libraryseraph

This season's cold open is a grayscale flash-forwards to just after the plane crash at the end of the season. The context that it's a plane crash isn't given, all we as fist-time viewers know is that something bad has just happened, per the sirens, and the destroyed teddy bear indicates that an innocent has been pulled into whatever bad thing happened this time. The pink of the bear also makes it stand out against the grayscale, and draw the viewers attention, but that's so obvious I feel a little bad mentioning it.

The actual episode recaps the last few episodes of season one. It give the viewer something to see that's familiar after the disorientation of the opening, and on a more practical note, helps jog their memory after the hiatus that occurred between the airing of these two episodes.

When he gets in the call after his breakdown, Walt starts going over things like the cost of college and the mortages, to distract himself, remind himself why he's doing this and try to justify working with Tuco to himself. Jesse is having a breakdown, but he also seems disbelieving that Walt is even going there.

Jesse is driving here, but he's driving for Walt.

Tuco demanding that Jesse and Walt perform CPR on the dude he beat feels more like an exertion of control than any sort of concern. He doesn;t want to lose a pawn, and he wants to feel like he has Walt and Jesse under his control, so he does this.

This scene is terrifying. Skyler walks in on Walt disassociating and tries to cheer him up. He starts getting intimate with her, and ignores her protests until she screams "STOP!". It's hard to watch, and I don;t think it was necessary to have it. It's too early for Walt to be this dark, particularly to Skyler, and while it's not gratuitous or fetishistic, it still doesn;t need to be there.

While Walt does have a point here that killing Tuco is something that needs to be done with planning, the fact that he stands to benefit more from Tuco makes him seem like he's at least partially making excuses.

Hank moves the kid's RC car out of the way, and after Marie drives over it without realizing, he gives the kid money. Marie hurts people without really noticing, because she;s too wrapped up in herself, and Hank tries to fix the trouble people around him cause, but he;s always too far behind to stop it. Given that Hank is entirely unaware of everything Walt's doing, even as he mocks the World's Worst Heist from last episode, this seems significant.

"They got book learning, but no street smarts" technically true about Walt. Jesse has the opposite problem.

The family is falling apart. Skyler is ignoring Marie's calls, Walt isn;t sleeping in bed, it's a disaster.

Walt using ricin isn;t just a less noticeable/less margin of error thing. It's also less personal. Walt does have to feel like he;s killing someone that way, although that's understandable, given the whole Krazy thing.

Further character bits/big character points established in the Marie thing in this scene. SKyler blows up at Hank for asking her to support and forgive Marie, because she's the one who had to deal with Marie's actions, and she has a lot of other things to deal with, and she feels like that's being neglected. This will come to define her interactions with Walt later on, when she points out he's neglecting the people he claims to care about.

The tension and relief in the scenes where Walt comes home panicking about Tuco, and then when he finds Skyler, are really well done.

I didn't have much to say about the back half of this one.