Warning: Breaking Back and Forth is a weekly feature where Chris and Jeff discuss the latest episode of Breaking Bad in detail. So if you haven’t seen the episode yet, you should probably hold off on reading any further.
Jeff: The cast, specifically Aaron Paul, has gone on record as stating that there are no buffer episodes from here on out. Pure madness and violence until the end. Do you think “Buried” lived up to that promise?
Chris: Eh… I don’t know. I mean, I really liked the episode but as far as pure madness and violence go, it was pretty par for the course I thought.
Jeff: I thought it was a very intense episode that didn’t need to use a lot of violence. Other than Lydia killing a bunch of dudes (off-screen), it had no violence, yet I was on the edge of my seat throughout.
Chris: Agreed on the tension. It was a roller coaster ride from start to finish. But you kind of see the pieces falling into place as well. Hank’s role in the final episodes is really starting to come together.
Jeff: Hank is not backing down from this fight. That’s for sure. And it fits into what we think of him as a character. However, I was a bit startled at how quickly it all seems to be falling apart. For most of the episode, Walter already seemed isolated from his family.
Chris: Precisely. Hank is playing things exactly was we would expect. He knows if he brings this evidence in his career is done. Who can trust him as a DEA agent to do their job if he couldn’t even see that his brother-in-law was the biggest kingpin in Arizona? And as you said, Walt is already alone. He doesn’t know who to trust but there was a flash of the original Walt we met in season one in this episode as well. Despite all the money he has made, and all the power he has accumulated doing this, he still thinks of his family and won’t cross that line.
Jeff: There was that moment when Walter was on his bathroom floor, and he tells Skyler that he wants her to keep the money, which does point back to the reason he did this all in the first place, and he says that. But as for Hank, I believe he is waiting for a real piece of evidence before presenting it to the DEA. And I think that piece of evidence is Jesse. I said it last week, and now it is coming to fruition.
Chris: Jesse’s actions at the end of last episode certainly put him in an awkward position. How does he explain the money that he was tossing around like newspapers? It’s a matter of if Jesse is willing to rat on Walt or not and I’m not sure he is.
Jeff: I think Jesse is ready to confess everything. However, I also think Jesse is terrified of Walter. That said, he seems to be very ready to lift that burden of guilt off his shoulders. I think Jesse is willing to accept whatever is coming his way to be free of that.
Chris: True, but I’m not sure he is willing to throw Walt under the bus, be it out of fear or a strange sense of loyalty. Regardless though, Jesse is the key and Hank is going to get his answers soon enough.
Jeff: Agreed. It’s clear to me that these final episodes are going to start moving at a very quick pace. I think Jesse confesses, and it quickly falls apart even more than it already has. What a cliffhanger of an ending.
Chris: With only six episodes left, there is a lot of ground to cover. The biggest one though is the weird loose end with Lydia. At this point what the hell does she have to do with any of this?
Jeff: I was just gonna ask about that. It’s clear that she is setting the business up for success using (roughly) Walter’s formula. But if the show is focusing on the business at all, does that mean the business comes back to bite Walter in the ass?
Chris: That’s the only conclusion I can make at this point. It seems so out of place for this Lydia nonsense to even be going on.
Jeff: It’s obvious she is somehow going to affect Walter in some way, and with the way she handled the guys in the other region, it is going to be ugly.
Chris: It just seems to break the flow of the episodes though. I want to know what happens to Walt, Jesse and Hank. I don’t really care about Lydia or the business for that matter. That said, things that don’t fit in with the overall arc have come into focus at the end before with this series so, I guess I will just have to wait and see.
Jeff: She is the reason Walter needs a machine gun.
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