Week to Week: BREAKING BAD #5.1, “Live Free or Die”

Mike is a little miffed at Walt and Jesse in the season five premiere of Breaking Bad. (Photo: AMC / Ursula Coyote)

I interrupt our steady stream of Batmania coverage to selfishly remind you that I don’t just watch cartoons all day.

There’s a famous legend (apparently just a legend, though the actual act that it surrounds did happen at least once) about Jerry Lee Lewis doing a tour with Chuck Berry back when they were both in their prime.  The way it shook out, Lewis would be the first act of the show; of course, the first act is often viewed as the lesser act of the show, and Jerry Lee Lewis didn’t consider himself a lesser anything.  But what can you do?  Minds were made up; he could either live with the bruise to his precious ego and get paid, or quit in protest and not get paid.

So, first night of the show, he takes the stage and runs absolutely ripshit riot over his piano, running his usual crazy-ass playbook — kicking over the bench, raking the crap out of the keys, playing in insane positions — with a previously unmatched intensity and commitment.  The crowd was already hyped to the gills because they knew what they were getting with Jerry Lee Lewis, AND they were going to see Chuck Berry on top of that; now they were absolutely ravenous, shrieking so loud in the presence of Lewis’s style and musicianship that the foundations were shaking.  People actually started passing out because they just couldn’t handle it, and as they hit that fever pitch, Lewis segued into his finale: he doused his piano with gasoline, set it ablaze, and played the damn thing until it burned down.

He walked off the stage, leaving his crowd raw and ravaged behind him, patted Chuck Berry on the shoulder, and dared him to “Follow that.”

I have far less envy for Vince Gilligan following up his fourth season of Breaking Bad, as absolutely note perfect as a season of television could be, than I did for Chuck Berry upon hearing that story.  It had lead and supporting performances from Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Giancarlo Esposito (whose Gus Fring is going into the pantheon of all time great antagonists) that outclassed most of this year’s Oscar nominees.  It had a nice central conflict that played out in a way that could induce sheer panic at unexpected moments, and it had utterly gorgeous cinematography, owing as much to the desolate Albuquerque landscape that the show shoots in as it does to the work of DP Michael Slovis and the fantastic roster of directors it has on hand.*  From the opening shot of the superlab being unpacked to the last twisted punchline, it was perfect.  And Gilligan and his team have to follow it.  How?

(*I’m willing to bet that if you took out the glass ceiling for women in Hollywood a few months ago, Michelle McLaren would have been in contention to direct Catching Fire.  Even with said ceiling in place, I’d still bet that her name has crossed Kevin Feige’s mind at one point to direct a Marvel movie, especially since he started hiring TV directors like Alan Taylor and The Russo Brothers to direct a few of the “Phase 2” movies.)

Because we don’t get advance copies of this show at our Wag the Movie offices (mostly because we don’t have offices), these will normally be up the day after air.  In this case I was on a special project that ended up consuming my Monday, and I was unable to crack this review until today.  So, if you care what I have to say, click through and let’s get started.

Here’s how Vince Gilligan follows Season 4: he doesn’t even try.  At least not with this first episode.

Oh, we get a hint of the madness to come; our re-introduction to Walter White is a flash forward to his 52nd birthday.  He’s grown out hair, he’s gotten a new pair of glasses.  He looks like a veteran programmer for IBM as opposed to the dangerous Heisenberg we all know and fear.  He’s on his own, in an area that looks nothing like Albuquerque, under an assumed identity of someone from New Hampshire.  He’s stopping at a Denny’s for breakfast, flush with enough cash to leave a waitress a hundred dollar tip.

And he’s buying an M60 machine gun — of course, he makes sure it comes with an instruction manual.  Walt to the end — and it certainly seems like it’s the end.

But the end hasn’t come yet.  Aside from the glimpse into a morbid future, what we have is a light place-setter episode, establishing:

1. That Walt is currently the undisputed king of the Albuquerque meth trade,
2. That Mike Ehrmantraut (Johnathan Banks) is not happy that Walt is the undisputed king of the Albuquerque meth trade, but is in no position to do anything but help him out,
3. That Skyler (Anna Gunn) is scared to death of the undisputed king of the Albuquerque meth trade.

And while “place-setter” and “piece-mover” episodes can be hit or miss to say the least, this one hits because Gilligan (credited for the script here) builds these elements around a strong episodic plot: Walt, Jesse, and Mike needing to get at Gus’s laptop, which has incriminating video of the three of them on there.  It’s a light, oddly fun heist movie that puts the excellent push-pull dynamic between Cranston and Banks on full display, and gives Jesse a real chance to shine as a character.  While Walt and Mike are embroiled in a verbal slapfight under the guise of strategizing, complete with Mike flaunting his experience and Walt getting hung up on technicalities (“I’m not talking about a bomb!  I’m talking about a small incendiary device…”), it’s Jesse who shuts them both up by suggesting they use a magnet to erase the laptop’s hard drive.  It’s a far cry from the Jesse of season one, and it speaks to the fantastic work Aaron Paul and the writers have done with developing this character to the point where I totally believe that he would come up with it.

So we now have a classic heist movie setup: we have the problem, Jesse’s come up with the solution.  Now the team pulls together the materials to enact that solution, which means a visit to Old Joe at the junkyard, last seen in Season 3; they pick up a large electromagnet and a small, busted-up U-Haul truck to drive it around in, planning to park it outside the evidence room and cranking it up just enough to ensure that the laptop’s been wiped..  That done, the plan’s carried out.  Anybody following the series from the beginning knows innately that Walt’s pride will somehow get in his way; parked outside the room, he overzealously cranks up the electromagnet too quickly and ends up tipping the truck, forcing him and Jesse to abandon it.  However, unlike most heist movies, there’s little sense of actual danger, no corner that they’re painted into for them to escape, be it through forethought or skillful improvisation.  They go in, they execute, and despite the minor fuck-up, they leave.

Going back to the beginning, our first scene after the teaser is Walt’s phone call to Skyler from the end of Season 4, where he tells her, quite plainly, “I won.”  And throughout the entire episode, he continues to ride the highs of his victory.  During the “solution” phase, as Mike’s insisting that they’re all screwed and need to get the hell out of Dodge, Walt’s still looking for an angle, confident that he’s going to find one, and he wishes Mike would just shut up and listen to him already.  After the heist, Mike berates them for leaving the truck behind, but Walt cooly informs him that it’ll never be traced back to them.  And when Mike continues to doubt that the plan worked, Walt tells him that it did.  Why should he be believed?  “Because I said so?”  And finally, when Saul Goodman tries to quit as Walt’s client, Walt gets right into his face and reminds him “We’re done when I say we’re done.”

This whole series has been driven by Walt’s pride, and we see that it’s now been vindicated in the ultimate way.  The choices of a man that has challenged The Devil and won can never be called into question.  And if Walt’s done this much with at least a sliver of doubt, fear, and perhaps self-awareness, what kind of damage can he do without any of that holding him back?

While Walt grows more comfortable with the game, Skyler’s still figuring out how to play, or if she even wants to.  She gave a significant amount of Walt’s drug money to Ted Beneke so that he can pay his taxes, and despite tripping and smashing his head while trying to escape from Saul Goodman’s goons, he’s still somehow alive (if you call being confined to a bed, a halo, and a liquid diet “alive”).  Skyler goes over to the hospital to try and butter Ted up, but finds that he’s now so afraid of her that he’s promising never to breathe a word of what really happened to anyone.

Skyler’s reaction?  A stern “Good,” instantly switching gears from concerned friend and one-time lover to criminal underboss.  On one hand, I feel like there’s a mild thrill she gets from having power over others, stemming from the motherly (if degrading) way she treated Walt at the beginning of the series.  Seeing Ted afraid of her on a primal level, enough for her to know that she will never have a problem with him again, is satisfying.  But there’s another side to this that we see in her final scene with Walt at the end of the show: To Skyler, her friend’s fear of retribution, and his commitment to silence that stems from his fear, is the one thing that could keep him alive.  As long as she can play the cold-hearted bitch, Ted has a reason to clam up, and that allows Skyler to assure Walt, the man Ted REALLY needs to fear, that he doesn’t need to worry about him.

Both those sides of Skyler, her love of control and desire to protect, are in play during that scene with Walt.  It would bother anyone who’s controlled a person for a significant amount of time to have that person slip away, no matter how much love he/she has for him/her.  Compounding that issue in Skyler’s case is the way Walt’s gained the upper hand in their relationship: he’s now a cold-blooded crystal meth kingpin.

At the end of the episode, Skyler tries to assure Walt that Ted won’t be talking to anyone, but Walt doesn’t really want to go over that.  All he wants to do is gently embrace his wife, who told him a couple of nights ago that she’s afraid of him.  She wants to hold her close in his loving arms, and tell her that it’s all going to be okay.

He tells her: “I forgive you.”

To Walt, Skyler really screwed everything up by giving that money to Ted.  He could’ve figured something out if Saul just told him what was going on.  After all, he just beat The Devil.  He could’ve handled Ted Goddamn Beneke.

To Skyler, putting aside whether she was right or wrong to give that money away, the thought that Walt felt like she needed to be forgiven in the first place scares her.  Because he’s right: Walt did just beat The Devil.  But that can only mean that Walt has ascended to His throne.

The episode was called “Live Free or Die,” after the New Hampshire state motto that’s found on the license plate of the car Walt will be driving on his 52nd birthday, and that seems to be the choice facing many of the characters, whether they realize it or not.  If Skyler, Jesse, Mike, and Saul can’t break away from Walter’s grasp, they’re doomed.  And judging by the flash-forward that started this episode and gave this episode its title, it appears that choice has been made.

All that darkness, communicated in a relatively lighthearted mini-heist movie; one that sets the stage for the next seven episodes (and eventual endgame) while also being wickedly entertaining.  It may be too early to tell if this series can follow the piano fire that the fourth season went out on, but I suspect it’s well on its way..

I’ve said my peace, how about you?  Have at it in the comments.