Episode: ”Confessions” (5.11)

Original Air Date: 8/25/13

Written by: Gennifer Hutchison

Directed by: Michael Slovis

Line Synopsis: Hank continues trying to get solid evidence on Walt. Walt tries to make his life more secure by taking extreme measures towards Hank and Jesse. Jesse deals with his emotions against Walt, but comes to a shocking revelation.

Character Breakdown

Walt’s main problem right now is that he’s currently in a losing battle, but he feels he’s still in control. This comes up in a few ways. First, after he pulls the framing threat on Hank, he feels he has the upper hand on him again. But it’s clear that this move has pushed Skyler further away, closer to a breaking point that might push her onto Hank’s side. Second, he continues to try and manipulate Jesse, but Jesse shows how he’s cognizant of Walt’s methods and he’s not having it anymore. It even goes so far that Walt still feel’s he can manipulate Jesse back into his grasp by hugging him, but Jesse’s refusal to hug back proves otherwise.

Jesse has finally come out of his silent state thanks to Hank telling him he knows that Walt is Heisenberg. Jesse is so emotionally drained by this point, he has had enough of Walt’s BS. So when Walt tries to manipulate him into leaving town and not returning (for his own good), Jesse calls him on his manipulation. He knows Walt just wants him to leave because that would help Walt’s cause, not Jesse’s. But Jesse does it anyway. That is, until he suddenly realizes the truth about the Ricin and all Hell breaks loose. It will be interesting to see how far Jesse goes with the fire threat at the end of this episode.

Hank is brought to a stalemate for the moment when Walt gives him a DVD that has Walt confessing to being forced by Hank into drug dealing. Walt cleverly connects all the dots to point at Hank rather than himself so that if anything happens to Walt, Hank will be in massive trouble. The worst of it comes from Marie having used the drug money to pay for his medical bills. Hank will need to make some clever moves if he’s going to get out of this one unscathed.

Episode Thoughts

This was one intense episode. And while everybody was on their A-Game, this episode belongs to Aaron Paul (Jesse), who rocked it out here. He definitely showed his range from depression, frustration, anger, all the way to rage and insanity at the end. I loved how he finally confronts Walt about his manipulation and shows he’s not just some naive boy. And even when it came to Walt hugging him, to try and show that caring father side, Jesse wasn’t having any of it. And the second he realizes the truth about the ricin, you know something bad is going to happen. I was honestly scared for Saul during the attack scene. And what makes it all even worse is that, at the beginning of the episode, Jesse refuses to tell Hank anything because there was still some twinge of loyalty in him there.

And Walt’s manipulation doesn’t end with Jesse. He manipulates his son, Walter Jr., into staying home and not going to Hank and Marie’s by telling him his cancer is back and he had fallen the previous day. The worst is that he didn’t ask Junior to stay, but made the story upsetting enough that he knew his son would react the way he did.

Walt clearly has no real human feelings for his family anymore at this point. Besides those previous examples (because at least deep down, Jesse is family to him), Walt’s “confession” against Hank is downright evil and wrong. Sure it’s a survival of the fittest, but Walt has now gone from worrying about Hank losing his job to incriminating Hank and ruining his entire life. He also doesn’t think about how this will affect the rest of his family in the short term or long run. Just as long as it helps him stay out of prison. The big question here is how Skyler is going to overall deal with it.

Though my main question stems from the episode’s opening. It’s completely different from the rest of the episode, focusing on Todd. And for the last few episodes, there has been this ongoing story of Todd and Lydia and continuing the business on the side, even with Walt out of it. It’s such a subplot right now that seemingly has no relevance to the main plot, yet still continues to go on, that I wonder where it’s all leading to. I really wonder how it’s going to play into the end game. I guess we’ll just have to wait until the next couple episodes to see!

Tags: Breaking Bad, breaking bad breakdown, TV