Quick Take: Breaking Bad, "Open House"
"NASA was like a second family to us." – Marie
Review: Breaking Bad, "Open House"
(S0403) Is Breaking Bad moving along at a slower pace because it’s building to something monumental, or was this just a slow episode? I feel like sometimes I’m unwaveringly defensive of the show because it’s more than earned that privilege, but I wasn’t particularly impressed by “Open House.” I always care far more about character development than plot progression, but maybe I just don’t really care all that much about Marie’s development.
That’s not to say her storyline was interesting. Hell, it was really successful in the sense that it made me feel so uncomfortable. In an effort to gain some sort of control in her life, she’s been attending open houses and making up fake stories about her life and then stealing spoons and picture frames. On the third try (and with the third story) she is caught by the realtor she met with at the second home and is soon arrested. Hank pulls some strings with his buddy, Tim (an Albuquerque P.D. homicide detective), and gets her off the hook, and maybe that’s the problem. A large chunk of the episode’s run-time was devoted to Marie’s escapades and I just don’t care. I get why she did what she did and I sympathize because Hank is being a real horse’s ass to her, but I still just don’t care. Marie is too far from the main storyline so the forward (or backwards if you prefer) progression of her character does little to resonate.
On the plus side, though, her dust-up with the law does (thankfully) plant the seeds to move Hank’s story forward a bit. Her A.P.D. savior, Detective Timmay, meets with Hank some time later and asks for a return favor: he wants Hank to look through the lab notes found at Gale Boetticher’s murder scene. Hank suggests Tim bring them to Steven Gomez at the D.E.A. office, but Tim doesn’t want to lose jurisdiction. So he asks Hank to help the investigation on the sly. And after some initial hesitation, the episode ends with him taking a peak and being fairly interested in what I’m reading. Hank makes a crack about not being Ironside, but he might not be that far off really.
That was the one minor plot movement. The other had to do with the White household’s purchase of Bushy Eyebrow’s car wash. After dismissing her offer last week, Skyler meets with Walt and Saul Goodman to plan a strategy. While the men push her towards either choosing another target for their laundering operation (a nail salon; any other damn car wash) or at least using more aggressive means to convince Bushy Eyebrows to sell, Skyler is insistent on this particular business. Why? Bushy Eyebrows insulted her. Eventually she comes up with a plan to have a fake environmental consultant (or whatever you want to call his fake job) threaten to shut down the car wash because Bushy Eyebrow has been leaking contaminated water into the grounds surrounding the location (all with Skyler telling him what to say through his Bluetooth). And hey, it was Bill Burr as the fake consultant dude. That guy’s pretty funny.
Eventually Bushy Eyebrows does call to accept Skyler’s initial offer, but not before she talks him down to just $800,000. She and Walt celebrate with a bottle of champagne, but Skyler is concerned that Walt spent over $300 on the bottle. She explains that he has to be extra cautious with everything he does, but Walt more or less dismisses her. But, Walt, dude, she’s kind of got a point. It looks like next week Walt is going to fall back on his gambling story to explain the car wash money, but how well can that story really hold up?
“Open House” was solid, but somewhat lackluster in the grand scheme of things. And unlike “Thirty-Eight Snub,” it didn’t have the unique visual style to make it memorable. As I said earlier, I’m always ready to give Breaking Bad the benefit of the doubt. I just had more doubts about this episode than others.
Lingering thoughts about “Open House”:
I understand what you're saying Mike but still think it was a pretty great hour of television. Not every episode can be as intense as "One Minute," you know? And the character development and quieter moments will pay off later in the season when it will no doubt get back to that nearly unbearable level of tension.