Summary: The pieces are moving into place for the final run of episodes, but even with all the set-up, we’re still seeing the characters exposed in this time of crisis.
If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t wish to be spoiled, tread lightly.
Review
That didn’t exactly go how we expected, did it? That’s the true triumph of this back half of Breaking Bad‘s final season–we knew all these confrontations would happen, and dreamed of factions forming like this, but the way things have unfolded have been wholly unexpected. The split focus of “Rabid Dog” between Walt and Skyler and Hank/Jesse/Marie was a smart way to both delay the conclusion of last week’s cliffhanger, but simultaneously build the tension from it. As a whole, though, it continued to weave the ongoing plots into a clear trajectory, setting up what will surely be lots of good content in the final four. But instead of spending too much time on the plot–a mistake a lot of shows make on their “set-up” episodes–“Rabid Dog” utilizes the planning stage to give a deeper look at the individual characters’ state of mind at this point.
Skyler’s suggestion to kill Jesse might have been the biggest surprise of the hour. It begs the question: can we still root for her anymore? It’s become clear that Walt is a lost cause, and we’re not really supposed to root for the guy so much as just be interested in where his story goes. But Skyler, even in spite of the vitriol her character gets, has always been something of a victim, someone we ought to feel sorry for and hope she ultimately gets out of this okay. There’s a very thin line the show has been treading these past few years; her actions have (almost) always come from desperation and/or the love for her children. The question here is whether or not that’s still the case. Her life had some semblance of quiet normalcy in “Blood Money”, and they’ve only just settled down Hank and Marie. So yes, killing Jesse would be a desperate maneuver, but he’s just a worthless drug dealer who’s only out to threaten them, right?
Skyler’s almost nonchalant suggestion that Jesse be killed is a very insightful, even if unnerving, view into how much Skyler has been twisted from her early persona, of course. But what’s frightening is how naive it is; she’s placing a shroud of otherness on everyone outside of the nuclear Whites now, including her own sister. Everyone outside of the White family is disposable once they become a threat. Hank and Marie got special privileges since they were once part of that family unit, but the best case scenario is never speaking to them again. In this regard, it’s not Skyler’s own moral compass that’s been twisted so much as her perspective. Life is no longer about living in a civilization with friends and hopes and dreams. It’s about pure, animalistic survival, doing everything possible to protect what you have and cast off anyone who gets in your way by any means necessary. If humans developed their complex ways of thought but without the empathy to build whole civilizations with other people, this is what it would look like. Skyler’s not wrong in a factual sense, because killing Jesse would solve problems. But she’s capital ‘W’ Wrong. There’s a bit of her morality left, presumably, since she refers to the confession video as “awful,” but she went along with it anyway. Skyler’s been transformed just as Walt was over the course of the show, her progression was just slower and more indirect.
Marie shares this bloodlust with her sister, but not as literally and not to the same extent. While Skyler has grown to believe that the ends justify murder, Marie uses the very concept of it as a coping mechanism. The fact that she could, if worst came to worst, have the ability to poison Walt and finish him off all on her own, provides a cold comfort that she is never fully without power. Considering the seemingly powerless place she and Hank were put it in last week, this is justified. And while Marie isn’t going along with murder by the end of the episode, she is utterly okay with bending the rules and playing hard just to get Walt. Marie might have the purest motivation at this point–taking down Walt for the sake of his kids, because he’s a bad person–which is a far cry from her kleptomaniac days early in the show. Hank and Jesse want to take Walt down out of blind rage, Hank even moreso because of the physical damage Walt caused to his body. But Marie’s supportive, sort of go-getter attitude when it comes to this has heightened her likability in these past weeks.
And then there’s Jesse. “Rabid Dog” puts Jesse in an appropriate perspective by showing just how he’s seen by everyone else. We as an audience have been rooting for Jesse for a long time, as his soul has been exposed often enough that it’s easy to grow attached. But in the most literal of terms, yes, he’s a drug dealer, an addict, and a murderer. To Hank, like Skyler, he’s disposable; the only difference is that he could be a means to an end in this case. Even the level of importance he has in this case still doesn’t make him any more of a human being in the eyes of the DEA, especially Hank. Which is why when he thwarts the big plan to capture Walt–even though it very well would have worked, it seems–he’s not entirely unjustified. Whatever his new, better plan is, this might be his shot to prove himself as worthy to be a living person to the rest of the world.
Of course, that also comes at the cost of his relationship with Walt. Hank and Gomez, through their analysis of Jesse’s adventures, provide appropriate meta-commentary on the show: as horrible as Walt has treated Jesse and manipulated him, there still remains a weird little soft spot for him. No one could blame Jesse for thinking this is BS, and frankly, the agents might be overestimating how much Walt really cares. But even so, they weren’t wrong; Walt does, honestly, care what Jesse thinks of him (whether it’s because he respects Jesse or it’s just a weird sense of pride, we’ll probably never know.) In another universe, Walt fixing his relationship with Jesse could have in turn left Jesse with a better sense of self-worth. But instead, both of them went too far, and for all he’s taught Jesse throughout the show, teaching him how to be a cunning adversary has turned around on him.
And then there’s Walt, who we’ve seen time and time again show his true, rather nasty colors in the face of crisis. It’s interesting, then, that he’s the least bloodthirsty of the bunch this week. No, he hasn’t redeemed himself by any means. But he’s constantly casting off murder suggestions from Saul and Skyler, he’s actually coming off as sincere when trying to break through to Jesse, and he’s trying his darndest to keep his family out of harm’s way. His “gas pump malfunction” story, weak as it was, harkened back to his excuses of seasons 1-2. Walt is struggling to maintain the illusion that everything is back to how it was, that he can just live the same life he did back in the simpler times of season 1 (not that they were much happier.) But the trouble is, while he can spontaneously shift back into this faux-loving and caring pre-season 1 dad figure, he’s already changed the world around him too much. His wife is a cunning drug lord’s money laundering wife. His crippled brother- and sister-in-law are risking their own well-beings to single-handedly bring him down. His son is emotionally traumatized by the cancer scare and previous family break-ups. And his apprentice has sworn vengeance on every manipulation that’s ever taken hold. Even if Walt was wholly repentant of every bad thing he’s ever done (which isn’t even the case) he wouldn’t get out of this unscathed. Not only is karma against him, now, but so is his entire world.
Odds & Ends
- Much of an anticlimax as it was, the cinematography and sound for the teaser of the episode, especially where Walt is initially running in the house, was superb.
- We continue the trend of characters finding out the big secret totally offscreen, as Gomez just appears in Hank’s house, already knowing about it. Much as I like how the show keeps skipping to the repercussions, I’m interested to see how that conversation would have gone.
- “Problem Dog” was the title of an episode in season 4 that was similarly Jesse-centered, and similarly used a metaphor for a dog needing to be put down. This show forgets nothing.
- RJ Mitte has been totally killing it in his screentime this season. His character has clearly matured a bit, and a pit in the stomach forms whenever he breaks down about his dad. Of all the characters, the reveal that Walt is Heisenberg to him will easily be the most dramatic.
