Quick Take: Breaking Bad, "Abiquiu" "What is Ice Station Zebra Associates?" - Skyler
Review: Breaking Bad, "Abiquiu" (S0311) Was up late catching up on Breaking Bad last night, so I can offer you merely a bullet point-style assessment of my thoughts.
Opening flashback, we see the origin of how Jane's (Krysten Ritter) cigarette, smudged with lipstick, ended up in Jesse's (Aaron Paul) ashtray. They discuss Georgia O'Keefe, Jane patiently explaining that painting a door "over and over again" came from an artist's perspective of finding new meaning and tones and feelings in an everyday object that she loved. Her attempt to capture it in painting was, in effect, an attempt at "making that feeling last." In "Fly," we saw a Jesse who could relate all too well, maintaining the cigarette's position in his car as a final keepsake to the woman who died just as he had found someone he could truly love for the first time.
"Pain is just weakness leaving your body." - Marie (Betsey Brandt) to Hank (Dean Norris). "Pain is my foot in your ass." – Hank
Skyler (Anna Gunn) makes good on her offer to begin paying for Hank's exorbitant medical and rehab bills. In so doing she is forever tying herself to Hank's actions, and she knows it.
Amazing comedy Part I: Jesse play acting at introducing himself to his drug dealing associates Badger/Brandon and Skinny/Peter at the NA meeting. Amazing comedy Part II: Jesse referring to Walt as "Grandpa Anus" a moment later.
Jesse's attempts to have his crew sell meth to the NA group not going so well. "It's like shooting a baby in the face," Badger (Matt L. Jones) says. Jesse, self proclaimed "bad guy," sets out to show his men just how easy it is. And meanwhile, he's dealing with his supply tightening up in the form of Walt keeping a close eye on him in the lab.
Nice to see a pleasant family dinner with Walt, Skyler, and Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) for once. Nice, and subversive of course!
"What is Ice Station Zebra Associates?" – Skyler
After the two man play (Walt and Jesse) of "Fly," this week brings in the full cast of characters.
Skyler gets much deeper into (the devil is in) the details of Walt's illicit financial dealings, and that means the return of Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk!). Saul's introduction and explanation that Walt's taste in women and lawyers are the same (top notch, with just a little bit of dirty) says everything you need to know about the epicness that is Better Call Saul.
Saul Goodman's office waiting room is an entire discussion unto itself. DMV meets OR?
"Walt's a scientist. Scientists love lasers." – Saul on Walt's rationale on the phony laser tag investment story.
Skyler's now in deep, and is trying to find her moral and argumentative posture in an entirely new landscape. "If you're gonna launder money, Walt," Skyler the professional bookkeeper says, "at least do it right."
Skyler advises that Walt buy the Car Wash that he worked at for four years and not a Laser Tag establishment, and Walt agrees. Saul does not, however. "There's no Danny here," someone who can be trusted completely because of his own illicit dealings, Saul advises.
"Married couples can't be compelled to testify against one another." – Skyler
Jesse's new adventures in drug dealing takes a very odd and revealing turn. Ostensibly it begins as a way to get his crew in line (hilariously, they seem to be more taken with the 12 steps of sobriety at the moment… "I'm a deuce man, catching up," Brandon says), he ends up kind of sort of dating Andrea. When she finally asks him for the blue crystal meth he had mentioned earlier, he seems genuinely disgusted that she would get high a few hours before her son returns home. It's as though the "bad guy" has been confronted with his own humanity. Just as Walt related in "Fly," Jesse too is confronted with not yet being dead – he much live on and deal with his consequences.
Jesse then learns that Tomas, Andrea's brother, was the 10-year-old boy who shot Combo (Rodney Rush) as part of a gang initiation. Combo's death is on Jesse's head as he was on the "wrong corner." Now that Jesse has a line on Combo's murderer, is he really going to ensure that a prepubescent assassin is going to have to "get got"?
Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) shows up by way of an intruding phone call on the lab's hard line phone. Walt is invited to Gus' home, a seeming picture of upscale normalcy. Gus and Walt "break bread," eat a Chilean fish stew that reminds Gus of his childhood, and Gus advises Walt that he needs to learn how to be rich and to "never make the same mistake twice." Walt looks deeply uncomfortable throughout the scene, like he's unsure if Gus' version of the cousins might hop out with axes at any given moment.
Jesse buys a "teenth" off Tomas on the same corner where Combo was murdered. Tomas's older drug associates are true gangsters, making Jesse's crew look like the soft amateurs that they are. Nonetheless, Jesse leaves the seem with a murderous look on his face.
Video: Breaking Bad, "Abiquiu" Head inside the episode, from AMC.com:
Recap: Breaking Bad, "Abiquiu" A reluctant newcomer named Andrea attends an NA meeting. During the break, Badger and Skinny Pete confess to Jesse that they can't bring themselves to sell to recovering addicts. "It's like shooting a baby in the face," says Badger. To show them "exactly how easy" tempting addicts can be, Jesse strikes up a conversation with Andrea. More from AMC.
From Around the Web: Breaking Bad, "Abiquiu"
A.V. Club: As stunning as it was to watch her spin the gambling yarn for Marie in "Kafkaesque," it was just as shocking to see how quickly she -- and the show -- realized that she's already broken bad all the way, and what remains is simply acting the part. In for a penny, in for a pound.
TV Squad: Jesse continues to be unhinged and volatile. He's the wild card. While Walt and Sky are looking to be safe and careful, not throwing up red flags about money laundering, Jesse is inviting trouble. He's pushing Pete and Badger to push product and when they disappoint, he goes after Andrea like a shark.
Cultural Learnings: Of course, because Jesse’s life is a greater tragedy than Walt’s by far, he discovers that his potential new life has already been corrupted by his old one, as Andrea’s brother Tomas was the one who killed Combo.
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