Breaking Bad #5.4 “Fifty-One” Recap & Review

The Whites reflect on what probably isn’t their favorite year, as Walt celebrates his birthday and Skyler ignites a war with her husband in this stellar, continuity-laden episode.

Recap:

Walt gets his car repaired from the accident in “Crawl Space” last season, and reflects on what his car has been through, notably the plane crash from season 2 and his murder of the gang members with his car in season 3 . Walt finds his Heisenberg hat in the passenger seat, and decides to sell the car to Benny for $50. He then buys a shiny, expensive new car, and even gets Walter, Jr. the Camero he’d always wanted.

Meanwhile at Madrigal, Lydia gets a call from Mike, who lets her know the DEA is coming to see her. They interrogate her, and have her escort her to another employee of Madrigal—Ron, who they arrest.  It seems Ron was the one Lydia had transport the Methlaymine, and after a freak-out, Mike tells her he’ll to send a new guy.

Skyler comes home to see the new cars, silently disapproving at her family’s excitement; Walt explains that they’re leases and it was a birthday present to himself, so it fits their story.  Skyler realizes he’s back at the cooking, and brings up sending Walter, Jr. boarding school, which Walt thinks is crazy since he’s a year away from college. Skyler wants to get them out of this environment, but he shrugs it off, and instead talks about having a celebration for his 51st birthday. During his birthday breakfast the next morning, Skyler reluctantly spells out Walt’s “51” in bacon (calling back to the Pilot).

Hank and Gomez are working on connecting the dots with Fring and his crew, and put together a surveillance team to trail Mike, who they still suspect is part of the drug scene. They also note that the blue meth is out again, and ponder whether or not the cooks are still around and someone is rebooting. Hank then gets offered a surprising promotion to oversee all the cases in the office.

Walt expects a big celebration at home for him, but when he gets there, he’s disappointed to learn it’s only going to be a small dinner with the family, Hank, and Marie. On the car ride over, Marie, still broken up about the revelation last week, spills to Hank that she learned Skyler had an affair.

They have dinner outside by the pool, where between the car, the truth of the affair, and Skyler’s depression, things are awkward. Walt notes that it’s been one year since getting cancer, and reflects some of his darker days—the surgery, Hank getting shot, Marie’s talking pillow—and Walt thanks them all for getting him through the worst times. He also reflects on his first night of chemotherapy, and how Skyler took care of him through it all. Suddenly, Skyler walks into the pool and attempts to drown herself.

Jesse comes to get the Methylamine from the clearly shaken-up Lydia at Madrigal, and she says there’s only one canister he can take; however, Lydia notices something plastered to the bottom, which they determine must be a tracking device.

Walt talks to Hank and Marie about Skyler’s attempted drowning, thinking it couldn’t have been an attempted suicide since it was in front of all of them. Marie offers to have the kids at their place for a while, but Walt realizes it was Skyler’s idea. He then confronts Skyler about it, making it clear that he knows it’s not a coincidence. Skyler tells him it isn’t safe to have the kids around, referencing the threat of attack and Walt’s breakdown the end of “Crawl Space.” Walt promises that they are safe because Gus is dead, and he was the danger—but Skyler retaliates by telling him “you said you were the danger.” Skyler also feels there is blood on her hands for what she did to Ted, which Walt says was “a mistake.” Skyler, however, refuses to let her kids living in a house where dealing drugs, and hurting people, and killing people is just shrugged off.  But Walt calls her out on her inability to formulate a plan—everything she plans to do can be easily refuted and retaliated against. After a long bout of yelling and Walter completely tearing her down, Skyler admits that she has no plan, and will count every minute the kids are away as a victory; she knows it’s a bad plan because she doesn’t have any of his “magic.” The only thing she can do now is hold on, bide her time, and wait…for Walt’s cancer to come back.

The next day, Walt, Jesse and Mike meet about the Methylamine having a tracker. However, upon realizing the sloppy nature and how Lydia noticed it first, Mike determines Lydia is trying to play them to get out, and says he’ll kill her. Jesse is adverse to killing her, though, and tries to stop him. Walt agrees with Jesse, because they will not ramp down when it’s just getting started. Afterwards, Jesse thanks Walt for backing him up, and gives him a watch for his birthday.

Walt brings it to Skyler, letting her know the man who gave it to him wanted to kill him not long before, and she’ll change her mind just like he did.

Review:

With the past few weeks of rather slow set-up, the return to form for a dramatic and thrilling episode is quite a treat—and a feat, since there really isn’t much action here. This season seems to be bringing the series back to its roots, with the primary plot keeping staunchly with Walt’s family and the impact his decisions make on the people in his life, while the drug operation plot that drove most of seasons 3 and 4 is stuck largely as the B-story. The result is that stories aren’t exactly bigger, but they’re more important and much more engaging, even when there isn’t much going on. As much fun as Breaking Bad‘s action scenes are, it’s a powerhouse when it utilizes its minimalist, visually-rich and dialogue-heavy style. And “Fifty-One” does that in spades, bringing the series full circle in a way that other shows save for their 100th episode (which Breaking Bad won’t reach before ending next year.)

I briefly mentioned this last week, but it’s astounding that the last four and a half seasons have taken place over one year (Marie even breaks the fourth wall a bit, stating, “It seems like longer.”) This point was driven home with Walt’s birthday as the focal point, making things like Skyler’s depression, Jesse’s birthday present, Walter Jr.’s car, and Hank’s promotion more poignant than it would have been had it taken place over five years. The episode brings up the themes of a standard clip show, too: referring to past events as a means to reflect on how far characters have come (or in this case, fallen) since the show’s start.

Instead of showing those clips, we see the events of Walt’s 51st birthday as a dark mirror to the first season, tying together many of his defining moments and even creating a new nemesis for him. Only, instead of enemies like Gus or Tuco, it’s not a powerful or brilliant man in the drug scene—it’s his own wife. Of course, Skyler was an antagonist all through the first few seasons of the show, but usually inadvertently or indirectly, more hindering the easiness of his cooking than actually plotting against him. This time, she is trying to fight back, but unlike any of Walt’s other enemies, she doesn’t stand a chance. It’s impossibly sad and frustrating watch, as she’s constantly torn down and unable to make a move of any consequence.

Skyler’s a hard character to really nail down with the knowledge that, since the early days of the show, she’s been one of the most disliked characters in the fanbase. But while before it was more understandable for her to get some venom—she was hindering the actions of an engaging character we followed week-to-week, which could get annoying—she’s now the constant victim of Walt’s new ego, often getting the brunt of his attitude without the ability to do anything about it. And while her drowning stunt was part of her plan, I tend to think part of her wouldn’t mind dying in that situation. After all, she’s plenty willing to hurt herself for the sake of stopping Walt, and it seems like she already does considering how hard she tugged that floss on her finger (seriously, it made me cringe.) She knows full well that she’s a coward, and she’s screwed up, and that her plans, ultimately, are pointless. But to make even the slightest victory against the mastermind who’s managed climb his way to the top is astounding. It’s a dim hope, but her plan isn’t without merit; after all, once Walt is out of the picture, she would come out on top.

The fact that she’s so profoundly beaten, yet still fights with the few guns she has, is what makes their big fight so thrilling and fulfilling. Whatever personal feelings viewers might have for Skyler, she is sympathetic here, as Walt tears her down at every turn. Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn have better chemistry when they’re at odds than when they’re being loving, it seems, and Gunn plays Skyler’s vulnerability off of Cranston’s devastatingly mean tear-downs magnificently. The entire scene was astounding, between the stellar acting, super-quick pace and intensity of the fight, and Skyler’s attempts to move away from Walt at every point allowed a closed-in scene to have a surprising amount of movement. It’s up there with other memorable Skyler/Walt scenes, especially Walt’s “I am the one who knocks” speech last season, which was brilliantly brought up here and turned on its head.

Of course, an entire episode also happened around that stellar scene, but it was all golden. Admittedly, the B-plot with Jesse and Lydia, while very entertaining, often seemed like it took away from the building tension of the “War of the Whites.” It sort of fit with the rest of the episode thematically, in terms of Lydia’s failed plan mirroring Skyler’s plan, but what was happening in the White house made any non-White scenes feel a bit superfluous. Then again, that’s more of a compliment to how good the “War of the Whites” stuff was. And at least Walter Jr., Hank and Marie seem to be getting a bit of happiness, so it’s not all dark days. Hank and Marie, especially, were very enjoyable here as they constantly tried to lighten up the mood and remain supportive, actually trying to help instead of being judgmental (a testament to how far Betsy Brandt has carried Marie, especially.) Of course, Skyler seeing everyone else happy is probably making it even worse for her.

But Walt’s comeuppance is coming, if the last shot is any indication. The episode ends with a zoom in on his watch quickly ticking away—Walt’s time is ticking away too, but whether it’s ticking to the loss of his business, the return of his cancer, or something else all together remains to be seen. Either way, something will lead him to that Denny’s when his 52nd birthday rolls around, but as the show has proven, there’s no telling what insanity can happen in one year.

Some stray tidbits:

• The Heisenberg hat is back!
• The very Breaking Bad-like visuals this week were beautiful, notably the disorienting close-ups of the pool and the aforementioned ticking of the watch. The back-and-forth car-revving close-ups were kind of over-the-top, though.
• I have to wonder if the DEA agents actually screamed at Lydia like she said and we just didn’t see it happen, or if that’s an outright lie and she was just exaggerating because she’s just that kind of person. My money’s on the latter.
• Also, Lydia screwing with the fuse box is hilarious. Even though I didn’t mention her much, I still really, really like Lydia (in a love/hate kind of way.)
• Even with all the evil glares and contemplative stares and his total teardown of Skyler, I was most disgusted by Walt’s inability to shut up about wanting a birthday party. What is he, twelve?
• I don’t buy that the Whites can’t fit all three of their cars in the driveway.
• “Six feet under, half a face, and he’s still screwing with us.”
• “That’s what I get for being sexist.”