Breaking Bad
Season 5.14
"Dead to Rights"
Guest Writer: Tedra Osell
Monday, September 16, 2013
posted under
Breaking Bad
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Tedra Osell
by Unit for Criticism
"Dead to Rights"
Written by: Tedra Osell
Up to the end of the opening credits--twenty minutes in--this week's episode of Breaking Bad still looked like a 70s Western, mostly open skies and gorgeous landscapes littered with bodies.. Afterwards, though, it was straight horror: cramped dark interiors, knives, people chained in bunkers. And in what I think was a first for the series, there wasn't a single moment of comic relief anywhere once the title had flashed on the screen.
There's still some humor, though, in the past. We open with a shot of boiling liquid and a flashback to Walt and Jesse's first cook that's full of foreshadowing. "What's next?" Jesse asks. "We wait." Walt responds. "The reaction has begun." Boy howdy. Walt starts to explain that "This is an exothermic reaction, giving off heat," and Jesse mutters under his breath, "put me into a coma why don't you." Be careful what you wish for, Jesse: Walt will have you in a kind of living death by the end of the hour. Interestingly, this scene also has a number of quasi-sexual motifs: Jesse asks if "we don't got like, eight more anal things we gotta do," Walt of course is naked except for his rubber apron, tightly whities, and rubber gloves--which he pulls off with a marked snapping sound as Jesse calls him a dick--an outfit that of course is about his cooking meth but is also kind of disturbingly fetishy. (Once we see what Jesse's fate is, it's downright serial-killerish.) For now, though, Walt and Jesse step outside the cozy RV into the light of the desert, and Jesse, following, averts his eyes at the sight of Walt from behind--and, symbolically, at the vision of his future. This season has convinced me that one of the underlying themes of Breaking Bad is a savage indictment of American machismo: the more powerful and "in charge" Walt's become, the more nakedly we've seen the inhumanity of the isolated male ego and the transparent way men use those things that are supposed to hold them check--family, the provider role, the role of protector--to justify their own self-interest. No wonder Jesse flinches.
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