Quick Take: Breaking Bad, "One Minute"
"I never saw this coming." - Walt
Review: Breaking Bad, "One Minute"
(S0307) As has often been the case this season, the last few minutes – or one very long minute in this case – reveal the meaning behind the episode title. The final sequence of "One Minute" was a game changer of all game changers: one of the more intense, visceral, and entertaining moments I've experienced on television, flat out. It worked as pure action, pure adrenaline, with exquisite direction and cinematography, but more than that it built wonderfully upon all of the character development and nearly overwhelming suspense that had been building up all season long. The cousins were coming, we saw again and again. And somehow newly vulnerable, nearly tragic, and almost redeemed Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) stood in their direct crosshairs. A mysterious phone call alerts Hank that men are coming to kill him and let's just say there's a reckoning that action fans and high noon western fans and fans of great dramatic storytelling the world over will relish and debate and argue about for many dessert moons to come.
Circling back to the beginning, though: just when you thought that there couldn't possibly be more heat to add to the pressure cooker that is Breaking Bad, enter Mexican cartel honcho Juan. It's exceptionally tasty, the way in which we've been doled out little bits and pieces of background and salient information this season, and never more so than when we see Juan on the phone (and what kind of '80s-era satellite phone is he rocking, by the way?), talking derisively about "the big generalissimo," "the chicken man." Juan, we learn has no great respect for his punctilious partner across the border, Gustavo Frings (Giancarlo Esposito). And that means that the bloodthirsty, ax-worshipping cousins have carte blanche to wreck havoc on the U.S. side of the border.
And our good friend Hank (Dean Norris) hasn't been in the best of spirits anyway lately, as we know. In fact, he had shown the ability to snap before the incident with the RV that we witnessed in "Sunset." So when he shows up at Jesse Pinkman's (Aaron Paul) house, he can barely hurl a few questions out before beating the bejeesus out of Jesse. Again, core to the show's integrity and quality is the fact that we don't just cut away and move onto other plot points as 98% of TV dramas would do here. Instead, Hank is human and sane enough to not cover up the incident but to call it in. And face what is a growing set of consequences for his actions in both his professional and personal life. And who does he have to thank, really, for this world of woe? I think we know the answer to that by now.
The quote I pulled for this episode's "quick take" ("I never saw this coming." – Walt) is really central to this season's trajectory, and perhaps that of the entire series. What Walt (Bryan Cranston) never saw coming – and what he still doesn't see coming – could fill a thousand football stadiums at this point. That's why I thought it was so clever a few weeks back to flashback to a time early in Walt's meth cooking and criminal career, when he was so sure footed and possessed an iron will that radiated underneath his gee willikers high school chem teacher persona.
Aaron Paul delivers an absolutely chilling monologue from his hospital bed on the question of "what happens next." This is a mixture of the sinister and quiet we've seen post-rehab and the more volatile drug slinging Jesse we knew early on. It's as though his experience with Walt and what has happened since has honed him into the truly evil "bad guy" that he now believes himself to be. Finally, he turns on Walt and straight up threatens him with turning over "Heisenberg" the second he gets nabbed by the feds for going after Hank. "You're my free pass, bitch," he says, including his signature expletive.
So let's take a little break(ing bad) and do some math: the cartel and cousins after Hank and Walt, Gus and Gale (Tom Costabile) will likely give Walt up after they learn his meth cooking trade secrets, Hank is after Jesse and Heisenberg, Jesse is after Hank (and in effect, Walt), and Saul is ready "to talk options" if Jesse doesn't chill himself out. That about the size of it?
Dean Norris keeps getting better this season, and I was amazed at his quiet resolve to tell the truth in his scene with wife Marie (Betsy Brandt). It was touching to see a quieter, couple-y side to both of these somewhat abrasive characters. Despite Hank's unraveling – which he is brave enough to admit here – they have a real connection and a real marriage yet, unlike the charred remains of Walt and Skyler at this point. Hank probably is done as a cop, but if he can find some way to disentangle himself from the deadly noose that Walt has unwittingly place around his neck, there's a chance for them to start over.
And speaking of nooses, are we watching a final one being draped, again unwittingly, around Jesse's neck by one Walter H. White? Jesse is absolutely correct that Walt is entirely selfish in his motivation to bring Jesse back into the fold. But a final soft word in which Walt admits that Jesse's meth cooking skills were indeed up to snuff (so to speak), and Jesse's crushing loneliness – brought on in many ways by association of Walt, Jesse/Paul admits in a breathtakingly bleak and anguished confession – bring him to cave. I believe that the $1.5 million actually has little to do with it. Money is oddly not at the forefront of either Walt or Jesse's chief concerns at this point. On a smidge of a brighter note, look everyone, we've just been told that the band has gotten back together!
Back to Hank, laying on the pavement of a parking lot battlefield at the close of the "one minute." What happens next? If anything we can assume that Hank will be out of the equation of hunting down Heisenberg for a little while at the very least. And with the cousins gone, does Juan make a new move on his northern enemies? And you'd have to think that Gus' people made the muffled call to Hank that saved his life. What price for that? There's been a tremendous dread and anticipation built up around the coming of the cousins and now that that has been resolved (in the best way one could imagine) the playing field is somewhat open for the end of this season. Maybe we'll have time to see what's going on with Skyler and Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte), or maybe the focus will shift to Jesse and the demons he's facing as he heads back to the lab and no one to even to call "bitch." Or… probably it will be something else, and it will be completely and outstandingly unexpected and original and right.
More thoughts on "One Minute":
Video: Breaking Bad, "One Minute"
Head inside the action, from AMC:
Recap: Breaking Bad, "One Minute"
In Mexico, two young boys — the Cousins as children — fight over a toy until one breaks it. Nearby, a much younger, spryer Tio talks on his cell phone, disparaging the "Chicken Man" as a "dirty" South American. More at AMC.
From Around the Web: Breaking Bad, "One Minute"
