“Confessions” was another
excellent addition to the two equally brilliant opening season episodes that
has started at a pace faster than the speed of light. This edition is slightly
slower than the last two episodes but there was lay up in the intensity and
tension that has enter this show in the conservation as one of the great shows
ever to grace television.
We start off with Todd and his
Aryan colleagues in a restaurant recounting the train robbery of last season
where conspicuously left out the small minor detail involving him murdering a
little boy. This introduction into the episode may seem to be inconsequential
but it is clearly going to lead to Todd dragging Walt back into the meth
business as the events of last episode made clear that the operation wasn’t
prepared to accept any drop in the quality of its product.
If there was any episode as a
testament as to why both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have been winning Emmys
for fun over the last few years, “Confessions” would definitely suffice as both
excelled this excellent episode. We start with Jesse and Hank having a tense
conversation with Hank laying down his cards flat revealing that he knows Walt is Heisenberg
which brings a small reaction from Jesse who despite Hank’s offer to hang Walt
out to dry, tells Hank to ‘eat me’ as he still clearly hates Hank’s breathing
guts.
Saul comes to save the day and
rescue Jesse again trying to talk sense into his less than compliant client
with Jesse clearly not caring about much of what is coming out of his mouth as
he clearly knows that Saul is less his lawyer than he is Walt’s. Almost all
Jesse’s actions as a result of his guilt have got back to Walt through Saul so
for Jesse when Saul opens his mouth to speak, he hears Walt’s words come out.
Sure enough Saul calls Walt and
informs him of Jesse’s flirtation with philanthropy with Walt sounding more
boss like with every phone call so far this season. However, Walt has other
problem to deal with as the White-Schrader split widens even further when Marie
sneakily tries to invite Walt Jr. over only stopped by Walt Sr. ruthlessly
using his Cancer to keep his son close and more importantly, away from Hank and
Marie.
This scene sets up another
excellent restaurant scene this half of season 5 between the Whites and Schrader’s
that was jam-packed with tension a Ginsu Knife couldn’t cut through with Walt
demanding that his kids should not be brought into their dispute with Hank and
Marie more than resolute in their disgust and anger at Walt and Skyler with
Hank offering jail time and Marie offering suicide, forcing Walt and Skyler to
leave only leaving behind a CD of a tape they made earlier.
This scene made for great
television but we are reminded by the small but hilarious interruptions by a
chipper waiter how palpable the tension between the Whites and Schrader really
is.
Walt has largely denied his
meth cooking exploits to both Hank and Marie since Hank smacked him right
between the eyes at the end of episode 9 and if you had taped his and Skyler’s
dialogue up until the tense restaurant scenes, they haven’t really said
anything worth taking to court.
However, any further use of the
tactic playing defence and saying nothing crazy to incriminate themselves by
the Whites was surely ended when the Schrader’s decided to play the CD left by
Walt at the restaurant clearly expecting a contrite mea culpa but instead got a smack right between the
eyes as they witnessed a Oscar winning tour de force by probably the best
fictional actor in modern television.
Walt (and Bryan Cranston’s)
performance effectively painted himself as a victim while painting Hank as a
uber-corrupt DEA drug boss and implicating him in a number of Walt’s own crimes
at the same time. While it doesn’t really condemn Hank as he can still present
a convincing case against Walt, it certainly does paint Hank and Marie in a
corner as Walt’s faux mea culpa was chilling in its utter believability which I
am sure had many at home (or me at least) muttering “son of a bitch!!”.
The next scene between Walt and
Jesse was great and epic in a sense reminding me of that great scene between
Robert De Neiro and Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s Casino when they meet in the Las Vegas
desert with Nick Santoro (Pesci) less than pleased with Sam Rothstein’s (De
Neiro) Nattering to the bosses back home.
We, from Episode 9 see the
effect Walt had over Jesse for the lion share of this great TV series has waned
as he clearly see through Walt technically excellent but emotionally retarded act
as Walt effectively tells Jesse to get out of town through an offer of giving
Jesse a brand new start to “reset” which had me worried that he may send Jesse
to “Belize”. Jesse finally decides to call
Walt out his fake concern and demands that he stop “working him” and ask him to
leave without using his neat little trick of selling his own self-interest as a
“everybody wins” type of deal.
I got to admit I didn’t know
what going to happen as Jesse ends his tirade and Walt starts to walk toward Jesse,
stops a for a beat staring Jesse in the eye then hugs him as Jesse grudgingly
accepts as he breaks down in Walt’s arms which show there is at least a
semblance of the bond they once had. However, any rehabilitation of Jesse’s
relationship with Walt turned to pulp as while he waited for the Saul arranged
trip to anywhere but New Mexico, the penny many a Breaking Bad viewer have been
waiting to drop in Jesse’s head finally did and it served as a catalyst that
will finally turn Jesse against Walt for the rest of the season.
Jesse had realized that it was
Walt who poisoned Brock with ricin cigarette with a little help from Huell and
Saul. With the Penny still ringing in his head, Jesse storms into Saul’s office,
assaults him and gets to a gun in his desk drawer and sticks it in the seedy
lawyers’ face looking for answers.
Saul, Beaten bloody and out of
options, spills the beans to Jesse while assuring him that he didn’t know what
the ricin cigarette was going to be used for and who it was going to be used on
before Jesse steals his keys and bolts. After his ordeal, Saul calls Walt to
warn him that Jesse knows which leads to short scene where Walt rushes to the
car wash to pick up a revolver hidden inside a Coke vendor then leaves. We
return back with Jesse “parking” on Walt’s driveway getting out of Saul’s car
to pop the trunk and take out a full can gasoline which use uses after kicking
down the door
In sum, “confessions”, just
like the two episodes before it, was an excellent hour of television and
another example of why this show is great and why TV will be poorer when it
last episodes play out.
No comments:
Post a Comment