Breaking Bad- Thirty-Eight Snub discussion

Oh Walter. We’ve stopped lamenting your descent into bad guy territory and are now just lamenting your incompetence. The show is highlighting it, showing Walt trying to draw a gun quickly out of his jacket. Who knew that was hard?

This episode’s first half was pretty slow. The show is really milking the aftermath of the last two episodes by showing us how miserable the characters are because of what happened. Walt is all paranoid (rightly so), buying a gun on the black market, and trying to see Gus so that he can kill him. All he gets is a light ass kicking courtesy of Mike, who is still awesome.

Skyler tried to buy the car wash, but the owner named a ludicrous price because of the way Walter quit. We forgot that Walt “grabbed himself” out of spite. That was funny. On another note, we love Skyler’s business acumen.

Jesse spent the episode partying and trying to keep his friends in the mood to “kick harder than a sensei.” Finally, they got tired. Jesse asked one of his friends, "Where are you going?” The friend (who has a name that we don’t care about) replied, "Home, I haven't slept in three straight days." Jesse: "I have the floor space. Crash here." Friend: "Yeah, but I have this cat. I think I'm supposed to feed it." Jesse: "Whatever, you little bitch."

Andrea showed up at Jesse’s house during the middle of the party with a wad of cash that Jesse had dropped off. Jesse told her to spend the money to get herself and her son out of their bad neighborhood. At the end of the episode, Jesse sat in front of his speaker (that was playing some gangster rap) to try to drown out his life. This didn’t seem to work, because he had his “Jesse’s breaking down” face on. This is the face that always makes us think, “Dude, Aaron Paul can ACT” and “Poor Jesse!” at the same time.

We only recently developed an admiration for Hank, but he is making us dislike him again with the way he is treating Marie. We almost dislike Marie just as much for letting him. Just because he’s sick doesn’t mean she has to take it. Marie, take a geode, throw it at Hank’s…other geodes, and walk away flipping him the bird. That will show him. Or she can just sleep Hank’s physical therapist. Yum.

The questions now are: Will Mike realize that Gus is untrustworthy after he killed Victor, a loyal follower? Will he kill Gus or help Walter kill Gus? How sweet can Jesse get before he just turns into a straight-up good guy? Will Skyler get the car wash or will they have to go back to the laser tag front idea? Will Marie cheat on Hank? (We hope so.) Why is Hank so into rocks? Seriously, that may be our most burning question.

The show is continuing its slow burn start to the season, but it re-instituted the black humor and almost Tarantino-ish random dialogue (see: the video game zombie discussion). Therefore, we deem it better than last week, even without a shocking twist or gore. This is a show that wants to make sure we get its themes before it moves onto any significant events.

Episode Grade: B