Tag: season 4

TV

Breaking Bad Episode 403 “Open House”

Chrys Buckley

403imagesGale’s coffee machine is still operational and Walt is still using it.

One thing that really strikes me about “Open House” is that in a way, nothing moves forward. Nothing changes. Everything just deepens, but putting it that way sounds too pretty. Everything goes deeper into a dark morass. The only plot point that moves forward here is the buying of the carwash. And that’s big, but it also feels more like sinking deeper than moving forward. Other than that, everyone’s situation is just getting worse.

A lot of things in this episode resonate later this season, especially this bit of Skyler and Walt’s fight about whether or not he’s in danger. And then several of Saul’s suggestions for how to inspire some “motivation” in Bogdan and Skyler’s objections to them come back later. So funny when she says, “We do not do that, that’s not who we are, right?” re: violence.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 402 “Thirty-Eight Snub”

Chrys Buckley

402index“You won, Walter,” Mike says. “You got the job. Learn to take yes for an answer.” These quotes will resonate, one at the end of this season, one in the next.

In the season premiere, Marie mentions to Hank that she really likes the new PT guy, and it’s easy to see why. The guy is encouraging but not overly so. He seems to really be helping not just with Hank’s body but also with his emotional state. Hank puts on a good face around the guy. So much so that Marie wants him to move in. Marie is really overdoing the cheeriness here, which understandably irritates Hank. Both of their dispositions–Marie’s over-the-top optimism (bordering on patronizing at times) and Hank’s gruffness and grouchiness–have amped up since the premiere. I still really feel for both of them.

They have a strong marriage, despite little blips here and there, but now Hank is in a place Marie has never seen him, that we the viewers have never seen him. His PT is going, but it’s so slow and he’s in so much pain and he has this new mineral obsession and there’s no DEA or detective work to speak of. He takes some of it out on Marie but he also tries to pull back some. I think that neither of them know what to do with this new Hank, with the fear that the old Hank, in body and in mind, may not return.

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TV

Breaking Bad Episode 401 “Box Cutter”

Chrys Buckley

401indexSo, I think there may be something seriously wrong with me because after finishing this episode, which is brutal and hopeless, I went about my day but couldn’t shake it. And I didn’t want to; I almost wanted to just live in this world and not my own a little longer, stay in that superlab with our guys. Disturbing, huh? I mean, of all episodes to feel this way about, this one’s a little…traumatic.

This episode may break some records for characters going the longest time without speaking. These long stretches without dialogue allow for other sounds, especially the creaking of the chairs in the superlab, Gus’s footsteps, Gus changing clothes, putting on his glasses, but mostly it’s the chairs.

So Saul got himself a bodyguard, Huell. He’s always glided over things before but not now. He’s terrified, looking around his office for bugs (hilarious detail that the columns move), speaking on a payphone, asking Huell if he has a passport. And I gotta say, I usually love Saul’s ridiculous outfits, usually find something aesthetically redeeming about his crazy color combinations, but this time? No way. Worst Saul get-up ever. Gross.

I love when Skyler says to Saul, “He carpools…to his job…at a meth lab?”

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