Episode Title: “Rabid Dog”
Writer: Sam Catlin
Director: Sam Catlin
Previously on “Breaking Bad”:
For the last five seasons of “Breaking Bad,” we’ve watched Walter White (Bryan Cranston) transform from a meek high school science teacher into a ruthless criminal who won’t let anything stand in his way.
Arguably, we missed seeing Walt’s darkest moment when he poisoned a child to win back the loyalty of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), but that’s the sin that Walt is paying for now. And rather than facing up to what he’s done, Walt’s still trying to rationalize it to Jesse. He’s still trying to argue that Jesse doesn’t have to be killed in order to protect himself. As someone states in this week’s episode, Walt seems to really care about Jesse. He’s gone out of his way to protect him.
Or at least Walt cared in the past. In the present, Walt finally makes what may be his darkest turn of the series. And Jesse had better watch his back.
There are full spoilers ahead for “Rabid Dog,” so if you missed last night’s episode of “Breaking Bad” then you should probably skip this review or else Jesse will drool on the guest room pillows.
One of the more impressive aspects of “Rabid Dog” is that it keeps the viewers in suspense about what happened to Jesse for almost half of the episode. When last we saw Mr. Pinkman, he was dousing the White family house with gasoline and getting ready to burn it to the ground. Only the intervention of Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) keeps Jesse from going through with his plan.
Out of their shared hatred of Walt, an unusual alliance is formed between Jesse and Hank. There’s even a convincing excuse for why Hank brings Jesse home with him: Walt had Hank’s last ten witnesses brutally murdered in prison. Surprisingly, Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt) is pretty cool with having Jesse over as long as it hurts Walt. Brandt made the most of Marie’s short scenes this week, especially during Marie’s therapy confession that her anger towards Walt is only soothed by fantasies of poisoning him with untraceable substances. Marie doesn’t know it, but that’s actually one of Walt’s preferred tactics.
Hank finally brings Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada) up to speed about who and what Walt really is before getting Jesse’s lengthy statement about Walt on video. But even with that recording, it’s only Jesse’s word against Walt’s.
The opening moments of the episode were intense as Walt went looking for Jesse and found only the partially emptied gas cannister in his living room. Of course, Walt tries to deal with the aftermath of Jesse’s home invasion in the only way he knows how: by throwing money at it. When that doesn’t work, Walt comes up with a story for Skyler (Anna Gunn) and Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) to explain why the house is tainted with gasoline.
Gunn and Mitte’s facial expressions conveyed their characters’ disbelief for Walt’s latest fiction. Walt’s family knows that he’s a liar, even if he’s gotten better at spinning a story out of thin air. Although Walt Jr. was more generous in his assessment. The poor kid still thinks that his dad is only trying to cover up the extent of his illness. The look on Walt’s face suggested that the story Walt Jr. came up with in his mind was actually more convincing than his!
Hilariously, the bruised Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) suggests to Walt that Jesse is like Old Yeller and he has to be put down. Walt angrily shoots down that suggestion and he warns Saul not to bring it up again. Just a few minutes later, Skyler makes the same suggestion as Walt tries to make Jesse’s actions seem less threatening than they really are.
If there was a backlash against Skyler before this episode, it probably doubled after she told Walt to permanently deal with Jesse. Because Jesse is beloved by the fans and Skyler is… Skyler. But think about it from her perspective: her husband’s emotionally unstable former partner in the drug trade came within a few moments of burning down their home. Would Jesse had stopped if the family had been home? We know that Jesse isn’t likely to harm Walt Jr., the baby or even Skyler herself. But that’s more than Skyler has to go on. She simply doesn’t know Jesse.
During Jesse’s conversation with Hank and Gomez, it’s pretty clear that Jesse doesn’t see how much that Walt has cared about him and protected him. Jesse’s point of view is valid, because Walt has screwed him over a number of times and poisoning Brock was simply the biggest betrayal. But now that Hank knows the full story of their partnership, he realizes that Walt really went out of his way to protect Jesse. Even Walt’s frantic phone messages suggest that he thinks he can make Jesse understand why Brock had to be poisoned and save their relationship.
On a side note, Jesse thinks that Walt made him his partner because of his meth cooking skills. He says that there wasn’t anyone better than him; which just isn’t true. The late Gale Boetticher (David Costabile) was almost Walt’s equal. Neither Jesse nor Hank seem to realize that Walt made Jesse his partner in order to get Jesse to drop the assault charges against Hank. That kind of altruistic gesture from Walt seems like something from a lifetime ago… even if it was technically only two seasons back. That version of Walt simply doesn’t exist anymore.
It’s here that we see how far Hank is willing to compromise himself to get Walt. He forces Jesse to wear a wire to a meeting with Walt in a public place despite Jesse’s fear that he’s being sent to his death. And Hank not only doesn’t care about Jesse’s safety, he openly tells Gomez that he’d be okay with Jesse dying if they catch Walt killing him on video. It’s a really dark turn by Hank, perhaps worthy of Walt himself. If Hank would really sacrifice Jesse like that, it means that he’s already lost himself.
The sequence in which a wired Jesse approaches Walt was exceptionally well directed as it placed the viewers in Jesse’s paranoid point-of-view. In Jesse’s mind, a burly and vaguely threatening man is an assassin sent by Walt rather than a father waiting for his daughter. The reveal of the man’s daughter was one of the more darkly comic moments in the episode. Rather than go quietly, Jesse phones Walt and promises to go after him where he really lives. This infuriates Hank, but Jesse insists that he has another way to bring down Walt.
Which brings us to one of the last betrayals by Walter White. In the closing moments, Walt calls Todd (Jesse Plemons) and tells him that he has a job for Uncle Jack (Michael Bowen). The implication is that Walt is putting a hit out on Jesse. Let’s see how the audience reacts to that one. If people are going to harp on Skyler for suggesting that Jesse be killed, will the viewers turn on Walt if he goes through with his plan? Probably not, but they should.
Jesse has been like a surrogate son to Walt. If Walt would order Jesse’s death, what’s to stop him from permanently silencing Hank and Marie? Once you’ve decided that murder is an option to dealing with your troublesome family members, there is no more slippery slope. Walt has reached the bottom of his fall from grace. Although Walt has surprised us before by finding new depths to sink to. There’s every possibility that Walt may outdo himself yet again in the last four episodes of the series.
