s okay? Like, ‘Oh, we can’t let that scumbag warp the mind of our favorite son.’”

The 'favorite son’ remark isn’t meant as a jab at Jake. Jesse figures surely Jake is aware he’s just kind of obviously the favored son, not that he’d normally be mentioning it when it’s not like that’s Jake’s fault. This statement is all about the way their mom is acting, not about Jake; he wants Jake to be his ally in this. But Jake blanches. “I’m the favorite? Yeah, right. You’re practically all they ever talk about.”

Jesse opens his mouth but doesn’t say anything, looking back towards the door. This is presumably why Jake’s really been kind of aloof this whole time they’ve been talking; he feels like his parents are just constantly thinking about Jesse, and it makes him a little jealous and resentful of Jesse - like nothing he does ever makes him as important as his older brother who’s not even around anymore.

We don’t really get to see exactly to what extent that’s true. In the only scene we see of their family without Jesse, they are talking about Jake and paying full attention to him, with no mention of Jesse - but that’s also because it’s an introductory scene where the writers don’t want to reveal this is Jesse’s family quite yet, until he barges into their yard. So maybe they really do go on about Jesse all the time (I can picture them reminiscing a fair bit about when Jesse was younger, before the drugs; maybe half of the time Jake does anything these days, they’ll start comparing it to what Jesse was doing when he was his age), but maybe Jake’s perception just kind of exaggerates it when they do talk about him; it’s hard to tell. Either way the important bit here is the way the two brothers feel here: they’re both kind of jealous of each other - and Jesse, who’s been pretty convinced his parents pretty much wish he didn’t exist at this point, abruptly learns otherwise.

Jesse can’t sleep that night, thinking of Jake and his parents, and ends up getting out of bed and opening the big chest by the foot of his bed, still full of all his old stuff. Some toys he used to play with, a stack of more drawings from when he was a bit older (still very good, but now featuring more busty women, because he was a teenage boy). And then, a crude, doodly caricature of Walt with a flask up his butt, drawn on the back of a failed chemistry test where Walt had written “Ridiculous! Apply yourself”.

(Let’s talk about that test for a moment! Conveniently, someone on Reddit has managed to transcribe the whole thing (though I’m pretty sure he answered question 10 with “A. Gas B. (blank)”, rather than actually calling it “Gas B”). The entire thing is pretty much obviously wrong non-answers, many of them something smartass like “1. I 2. Don’t 3. Care”; he clearly hadn’t really studied for this at all. But there’s a bit of a progression to it: in the first question he sort of starts writing up some kind of formula that he vaguely thinks he remembers, but then loudly gives up. Question two, he writes up what would be the beginning of a real answer, but then just draws a blank when it comes to the actual definition. Then we move on to just really visible frustration with the whole thing in questions 3-6, from realizing he’s going to fail this to immediately deciding well he doesn’t care why does he even need to know any of this, then he runs out of juice for even that and just writes whatever the first half-assed thing he can think of is. Then he just doodles a shiny cube and leaves it at that. Oh, Jesse. Also, I enjoy that he knows the formula H2O, but still writes down that H₂SO₃ is water.)

The caricature, originally just a crude disgruntled doodle of a disliked teacher, brings back a lot of memories of simpler times, the Walt that he remembers from high school. And he lingers on that big, red “Apply yourself”. Implicitly, you can do better. (He had another teacher who told him something like that once, long ago.)

That’s when Jesse’s phone buzzes. It’s Combo, asking if he’s got any more of that excellent meth from the other day. Jesse says pretty firmly that he’s done giving out freebies. But no, Combo’s cousin is in town with some rich friends, and they want to buy everything he’s got.

Touching base

Walt is trying to clean the rest of his money out of his vents when Jesse rings his doorbell. Having had the idea that Jesse is a snitch planted in his head by Krazy-8, he’s horrified - and livid. Who sent him? Walt shoves him, grasping at his shirt, trying to feel for wires (Jesus, Walt), and Jesse calls him a homo (I understand the general sentiment of 'why the goddamn fuck is he groping me’, but Jesse please stop). As Walt presses on about who he talked to, Jesse responds with such aggressive incredulity that Walt actually tentatively believes him and asks why he’s there.

Jesse is there for a few reasons. He sold the meth, so half the money is rightfully Walt’s, of course. And hopefully, once he gets it, then they’ll be square. They’ve been in a pretty tense position ever since Jesse made off with the drugs after their argument last episode - if they just finish this, and Walt gets his money, and learns Jesse didn’t smoke it all, then that should clear the air, right? Jesse would be able to breathe a lot easier if he could know that Walt was cool. And… Walt just killed someone. Is he, like, okay? Remembering him from high school again makes it a lot weirder to picture him murdering anyone in cold blood. Jesse hasn’t heard from him at all; maybe he kind of needs someone to talk to and would appreciate him coming by? Heck, Jesse would kind of like to talk about it.

But also… Combo calling him about how great their meth was and how his cousin wanted to buy all of it with his rich buds that could get any drugs in town that they wanted, just after Jesse’d been looking at that old chemistry test, just stirred something. Jesse really made something awesome with Walt. And… he wants that again. To be proud of something, praised for something. He wasn’t exactly burning to spend more time with Walt before, but… if he gives him the money it’ll be fine, right? And Walt was just his dorky old chemistry teacher, right? He’s… it’s not like he’s been afraid of the guy he drew that caricature of, right? That’d be silly. Walt told him to apply himself; well, he will apply himself to this. Maybe if he does, Walt will acknowledge his efforts and not be such a dick, even!

Of course, he wasn’t expecting Walt to come right out of the gate incensed and accusing him of telling people more things and wearing a wire (where did that come from), and it all messes with him a bit, even after Walt calms down; Jesse’s not sure he should actually have come here anymore. He’s awkward and guarded as he answers Walt’s question with, “I don’t know. To, like, touch base.”

“Touch base?”

“Yeah, you know. What they call a… debrief?”

Walt’s deeply hostile and condescending, openly scornful that Jesse could possibly think they have anything to talk about. Jesse suggests it just seemed like the thing to do, that it’s not like they can talk about what happened to anyone else. And… he just wanted to tell him how much everybody digs that meth they cooked.

Walt looks very unimpressed. Jesse hesitantly, hedgily suggests that you know, if he ever saw his way clear to the two of them cooking a little more… (Jesse’s face here is so tense, wincing, already braced for rejection. Aaron Paul is also very very good.)

Walt goes, “Wow,” like that’s the most pathetic, desperate thing he’s ever heard. Jesse takes a small, awkward breath. Walt tells him to get the hell off his property and not come back.

Jesse gathers himself. Who was he kidding? Of course Walt still thinks he’s dirt. It hurts, but Walt is wrong, he’s the asshole here, and Jesse’s feelings of rejection are easily turned into righteous indignation. He tells Walt, finally, that actually he came there with Walt’s share of the money, four thousand dollars. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Hey, I didn’t smoke it all.” He throws the money into the air as a final fuck-you before he leaves (Walt has to awkwardly fish a bunch of it out of the pool afterwards). Fine, good riddance. What a dickwad. He didn’t want to keep working with him anyway.

As a first-time viewer, you don’t actually learn Jesse came here to give him his share until this point, replicating Walt’s experience where you may just assume he’s there to try to drag Walt back into cooking, and you probably go along with Walt in thinking Jesse is way out of line coming there at all. In hindsight, the fact Jesse actually gives him the money after Walt’s assaulted and yelled at him and shows no sign of actually wanting anything from Jesse at all other than being left alone is pretty noteworthy - there’s every indication Jesse would’ve gotten away with just leaving at this point, like Walt asked, without ever even mentioning the money. But Jesse’s hurt and angry about Walt treating him like scum (much like his parents, really, only so much meaner about it), and he’d rather prove his integrity than keep the money - even when all he gets out of it is the moral high ground in his own head.

Walt might have reacted somewhat differently here if Jesse had opened by giving him the money. To him, Jesse was barging in to bring the seedy criminal enterprise to his home, where it could have endangered him (though Jesse waited for Skyler to leave), and then trying to pull him back into this world he’d hoped to just leave behind and forget about; knowing he was there to give him his share probably would’ve mellowed his reaction a bit, and indeed, when Jesse reveals that, Walt actually looks a bit awkward and like he’s realized he may have been wrong.

But a lot of Walt’s harshness here isn’t really about that. He’s had a really bad week; first there was cancer, then nearly getting murdered, then murdering two people, then having to tell his family about the cancer and the constant awareness that cancer treatment will cost astronomical sums of money. Perhaps worst of all are his family’s reactions to the cancer: his son yelling at him, the rest coddling him and wanting to help him as the poor suffering cancer man.

But then Jesse appears, this pathetic kid wanting to talk to him, asking things of him, and once he’s over the initial stab of anger and paranoia, Walt feels a kind of power and satisfaction in shooting him down with open disdain and ordering him off his property; there’s an unmistakable sense of patronizing superiority to his reactions, those almost theatrically condescending wows. Finally he feels like he’s actually in control of an interaction, asserting power and making and enforcing choices that are purely his own, for the first time in a while. And relishing having power over and saying no to people you don’t care for when everything else going on in your life is kind of shit is unfortunately a very human thing. This continues to be a show about people being dicks to each other for human reasons.

Taking the fall

Jesse returns to his parents’ house, but when a cleaner discovers a marijuana joint hidden in a potted plant in his room, his parents call him down to the kitchen and ask if he’s got anything to say.

Jesse looks silently between the joint and his parents. He knows that it is, in fact, not his - which is to say, it’s definitely Jake’s. They’re just assuming it was him because, well, of course they do. (Jesse is probably also learning for the first time here that his brother is dabbling in marijuana; his expressions are subtle but he looks down at the joint just long enough to seem to be putting it together.)

He tries to tell them he knows nothing about it, but his dad says that won’t fly this time; his mom makes a little speech about how many times they’ve sat there like this and Jesse has said whatever he thinks they want to hear, only for them to feel like fools when nothing changes. And maybe that’s fair. But it’s not fair right now. It’s not his.

His dad tells him to leave; his mom can’t look him in the eye. They don’t want to be doing this; they see this as the moment where they must finally take a stand, and Jesse knows that. After a moment he stands up and takes the joint, then leaves without saying anything. He’s not going to admit to a thing he didn’t do, but neither is he going to let his brother take the blame, even when it really was him. And at that point it’d be pointless to argue. They don’t want him anymore, nobody really does, and that’s that. (Fun fact: Jesse experiences some form of rejection from literally everyone he interacts with in this episode! He managed to save it pretty quickly with Combo and Skinny Pete, but nonetheless.)

As Jesse’s taxi is about to pull up outside, Jake quietly comes out to join him and thanks him for not telling on him. And then… he asks if he can have the joint back.

Jesse chuckles, takes it out of his pocket and makes as if to hand it to him, only to crumple it, throw it down onto the sidewalk, crush it with his foot, and then kick the remains away for good measure. “It’s skunk weed anyway,” he says. And he gets in the taxi and drives off.

Jesse really could have told on Jake. Maybe his parents wouldn’t have believed him outright, but it would’ve made them at least consider it, planted the idea in their heads if nothing else. He could’ve not only seriously argued for his innocence, but knocked Jake off that pedestal that Jesse’s so intensely aware of - established to their parents that he’s flawed and imperfect, too, and it’s not just Jesse who’s a fuckup. It must have occurred to Jesse that he could, in these burning silences as he’s being kicked out for good for something Jake did, not him.

But Jesse would never actually do that, because he loves his brother despite everything, and Jake deserves to have the love and support from their parents that Jesse’s been barred from. And so, he not only chooses to silently take the fall instead, but destroys his joint too, because man, he doesn’t want Jake to follow him down this path. Jake’s only twelve; he deserves to just be a kid right now, loved unconditionally, and not get dragged into any of this. Jesse can’t really stop him or control him, and he’d probably be the world’s biggest hypocrite if he tried - but at least he can do what he can by not helping him along. He just wants the best for Jake until the end, even when Jake doesn’t want much to do with him. And this is why Jesse is good, thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Jesse’s parents aren’t villains here. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to watch your kid spiral off into drug addiction and increasingly alarming company; they’re in a really scary position, trying to do what’s right and reasonable, but Jesse has essentially become an alien to them, and they just no longer have any real understanding of what’s going on in his head or in his life in general - and they don’t really want to ask, either, because they’re afraid of what they’d hear even if he did actually tell them. To them, he’s their kid and they love him, but he’s also potentially dangerous, and he can’t be trusted in any way with anything at all. And of course they assume if there are drugs in the house it must’ve been him. Who wouldn’t? They’re doing their best with what they do understand, and Jesse probably really has burned them before, several times.

But just the same, in actual fact Jesse is not an alien, he didn’t do anything wrong here, he would never hurt Jake in any way, and his parents did the wrong thing. Sometimes that’s what happens when people are people, each flawed and only incompletely understanding each other.

Seizing power

At Walt’s appointment with the new oncologist, Dr. Delcavoli, they’re informed that the cancer is stage 3A: it’s spread from the lungs to the lymph nodes. It is treatable, and the suggested treatment has been successful, but of course no promises can be made. Walt asks about side-effects; Dr. Delcavoli says they can be mild to nonexistent, but lists off the typical effects as Skyler takes careful notes, determined to help Walt through this: hair loss, fatigue, intestinal issues, muscle pains, bleeding gums, nausea, kidney or bladder irritation, increased bruising and bleeding, sexual symptoms… and Walt just kind of slowly zones out, imagining spending the last months of his life in sickness and agony and helplessness.

After they get home, Skyler unrelentingly tries to stay positive about the cancer - but when she suggests starting the treatment next week, Walt’s reluctant and thinks they should discuss it. $90,000 out of pocket? (Jesus Christ, American health care.) Skyler offers to go back to work, says there are options, but Walt asks what if they pay all that money, do the treatment, and… (He doesn’t quite want to say 'it doesn’t work’ out loud.) Is he just going to leave her with the debt? Maybe treatment isn’t the way to go. They shouldn’t let emotions rule them. (There are clearly no emotions involved in Walt’s feelings about this, obviously.)

From across the room, Walt Jr. yells, “Then why don’t you just fucking die already? Just give up and die.” (There’s a line that comes back, oh boy.) Walt Jr., of course, is particularly angry about the way Walt’s reacting to this because he himself has had to live with a permanent disability all his life, and he can’t help but see himself in Walt’s place - if Walt had just decided it was too expensive or too difficult to treat him - but for now, he doesn’t say any of that. Walt’s just left to emotionally deal with his son telling him to fucking die already.

When Walt drives to the pharmacy later, he has a bad coughing fit in the car and coughs up some blood. He pulls into the parking lot, stares at his bloodied hand and despairs, confronted by his looming mortality in a more immediate way than ever - and then he’s interrupted by a honking car horn as the same asshole lawyer from earlier in the episode drives up and leaves his convertible open while he goes inside.

And after a moment of looking darkly out the window, Walt gets up, pops the hood on the lawyer’s car, and short-circuits the engine with a wet window wiper, then coolly walks away from the resulting explosion, like an action-movie hero. As he gets back in his car and drives away while the hysterical lawyer yells, Walt actually smiles. Breaking the rules, feeling like a rogue badass, exerting power, is a way of wrestling control back from the world when he feels shitty and powerless. Another choice to hurt and humiliate someone he thinks deserves it, because it feels good and gives him a sense of much-needed power and control, only taken a bit further - and into actual criminality again. He’d been determined his initial foray into crime was a mistake best forgotten about, but here, in the moment, this just feels good.

The first time I watched, this episode was where I… reluctantly decided maybe Jesse was okay. Fine, he’s got a soft spot for his little brother, that’s kind of cute. In hindsight, most of this episode is one big Jesse character study exploring who he actually is and showing him as fundamentally decent and sympathetic (even the opening of the episode ends on Walt but starts with the conclusive revelation that Jesse had nothing to do with snitching on Emilio). But the most important scenes here, taking the fall for Jake and touching base with Walt, are both structured with late reveals: you go into the scene likely interpreting his actions from a more cynical POV and only towards the end learn what was really going on, which makes it take another watch to fully appreciate how Jesse knowingly covered for Jake even when that meant he’d be kicked out, and that Jesse’s visit to Walt’s house was really reasonably motivated (remember, Walt already chewed Jesse out for calling him; the alternative was ditching Walt and keeping the money). Or at least it took the second time through for me; I’m sure others who didn’t go into this episode thinking Jesse was bad and annoying probably had an easier time with it the first time around.

Having closed out the opening arc of the season, we’re now doing a couple more introspective, character-focused episodes before the action gets going again. I know first time around I was a little underwhelmed by how quiet and seemingly meandering they were on the whole, compared to the first three episodes. They’re chock-full of really important character stuff for both Walt and Jesse, though, and arguably do the real work of fully setting up their motivations for the entire rest of the show.

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Page last modified April 1 2025 at 00:33 UTC

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