Season One, Episode Three: “… and the Bag’s in the River”
“The soul … is nothing but chemistry here.”
This episode started brilliantly, ended brilliantly, and everything in between was just as brilliant. The opening was a superb melding of image and sound; a shot looking up through the floor at a deep red mess being smeared away by Walter on his hands and knees in blood and guts wearing his gas mask and green apron, coupled with music like twisting pieces of metal and the loud squelching sound of human flesh being wrung into a bucket. Beautiful.
Then came that finale with the plate, the weird, subtle music again perfectly underscoring the action as Walter slowly puts the pieces together, both literally and figuratively. The bike lock killing was a truly breathtaking piece of television and one of the most brutal things I’ve ever seen, stunningly well done and horrifically realistic. Again, it was Tarantino-esque, and the scene in which Walter and Jesse hose each other down might even have been a direct reference to Pulp Fiction.
Watching Walter struggle with the decision of whether or not to kill Krazy-8 was fascinating; on the one hand there was the pressure from Jesse (“coin-flip is sacred!”) and on the other hand was Walter’s own conscience and his strange developing friendship with his prisoner. His cutting off the crusts on Krazy-8’s sandwich was a genius touch, as was his “Let him live” vs. “Kill him” list; both grimly funny while telling us a whole load about Walter as a person.
A few quick points:
Season One, Episode Four: “Cancer Man”
“Things have a way of working themselves out.”
So it turns out Walter decides to tell Skyler the part about having cancer, but not the part about producing meth and killing a man in a basement with a bike lock. That his own brother-in-law is heading up the operation to track him down makes things very exciting indeed, and not unlike Dexter. The vent in which Walter keeps his money is even similar to the one in which Dexter keeps his blood slides. The difference is that Dexter Morgan is highly practiced and skilled at remaining undetected, while Walter White is a bumbling mess of a chemistry teacher, whose money keeps flying into vents and swimming pools, and who panics uncontrollably at the sight of a police car. If Dexter did that he’d have had a heart attack by now, considering his line of work.
The family barbecue scene was superbly handled, with Walter being forced to tell everyone about his illness thanks to Skyler’s breakdown. Incidentally, Anna Gunn is perfect in that role, while RJ Mitte steals pretty much every scene as Walter Jr.; “Why don’t you just fucking die already?” The episode (and series) plays out as a critique of the American health care system, or lack thereof, with Walter practically turning his back on treatment because even if they could afford it, it would leave the family financially crippled, with or without a living and breathing Walter White.
Meanwhile we learn more about Jesse by meeting his impossibly middle-class parents at dinner, having a beautifully heightened conversation with Jesse’s impossibly perfect little brother; “I don’t understand why they’re forcing you to choose between the piccolo and the oboe. You show so much promise with both!” I know families like that, and if I belonged to one I’d definitely have run off and started dealing crystal meth. They reminded me of the Mormon family in South Park, and if Jesse had told them the truth about his almost perfect little brother it would have served them right for treating him like a criminal, insisting on opening the bedroom door while Jesse was in there. Instead, he showed his kindness by protecting his little brother, even though he’s like the kind of tiny child who’d stab you to death in a horror film.
A few quick points:
Clacked by Dan Meier 
on Jul 23, 2012 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
