Breaking Bad - a season five recap

Haven't seen this show? A talented high school chemistry teacher is diagnosed with lung cancer. With a pregnant wife and a teenage son with cerebral palsy, there is little money for treatment. Desperate to make some fast money and to make use of his qualifications, he imagines himself going into the underworld of drugs, only to make it a reality when he bumps into an old student of his, an under-achiever who has become a drug dealer himself. Despite conflicting personalities, teacher and former student team up. And the glitch in their guaranteed plan: The teacher's brother-in-law is a D.E.A. agent.

D.E.A. agent, Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), finds a book of poetry by Walt Whitman in his brother-in-law’s bathroom. He flicks through the pages and reads the idolising note on the title page that is neatly written by “G.B.”, for his colleague, “W.W.”. Chillingly, Hank realises that his wholesome brother-in-law is possibly a ruthless drug-dealer. And it’s a good thing that he was sitting on the crapper.

The square-like framed glasses, the zipped-up dark jacket with a pastel shirt peeking through the collar, the neatly trimmed beard and the closely shaven bald head being covered by a black porkpie hat – this is the insignia of a high school chemistry teacher, a father of two, a husband, a cancer victim, who, is also a meth cook and a murderer. This is Walter White (“W.W”), but he’s better known as Heisenberg in the drug world, and he’s played brilliantly by Bryan Cranston (who has won three consecutive Emmy Awards for this role).

In the first scene of season five, Walter appears exhausted. He has a full head of hair and is using a different name (I wonder, how much time has passed?). He sits alone in a remote diner, celebrating his birthday with the friendly waitress who offers him free pancakes. Is he on the run? Was his secret life discovered? That’s what’s being implied here. But, we are then taken back to Skyler’s (Anna Gunn) phone call conversation with Walter after Gustavo Fring’s (Giancarlo Esposito) death (continuing on from the end of season four), as the relieved Walter simply tells his wife: “I won”. This subsequently leaves Skyler in a downward spiral of fear and bewilderment as she struggles to launder Walter’s drug money through the car washing business. “I’m waiting for the cancer to come back,” Skyler candidly tells Walter, who is dumbfounded, as she expresses the disappointment she has for her estranged husband moving back into the family home.

Walter and Jesse (Aaron Paul) then plan to rectify their meth business with the help of Fring’s right-hand man, Mike (Jonathan Banks) – due to his strong dislike for Walter, was, at first, reluctant to join – who is motivated to re-enter the business when Hank and his D.E.A. team investigate Fring’s payroll, and eventually taking all of Mike’s earnings which he had saved under his granddaughter’s name. One of Fring’s undisclosed distributers, Lydia (Laura Fraser), also enters the scene, and offers Walter and his team methylamine, a key ingredient to their signature blue meth, in exchange for staying alive – she tried to have Mike killed, fearing that he and his other hit men (who are all imprisoned) are going to flip.

            The search for the methylamine is essentially the trigger for the trail of the unspeakable events that occurs. The seemingly impossible train heist which results in the death of an innocent bystander which was a young boy venturing through the desert on his dirt bike, collecting spiders – which is indeed the most shocking episode of the series. The D.E.A. closes in on Mike who considerately pulls out of the business. Walter then foolishly kills Mike and organises a prison killing spree on the other nine hit men who worked for Fring – in a very disturbing montage of stabbing, strangling, bludgeoning, torching and more stabbing. And despite leaving the business after the death of the kid on the dirt bike, Jesse is terrified of the monster he helped create, a monster he still respectfully calls, Mr. White.

            Mike sums up Walter’s behaviour perfectly when he tells him that his pride got in the way of a good business that Fring successfully and meticulously managed. Walter was a gentle, unlucky, family man, who was laughed at by his students who watched him labour away at his second job at the car wash. But, now, he’s a conniving, malevolent meth cook, whose shame as an overqualified high school chemistry teacher made him into a methamphetamines genius with a God complex. Walter doesn’t seem to fit in either world – whether good or bad, he’s not getting the respect he feels he deserves. He’s a tragic Shakespearean character, like Macbeth, whose vanity grew and whose choices were poor. With Skylar as the Lady Macbeth character, the dutiful wife who is attentively covering her husband’s evil tracks, and declines into a depression. Hank correlates with the detecting and valiant Macduff. And Jesse as a fused character of Macbeth’s comrade, Banquo, and his son, Fleance, who are the rightful, and predicted, rulers of the kingdom – just as Jesse belongs to the world of drugs, but is hindered by Walter who constantly belittles him.

            It’s hard to believe that series creator, Vince Gilligan, had intended to kill off Jesse after season one. Jesse is both protagonist and antagonist, and, unlike the pretentious Mr. White, has respect for the drug business. Respectively, Jesse is a very promising character. He’s the sweet young man who got caught up in the wrong world, and is unfortunately, likely to be stuck there. And despite having been through a rather traumatic journey because of Walter, he manages to hang onto his genuine sweetness. The most charming quality of Jesse is how well he gets along with children – his younger brother, Jake, Andrea’s son, Brock, and the poor little red-headed boy in season two, whose drug addicted parents mugged Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), one of Jesse’s trusted distributors – that nurturing, fatherly figure he could potentially be. But Jesse is still a child himself, unsure and misguided, it is possible he can find redemption. And I would predict that redeeming himself would have to mean breaking his loyalty, by getting even with Walter, who has mistreated him more than Jesse has remained loyal to him – and the unknowing circumstances of Jane’s untimely death (in season two) brought on by Walter’s passiveness, which lead to Jesse’s immense guilt as it was he who re-introduced her to drugs.

            As Walter progressively becomes less worthy, the more that I concede in Skylar’s wish – waiting for the cancer to kill him and put an end to his incompetent reign. His drug empire is crumbling as Hank continues to pursue Fring’s case after the resurgence of the blue meth, which obviously leads to the mid-season cliff-hanger. “G.B.” is of course, Gale Boetticher (David Costabile), Fring’s scholar employee and Walter’s former cooking partner – the man Hank believed was Heisenberg, and was ultimately killed by Jesse, a point blank shot to the head, in the gripping season three finale.

Accordingly, season five will be the last one of this exceptional series, and so, how is it all going to end? Maybe it will follow the Shakespearean mould? Will Skylar commit suicide, leaving the kids with Marie? Will Hank overcome his humiliation, find Walter, and kill him in a bloody showdown? And will Jesse continue to cook the blue meth? Well, we’re just going to have to wait a bit longer to see Walter White’s fate.