Breaking
Bad: Season 5, Episode 11: “Confessions”
Review by Kartik Chainani
The words “awkward tension”
can’t even begin to describe the cringing feeling everyone surely felt when
watching the newest episode of Breaking Bad, “Confessions” last night. Awkward
family meals have become sort of synonymous with the show, from the meal Walt
and Skyler shared with Walt Jr. and his friend just moments after Skyler shoved
it in Walt’s face that she cheated on him, to the hilariously uncomfortable
meal they shared with Jesse, who had no idea Skyler wanted nothing more than to
see Walt die. Last night’s episode played along with this fun theme quite well.
After a desperate attempt to lure Walt Jr.
over to Hank and Marie’s to keep away from his parents, Walt and Skyler arrange
to meet and discuss this sticky situation in a public place. The serious tone
of this discussion contrasts with the optimistic and lively atmosphere of the
restaurant and waiter ina way that only Breaking
Bad can pull off. After a heated discussion which only left both parties
more indulged to stick to their original choices, Walt and Skyler decided it
best to leave. Before doing so, Walt leaves Hank a DVD with his “confession”
that we caught a small glimpes of him recording earlier that day.
Upon
watching the confession, we learn that Walt still has no intention of going
down easily. In a jaw-dropping and devious technique that only Heisenberg could
pull off, Walt’s “confession” in fact puts all of the blame on Hank, claiming
that it was him who ran the drug empire for the past year, forcing Walt to help
him under threat of death. This was one of those notorious “I did not see that
coming” scenes that Breaking Bad is
famous for.
The whole theme of
“confessions” runs throughout this entire episode, with just about every
character. We start off with Todd, Walt’s replacement for Jesse when he quit
the business. Since Walt left as well, Todd is the only cook in the country who
knows Walt’s famous meth recipe, and the one who Walt left to run the empire.
As we saw from his involvement in the part A of season 5, Todd is without a
doubt a sociopath. Having shot the kid who saw them stealing the methylamine
from the train back in episode 5 (“Dead Freight”) of this season in cold blood
with absolutely no remorse, we caught a glimpse inside the head of this maniac.
Played by the very talented Jesse Plemons, Todd is an incredible
character. In the beginning scene for “Confessions”, we see him sitting in a
diner with his demented uncle who arranged the hit on 10 witnesses to Walt’s
crimes in 2 minutes, all in separate prisons; more proof that crazy seems to
run in Todd’s family. Todd sits with his uncle and his partner, bragging about
the incredible train heist that he, Walt and Jesse managed to pull off. It’s
interesting to note that he doesn’t even make mention of having killed the
child. One might think that this is because he feels guilty, but knowing Todd’s
character, I think the opposite could be said. It’s because he felt nothing
when he killed him that he doesn’t even think it worth mentioning in the story.
As we left off in the ending of last week’s episode, Hank had just gone
in to the interrogation room to try and get a confession out of Jesse. This is
a confrontation we’ve been waiting a few seasons for, as Hank and Jesse haven’t
seen each other since he attacked Jesse for something he now knows was actually
Walt’s fault. In this scene, Hank shares with Jesse his big discovery about his
partner Heisenberg. He also relates to Jesse, explaining to him how they both
have been lied to and manipulated by Walt in so many ways, some of which
neither of them even know about. You can see in Jesse’s eyes how broken he is,
and that somewhere inside, he knows all his troubles are a direct result of
Walt’s desire to take Jesse’s soul. The idea of finally bringing him down and
putting an end to all these troubles is of course appealing to Jesse. However,
his strong loathing for the police, and Hank in particular, causes his reaction
to Hank’s deal to simply be, “eat me.”
Walt of course, is able to get away in this confession-themed episode without
confessing to anything. Though he has the most to confess for, we all know Walt
sticks to his guns. During his “confession”, Hank finally learns the truth
about how his medical bills were paid for, forcing Marie to finally let the cat
out of the bag. The fact that Walt was responsible for paying these bills just
puts him another step higher than Hank in this battle.
In some ways, Hank manages to go without confessing too. Perhaps
learning some techniques from his devious brother-in-law, Hank decides to keep
this battle close to home. He and Marie discuss going to the DEA with Hank’s
discovery about Walt to help bring him down. However, despite the many
opportunities we see in this episode to do so and the threats he gave to Walt,
Hank still keeps the information to himself. There are many reasons he might be
doing this. Hank could be worried about what the DEA will do to him, for being
so careless as to not notice his brother-in-law has been running an entire drug
empire right under his nose. After Walt’s DVD, he could also be concerned that
Walt actually will bring him down with him. Or possibly, Hank could on some
level be so terrified of Walt that he still on some level is considering either
letting him go, or taking him out himself. Either way, they both are running
out of time.
Lastly, we come to the biggest “confession” of the entire episode, and
perhaps even of the series; the moment when Jesse realizes that Walt was the
one who poisoned Brock (his ex-girlfriend’s son) after all. After being
convinced by Walt that it was best for him to erase his identity and start all
over somewhere new (conveniently also helping Walt get rid of the only witness
that could bring him completely down), Jesse went to Saul to get the process
started. In this visit, Saul sees that Jesse is still carelessly firing up
joints any and everywhere. Worried that him slipping up like this will cause
his identity-removing contact to not do business with Jesse, he has his
bodyguard snag Jesse’s weed from his pocket on his way out. It isn’t until
Jesse is left waiting for Saul’s contact that he realizes it’s missing, and
then makes the connection to the last time something slipped from his pocket.
It seemed like a pretty big leap to me that Jesse would go from realizing
that Huell, Saul’s bodyguard pickpocketed his weed to connecting that the last
time he bumped into Huell must have been when the famous ricin-filled cigarette
disappeared from his pocket as well. Either way, it was a heart-racing
realization, and the way that the creators used a 360-camera spin around Jesse
really emphasized the desperation and then moment of clarity that Jesse felt.
Jesse storms in to Saul’s office and forces him to confess to these
allegations.
Finally, it seems Jesse can no longer be manipulated by Walt’s lies and
is ready to put an end to him after all. The episode ended on yet another
nail-biter, as Jesse breaks into Walt’s house and begins throwing gasoline on
everything. Still unsure what’s to come next, we can guarantee that at least
one loose end will be tied up next week, and we may have just discovered who it
is that spray-paints ‘Heisenberg’ on Walt’s wall. Either way, next week’s
episode ‘Rabid Dog’ is definitely not one you’ll want to miss.
