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.

S01E06: Crazy Handful of Nothin'

Proceeding from shortly after we left off last episode, we start with Walt and Jesse carrying boxes of equipment back into the RV. Walt sees the sorry state of things after the fight with Badger, the dubious magazines that he left. He probably doesn’t even want to know what happened here, and Jesse has no interest in telling him.

Rather than comment, Walt just lays down new ground rules; this time, this time, things are going to work out like he originally envisioned it. The chemistry will be his realm, and he will be in charge of the cooking. But: “Out there on the street, you deal with that. As far as our customers go, I don’t want to know anything about them. I don’t want to see them, I don’t want to hear from them. I want no interaction with them whatsoever. This operation is you and me, and I’m the silent partner. You got any issues with that?”

“Whatever, man,” Jesse says, a bit defensive. He had no plans to repeat what happened with Krazy-8 and Emilio anyway; Walt doesn’t have to tell him twice. Although he doesn’t enjoy Walt’s accusatory tone, he needs this enough he’s willing to put up with it.

“No matter what happens, no more bloodshed. No violence.”

Only this speech is intercut with the aftermath of an explosion, a bald, cold-faced Walt, blood leaking from his nose, holding a red-stained bag, walking down a street full of shocked bystanders as sirens blare.

I mentioned in my commentary on the pilot that when I first watched the show, I assumed the cold open there was showing something that’d happen in the series finale. I did not learn my lesson, because when we got here, to this, I was convinced that no, this flashforward must be to the series finale. After all, it seems like Walt’s become some sort of ruthless terrifying crime boss! But surprise, this one was also later in this very episode, and the show was going to cheerfully get us there in forty-five minutes. This is such a great opening; it’s impossibly intriguing and really prepares us to anticipate the intensity ramping up again after the quiet stretch of the last two episodes, even if we can’t quite fathom how quickly it’s going to happen.

Therapy

Walt goes to chemo. He tells Skyler she doesn’t have to be there, but she says she wants to be; she’s determined to be extra there for him, knowing how reluctant he was to do this treatment. But he insists no, really, it’s fine if she wants to leave - and then switches to actually, he’d feel better if he knew she’d be there when Walt Jr. got home from school. It’s obvious he just wants her to leave, and Skyler doesn’t buy it for a second; she’s clearly a little affronted, by the fact he made this sorry excuse instead of just telling the truth if nothing else. But if he does want to be alone, she’ll respect that and give him his space (once again, Skyler keeps trying to be considerate of him in this).

As she stands up, she asks if he’s been in touch with Elliott, since she hasn’t seen a check from him yet. Walt says it already arrived and he took care of it. She’s clearly still very surprised at how well he seems to be taking this in the end, and I think she’s still not quite entirely buying it - she looks at him for just a bit too long here. But she leaves anyway; the worst she can imagine, after all, is Walt’s just reluctant and dragging his feet on talking to Elliot, but obviously he will have to get it done sooner or later, right?

The real reason Walt wanted her to leave before him, of course, was that he didn’t receive a check from Elliott at all, and really he’s going to write a $1900 check for the clinic and tell them not to deposit it until Monday, when he plans to have some meth money in his account.

We get another suspiciously apropos chemistry lesson from Walt, a triple combo of outlining one of the themes of the episode, foreshadowing, and immediate relevance (because everything serves multiple purposes). It’s on chemical reactions, change, and how they can happen at different speeds. It can be so slow you don’t even notice, like rust on the underside of a car (like the slow shift in Walt over the course of the show) - or it can be nearly instantaneous, like an explosion (like the seemingly sudden change Walt’s about to undergo in this episode). He takes mercury fulminate as an example of an explosive (foreshadowing), but becomes nauseous during the lesson and tells the kids to start reading while he runs to the bathroom to throw up. The school’s janitor Hugo is there, asks if he’s okay, and insists he’ll clean up and Walt shouldn’t worry about it; Walt’s got kids to teach, after all.

Walt, Skyler and Walt Jr. attend a support group for cancer patients and their families, where Skyler voices her feelings about the sense that Walt sometimes doesn’t want her around (which he denies), and about him not telling her what’s going on with these recent afternoons when he’s come home late and they’re left wondering where he is. Of course, what he’s actually been doing is cooking meth - but he explains he just likes to take walks after work to be alone sometimes, that it’s not about her, just that sometimes it’s better not to talk at all, to anyone, about anything, which is definitely not entirely a lie. Just focusing on the chemistry, quiet, in the wilderness, with somebody who doesn’t even know he has cancer, who can’t start talking to him about it and probably keeps the words exchanged to an absolute minimum generally, is a really, really welcome relief, compared to his family fussing over him, checking in with him, taking him to therapy.

Cooking

Cut to Walt, working on the cook, becoming nauseous and rushing out of the RV. Jesse’s sitting there on a lawn chair reading a magazine (one of Badger’s?) - presumably Walt insists on handling at least some of the trickier parts of the process on his own - but as soon as he sees Walt’s unwell, he jumps up to support him, asks if he’s okay, and tells him to sit down and get some air while he awkwardly fans him with the magazine. I love how we see Jesse’s basic nature here - Walt’s not exactly his favorite person in the world but his absolute first straightforward instinct seeing him suffering is sympathy and proactively trying to help and make him feel better, in whatever way he can think of, beyond the bare minimum.

When Walt zips down his protective suit, though, Jesse notices the mark on his chest used for targeting radiation therapy, which he recognizes, because his aunt had cancer. He asks when Walt was going to tell him, says it’s not cool he didn’t. Then… “What stage are you?” “IIIA.” “Gone into your lymph nodes.”

This, too, says a lot about Jesse. He’s not stupid, or even generally bad at retaining things; when he really cares, and he clearly cared about his aunt, he’s quite observant, pays attention, and has a good memory even for highly specific knowledge. Walt is clearly baffled by this - he’d pretty much written Jesse off when he taught him in high school, and nothing since they got reacquainted has moved him on this, until now.

He asks how bad it was when they caught the cancer in his aunt, for the first time showing something resembling interest in Jesse; she lasted seven months, a grim prognosis. And, unprompted, Jesse says, “That’s why you’re doing all this!” - it’s to earn money for his family before he dies, isn’t it? Walt’s a bit defensive, asks if he’s got a problem with that - but no, Jesse just asks if he’s feeling well enough to finish the cook.

Walt never planned to tell Jesse he had cancer - but now that he’s found out anyway, Jesse’s reaction is actually exactly the kind of reaction Walt would have wished for. Jesse doesn’t pity him or condescend to him or want him to share his feelings, and he doesn’t pressure Walt about his motivations - all on his own he assumes Walt’s doing it nobly for his family (just as Walt likes to think of it), doesn’t question it, and still fully intends to help him with it and appears to care only insofar as it affects their partnership. Even Jesse being mad that he didn’t tell him - briefly but then dropping it - is probably kind of reassuring, a sign Jesse isn’t coddling him or holding anything back. If this were how everyone reacted to the cancer, Walt probably wouldn’t have quite so much of a problem with people knowing. Jesse is surprising him on multiple levels.

Walt automatically says of course he can finish the cook, he’s fine… but after a moment can’t quite deny that no, he’s really not. And right now, in this moment, it actually seems like maybe Jesse isn’t an irredeemable clown. “You do it.” (Of course, nothing that just happened actually says anything about Jesse’s competence at this - Walt just likes him more now, and thus is more inclined to give him a chance.)

Jesse stares at him. “Me?”

“What happened to your ‘mad skills’?” Walt asks, sarcastically, because usually Jesse sure acts like he can do anything. Jesse just stands there awkwardly, not even responding; he knows perfectly well that he’s faking that, that it’s not actually going to be any good if he tries. Walt throws him a gas mask. “Go on. Here. You do it.” Pause. “You can do it.” Jesse is very, very hesitant, but when Walt says he’ll be there if he has any questions, he’s finally convinced he’s serious about this and heads towards the RV.

First, though, as a sort of reciprocation, he drops a tip from his aunt: putting an ice pack on your head during chemo helps with the hair loss. (A fun way to make sure the viewer is aware of this for later, too, without having to explicitly point out on-screen that that’s why Walt’s about to be losing his hair. Everything serves multiple purposes.)

We don’t see followup on how the cook went, which is a bit of a shame; my assumption since we don’t is that it was perfectly okay and up to par, but I wish we got to see Jesse’s reaction to that (I figure he probably chalks it more up to Walt’s prior efforts than his at this point, but still), and whether Walt acknowledged it at all in his current more charitable mood towards Jesse. I think he possibly might have.

Downslide

We get a montage of Jesse selling their product to what we can presume are some of his usual customers (some of them at the motel from episode three). He is clearly pals with them (i.e. wants to think he’s pals with them), fistbumps everyone, even smokes up with some of them even though he eventually has to excuse himself to sell more and this means he’s high and has trouble focusing from there. It’s not like he can just say no; they might think he’s no fun!

Jesse returns to the desert the next day to meet up with Walt, in good spirits despite Walt’s complaint that he’s late. He’s gone and bought Walt a prepaid cellphone for easier communication - a favor, saving Walt the trouble - and proudly presents him with two wads of cash. “Twenty-six big ones.” Walt responds, “$26,000? That’s all?”

No, Jesse explains, good feelings abruptly gone, twenty-six hundred, of which Walt’s share is thirteen minus the phone. Walt is outraged; he asks how much Jesse sold (about an ounce), if he smoked the rest or what (no, it just takes time to sell a pound of anything in small quantities to individual customers), why he’s selling it in small quantities and doesn’t just sell the whole pound (to whom?), then as his logic runs out just turns to empty outrage with “This is unacceptable! I am breaking the law here! This return is too little for the risk!” (as if Jesse isn’t taking on way more risk by being the one actually selling it, but Jesse’s risk is immaterial, right?).

Jesse is obviously right and making perfect sense, and Walt’s showing his complete ignorance of how any of this works with every additional protestation. Maybe Jesse could have sold a little more if he’d spent less time with each customer, but clearly not the whole pound. But of course, the unseen motivator here making Walt so angry and insistent about this is the fact that he told the cancer clinic to deposit his check on Monday - a check that isn’t covered by Walt’s half of the night’s haul. He needs that money in his account by that time or the check will bounce and his family might find out, and that’s a very, very stressful thought. (People being dicks to each other for human reasons.)

Once again he really has nobody but himself to blame for this; it was he who just kind of assumed that he’d have the full amount on Monday without even asking Jesse if that’d work out. Not that I exactly blame him for not thinking through the logistics there; it’s entirely understandable human error, when you don’t fully understand a system, to just abstract it into, “We’ll make this much meth, and then sell it for this amount of money,” without thinking through exactly what the selling it step is going to involve or how long it might take. But it’s clearly Walt’s own human error, and yet again he’s scapegoating Jesse as if this is somehow his fault, because finding someone else to blame in a stressful situation is what people tend to do.

Walt could just explain what’s actually wrong to Jesse right now. He already knows about the cancer, and Walt’s seen that he’s sympathetic about it. Jesse would definitely want to help if possible, and there’s no way Walt doesn’t realize that. From Walt’s point of view, Jesse might know somebody that could discreetly loan them money with interest until they’ve sold the whole batch, or something like that. But that would require admitting to Jesse that he made a miscalculation (when he’s already just been embarrassed in this argument), that he’s desperate and has no money and needs help to make this work out. And Walt is not doing that.

So, instead, when Jesse tells him he may know chemistry but he doesn’t know jack about slinging dope, Walt doubles down. “Well, I’ll tell you I know a lack of motivation when I see it.” Walt’s only mistake was assuming Jesse would be properly motivated to get this done, like any proper drug dealer would be, right? Jesse reacts with appropriate incredulity. But Walt presses on: Jesse’s not being imaginative enough! Can’t they just sell it in bulk, wholesale?

“What do you mean, to a distributor?”

That actually got him somewhere, and Walt latches onto it for all he’s got. “Yes! Yes, that’s what we need. We need a distributor. Now, do you know anyone like that?”

“Yeah, I mean, I used to, until you killed him.”

Womp womp. Jesse says it in the manner of a frustrated jab, but then sinks down to a seated position by the side of the RV, looking down, fiddling; bringing that up just made him feel worse. Walt’s silent for a little while, considering his options. He’s still not telling Jesse why he needs money quick. “So who took Krazy-8’s place?”

Jesse reluctantly explains that it was some guy named Tuco. “Badass, from what I hear” - i.e. someone pretty scary that Jesse would very much prefer not to have anything to do with. He’s still sitting, uncomfortable with where this conversation is headed; the balance is shifting, Walt gaining ground now that they’ve come around to an option that’s technically possible, but he doesn’t like it one bit. Walt goes okay, well, then why don’t you just talk to Tuco? Jesse tries to explain that no, that’s not how it works - a guy like this is not going to just trust and buy from some random dudes he doesn’t know. They’d need someone to introduce and vouch for them - like how Emilio vouched for Jesse to Krazy-8, because they’d known each other from third grade. “And we can’t talk to Emilio, because…” “All right, all right, all right.”

Jesse reiterates that trying to get in with Tuco is too risky (you know, like how Walt was just earlier complaining about the risk; like how Walt was talking about no more violence). They are making money; why can’t he be satisfied with that? And Walt snarls, “Oh, come on! Jesus! Just grow some fucking balls!” before climbing back into the RV, ending the conversation. (Again, please remember that Walt could just tell Jesse why he needs the money now.)

Jesse mouths “Wow”, as if reaffirming to himself that Walt is being a ridiculous asshole (which he is). But underneath, it’s gotten to him anyway; he can’t quite help it. Just yesterday Walt was actually trusting him with a part of the cook; now he’s fallen out of favor again, isn’t selling fast enough, needs to grow some fucking balls. And it’s just in Jesse’s nature to be bothered by that, to want to prove him wrong.

Investigation

Walt has another course of chemo (he does not take Jesse’s advice about having an ice pack on his head), writes another check to be deposited on Monday. The line items we see add up to some $6500 (oh my god). The pressure increases. He throws up at school again and is again assisted by Hugo the janitor.

Later, Hank pays him a visit after class (and makes a lewd comment about Walt’s coworker, because of course he does). He shows Walt a gas mask - the one they left in the desert. Walt plays dumb; Hank explains that they’ve discovered it came from the school’s chemistry lab and was used to cook meth - and was found near a car belonging to one of their snitches. It only takes Walt a moment to piece together what that means. (Hank casually explains they haven’t found a body but think the snitch was killed, “Probably chopped up into little pieces and fed to the buzzards.” Walt looks incredibly uncomfortable.)

Hank asks if they’ve had any respirators go missing, and Walt says not that he knows of, but then invites him to check the inventory - starts off trying to deny it altogether, but realizes quickly that there’s no way the police won’t be able to confirm the equipment he stole went missing, given they’ve got the inventory hanging on the wall. He’s lost this one.

Hank asks who has keys to the storeroom, and Walt lists them. Hank suggest the thief might be a student who found out where some of the keys were kept, tells Walt not to underestimate them. Walt is incredibly on edge as Hank goes through the inventory, points out some flasks are missing. His new burner phone starts ringing in the middle of it; when Walt doesn’t pick up, Hank assumes it’s because he’s there and tells him not to ignore it on his account, so Walt reluctantly picks up the phone and answers.

Of course, it’s Jesse, who informs him that actually it turns out his friend Skinny Pete was in a cell block with Tuco - so they’ve got their in, someone who can vouch. And the two of them are on their way to speak to him now, with a pound of meth to sell.

(Implicit in this: Jesse talked to his friends about the notion of approaching Tuco, Skinny told him about their connection and convinced him he could get them an in with him, and Jesse actually went ahead with it. He could have just never told Walt any of this, or called him asking about it while still trying to talk him out of doing it. But he didn’t; despite himself not wanting to do this at all and being perfectly satisfied with their current arrangements, he’s still determined to try to do this when he sees an actual chance to. He knows Walt was being an ass, and yet he can’t help but feel restless and inadequate and want to live up to those unreasonable expectations after all.)

Hank doesn’t ask about the phone call (which sounded innocuous on Walt’s end), but Walt, still not a great liar, feels compelled to needlessly explain it anyway: “My doctor is very solicitous.” Hank just tells Walt he doesn’t want to get him in trouble, but clearly somebody got into the storeroom and he needs to look out for it better. “We don’t want people to start worrying about you, right?” Walt stares at him, dead silent, for a couple of seconds before Hank grins and laughs. Walt chuckles along awkwardly. Hank still very much can’t actually imagine Walt doing anything criminal and easily brushes off all of Walt’s suspicious behaviour here; Walt benefits a lot from being someone nobody can imagine manufacturing drugs. Make a note of this.

Tuco

Meanwhile, Jesse and Skinny Pete are about to see Tuco.

On the phone call with Walt, Jesse managed to sound casual and confident, but now, only seconds of in-universe time later, we can see as they step out of the car that he looks incredibly tense and nervous. He asks, clearly not for the first time, if Skinny is sure he’s tight with this guy. Again, Jesse for his parts would clearly rather stay far away from Tuco, and is doing this because he feels like he has to. Skinny insists that yeah, “Like two nuts in a ballsack, yo.” He’s greatly exaggerating, but whether he genuinely naïvely believes it or has just convinced himself this’ll go fine in his deep eagerness to be pivotal in helping Jesse out like this, he’s fully committed to treating it as truth.

As they enter Tuco’s headquarters through his multiple security measures, Skinny acts like everyone there should know exactly who he is and afford him the proper respect, but Tuco’s henchmen are clearly very unimpressed and have never heard of him. Jesse notices immediately and gets cold feet, suggests this wasn’t a good idea and they should just go, but Skinny’s confidence doesn’t waver for a moment, and so Jesse follows anyway.

Skinny immediately cheerfully offers Tuco a fistbump as they step into his room. Tuco sits there, entirely unamused, holding a large, intimidating knife that he was just using to pick his teeth. Skinny awkwardly lowers his arm. Every sign is screaming this was a terrible idea, but one way or another, they’re here.

Tuco gets straight to the point, asking if Jesse’s the guy Skinny told him about. Jesse brings him the bag of meth, and Tuco immediately opens it, takes out a crystal and crushes it with the butt of the knife (please make a note of this for later). Tuco tries the meth, though only after making Jesse do so first - Jesse assumes he wants him to prove he’s not a cop, but I think it may (also) be paranoia that it could be poisoned, which you should definitely also put a pin in. He’s thrilled with it, and agrees to make a deal - which has Skinny already celebrating victory.

Jesse is a lot more wary, well aware they’re not out of the woods yet. He tells him they want thirty-five thousand dollars for the pound. Tuco weighs the bag, says it’s a little light of a pound, and Jesse looks terrified, guessing that the slightest thing off might anger him - but Tuco brushes it off, says it’s all good, and tells them to get out of there. What about the money? “You’ll get it.”

When Jesse objects, Tuco lowers his voice: “You don’t trust me?” Jesse senses danger - no, no, no, it’s not that at all, it’s just not the way he does business. (Once again, he’s quickly, automatically guessing at what kind of thing might work on the guy in front of him, what he’d like to hear, and honestly doesn’t do a half bad job of it, especially considering he’s stressed out of his mind.) Skinny Pete tries to assure Jesse that he will get the money, but this of all things really sets Tuco off, and he thrusts his knife an inch deep into his desk. “I don’t need your punk ass to vouch for me!”

As Skinny’s face falls, that confidence vanishing, fight or flight kicks in for Jesse. He makes a futile attempt to bolt, but is immediately caught and shoved back into his chair, where he sits, paralyzed, as Tuco stacks bills into a bag. When Tuco makes as if to hand it to him, he’s not buying it, stands up very slowly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing happens; Skinny gives him an encouraging nod. Tuco didn’t mind the meth being a little light earlier. There’s no obvious logic to this guy. Maybe somehow he is just giving it to him?

And then, of course, the moment he reaches for it, Tuco whacks him with the bag and savagely beats him into the ground. Skinny Pete looks on awkwardly, silent - it’s clear to him by now that he has no actual sway over Tuco, and any objection might mean he will be next. Jesse is left coughing blood on the floor as Tuco yells: “Nobody moves crystal in the South Valley but me, bitch!”

Card night

At the end of the schoolday, Walt and Walt Jr. witness Hank arresting Hugo the janitor, the one who’s been helping Walt throughout this episode.

That evening, they have a card night with Hank and Marie. Walt excuses himself to call Jesse (ridiculous answering machine once again), who he hasn’t heard from. He sounds both worried and angry asking where the hell he is - probably both conscious that things might have gone wrong with this guy Jesse had insisted was bad news, but also wondering if Jesse might have just sold the meth and run off with the money.

When Skyler comments on how she’s been trying to convince Walt to take some time off work, he explains actually he just today asked for a substitute for three weeks, and just hadn’t had a chance to tell her; Skyler looks surprised and kind of suspicious, but carries on without comment. He probably actually got a substitute now at least in part so he could address his looming money problem, one way or another, though the fact he’s been feeling so sick lately can’t help (he almost definitely has not told Skyler about the fact he’s been having to run out of classes to throw up).

Walt Jr. asks Hank about Hugo’s arrest. Hank explains they figured it was him who stole the chemistry equipment from the lab because he had a key and “fit the profile”, and then they searched his truck and found a blunt, and it turned out he had a record for drug possession. In other words, they basically just searched his car because of his race, and concluded they were right and he’d committed this crime because he’d committed the entirely unrelated offense of smoking marijuana. My contempt for Hank’s police work here cannot be overstated. (This is another telling instance of Hank’s black-and-white thinking - the blunt makes him A Criminal, so if a crime has been committed, probably him, right.)

Walt, feeling guilty that someone who’s been extra-kind towards him is taking the fall for him, speaks up to say Hugo doesn’t strike him as a thief - which is to say, he’s bearing character witness in private, to placate his conscience, without actually helping Hugo in any material way. Hank makes a quip about how Walt couldn’t recognize a criminal if he was close enough to check him for a hernia, and Walt gives him a bit of a stare when he’s looking away: if only he knew. Hank adds, as an afterthought, that they searched Hugo’s house and actually didn’t find any of the chemistry equipment, only that he was a “major-league pothead” (Skyler makes a noise that I’m pretty sure is directed at Walt and his almost-entirely-fictional pot habit). So they know it wasn’t even him.

Hank looks back over at Walt, who’s still staring at him, and asks if he’s hiding something; it takes Walt a moment to realize he’s talking about the game. He asks what’s going to happen to Hugo, and Hank says he’ll lose his job, “as he should” (you know who you know has also smoked pot in his off time, and is also still working for the same school, and also is the one who actually stole the chemistry set??), and will probably get jail time too because it’s not his first offense.

Here, as Hank is gloating about arresting an innocent man for Walt’s crime, all while he obliviously laughs at the very idea of Walt and crime in the same sentence, something comes over Walt. It’s not just Hank’s lazy policing, or the unfairness of what happened to Hugo, but also the infuriating fact that to Hank it’s inconceivable that Walt could have done this. Stone-faced, he bets all he has on his current hand. Hank is convinced he’s too bad of a liar to be bluffing and folds, only for Marie to reveal as she turns over Walt’s cards that he actually was - “A handful of nothing,” she says, smug, a partial title drop.

Hank is baffled as he looks over at Walt. He can’t ever know that Walt stole the chemistry equipment. But at least Walt could show him that he can fool him.

Objectively, it’s a good thing for Walt that Hank can’t possibly conceive of him as a criminal. The pure rational move here would be to keep capitalizing on that, let Hank continue to think of him as a bumbling innocent who couldn’t lie his way out of a paper bag, and thus better ensure his suspicions will never turn Walt’s way despite being already connected to the school’s chemistry lab. But Walt is not a pure rational actor; he is driven by pride and ego and bitterness. The way Hank thinks of him grates on him, and on some deep level he wants him to know. And this drives Walt to actually go against his best interests in moments like this. This one’s very small, and not too much of a risk at all - beating Hank in a poker game is unlikely to make him seriously consider the possibility of Walt as a drug manufacturer - but this is a distinct impulse that Walt has here from the very beginning, and which he’ll continue to have.

The tipping point

Since Walt has gotten a substitute teacher assigned now, he has the next morning to himself. He should have taken Jesse’s advice about the ice pack on his head: his hair’s coming off his head in clumps in the shower. He tries calling Jesse again on the burner phone, and this time, at last, it’s not the answering machine. But it’s not Jesse either: it’s Skinny Pete, who’s with Jesse in the hospital.

Walt hurries over there. Jesse’s unconscious, in a neck brace, looking like hell. Skinny asks, “You the guy?” Implicitly, the guy that he was doing this for. To Walt, Skinny maintains that “I was all, like, 'Damn, Tuco, chill, ese.’ I don’t know what got into him, seriously.” He clearly feels very bad about this, can’t admit to Walt that in reality he was too scared to stand up for Jesse in any way.

Skinny asks Walt’s name, but he doesn’t answer, just sits down silently on a chair. This is exactly what he didn’t want to happen. He was going to never have anything to do with the client side of this, to have no more violence, but here he is, responsible for Jesse being put in the hospital by some thug, with some friend of his who’s seen him now and wants to know who he is. And as if the guilt he feels over Jesse, another person suffering hard in his place, weren’t enough, he still doesn’t have the money that he needs. It’s not like he could send Jesse out to sell more even if it’d be enough. If this is going to get fixed, he has no choice: one way or another he’s going to have to get involved, again.

“Tell me about this Tuco,” he says, as the gears turn in his head. He already beat out two thugs by being clever. It wasn’t pleasant, and probably isn’t going to be this time either, but this time at least he can be prepared. And what has he got to lose anyway? He already has cancer and is on the verge of his family learning that he refused Elliott’s money. What else is he going to do?

The next morning, Walt swallows a huge regimen of pills, fiddles with his thinning hair, and then shaves it all off. It’s practical at this point, but it also lets him feel a bit like somebody else - like that other, compartmentalized Walt, the one who committed two murders. He needs to be that Walt today.

And so, he drives over to Tuco’s with a bag of mercury fulminate. It’s time.

Confrontation

Walt starts by just walking up to somebody intimidating-looking outside the address Skinny gave him and asking, “You Tuco?” Silence. He’s projecting absolute cool confidence, has slid entirely behind the numb emotionless mask that he’s already practiced at, but the fact he obviously has no idea what Tuco even looks like rather undermines it. As the man doesn’t answer, he gives just the tiniest nod to himself, an okay, yeah, that was a bit stupid, before going for a better line: “I want to talk to Tuco, and I’m not leaving until I do.”

He’s searched roughly once inside; we don’t see his face very well, but it shows nicely in his body language how tense and unused he is to being handled in this kind of way, in contrast to Jesse and Skinny Pete earlier. Tuco’s henchmen find and take the bag of what appears to be meth inside his jacket and give it to Tuco, who examines a large crystal of it on the blade of his knife before asking his name.

“Heisenberg,” Walt says. It’s clear from the way he says it that he decided on the alias before he came here, was prepared for this, having probably started thinking about it when Skinny asked his name. This Walt, the meth cook Walt, the murderer Walt, is now a proper underworld secret identity.

Tuco asks Walt what he wants. “Fifty thousand dollars.” Thirty-five for the meth that he stole, and fifteen for “my partner’s pain and suffering”. Walt delivers his terms coldly, without visible nerves. This feels very righteous: a way of seeking justice, for himself and for what happened to Jesse. Earmarking a sizeable chunk of money for Jesse feels good, soothes his conscience. He may have gotten Jesse hurt, but he’s going to very literally make Tuco pay for it.

Tuco puts out a cigarette on his tongue, because that’s just who Tuco is, and laughs at Walt for coming here to bring him more meth after what happened last time.

“You got one part of that wrong,” Walt says, gingerly picking up the crystal Tuco’d been examining. “This is not meth.” And without warning, he hurls it towards the floor, causing an explosion that blows out the windows. A surprise handful of something.

Walt picks up the rest of the bag in the confusion. “Are you fucking nuts?” Tuco yells; “You wanna find out?” Walt growls in response, holding the bag threateningly in the air. Tuco’s men aim guns at Walt, but Tuco tells them to stand down, acknowledges Walt’s got balls, agrees to give him the money, and tells him to bring another pound of meth next week.

“Money up front,” Walt snarls, and Tuco agrees. As Walt is about to leave, Tuco adds, “Sometimes you gotta rob to keep your riches. Just so long as we got an understanding.”

And Walt, sensing that Tuco’s actually trying to placate him, keeps pushing, after a brief furtive glance around the room. “One pound is not gonna cut it. You have to take two.”

Tuco’s amused but agrees, and asks what’s in that bag anyway. Walt doesn’t need to tell him, but he does anyway before he backs out of the room: “Fulminated mercury, and a little tweak of chemistry.” Once again, Walt’s won out with his intellect and chemistry genius - and he wants someone to know.

(Incidentally, the Mythbusters tackled this scene once! In their test, pure mercury fulminate would not explode when thrown at the floor in this way, though Vince Gilligan, who made a guest appearance in the episode, suggested Walt’s “little tweak of chemistry” was mixing it with more volatile silver fulminate. Even when they forced the explosion, this small amount of the material did not actually manage to blow out the windows in the room, and if it had done so it would’ve also significantly injured the people present. That vague “little tweak of chemistry” is a nice bit of ass-coverage by the writers, though - too bad they didn’t do the same with the hydrofluoric acid in episode two, which the Mythbusters very quickly established is actually kind of a weaksauce acid and would by no means have managed to even fully dissolve the body, much less eat through the bathtub and floor.)

Aftermath

Outside, people are staring, car alarms blaring; we’re back to the opening. The explosion seems to have ruptured a blood vessel in Walt’s nose; he wipes it, stone-faced, as he walks through the crowd, not looking at any of them. He gets into his car, checks the bag of money Tuco gave him with a trembling lip, to be sure it’s all there. And then… his face twists into a grimace. All the suppressed stress and terror and adrenaline of the past minutes comes out in intense, wordless growls, until he stops to catch his breath. That’s it. He did it. He got through it.

And with that, he smiles as he prepares to drive off. Once again, that felt good, an exhilarating high of confronting danger and coming out on top, of just for a moment being not a bumbling middle-aged high school teacher but a stone-cold ruthless badass that even someone like Tuco didn’t want to anger. The entire Krazy-8 and Emilio debacle was an awful, traumatic affair - but this time, he liked being Heisenberg.

Everything about this outing went pretty swimmingly for Walt, minor awkwardness aside. But while Walt does deserve credit for pulling this off, he also got very lucky. Walt gets to leave without ever finding out just how lucky - but we, the viewers, have more insight.

Remember how when Jesse met with Tuco, the latter started by crushing a crystal of meth with the butt of his knife?

It simply happened that this time he didn’t do that. But he so, so easily might have. And though the show does play a bit fast and loose with the physics of the actual explosion here, I think working from what we’re shown it seems likely that if he had, it would probably have exploded - and the concussive force of that explosion might have also set off the rest of the mercury in the bag, given it would have been right beside it on the table. So all in all, it’s quite likely they’d all be dead right now if not for the pure coincidence of Tuco choosing not to try a sample (or make Walt try it) this time around. I think this implication is very intentional - on a rewatch, the close-up shot of Tuco balancing the crystal he picks out on his knife, very delicately, is suddenly tense, knowing that’s an explosive material that could go off if handled roughly, just daring us to remember how roughly he handled it last time and wonder exactly how much control Walt really had over the end result here.

Up to this point, the show has appeared to be largely premised on Walt as this mundane everyman, who wants to just quietly make some meth for money but gets unwillingly dragged in over his head in the process. Here, there’s an evolution, a shift: Walt takes proactive action to get personally involved in shadier dealings, and it turns out he’s surprisingly good at playing that role. (It’s less surprising when you really look at what’s come before, though, which has carefully set up absolutely every aspect of what happens here: Walt’s not great at actively lying but he can stay stone-faced under pressure, trained by years of detaching and suppressing feelings; he’s a methodical planner who can improvise chemistry-oriented solutions to problems; he has the capacity to make cold, ruthless decisions, when he feels that he must; as meek as he usually is in his personal life, he very much has an aggressive and domineering side and relishes taking control and commanding respect from people he disdains; he gets a visceral thrill out of criminality. Despite the chemistry lesson setting up the theme of change, he doesn’t actually change all that much here, in the end: things we’ve already established are just coming together in a more dramatic sort of way.) Here on this first “official” outing as Heisenberg, he manages to be cool, confident, intimidate career criminals, make demands, and get exactly what he wants; he feels great about it, and on a first viewing you’re probably swept up to cheer for him pretty wholeheartedly as he avenges Jesse and shows Tuco what for. I certainly think I did.

But today I’m more drawn to all the mistakes that he makes; there’s so much else going on here than just Walt emerging as a bit of a badass when he wants to be, and it’s almost all bad news. Walt begins the episode resolving that there will be no more violence, only to go on to egg Jesse into meeting with a violent gangster and then blow up a building; he makes a serious naïve miscalculation about his money because he doesn’t know how these things work and pathetically scapegoats Jesse for it again; his theft from the school chemistry lab is easily traced and exposed, and for it he inadvertently gets an innocent man that he liked and owed a debt of gratitude to arrested; his pride goads him into showing off to Hank and eroding his own cover, however slightly; his final plan only narrowly avoids disaster by a stroke of luck; and rather than counting his blessings when Tuco’s agreed to give him the money and buy more meth off him, he orders him to accept even more - having still not learned his lesson about committing to things without first checking with Jesse whether they are at all realistic.

Jesse is less of a focus in this episode, but what’s there is some very high-quality Jesse. I love his love for his unseen aunt, how much information he’s effortlessly absorbed about cancer because it mattered to him, the way that he reacts to Walt’s nauseous episode and then to learning about his diagnosis. His reluctance to try to cook on his own after last episode, but still agreeing to try when Walt encourages him and assures him he can. His apprehension about Tuco, followed by going ahead with meeting with him anyway, all nerves and caution, because Walt told him to grow some fucking balls. And of course, the entire Tuco visit is just full of him being visibly terrified and manhandled and beaten up and it’s great because I enjoy that. My silly personal favorite line here: “Hey, no, no, hey, it’s not… it’s not that, man. It’s just, you know, I don’t… I don’t do business that way.” The fact his mind instantly scrambles to put together a response that makes it into just a principle of how he does business just builds in such a lovely way on the several times we’ve now seen him do a similar flavor of bullshitting with lower stakes, and I love it.

Walt and Jesse have both been set on their paths for the rest of the show here, in large as well as subtle ways, and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into more of it. See you for the season finale next episode!

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Page last modified April 1 2025 at 00:33 UTC

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