After two sleeper episodes of Breaking Bad, things are looking up in an episode filled with meth, money and angst.
Walt and Jesse are back in business, as the two along with Mike and lawyer Saul Goodman cruise several locations to find a suitable site to resume their meth operation. They eventually settle on working with an extermination company to covertly cook in locations being fumigated.
While discussing plans on how to move equipment into a location, Walt and Jesse are interrupted as his girlfriend Andrea and her son Brock enter his home. After she convinces him to stay for dinner Walt takes a seat next to Brock. It’s amazing yet disturbing how he is capable of maintaining his cool without exhibiting a single sign of nervousness as he sits next to the young child he almost killed last season.
Skyler is temporarily stirred and awakened from her subdued, numb, melancholy state as she sees Walt happily moving his things back into the couple’s bedroom. While she doesn’t muster a reaction to show an oblivious Walt how she feels, her feelings of frustration ignites when she lashes out at her sister Marie. As Marie yammers on about Walt’s approaching birthday she yells “shut up†repeatedly until Marie sits there stunned.
When Marie confronts Walt about Skyler’s alarming behavior he chalks it up to her being distraught over Ted Beneke’s condition. With a little help from Walt, Marie concludes that Skyler had an affair with Beneke and her strong reaction is due to lingering feelings she still has for her former lover. Their conversation ends with Marie giving Walt a sympathetic hug.
The conversation with Marie is another incident in which Walt is capable of spinning stories and manipulating situations to work in his favor and he always comes out golden.
As Mike divides the money earned from the first cook session, Walt is appalled by how much their shares have dwindled after money is set aside to pay the less notable members of the operation, like the drug mules. Jesse attempts to make peace by offering more of his share, but Walt doesn’t allow him to.
Walt conveys that he regrets allowing Mike to control the business aspect of the operation, by referencing Victor, an employee Gus killed; he states “Victor trying to cook that batch on his own, taking liberties that weren’t his to take. Maybe he flew too close to the sun and got his throat cut.†Perhaps Walt wants Mike to suffer a similar fate.
Episode three successfully highlighted how much Skyler, the once dutiful wife turned shell of a person, and Walt family man and educator turned calculating criminal and manipulator have changed throughout the series.
Skyler’s emotional outburst and the vacant look she gives Walt as he sits watching a movie with his children conveys that she’s on the verge of losing it. Despite Walt’s denial about the damned state of their marriage and persistence of trying to portray the false image of a perfect family, Skyler seems to be reaching her breaking point. Perhaps he’ll be next to feel her wrath if she finally expresses the disdain she feels for him. Only time will tell how their relationship will unravel.
Walt has strayed so far from his original intentions when he first embarked on this illegal venture. Though initially done out of a sense of altruism to provide for his family financially in the event he succumbed to cancer, now that he appears to be in good health, he seems to be ruled by vices for money and power.
The fragile state of Walt’s relationship with his wife Skyler and his discontentment with his new work situation should make for an interesting set of upcoming episodes.
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