Todd is in a diner with his skinhead cohorts, bragging about his role in the great train heist.   With a great deal of flourish, he tells them how he managed to jump off the top of the moving train, ensuring his new status as a super hero.  The only part he left out was that he killed 10 year old Drew Sharp, the only witness to the robbery – either Todd didn’t want them to know about it or, if he doesn’t say it out loud, it didn’t happen.  Then again, his whole “shit happens” attitude after he murdered the boy spoke a lot about Todd’s view of the world.  Either way, the robbery was supposed to be top secret and Todd’s loose lips could come back to haunt him, especially since there is very little of the old Walter White left to deal with anymore – and much more of the cold, calculating and murderous Heisenberg.

Hank is having no luck at all trying to appeal to Jesse for information about Walter’s drug empire.  Even after telling him that he knows Heisenberg is his own brother-in-law, the only response from Jesse is “eat me”.   The door opens, and Saul swoops in to rescue his client.  He tells Jesse that everything has gone nuclear.  Jesse tells him to chill, but Saul says that he’ll just have to understand if he’s not feeling”chill” right now.

Walt is at home with Junior, who is about to go to Hank and Marie’s for dinner.  Fearing that they’re luring his son out of the house and away from him, Walt sits the boy down and tells him that his cancer is back.  He plays Walt, Jr. just as he’s played Jesse all along, telling him how he’s beat it before and he’ll do it again.  This cheap and calculated ploy to garner loyalty, love and emotion from his son works, and Walt Jr. decides to stay at home with his sick Dad instead.   The scene showed just how far gone Walter is – the one relationship that had any real meaning, between the father and his children, was reduced to just another act of manipulation to further Walt’s own survival and his empire.

Walter, with Skyler’s help, is recording a video confession, which, in the few seconds we see, looks and sounds sincere, almost as if the old Walter has returned,  but it’s not exactly what we thought it was going to be.

The couple meet with Hank and Marie – she’s not wearing her signature purple, by the way; instead she’s chosen a black dress for the occasion –  at a Mexican restaurant to talk about their collectively horrific situation.   Before they can start to talk, a very eager and cheerful waiter interrupts to offer them some table side guacamole, then realizes that no one is really interested in food at the moment.  Walter begins the conversation by telling his in-laws that whatever they think happened is over now, a thing of the past, and not an ongoing problem.   Hank is seething, his jaw jutted out in rage and Marie decides to tell Walter what she hopes will happen.  She would like him to die – it would all end if Walter ceased to exist, so he should just kill himself.   Walt gets up, tells Skyler they’re leaving, then slides a DVD across the table.

When they get home, Hank and Marie watch the DVD, the “confession” Walter recorded.   Walt starts out by saying that if anyone is watching the DVD, then he’s probably dead, having been murdered by Hank.   He then tells a tale about a drug empire built by Hank which he was forced to participate in, where he was in real fear of Hank who even took his children away from him for 2 months.   It’s a fairly plausible scenario, as Walt paints it, with Hank having the perfect front as a DEA agent.   As Hank and Marie watch, their brother-in-law offers up story after story about how Gus Fring tried to kill Hank by sending the twins to shoot him.  Walter even makes a point to give up his role as the bomb maker for the device attached to Hector Salamanca’s wheel chair – a plot by Hank to assassinate Gus in retaliation.   To further implicate Hank, Walt says that he paid for Hank’s medical bills, something Hank wasn’t even aware of until that moment.  Then, for good measure, Walt starts to cry.  “I can’t take this anymore”, he says, adding “maybe the world will see this man for who he really is.”   It’s a nice touch – Walt turning the whole thing on its head and pointing the finger and the blame right at Hank.

The potential for damage – to his career, to his reputation, to his entire life –  isn’t lost on Hank, although Marie says that he should tell the DEA about everything.  Her husband, on the other hand, tells her that the $177,000 Walt spent on Hank’s medical care put the final nail in his coffin – “You killed me here”, he says to her.  Marie explains that she thought it was gambling money Walter had won but that doesn’t do much to lessen the impact on Hank.  The DVD worked, at least for now,  and it bought Walter some time.  Between what Hank suspects and the DVD, the warning to “tread lightly” might be something Hank should think long and hard about.

Walt and Jesse meet in the desert, with Saul acting as Jessee’s chauffeur, to talk about where they stand.  You’d have to be blind not to see how broken Jesse is and it’s very apparent to Walter.  Walt tells Jesse that he wants to help him.  “I can’t stand to see you like this”, he says.   He tells Jesse that he should start over, get a job he loves, meet a girl, maybe start a family.  He even wishes that he could trade places with Jesse – so many opportunities, and a chance to wake up some day and look back at this as just a bad dream.  Jesse begins to sob and begs Walter to tell him the truth, once and for all.  “Would you just, for once, stop working me?  Drop the whole concerned dad thing.  Just tell me you don’t give a shit about me and it’s either this…it’s either this or you’ll kill me the same way you killed Mike.” 

Walter walks over to him and embraces him, holding up him when Jesse’s legs give out, but never offering him the words or the truth he wants and needs.   (I had to fast forward through-the commercials to make sure that Walt hadn’t killed him)  If you’ve been a fan of this show and have come to like Jesse as much as I have, you know how hard it was to watch.  There’s no wondering why Aaron Paul wins Emmy awards.

Saul takes Jesse back to his office and calls the vacuum repair/I can make you disappear guy so that Jesse can get away and start again.  He says that he’d like to move to Alaska.   After everything is arranged, Jesse lights up a joint.  Saul starts screaming at him to put it out so that they don’t have cops crawling all over them.  Saul then tells Jesse that Huell will take him to the place where he’ll meet up with the new identity maker.   Huell drops Jesse off at the side of a road and Jesse waits.  While he’s standing there, he reaches into his pocket for his bag of pot.  Finding that it’s gone, he has an epiphany.  Huell stole the pot from him when he brushed against him at Saul’s office.   Bigger than that, though, is Jesse’s realization that Huell also stole the vial of ricin, and it was stolen on orders from Walter.   The van he was waiting for finally arrives, but, after a few seconds, Jesse turns and walks away.

He heads straight for Saul’s office and commences to beat the hell out of him, screaming how Saul helped Walter to steal the ricin and poison Brock.   Of course, Brock was poisoned by the berries from Walter’s lily of the valley, but the devastating truth of Walter’s lies and schemes is enough to push Jesse way over the edge.  Saul confesses to his role and Jesse leaves, right after taking Saul’s gun.   Saul calls Walt to warn him about Jesse.  Walt goes to the car wash and takes out a gun he’s been hdidng in the soda machine.

The next thing we see is Jesse screeching into the driveway of the White’s house.  He kicks in the front door and, like a madman,  begins pouring gasoline throughout the living room.

The first episode of the season showed Walter in the house, which, although it was in shambles, wasn’t burned to the ground.   The question now is who stops Jesse from turning it into an inferno.  Is Walter, Jr. at home?  Do they finally meet – the real son and the son on the side?   Hank pulled his men off of the detail to follow Jesse but he left his office in a hurry.  Perhaps he catches up to him before the house goes up in flames – and maybe Jesse’s changed his mind about talking to him now that he knows some of what Walter has really done to him.  Walter may need to do more than just tread lightly if Jesse ever learns the truth about Jane.

Empress