Breaking Bad #5.2 “Madrigal” Recap & Review

We’re starting to see the full impact of Gus’s demise as loose threads from last season continue to be tied up, and all the while Mike’s life collapses around him, in a surprisingly slow, quiet episode.

Recap:

At the research department for Madrigal, the corporation that owned Los Pollos Hermanos, a man named Peter Shuler seems very out of it at his taste test for the researchers. His secretary informs him of people trying to see him; it’s the DEA, it seems, investigating the ties to Gus’s drug ring. The man avoids the DEA and takes an AED to the bathroom, and electrocutes himself.

Walter makes a fake ricin cigarette out of salt and flushes the original one, as we hear a voiceover conversation of Jesse feeling terrified and guilty that someone will find the one he lost by accident and be killed. Walt plants the fake in Jesse’s apartment and assists Jesse with looking for it. It gets sucked into Jesse’s Roomba, and when Jesse checks it, he finds the cigarette—and subsequently breaks down over the guilt of blaming and almost killing Walt last season.

Walt and Jesse visit Mike and suggest a partnership for cooking and dealing, splitting equally between the three of them. However, Mike is disinterested in getting back into the game.

Hank, Gomez and the DEA have a meeting with the Madrigal board, which offers its full cooperation and transparency. In a private meeting afterwards, Merkert congratulates Hank on the work he did uncovering Gus’s identity, but laments not listening to the suspicious, and notes that he will be have to thrown under the bus because of it. They recap the events that have unfolded and the questions still open—who gave Salamanca the bomb? Who erased the laptop? They also note how infuriating it is to have known Gus personally, only to find that he was somebody else completely, right under their noses.

Mike meets with Lydia, an extremely neurotic Madrigal board member, at a diner—she wants to know who killed Gus, and is worried about how much can be traced back to her when the DEA does their investigation. She gives Mike a list of eleven men who were on Gus’s payroll and may talk, and wants Mike to kill them. Mike is completely confident their mouths will stay shut, and chastises her for proposing that, since killing eleven mean as a prophylactic measure isn’t an option.

Meanwhile, at Walt’s house, Skyler refuses to get out of bed.

Mike encounters Chow, who is clearly scared after being interrogated by the DEA; Mike, too, has been called in. Hank and Gomez interrogate him, questioning Mike’s listed job as corporate security for Gus (doing “employee background checks”) and noting his credentials as a private investigator and former cop, making it clear that Mike’s history makes him an obvious suspect. However, Mike isn’t under arrest, meaning he can leave. But Hank throws out one more important piece of evidence: Fring set up a bank account of $2 million in Mike’s grandaughter’s name…all of which is now in possession of the DEA. They offer to let Mike off easy and give his granddaughter some of the money if he cooperates, but Mike denies any involvement.

Walt, Jesse and Saul meet about restarting their meth business. Walt is intent on staying in town because “Gus could do it,” tasking Saul to figure it out. Jesse notes that they have all the ingredients stockpiled, except for Methylamine. Saul thinks Walt and Jesse should count themselves lucky given the situations they came out of, but Walt is still in the hole and needs to make more money.

Chow calls Mike, freaking out that he’s been told to come back to the DEA, asking for his help. However, the call was a ploy—Chow is being held at gunpoint, and is subsequently killed. Mike arrives at the house, where the gunman prepares to kill him; Mike uses a child’s toy to distract him, and gets the drop on him instead. After interrogating him, Mike realizes Lydia hired another one of Gus’s employees to kill the eleven men (including Mike.) Mike, in turn, murders him.

At Lydia’s house, Mike holds her at gunpoint in anger. She pleads to Mike to not shoot her in the face so her daughter won’t find her like that; he says no one will find her. However, this makes Lydia even more terrified of her daughter thinking she just disappeared. Upon seeing Lydia plea for her daughter’s sake, Mike asks if she can get her hands on Methylamine—and calls Walt letting him know he’s taking him up on his offer after all.

Walt returns to the still bed-ridden Skyler, talking to her about his day and letting her know the feelings about Ted “get easier,” as she cries in fear.

Review:

We get a bit bigger glimpse of the larger world of Breaking Bad this time around. Exploring the residual effects of Gus’s demise is a smart move; simply killing him was not going to tie up everything in a neat bow, and the muck Mike has to plow through this week shows just how messy it is and will continue to be.

Mike’s increased presence so far this season is a welcomed development. As I noted last week, Jonathan Banks really owns every scene he’s in, exuding the right amount of humor, intensity, and annoyance when it’s necessary. Mike was put through the wringer this week, though. In fact, his situation mirrors Walt’s in the early days of the show; they were driven to the drug business because they needed both a change in their lives and money to leave for their family members, but after trying to get out, were reluctantly dragged back in. While this ultimately drove Walt closer and closer to the dark side, however, Mike walked a more ambiguous line to begin with. The question for him isn’t so much about falling too far into darkness, but simply whether or not he’ll ever be able to be done with something left for his granddaughter. While Walt became less interested in his family and more in feeding his own ego, Mike is still squarely interested in leaving something behind for his family. The conflicting ways everyone is involved in this new business venture is sure to create some issues down the line.

While there wasn’t much Walt this week, it’s still becoming abundantly clear how close he already is to taking Gus’s place, at least in terms of his relations to the people around him. The dynamic with Saul is interesting now;  Bob Odenkirk plays him much more subdued than usual, and the once humorous and energetic Saul is much more jaded and held back with Walt now. Skyler, on the other hand, is totally frightened. We didn’t see much of her this week either, but though Walt assumed she was upset over Ted (which is at least partially true) it’s more clear that saying she was “scared” of Walt last week is going to have huge lasting consequences.

The tipping point, though, goes to Walt’s relationship with Jesse. Seeing Jesse break down was an absolutely torturous scene. Aaron Paul’s best work often comes from the most raw, naked emotional moments Jesse has like this one, but the hole is dug deeper because of the entire history behind it. Counting Jane’s death way back in season 2, we’ve now got not one, but two moments that will destroy both Jesse and Walt if the truth came out. Jesse has not only lost quite a lot because of Walt, but he’s convinced he’s stupid and not a worthy enough person…all because of Walt manipulating him.

Within the darkness, literally and figuratively (there seemed to be a whole lot more dark shadows in the sometimes barely visible second half of the episode) was the bright and entertaining presence of Lydia. Laura Fraser was absolutely hilarious in her introductory scenes, and included some nuance that kept Lydia from being straight-up annoying. It seems we’ll be seeing more of her if she’s going to be a new supplier.

With very few shockers, only moderate developments and lots of set-up, “Madrigal” will likely be forgotten fairly quickly as the season progresses. And admittedly, it wasn’t nearly as engaging as we’ve come to expect from the show. There were very few breaks from the slow pace, quite a few long trailing shots, even for Breaking Bad, and a use of shadow in the later parts of the episode that felt more excessive than effective. But while it’s not a traditionally entertaining episode, it is intriguing to see more Mike, and with the situations he, Jesse, Skyler and Saul have been put in, it’s a huge indication of how close Walt is already to being Gus, even with such a minimal amount of Walt in the episode.

Some stray tidbits:

• The taste test opening wasn’t surreal per se, but it was so off-beat and off-kilter that it felt like it was, in its own Breaking Bad sort of way.
• The way Shular takes off his shirt and hangs everything up feels very similar to Gus removing his suit before vomiting in last season’s “Salud.”
• Why did Walt make a fake ricin cigarette and destroy the real one if he was going to have Jesse find it and destroy it anyway? Couldn’t he have just planted the ricin cigarette without the extra effort?
• I like that the DEA references how dumb the police were for believing Mike’s USPS ploy last week.
• Do I really need to say anything about Lydia in the diner?
• I have to wonder why Mike doesn’t do his nice grandfather routine in the interrogation instead of being the stern badass and looking even more obvious. Then again, he probably figured they wouldn’t fall for any of it anyway, so why not look awesome?
• Jesse called the RV “The Crystal Ship.” Awesome.
• The creepy music when Mike calls Walt at the end of the episode is stunning.