Breaking Bad: Crazy Handful of Nothin’
By fred | March 4, 2008
After going to see all his customers, Pinkman got back with some cash, but there wasn’t enough. Walt has needs, he needs money to put his family away from debts and any financial problems once he’ll be gone, and he also needs money to pay for his highly expensive treatment. So he yelled at Pinkman and asked him to move things to the next level, to see higher up people and sell meth in much higher quantity.
Of course, the one Pinkman would usually go to see for such deals, Walt had killed him a few days ago - which wasn’t a bad thing after all, because turns out he was reporting for the DEA. And if for now Hank cannot even consider Walt as a possible suspect, despite all the material missing in his lab and having found a mask used to cook meth that belonged to his lab, maybe soon he’ll realize that it’s not just while playing poker that Walt can fool him. A bit cliché but that’s ok I guess, what I really could have done without was Hank’s line about how Walt couldn’t recognize a thief even if he had one right in front of his eyes, while obviously he was sitting to the new cook in town…
Pushed by Walt, Pinkman found a way in and went to see Tuco, the new guy who took over Crazy 8. Things didn’t go down as planned, and Pinkman ended up short in meth, and lying in an hospital bed. When Walt came to visit, as well as later on facing Tuco, you could tell that he indeed had developed some kind of paternal protective feelings over Pinkman, make sense after all they had to go through together - and much like how Pinkman felt, when he realized that Walt had cancer and that it was the reason he was cooking meth in the first place.
Walt looked at Pinkman, lying in his bed, unconscious, and decided that he had to do something - yes, the rules he set up a few days ago already didn’t apply anymore. He knew that that Tuco guy wasn’t going to be a regular guy, he knew those people are bad people who kill each other every day, and for whom killing a sick old high-school teacher meant nothing, but he went there anyway, prepared.
Tuco was probably a bit too much, though. Picking his teeth with a huge knife and acting crazy, okay, why not, but dabbing out his cigarette on his tongue, laughing, that really was too much? We get it, he’s a crazy motherfucker.
But Walt has a brain, and like often it turns out that, used right, it can out beat any other muscles. Walt put on the table what looked like meth, and asked for 50 thousand dollars. 35 for the meth Tuco took from Pinkman last time, and 15 for his pain. When he said that, I wondered why he left out the meth he had just brought in and put on the table, didn’t he want to get paid for those, too ?
Of course he did not, because it turned it’s not meth, but fulminated mercury. And as he taught his students, it’s the kind of things that can react fast and create an explosion. And that’s exactly what it did when Walt threw one on the ground. It’s not the first time Walt lets himself go, face danger looking it right in the eyes, and walks away feeling more alive than ever.
First he invited some jerks mocking his son into a fight, then he blew up some asshole’s car, and now he was facing a crazy drug dealer, getting paid and making deal, and he was the one laying down the rules. Much like our old jack and many others who reached this point where you finally feel alive through fight clubs, or Project Mayhem, Walt too was now standing straight up in a surrounding chaos, feeling more alive than he ever did before.
In a twisted way, his sickness, his cancer, while attacking and deteriorating his body, freed his mind and made him stronger than he ever was before. All along we knew it would came to this, there was no mystery, we were shown this scene from the start of the episode. And it really created a nice feeling, because as we watched Walt going through his life and trying to adjust, we knew what was coming, we knew he was once again going to let himself go down that road, and I have to say I love it. I even wonder what’s going to happen next, will we see Walt going through some drug-related troubles again, and trying to adjust and prevent his life from falling apart, or will we see him getting sucked in by this new feeling, loosing it and having to fight himself not to destroy his own life ?
One thing for sure is that this show is really fantastic, I’m loving every minute of it, and I can’t wait for more. Sadly, due to the writers’ strike, only seven of the nine episodes ordered were completed, meaning that next week we’ll get to see what will be the season finale. From what I hear, it wasn’t intended to be the finale, but kinda end on a little cliffhanger-like situation that should still work.
I have no doubt it will, the only question is : what the fuck is AMC waiting for to renew this series ?? They got us hooked, now we need a second season !
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Breaking Bad
