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.

S01E05: Gray Matter

We open with Jesse, dressed up in a suit and tie for a job interview. With Walt gone and no one to cook with, and the array of trauma resulting from his last meth venture, he’s momentarily determined to get a real job - perhaps also hoping to show that he’s not who his parents think he is. As he hands over his résumé, he explains it has “Curriculum vitae” written on it (you can tell he’s reading the term off the paper) because he thinks it sounds more professional, “but, you know, same thing, pretty much”. He almost definitely used some kind of template with that on it, went “What the hell is a curriculum vitae?”, looked it up, figured whoa, okay, that does sound totally professional, I should keep it - but then feels like he can’t actually be sure anyone else knows what that means, so he feels compelled to add this immensely awkward clarification. What a dork.

Even when the interviewer, who clearly wasn’t expecting any kind of résumé, says this is a no-experience-necessary thing, Jesse continues to try to boost his credentials. It’s not really on the résumé, but he’s got experience in sales, he says, obviously thinking of his experience in drug sales. His eyes are super wide and his breathing is audibly tense; his nerves are obvious, but the actual words he’s saying are clearly an attempt to play up a confident, professional image - calling himself a “self-starter” and that “I really feel I could be a major asset to your sales force.” This makes a lot of sense, because this is basically what Jesse does all the time when he wants people to like him - trying to present himself in accordance with whatever he thinks whoever he’s talking to will respect and respond well to, and confidently talking himself up, regardless of how terrified he’s actually feeling, how far out of his depth he is, or how ill-suited he actually is for the situation.

The interviewer explains that well, their actual sales positions require licenses and college degrees, and instead this position is more along the lines of the guy in a ridiculous mascot costume waving a sign outside. And Jesse… is not that desperate. Taking a job like this might make him money, but it’d also be tantamount to an admission that he’s a pathetic loser with no self-respect, skills or real value as a person, and for someone like him, who desperately wants to be respected and valued and tries to project being more respected and valued than he is, it’s just not even a choice.

He walks out, upset and angry to even have been duped into applying, immediately starts pulling off the clip-on tie and unbuttoning the stupid shirt…

…and that’s when the guy with no self-respect in the mascot costume recognizes him and stops him. It’s the introduction of Badger! He’s doing this job because he’s on probation, presumably for a drug charge; he appears to have no real qualms about it, even talking up the skills required to do it, but Jesse of course remains unconvinced. They share a joint in an alley, and Badger asks if Jesse can hook him up with some crystal. Jesse says he’s been out of the business for a while, thinking about retiring - once again making it sound like this was totally his own choice and nothing bad happened. Badger is mortified: “That stuff you made is unbelievable!” Jesse looks away as he says, “It was pretty awesome.” By all appearances the two of them haven’t seen each other in a while, so I’m kind of tempted to conclude Badger must be actually referring to Jesse’s old ‘Chilli P’ product - but that’s definitely not what Jesse is thinking of.

(If Badger really is talking about the Chilli P, I don’t know if this is him genuinely thinking it was that great or just him being very supportive and enthusiastic about anything his friends do, but either one is pretty cute.)

When Badger presses him, Jesse admits he had a partner who helped him cook - “I mean, I was doing most of the work”, he adds, lest it sound otherwise - but “he was an asshole, so.” So he quit? Why would he, if he was doing most of the work? This sounds pretty flimsy, and Jesse knows it. He quickly adds, as a better explanation, that it’s getting harder to find pseudoephedrine - only for Badger to offer to get him some and partner with him sometime. Back in his car later, Jesse sighs, reexamining the job postings he’s circled - it’s probably all more of this kind of humiliating crap. Cooking with Badger. It’d be so much easier, wouldn’t it? What Walt did can’t be that hard. Jesse was there for the whole process, after all. Surely he can just… do it himself? Right?

Gray Matter

Meanwhile, Walt’s on his way to Elliott Schwartz’s birthday party with Skyler.

Walt’s got a lot of pent-up feelings about Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz. Elliott was his partner in founding Gray Matter; Gretchen used to date Walt back then but he left her and sold them back his share in the company for $5000, and she got with Elliott instead. And that by itself might be innocuous, except for the fact that in the time since, Gray Matter has grown huge and made Gretchen and Elliot rich and prestigious, while Walt ended up stagnating as a high school teacher. Gray Matter has become a bit of a symbol of Walt’s bitterness; it’s what Walt should have had.

The buyout was Walt’s own shortsighted choice; he really has no one but himself to blame for this. But of course it stings in hindsight that he could have been rich and respected when now he’s struggling and forgotten, and in a mixture of simple jealousy and those defense mechanisms grasping for someone else to blame for a huge mistake instead of himself, he kind of resents them for it - for still profiting off his work, building on the foundations of his contributions from all those years ago.

But for now, these are buried feelings, and they’re still in contact, still inviting each other to birthdays. At the moment, in the car, he’s berating himself for the present he brought - what was he thinking? Why did they even bring a present, when the card said no gifts? He’s self-conscious about the gift being small and stupid when Elliott can buy anything he wants and he’ll probably think it’s trash, but also just generally on edge about the idea of going to Elliott’s birthday party at all - seeing these people basking in their success.

Skyler reassures him the gift is fine and Elliott’ll love it - but then, when he keeps going, she just says, “Walt. We have to go.” Because Skyler knows her husband, knows that even though he’s going on about the gift right now he doesn’t really want to be going to this party at all, and that’s the real problem, more than the gift. I kind of doubt Walt’s ever properly told her about his feelings regarding Gray Matter and the Schwartzes, but over the years of their marriage she’s definitely picked up what’s up and knows why this is a bit difficult and stressful for him.

There’s a pile of huge gifts at the party, despite the 'no gifts’ stipulation. Walt and Skyler look out of place, dressed differently from everyone else: there’s clearly some beige rich-people fashion trend going on that they’ve not been privy to. Walt congratulates Gretchen and Elliott on a patent the company secured, calling it “your company”, and Elliott responds that it took “hard work and a lot of luck”. The Schwartzes don’t stop long as they have to meet other guests, but promise to catch up later. Walt goes inside their mansion of a house, looks at the framed magazine covers about Gray Matter on the walls, and has a coughing fit in there, a cruel reminder of his position: while they prosper, he is dying in obscurity.

On his way out, as Walt notices Skyler talking to Elliott, he bumps into a friend from back in the Gray Matter days, who eagerly wants to tell some of his newer acquaintances about a time that Walt solved all his problems, and how Walter White is the white in Gray Matter. He asks Walt to tell them about it, which he does, awkwardly - White + Schwartz (black in German) = Gray. “So you run the company with Elliott?” asks one of the friends. “No, I… gravitated towards education,” Walt responds. “What university?” asks the friend, simply assuming that “education” in this social circle means being a respected university professor and not a high school teacher who until recently had a second job at a car wash. Everything about being here stings.

Elliott starts unwrapping his presents, most of them absurdly expensive - someone’s gotten him one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, signed with a personalized message. Skyler mutters, “Why is he doing this? What is he, like, eight years old?” She knows exactly how uncomfortable Walt is watching this, especially with the gift discussion earlier, and makes sure to let him know that she’s on his side and thinks this is ridiculous (but make no mistake, that’s definitely her actual opinion and not just trying to make Walt feel better).

Elliott gets to Walt’s present… a packet of ramen. People at the party look around at Walt with questioning smiles; Walt’s too humiliated to even say anything. But then Elliott bursts out laughing and explains how the two of them lived on these for ten months straight while they were working on their thesis, jokes about how they were the secret to their success, asks how Walt even got them since he thought they’d been outlawed years ago. (I guess Walt just still had a packet lying around somewhere - that or Elliott was fibbing on his behalf there to make it sound more elusive than it is.) It’s a nostalgic, sentimental gift - honestly, my favorite kind. Walt had second-guessed the idea endlessly: probably Elliott had long forgotten about the good times they used to have back in the day - why would he even give a shit about Walt anymore, there with his millions of dollars? But Elliott loves it, and he makes sure everyone knows it and doesn’t just assume Walt’s some penniless weirdo.

This lightens the mood at last - finally Walt feels, cautiously, like Elliott wants him here, like he’s not quite so much of a pathetic outsider.

The offer

Soon the two of them are talking about old times together, laughing. Elliott says he misses this, and so does Walt - he suggests the Schwartzes should come over for dinner sometime. But instead, Elliott suggests Walt should come join them at Gray Matter, work together again. Walt’s flummoxed and disbelieving: this was not where he expected this party to be going. He says no way he’d have anything to do there, all he does is draw atoms and try to teach kids the periodic table - but Elliott presses on: he’s brilliant, he’d be a new set of eyes, he may be exactly what they need. Walt still doesn’t quite believe this, stares at him for a moment… but then he starts to smile as he imagines it. He feels a bit weird about it, what with all his emotional baggage regarding Gretchen and Elliott and Gray Matter. But really? This kind of sounds like the dream. He could be working on problems befitting of his education and his intelligence again, for much better pay. He could really go back to the old days, when he was doing real, groundbreaking work.

Only then there’s a very particular moment as Walt stares into the middle distance, the smile fades, and he looks down. He stiffly starts to explain that there’s something Elliott should know, that he has some personal issues. Elliott says it’s fine, there’s nothing they can’t work out, then presses on when Walt says it’s complicated: “We can help you. We have excellent health insurance.”

And that’s when Walt realizes that Elliott knows. Someone told him about the cancer - Skyler, earlier when he saw him talking to her.

Everything twists around in his head. Elliott didn’t offer him a job because he misses working with Walt and thinks they need a new set of eyes. He did it out of pity. The poor cancer man, in need of a swooping millionaire guardian angel to graciously hand him a well-paid job with health insurance that covers his treatment on a silver platter. Was that why Elliott deigned to explain the present and talk to him, too? Pity, charity?

We see the realization play out silently on Bryan Cranston’s face, then cut to Walt and Skyler walking out, Walt almost slamming the door behind them (not that hard, but it’s a very noisy door). Skyler can clearly tell something’s wrong; she awkwardly starts praising the food while the valet comes over, trying to make their early exit seem a little less pointed. When the valet is well out of earshot, she drops the pretense and prompts Walt for an explanation of why they’re leaving in a huff. He finally turns towards her: “What the hell did you say to Elliott?”

Skyler, defensive, says Elliott asked how Walt was doing, and she doesn’t have the best pokerface where that’s concerned these days - he could tell something was wrong and pressed her on it. This is almost definitely true; we saw that lack of pokerface first-hand last episode. But Skyler probably did dare to hope, when she explained it, that maybe Gretchen and Elliott would want to help them somehow. They need money for the treatment, and Gretchen and Elliott have it. She wouldn’t ask for it, or put him up to it, knows that Walt wouldn’t want to accept anything he saw as charity - but she probably didn’t go all that far out of her way to avoid explaining it, either, because being here, with Elliott asking about Walt, perhaps it all felt like this just might be the stroke of fortune smiling upon them that they needed.

They argue about it. Walt is very angry about her talking about his private affairs with “people who are not even in our lives anymore”. Skyler asks what on earth Elliott said to him that offended him so. “He offered me a job.” “What?!” “Yes! Kind of like some fig leaf, you know. Some face-saving bullshit that allowed me to generously accept his charity. And then when I turned that down, he flat-out offered to pay for my treatment.”

The fact Walt says this so angrily kind of says everything there is to say. He’s very concerned with his family’s finances after he’s gone, enough so to venture into manufacturing illegal drugs - but not enough so to accept charity. He’d rather leave them in trouble than accept the help of a rich friend who has plenty to spare. The very idea offends him. His pride, his singular conviction that a real man doesn’t just accept help and especially not from them, leaves him boneheadedly refusing the happy, secure future he could have had.

Because Walt could’ve been happy, too. He would have flourished in the Gray Matter job - working in chemistry again, on something that properly challenges him, with people who’d respect his brilliance and expertise, absolutely earning the pay and the health insurance that come with it (it isn’t even charity!). We could see him smiling as he imagined it - even the fact it was Gray Matter wasn’t insurmountable. But the moment he realized Elliott knew about the cancer, and instantly convinced himself Elliott was only offering it to him because of the cancer, he rejected that future, and thereby sealed his fate.

In reality, I expect Elliott really does miss working with Walt a bit, and really would love having him back at Gray Matter. Normally he might perhaps not make an offer like this without Walt expressing interest first, given how he left - but there’s no sign Elliott bears any ill-will towards Walt whatsoever, and no reason beyond Walt’s own emotional hangups to think he doesn’t sincerely believe Walt’s a brilliant scientist who’d make valuable contributions to the company now just like he did back in the day. But of course, the reason Elliott does happen to go out of his way to make this offer out of nowhere now is to help Walt, and there’s no escaping that. He makes sure to offer him the job first without mentioning the cancer at all, though - Elliott knows Walt well enough to be aware he’s unlikely to accept a straight-up offer of financial help and instead first goes for something that’d be more palatable to him, and avoids presenting it like it’s meant to help him at all. He really does care about Walt, and wants to actually be able to help him, and that’s why he chooses this way and tries not to let on that he knows about the cancer - in the hope that then maybe Walt won’t turn him down, not because he wants to deceive him about anything. But then he says just a bit too much, and the game is up. Walt is a difficult person to help.

Skyler asks what Walt said; there’s a long silence, as it perhaps fully dawns on Walt what he just turned down, before he says, “What do you think I said?”, and turns to get in the car. Skyler asks why, but he doesn’t answer, won’t even look at her.

If I recall correctly, when Vince Gilligan was asked in an interview when Walt crosses the line for good, he said it was here, in this episode, when he turned down this job. And there’s definitely a real sense in which this is that moment. He could have lived the rest of his life happy, intellectually stimulated, working a good, respected job and earning his pay while making valuable contributions to his field, getting the best available medical treatment, without ever having to worry about money again, either for him or his family. And he just chose not to. The part of the show where Walt is in some sense forced into the drug trade by circumstance ends here; from this point on, it will always be the case that he could simply not be doing this, if only he’d just swallowed his pride and taken this job that he would’ve loved.

However, despite this, this isn’t an incomprehensible choice. Most of us have in us the capacity to reject an offer with no downsides on paper because it seems to violate some deep principle we have. Most of us have some sense of pride in us, and can imagine feeling insulted by a patronizing offer for help. In this case, given his situation, he’s definitely being a stubborn fool, but this isn’t morally alien; it’s a more extreme version of feelings most people can relate to to one degree or another. It’s an important establishing character moment, but on a first watch, without the benefit of hindsight or knowledge of exactly where the show is going… this probably isn’t the moment you stop rooting for Walt. I know it wasn’t for me. It was just a moment that made him more flawed and interesting and solidified his character and motivations. The true weight of it only quite hits when you reflect on the whole series and remember that he could just not be doing this.

Perfectionism

Meanwhile, Jesse and Badger prepare to head out to do some cooking. Badger asks about the bullet holes in the door of the RV; Jesse awkwardly brushes them off as being for ventilation. (He definitely has not at any point been in danger or suffered trauma and is a cool guy unfazed by everything who has everything under control, at all times.) Jesse also says he used to have twice as much glassware before his dumbass ex-partner drove the RV into a ditch and wrecked most of it - combination talking up how cool his operation was and making a disgruntled jab at Walt. Like most people, Jesse gets a visceral satisfaction out of relating stupid-sounding stories of someone who’s been a dick to him, without bothering to provide whatever context might make their actions sound more reasonable.

When Badger comments on a “big-ass beaker”, though, Jesse corrects him: it’s a boiling flask. He picks up different pieces of glassware and explains what they’re called one after another - a funhouse mirror version of the scene in the pilot where Walt explains different flasks to a hostile, defensive Jesse. He was absolutely listening back then, for all that he acted like this was stupid and he didn’t care. (Jesse does not enjoy feeling like a fool or knowing he’s not doing something right, even if he stubbornly acts otherwise.) And not only that, he wants Badger to get it right. He’s showing off (“It’s just basic chemistry, yo”), but the reason he initially reacted was just that he wants to do this properly.

This meth-cooking montage is quite a contrast to the one in episode one. There, Jesse was casual, going through the motions with a bit of fooling around; here, he’s pure intense focus, desperate to replicate Walt’s success, while Badger goofs off. When they’re done, Badger is psyched about their success, raving about how much money they’re going to make - but Jesse mutters, “It’s not right.” They’ve got big crystals, sure, but they’re cloudy-looking - Walt’s were clear as glass. Jesse failed.

“So what?” Badger says. “Cloudy, not cloudy - it looks good enough to me.” And… Jesse takes the entire batch, walks out of the RV and throws it out as the horrified Badger yells at him. “Look, it’s not for you, it’s for our customers,” Jesse says, again mirroring Walt’s insistence on the same. Then: “They’re gonna demand a certain standard.”

Because Jesse knows if he goes back to selling people his old stuff, or even this, they’ll be disappointed. They’ll know it’s not as good. Jesse knows it’s not as good. He can’t go out there and have people figure it was just his partner that made it so well last time and Jesse’s just the Chilli P guy that, for all Jesse liked to pretend otherwise, nobody took all that seriously. He can’t. He has to be able to do this right. He was right there! He watched it all happen!

They make another batch. As Jesse examines it, Badger is fidgeting, agitated. “We can do better,” Jesse says (like a certain teacher of his once said) - and Badger stops him. “Three entire pounds of pseudo wasted! Do you know how long I had to spin that stupid sign?!” He attacks Jesse, and they fight; Jesse, thinking on his feet, grabs what I think is the red phosphorus from the table and throws it in Badger’s eyes, enabling him to push the much bigger and stronger Badger out of the RV, close the door and drive off.

Jesse really was being an ass here. For all his personal desperation to replicate what Walt did, Badger is his partner now, and he invested a bunch of his own money into the raw material; he did not agree to gamble it all on satisfying Jesse’s sudden perfectionism (and also, throwing stuff in people’s eyes and leaving them in the desert is kind of a dick move, even if they attacked first). All in all, Badger had every right to be mad, and this episode did not help me warm up to Jesse on my first time through. It’s hard as a first-time viewer to immediately appreciate why he’s quite so obsessed with this all of a sudden, and the most obvious thing to read into it without later context is just Jesse imitating the way Walt acted with him in the pilot (which is definitely an influence on his behaviour here, but that’s not the main thing going on here; this is not a 'monkey see, monkey do’ situation). I enjoy anxious perfectionist Jesse now, but I’m not surprised my 2013 self remained decidedly unconvinced about him at this point. Patience!

Intervention

The morning after the birthday party, breakfast is awkward and pointedly silent at the White house, and Walt Jr. once again insists on taking the bus, having presumably heard one way or another that Walt’s still refusing treatment. That evening, Walt Jr. tries to get a stranger to buy beer for him and his underage friends, but the stranger is an off-duty cop, who makes him call his dad - only he calls Hank instead.

Once Hank picks him up and the other cop is gone, Hank says, “Not cool, man, not cool” - not about him breaking the law, but about him calling Hank instead of his actual dad. “How do you think that’d make him feel?” (The cancer’s making Hank really not want to pile any more troubles onto the poor guy - something Walt would hate if he knew about it, of course.) When they get home, and Walt Jr. has been sent to his room, Hank asks Skyler to not tell Walt about this, that Walt Jr.’s just acting out because his dad’s sick - “first the pot, then this.” (This doesn’t actually add up, timeline-wise - the whole pot misunderstanding happened before any of them learned about Walt’s cancer - but Hank’s probably not really thinking about that; it seems to add up into a narrative at a glance, and that’s definitely something humans do.) This lets Skyler finally correct the record and tell them that it’s Walt who’s smoking pot.

Marie is scandalized; Hank laughs. “Shit. I didn’t think he had it in him.” (Hank still applies very different standards to people he knows and cares about than to people in the street.) Skyler repeats Walt’s line about how he hasn’t been himself lately - who would refuse treatment even when it’s completely paid for? They need to stage an intervention, er, “family meeting”, where everyone can voice their concerns and be heard.

So, when Walt gets home the next day, they’re all sitting in the sofa. It’s time for the talking pillow!

To Skyler, Walt’s stubbornness here is simply born of a dangerous irrationality that she’s well aware of in her husband - his distaste for accepting charity or help, ever. This seems a reasonable assumption: after all, last episode Walt justified being reluctant to get treatment on the basis of the fact it’d put the family deep in debt, which he didn’t want - and then, at the birthday party, Elliott’s offer would have resolved that problem entirely and Walt still rejected it. It seems like the only obstacle stopping Walt from getting cancer treatment is this pointless, stubborn pride of his that he’s somehow determined to die for. And who wouldn’t be upset and desperate seeing their spouse make a choice like that? Ultimately Walt should have the right to have the final say on his own health care choices, and ganging up on him in this manner is unfair and coercive - but it’s easy to understand why Skyler would turn to something like this when all else seems to fail, when it seems so clear to her that Walt is just letting his foolish pride get the better of him, and he’s so dismissive and won’t really listen when she tries to convince him otherwise. (People being dicks to each other for human reasons.) The way she’s organized this with the talking pillow is probably quite considered; she knows that usually Walt would kind of shut her down, make some argument that sounds reasonable, and not properly hear her out or consider what she’s saying - so she’s tried to arrange a situation where he’ll have to at least listen, and hear many opposing perspectives that might persuade him to see sense. She doesn’t see this as forcing him into anything, just giving it her absolute best shot to convince him not to die.

The way she presents her case to him begins very careful, clearly rehearsed, obviously trying to be sensitive to his feelings. She says she wants to understand his thought process; she makes a point of using “I” language; she emphasizes that she understands that it’s hard for Walt to accept help, that maybe it’s the way he was raised - but it’s okay to lean on people now and again. But at the end the “I” language slips: “You need this treatment, and nothing can stop you from getting it - except you.”

Hank speaks next, clearly kind of awkward and uncomfortable in this setting; open, honest emotionality and vulnerability and “I” language are pretty far from the way he’s used to communicating. After assuring Walt he cares about him, he couches his message in a lengthy gambling analogy. When Marie asks what the hell he’s talking about, he shifts into baseball instead: Walt’s up, he’s got a bum arm, does he let the pinch-hitter take the shot or hold on to his pride and lose the game? “You get what I’m saying?” Walt says, “No,” even though the baseball analogy was actually pretty transparent even to me, an Icelander with only a cursory understanding of how baseball works - I suspect he did get it and just doesn’t like it. But Hank explains anyway, that if Elliott wants to chip in, “take the money and run, man.” (He’s still not talking entirely plainly here - describing it as “taking the money and running”, ironically for a cop, is more palatable than talking about accepting Elliott’s help, which honestly feels kind of unmanly to him too, even if he can reason his way around it.)

Hank awkwardly offers the talking pillow up to somebody else, depositing it in Walt Jr.’s lap. Walt Jr. says he’s pissed off - “Because you’re being… you’re a pussy.” Kind of revealingly, this is the first thing said here that actually seems to be getting to Walt a bit; Skyler painting his motivations as stubbornness because of the way he was raised is fair enough, but his son questioning his manhood over it and making it out to be a kind of cowardice really stings. “You’re like, ready to give up. You’re… God. What if you gave up on me, huh? All the stuff I’ve been through, and you’re scared of a little chemotherapy?” Notably, Walt Jr. has a pretty different perspective on this that doesn’t touch on Elliott’s money offer at all, instead focusing on the fact that he’s dealt with his disability all his life and then his dad just wants to give up and die instead of fighting. That’s what he fundamentally doesn’t get about Walt’s worldview here: as far as he’s concerned, when you’re sick, you just deal and fight it, and money’s irrelevant (of course, it probably helps that he’s a teenager who’s never really had to worry about money himself, but nonetheless). Walt making it out to be about money last episode was just some kind of pathetic excuse, and Walt Jr.’s not buying it.

Marie gets the pillow at last. And… she thinks Walt should do whatever he wants to do. Skyler blanches, only now realizing that they might not all be on the same page; she took for granted that any sane person would think Walt’s being pointlessly self-destructive and want to persuade him. But Marie, a radiologist, says she X-rays people in chemotherapy all the time, and some of them are miserable, but got talked into this by their families; she doesn’t want Walt to be one of them. Marie can be very blunt about her opinions in the face of conventional politeness, which often results in her being unpleasant - but it also means in situations like this she’s willing to stand up for Walt’s right to make his own choice in this rather than go along with Skyler’s efforts as she was obviously expected to, and for all that I get and sympathize with Skyler’s motivations, I really appreciate Marie here and this is definitely her best moment this season.

In this moment, though, Skyler isn’t in any mood to appreciate Marie standing up for patients’ rights. It feels like a sudden slap in the face, as if Marie wants to get Walt killed, like she’s sabotaging their last chance to persuade him to live; she’s immediately upset and accusatory. And then Hank suddenly speaks up to say actually he agrees with Marie, too (he, unlike his wife, did initially just automatically take Skyler’s side because she called this meeting and wanted their help and he couldn’t really fault her reasoning, but really he sees Marie’s point as soon as she’s made it). “What? Maybe Walt wants to die like a man.” Not too far off, Hank!

But Skyler doesn’t want him to die at all. She starts arguing with Marie, with Hank cutting in too, until Walt whistles to shut everyone up and grabs the pillow out of Marie’s hands. (Another delightful season one comedy moment as Walt stands kind of threateningly, glaring, holding a pillow, and says, “All right? I’ve got the talking pillow now.”)

Walt starts by acknowledging that they all love each other and that they want the best for him - of course they do. But what he really needs is a choice. “Sometimes I feel like I never actually make any of my own choices, I mean. My entire life, it just seems I never… you know, had a real say about any of it. Now, this last one, cancer… all I have left is how I choose to approach this.”

“Then make the right choice, Walt,” Skyler says. “You’re not the only one it affects.” And doesn’t he want to see his daughter grow up? Of course he does, he answers, but what good is surviving if he’s too sick to do anything beyond survival - helpless, in bed, nauseated, for the rest of his life? And the worst part is that that’s how they’d remember him, as a pathetic, bedridden wretch who needs to be cleaned up after. He doesn’t want that; it’s the last thing he wants.

(Skyler’s in tears by this point - Walt’s monologue here that I just summed up really is pretty moving, and of course fantastically delivered. There was more to this than just the money, and now that he’s explained that, her righteous desperation to persuade him to do it anyway is gone. She gets it. She’s not happy about it, of course she’s not, but we can see she’s done arguing, looking away, just trying to come to terms with this.)

And thus, Walt says, “I choose not to do it.”

The choice

We cut to next morning, Walt lying awake in bed, turning around to reach into Skyler’s empty space. And, after burying his face in her pillow and fiddling with her bedtime reading - books on pregnancy, plus now “Healing Gourmet: Eat to Fight Cancer” - he goes down to the kitchen, hugs her from behind and tells her, “All right. I’ll do the treatment.”

This seems almost like it renders most of what came before it a strange detour - the episode spends a lot of time on Walt refusing treatment, and climaxes with him saying he chooses not to, then immediately moves on to him changing his mind anyway. Structurally it feels a little clumsy, like there ought to be at least one more scene in there in between. But either way, the real point of all this has been getting Walt to a point where he’d properly articulate more of the reasons he’s reluctant to do the treatment; there, at this family meeting, with everyone there squabbling back and forth about what he should do while he sits there, it properly brought out this angle that Walt would normally be reluctant to discuss, the angle of his feeling helpless and without agency in his own life and fearing that’s how he’ll die, too. Ultimately the family meeting did help him express himself in a more honest and vulnerable way!

But in the end, after sleeping on it… he’s seen how much Skyler cares now, how desperate she is, and he does love her and not want to hurt her. He does want to see his daughter grow up. He doesn’t want his son to feel like Walt’s just pathetically given up in the face of less than he’s had to suffer through himself.

And… perhaps he can at least make one choice. He can choose to do this on his own terms, and make the money he needs for himself, instead of accepting Elliott’s pity. Sure, his last foray into meth-cooking didn’t go awesomely… but he knows Jesse is willing, not just willing to do it at all but apparently actively wants to now and might be more willing to follow his lead. And this time it can be different. He’ll make it different. Krazy-8 is gone, after all. This time, it’ll all work out the way he first imagined - no fuss, nothing threatening the life that he has, just a bit of chemistry and money in return. Money to cover the treatment, but also more to leave to the family when he’s gone.

Perhaps, even if he spends the last months of his life in abject misery, that’ll be what they remember him for - this mysterious cache of money that he secured for them to provide them with everything they need, through his own ingenuity, through the secret daring badass side of him that they never knew about. And that’s not a bad thought. (In this fantasy, perhaps, he imagines Skyler would be impressed and grateful rather than deeply alarmed at such a revelation.) And just the thought that he’ll have done that would be something to keep him going through the pain and the humiliation of it all, something to hang his dignity on and make him feel like a brilliant, self-sufficient genius who did what he had to for the sake of his family against all odds, instead of a man who died pathetically of cancer, dependent on others’ pity, having accomplished nothing.

A new beginning

At the cancer clinic for the first treatment appointment, Skyler explains they can pay with a credit card and then Elliott will send a check. Walt says he’ll take care of it; her gaze lingers on him, clearly surprised and kind of suspicious that Walt hasn’t been trying harder not to accept Elliott’s money in the end, but she doesn’t say anything. If Walt’s actually decided he’s doing this, she’s not going to be the one to question it and make him reconsider.

Later, Walt reluctantly heads to Jesse’s house once again. He clearly hates being here, the fact he’ll have to rely on someone like Jesse, but that can’t be helped; if he learned anything from last time, it’s that he really does not want to be involved in any part of this but the actual chemistry. As he’s about to step out of the car, though, he gets a phone call. His expression darkens at the caller ID, but he answers it with fake cheer. “Hey, Elliott!”

It’s actually Gretchen; this is even more awkward, but again, he pretends to be thrilled, talking about how great it was seeing them the other day at the party. She’s not buying it; she says Elliott told her about the cancer and implores him to accept the money for the treatment - another person who knows him well enough to know why getting him to accept help like this is a problem, and there’s no way it’s quite this easy. She says as far as they’re concerned, this money belongs to him (once again, Gretchen and Elliott themselves are under absolutely no delusions about the part Walt played in their success and are eager to share it with him). As Walt says nothing, she asks, “Is this about you and me?”

After a long silence, Walt says he appreciates it but actually their insurance came through and they’re fine. He’ll let Gretchen and Elliott think the insurance is paying while his family thinks Gretchen and Elliott are paying. This really isn’t terribly thought-out; any contact between the two would easily expose that nobody knows where this money is actually coming from. Walt isn’t great at making all this hold up to scrutiny at all.

He takes a moment to collect himself before he exits the car. Jesse seems to be in the middle of covering the lab equipment in his garage when he sees Walt approaching; presumably he only just got back from the trip with Badger. He’s immediately wary, curses that Walt’s seen him, but comes out and spreads his arms, expecting another unpleasant confrontation where Walt thinks he’s a snitch or tries to blackmail him some more or something.

Instead, Walt says, “Wanna cook?”

All Jesse can do is stare. But while if Walt had approached him again earlier he might have said no out of spite, this is the right moment. Jesse’s now painfully aware that he can’t do what Walt did alone. He needs Walt - at this point, as far as he’s concerned, it’s basically him or getting a job as a sign-spinning mascot. And so, we know he’ll accept even though we cut to the end credits before Jesse can answer. Everything leading up to this has led them here, to partnering again despite everything.

In a way, this episode explores both Walt and Jesse’s pride: although there’s a very wide gulf between the job offers they consider here, both of them reject a job they find insulting to their dignity, go on to alienate the people close to them by irrationally prioritizing the standards in their own heads to the point of being willing to throw away large sums of money without regard for what their decision means for others, and instead they both ultimately end up back here, reluctantly getting together for another meth venture. The two of them are very different people, and it comes from very different places and means very different things to them, but ultimately the core nugget behind the shared arc here is something that they both have. And that little shared core is something that helps their partnership just about work for as long as it does, abusive as it is; I doubt Walt and someone like Badger could ever have put up with each other for very long.

The other really important thing that’s set up here is, of course, Gray Matter. While it plays a significant role in why Walt is who he is, the show doesn’t overindulge in connecting everything to it; as far as I can remember, it doesn’t actually even explicitly come up all that often over the course of the show. In this episode, it’s treated almost as a background mystery - we don’t really learn about why Walt isn’t part of Gray Matter anymore here, and it’s kind of tantalizing after the out-of-context scenes of Walt with Gretchen in episode three. But what really matters is shown implicitly through Walt’s actions and reactions, and that’s enough.

I originally typed up more about Gray Matter here but on reflection I think I’ll save it for the later episodes where we learn more about it, for the sake of any first-time viewers following along and more relevant context. Look forward to it, sometime in a few years probably I’m sorry I’m very slow.

This is the latter of these two slow setup episodes; we’re kicking into gear in style next time. I confess this isn’t one of my personal favorite episodes of this season overall, but it’s an extremely important one, particularly for establishing Walt’s character but also as the pivotal point turning both Walt and Jesse back toward each other and the meth trade after their miserable first outing. We’ve established why they feel they need this - and why they need each other.

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