'Don't drink and drive. But if you do, call me.'
As Jesse iconically said; 'He can't keep getting away with this!' However, I'm using the quote to suitably refer to Vince Gilligan. They don't come in a much more devious fashion.
Firstly, my prediction about Jesse's line, 'hitting him where he really lives', referring to telling Walter Jr about Walt's secret life, was way off. Jesse's line about Walt doing the exact opposite of what you expect him to do is effectively an analogy for Gilligan himself; no matter what prediction you make, he'll always surprise you by doing the exact opposite.
There are couple of things to look at in this episode. Huell received the most prolonged screentime in the his fictional history during this episode, as he unwittingly betrayed Walt and handed details over to the Hank and Gomez. As a result, the money became the central aspect of this episode, as we saw a race between Walt and Hank to get to it. This linked in largely with the rest of the episode; during the scene in which Saul made an appearance at the car wash, there was this brilliant sense of unity between every one of the main characters, as if they're all being brought together for the inevitable showdown that's soon to occur.
However, the most tension emanated from the aforementioned sequence in which Walt meets Hank, Gomez and Jesse at the site on which the money is buried. This also gave a sense of unity, as if everything was coming full circle; Jesse himself points out that the burial site is where they made their first cook over a year ago. As Walt was walking towards Hank, utterly defeated, I kept expecting a bullet to come flying out of nowhere, almost a deus ex machina, as if Walt would have another trick up his sleeve. But it was sheer chance that Todd and his Uncle Jack made an appearance. Because a lot of the time it's difficult to remember whose really in charge, and that's Vince Gilligan. He's conjured up that sense of control in a television series that is astonishingly rare to find, as if everything has been leading up to this point, almost as if he's had a plan all along as to how the show will culminate. He's exercised his creative control in the most mature of ways.
That said, there was a trickster-element about the end of the episode, particularly the cliff-hanger. As Todd, Uncle Jack and the rest of the neo-nazi crew show up with the intention of picking off Jesse, they find Hank and Gomez standing in the way, much to the shock of Walt. He and Jesse are caught between these two conflicting forces, those being the DEA and Todd's gang. They've lost their grip on the empire that they built together, and there's bound to be collateral damage when these two opposing forces meet.
I'll make another prediction, just for the sake of routine, and because, y'know, I love being wrong. Hank's phone call to Marie couldn't have been more indicative of the fact that he's going to be killed shortly. Marie looking down into the garbage can and seeing the brain-type-thing that Hank used to fake Jesse's death to Huell gave an overwhelming sense of foreboding, and Hank's words over the phone was effectively him saying goodbye to Marie, and that he would be 'gone a while', or something to that effect. But I'm not going to guess how he gets killed, I'm just going to keep it general.
This episode escalated the tension and the grit to new levels that viewers rightly deserve. Once again, Breaking bad has proved itself to be a show that always pays off on the investment put into it. Roll on Episode 14.
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