'Breaking Bad' 5x11 - "Confessions"

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.