Breaking Bad: Phoenix
By fred | May 25, 2009
(S02E12) For a long time I assumed, and I don’t think that I was alone there, that if everything would eventually fall apart for Walter & Jesse, it would come from outsiders. Not that they wouldn’t have done wrong or made bad decisions, but what would eventually set the whole place on fire and get people to scream and run in circle would be one of those other guys.
The crazy ones, another Tuco or the infamous Cartel, who we’ve heard from a song wasn’t too happy about them and saw Walter as a dead man already. It was so obvious that they weren’t ready to deal with any of those people and the crazy world that comes with them, that they would eventually cause everything to collapse. But in the end, the one responsible for everything might just be Walter, once again.
He’s been pushing and pushing, and every time he had an occasion to get out, walk away, he did no such thing. This week, Walter found out about a website his son came up with, trying to collect money so they could afford his coming surgery. And while he liked it and was obviously touched, as soon as he realized what it was meant for, Walter backed off.
It’s all in his voice, the tone he used saying Skyler how this is “charity” like that was the worst thing in the world. To Walter, that seem to be the case. He could have gone to, or later simply accepted the help from Gretchen and Elliott, but he did not. Walter is proud, and he refuses any kind of charity to help him through those difficult times. That’s also why he doesn’t want his family to think the money came from some anonymous donor, he wants the credit! He wants to be recognized as the hero that he so strongly believes to be, he wants them to see all the good he did, without any of the bad. But no charity.
He would rather have to kill a man, cook meth, and watch a young girl die in front of him (and because of him) without doing anything than accept that awful thing that is charity. That’s the man Walter has turned into, and at this point, even though we can’t forget where he comes from, that he’s a high-school teacher with cancer and a baby girl just born, and that he does all he does for his family (or so he convinces himself), it’s hard not to see him as a bad guy.
Maybe he really wanted Jesse to get clean, and was trying to help by not giving him the money right now. Talking about him in the bar, referring to him as his “nephew” and so family, and going back, it’s clear Walt actually cares for the kid, if only because of all they’ve gone through together, and how much he affected his life. But in the end, that’s not what matters really.
It’s because of Walter that Jane went back to using after 18 months clean, it’s because of Walter than her life and Jesse’s went down the drain and ended up not far away from that of the meth couple with the ATM machine, and it is because Walter came back that Jane ended up on her back, and eventually choked to death on her own vomit. Had he not come back, she would still be alive.
But he came, he change things, and when all he had to do was to move her a bit, all Walter saw there wasn’t someone’s daughter, but a (potential) threat. A girl who threatens to tell everything she knew about him and what he’s done, and she knew pretty much the whole story. Maybe she would never have become an actual threat, but she was potentially deadly to Walter, so he convinced himself.
He convinced himself that she was nothing (to him), and that as long as she was there Jesse couldn’t be clean. He convinced himself that without her, he had a chance, that waking up next to her dead body would be the wake up call he needs to get clean, Walter convinced himself that he was still the hero, doing the right thing, for his family and their well being – counting Jesse as part of it. And so he watched her die.
Of course, I don’t think Jesse will react the way Walter wants to, and in the end what will cause the troubles and possibly bring them down might not come from the outside, it might be an internal clash between Walter and Jesse. Or maybe Jane’s father will find out about Walter and go on a vengeful killing spree, because he will feel guilty for having given her one more day…
What did everybody else think?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Breaking Bad
