WRITERS: Sam Catlin & Peter Gould[SPOILERS] A fantastic penultimate episode for what's been an impressive, if oddly-paced, season of Breaking Bad. "Half Measures" did a sterling job of once again taking the show to a whole new level by its thrilling climax.
DIRECTOR: Adam Bernstein
GUEST CAST: Jeremiah Bitsui, Antonio Leyba, Angelo Martinez, Julia Minesci, Ian Posada, Emily Rios & Mike Seal
"Half Measures" cold opened on another arty scene-setter, this one set to The Association's song "Windy", with meth whore Wendy (Julia Minesci) revealed as a provider of fast-food to the two drug dealers Jessie (Aaron Paul) knows were responsible for killing his friend Combo, using the brainwashed kid brother of his girlfriend. This gave Jesse a sinister idea: to poison the dealer's burgers using ricin that Walt (Bryan Cranston) can make, delivered to them using Wendy's regular food-run. It's an idea Walt wanted no part of, despite feeling some parental sympathy for how the dealer's are using kids as drug mules, but he's adamant he won't stoop to murder. "You are not a murderer. I am not, and you are not. It's as simple as that," Walt insisted to Jesse. Words he would inevitably prove very wrong by the time the credits rolled...The crux of this episode was the moral battle going on between Walt and Jesse, who have a similar ethical code but very different ways of dealing with situations and emotions. Walt prefers avoidance and distraction, so he considered having Jesse wrongly arrested and sent to jail for a month to "cool off", something Saul (Bob Odenkirk) says he can organize with the help of his fixer Mike (Jonathan Banks). But Mike actually visited Walt to refuse the frame-job in person, during a fantastic scene where he told Walt a story about how he did't go through with killing a perennial wife-beater he arrested when he was cop, instead settling on scaring him with a gun in his mouth, then regretting he never pulled the trigger when the man killed his wife a week later. "No more half measures" has become the code Mike's stuck to, and one he believes Walt should follow.
So, instead of push the Jesse problem aside with a temporary fix, Walt tackled it head on by telling Gus (Giancarlo Esposita) that Jesse plans to kill two of his dealers. This resulted in another superlative scene, with Jesse's solo effort to poison the dealer's food being interrupted by Mike, who drove him away for a round table meeting at Gus's remote chicken farm. Gus, Walt, Jesse, Mike and Combo's two killers all seated together, in a very uncomfortable let's-clear-the-air moment. What interesting me here was seeing Walt place his trust and faith in Gus to fix the situation, but what startled me was seeing Jesse actually stand up to Gus and refuse to blindly make peace with two murderers. A moment almost worth cheerinf for. Jesse's swaggering impertinence appeared to have the desired effect on Gus, who had his employees agree to never use children in their line of work again (as a compromise decision), before everyone shook hands on the deal.
Jesse's drive home in Walt's car threw up an interesting line from Walt ("your actions, they affect other people"), as that's essentially the core problem the characters in Breaking Bad keep running into; every decision they make leads to more destructive events further down the line. The airplane disaster last season, Hank's (Dean Norris) face-off with the Cousins earlier this year... everything has been the result of relatively small decisions stretching right back to the Pilot. And here, Jesse's decisions likewise caused some gut-wrenching ripples. Seeking comfort with his girlfriend Andrea (Emily Rios) for the night, she received a call that her brother Tomas (Angelo Martinez) has been found dead in a playground. The dealers may have agreed to Gus's demands, but in so doing decided to cut ties with their existing "mule" in a manner least likely to cause problems for them in the future. Or possibly as a calculated way to upset Jesse without going against their employer's wishes.
The final scene was another season highlight, with Walt hearing about Tomas's murder on the evenings news before sitting down for dinner with his family, mind ticking over what Jesse must be feeling and what he might do next. Walt knows his partner too well by now, so made his excuses and hurriedly left the house. Across town, Jesse had armed himself and driven to the dealer's street corner, intending to shoot them both dead for killing Tomas. A foolhardy decision on Jesse's part, coming from a place of narrow-minded vengeance, certain to end in his unfortunate death in a two-against-one standoff... that is, until Walt's car bounced into shot at the last second and ran both dealer's over before they could get a shot off. If it wasn't obvious enough that family man Walt had allowed his "Heisenberg" alter-ego to assume control, he then proceeded to coolly shoot the surviving dealer through the head, before telling Jesse to "run".
What can you say? "Half Measures" was another incredible episode; a beautifully simple storyline that got under the skin of Jesse and provoked some interesting decisions and emotions from Walt, too. Walt's been drifting through this season slightly, sucked into Gus's world to be his meth-making monkey, despite knowing his percentage of the product Gus sells is grossly unfair. But there are now signs of a resurgence. Of Walt taking control once again. Skyler (Anna Gunn) is showing a few signs of compromise at home, he may soon have a money laundering business in the Car Wash that's comparable to Gus's fast-food restaurant, and maybe if Gus was out of the picture he could get his hands on the super-lab to use for himself? Is that where all this is heading?Judging from the final scene, it feels to me that Walt's going to let Jesse take the blame for the dealer's deaths, which will no doubt mean Gus is going to go after him. Part of the reason Walt's been so loyal to Jesse this season is that he feels so much guilt over letting his girlfriend Jane choke to death on her own vomit, so in rescuing Jesse and becoming a murderer on his behalf, are they now quits in his mind?
And does this all leave Walt, the trusted half of the partnership, free to kill Gus in next week's finale? Seeing that news footage appears to have shaken Walt awake to who he's dealing with, realizing he's working for a man who hires child-killers to do his dirty work. Walt's still something of a hero figure for the show, so it'll be interesting to see how his role progresses from here. My guess is he'll still be able to rationalize murder, but killing that dealer's a definite turning point for his character.
Asides
- Great comedic scene between Hank and Marie (Betsy Brandt), who managed to get her husband to leave the hospital by making him bet against her being able to arouse him within a minute. The series is primarily a study of how masculinity and pride can be a destructive force in the world, so it was rather fitting that alpha male Hank was sent home using his uncontrollable dick.
- How will Walt explain the dented car to his son, who's using it to learn how to drive?
- Excellent work from Giancarlo Esposita, who gave us a much sharper version of Gus in this episode. I hope he explodes into rage during the finale. Also worth mentioning Jonathan Banks as Mike, who handled his sermon-like monologue extremely well. In fact, this cast is such a joy everywhere you turn. I'm even enjoying Betsy Brandt's heartfelt moments this year, having previously considered her the "weak link".
