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And we open with Walt pushing back in on territory Jesse tried to take for his own. As well, Walt is putting Jesse as the public face, because he wants to stay separate from the crime he's committing. The jump cuts indicate he's not going to be successful, and we get our first look at Heisenberg

Walt doesn;t want Skyler at his chemo, which is partially more of his weird power thing, but partially just not wanting to expose someone you care about to this, which is completely understandable

"If a reaction happens quickly, otherwise harmless substances can interact in a way that generates enormous bursts of energy" This is blatant foreshadowing for what he does at the end of the episode. Introducing that in his class doesn;t just ensure it comes from somewhere, it also shows a connection between "normal walt" and "criminal walt"

Aww, Jesse is genuinely concerned about Walt. He's also observant, given out that he figured out Walt's cancer. Walt is just pissed someone's taken the power to reveal this from him again, and that he has to give Jesse the power to cook

Walt looking for a wholesaler to "increase the risk for the reward" will just increase the risk, and pull him further into meth, but he doesn't see that, bc his focus is so narrow.

For the masculinity thing: Walt immediately attacks Jesse's masculinity when Jesse points out that wholesaling meth is dangerous. He has pride as a man hanging on this, no matter how much he won't admit it

As jokey as the Hank unaware of crimes scenes are, they do establish how above reproach he seems. He's a normal white middleaged dude with a steady job in education, and even someone who wasn't his brother in law probably wouldn't suspect him

After seeing Jesse dealing well with street life in other episodes, now Tuco's base is used to establish just how low on the food chain he is. Tuco has guards, and a security system,and a big fancy cocaine doing mirror and everything.

Tuco was written out early, because his actor didn't like playing such a violent, unstable character. Especially interesting given that Jesse only survived this season (and to the end) because everyone liked Aaron Paul

And here the other side of the "above reproach" thing. Hugo gets arrested largely for being Latino and having a past drug offense, and it's tangentially Walt's fault.

The poker scene: In addition to gambling in general being associated with criminality, this scene establishes that Walt is a) good at bluffing b) good at bluffing when there's nothing there and c)good at bluffing with people he cares about

I think Walt does genuinely care about Jesse, here, and that's why this is so personal. He;s bad for Jesse in a lot of ways, and things get really bad later on, but I don;t think it's that bad yet.

Walt shaving his head represents a re-establishing of control (going bald on his terms, instead of on the cancer's terms) and also a reinvention. He looks harsher now, he doesn't have messy hair undercutting a point he might try to make, he looks harsh and dangerous.

Tuco's whole thing is "exaggerated performance of masculinity", see esp the meth knife. The thing is, that shows up in other ways, like his casual usage of extreme violence as the logical endpoint of "masculine power as violence".

The explosion is when Walt really starts stepping into his new role. He;s unpredictable, he's applying his skills in dangerous ways, and he's scaring really dangerous people, and the framing of this scene (no music, no real emotional response from Walt) shows the show is aware of that.