Breaking Bad – Since when do vegans eat fried chicken?

If memory serves, it seems anytime Walter gets a bit too comfortable with his situation — be it from sheer arrogance or intoxication — he sticks a big ol’ foot in his mouth. Just when it was clear Hank had dropped the Gale case, and he was pretty confident Gale was the genius behind the blue meth, Walt gets too drunk and spits out something that re-ignites the Gale case when it was all but closed. Then again, does Hank respect Walt’s opinion enough to make him consider his drunken rantings? Apparently he does.

Actually, that’s a fair question, regarding Hank’s attitude toward Walt. Now that Hank firmly believes Walter is one hell of a genius card player, it’s likely he looks up to him a bit more now. Hey, he did get the Walt Whitman poem reference in the notebook, after all, even if it’s possible Gale was referring to Walter there.

I have to admit I had the whole Jesse-riding-shotgun part of the episode all wrong. I actually thought it was possible Mike was grabbing his own stash from those locations, in preparation for helping Walter take out Gus and then get the hell out of Dodge. Once I saw he was clearly really annoyed with even being in Jesse’s presence, I had no idea what to expect. Once I saw the shotgun-toting guy, I had a feeling it was all a setup. I believe Gus’s point was that Jesse is redeemable, and that he’s not a good-for-nothing junkie. Like I said last week, he may be using occasionally — if at all — but he’s not ready to become a complete addict again. It seems the only thing anyone really needed to know about Jesse was whether or not he was a risk to the operation, in letting himself get caught or just plain sloppy. Was that point made in his riding shotgun and helping out Mike?

Regarding Gus and his job as manager of the restaurant: How the heck does he keep himself safe there on a regular basis? What if he was sitting in his office when Walter came busting in, and Walt decided to unload that revolver into him? Being the owner of that chicken franchise is a brilliant front for his “other” business, but he sure leaves himself way out in the open. The only reason I imagine Mike knew where he was this time was because Walter made that call to Saul first.

I had a thought about the car wash. Since the laundromat above Walt’s lab is supposed to be great for filtering out the exhaust and fumes from the meth creation process, could the same thing be done through the drainage from the car wash? I could definitely see this being the start of where Walt could eventually hide his own operation, should he decide to continue outside of working for Gus.

So, what was the point of Mike and Jesse’s shotgun run? Will Hank become a very active part of the blue meth investigation now? Could the car wash become a front for a new operation for Walter some day?

Clacked by Keith McDuffee
on Aug 15, 2011 @ 00:06 EST5EDT