Breaking Bad 3.5: "Mas"

Grade: A. I was like "A+!" about a minute and twelve seconds into it but it sank from excellence into solidness after the AWESOME flashback sequence. So it goes.

Since this review is so late (apologies, loyal readers) I'll just give a couple theories about broader themes of the episode, and then a collection of random observations.

Themes: Skyler, turnaround, blah blah blah. I liked that this episode was so Skyler focused after last week's hate-on-Skyler fest. I liked that Marie's phone convo with Skyler made us think that the point of it was that Marie was having trouble with her marriage and Skyler was going to console her mid-cheating on her OWN marriage, but then turned abruptly to some realization. I also was really interested by the fact that the episode started off with that flashback. (My first thought was: It's nice that Jesse had friends, at least.) What's the point? Jesse fucked Walt over, so now Walt is fucking Jesse over? Is that supposed to make us more sympathetic to Walt? (I fucking hate Walt at this point.) It's obvious that Jesse's carefree youthful debauchery at strip club is presented as much more forgivable than Walt's backstabbing--especially when we contrast it with Jesse's current miserable condition. Also, I was moderately surprised that Breaking Bad used a flashback--I feel like the show usually assumes its viewers are familiar with every minutiae of the canon.

Also, I've never been in a strip club but I feel like that place looks a lot better on the inside than it does on the outside. Is that, like, normal?

Random thoughts:

-Jesse sounded a lot like Walt when he was railing on the phone about the RV. "My RV, my money" or something, and "Escalate THIS!" Hmm . . .
- So THAT'S where the money Ted's been shifting around is going, huh?
- Nice bracelets Skyler
- So Gomez's first name is Steven! Did we know that? I was totally delighted by that because that's so true to life that Hank would ONLY call him by his last name and Marie goes "Steven." Gender stereotype but it's true.
- Walt's speech to Mr. Fring about being perceived as selfish came absolutely out of nowhere. I guess we can conclude that Walt feels guilty about how selfish he is being, and is projecting that onto Fring? Incidentally about 30 seconds prior I had scrawled down "Walt's a selfish motherfucker" on my index card notes. Good call, Walt.
- The lab Fring set up looks EXACTLY like a cartoon superhero lair. Or something out of Tintin. I was entertained.
- Awwwwwwwwwwwwww Combo liked KRS-ONE.
- Finally, that shower. Hank and Marie's shower is like the wackest shower I've ever seen. Either it has shitty, shitty water pressure (which I guess is not that surprising, for New Mexico? Never been to NM but that's what CA is like), or it was a ridiculously false effect where they just had water noise. Notice that the hanging shelf thing must have been hanging off the shower head so we should have SEEN the water. But we didn't. Yet Hank was wet. What the fuck? I may be nitpicking but thinking about the wackness of the shower distracted me the whole goddamn scene, which probably isn't what they were going for. And why do they have a handicap bar in there? What a mystery.

So finally--Jesse Jesse Jesse. The entire time Hank was walking over to the picture I was like "Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no" out loud (but more times than that). I hope he ditches the RV. I DON'T WANT JESSE TO GO TO JAIL. I mean, I have to marry him and all. But in all seriousness, I'm really pleased that the plot is progressing like that. The hot-on-the-trail thing is totally as good a plot accelerator as lung cancer was.