Jane didn’t get to survive her overdose but Jesse was luckier. He didn’t OD, but he took the loss of Jane pretty hard. He was pretty much a zombie the entire episode. He did very little.

Instead, it was pretty much the Walt show, as usual. He had to help Jesse deal with the situation and he ended up getting Saul to bring in a guy to clean up the scene and take care of things. He seems to be a fixer, more or less.

Bryan Cranston as Walter White

Walt was his usual self until he made a major slip up at the hospital. Groggy from something the nurse gave him before his surgery, Walt slipped up and admitted he had two cell phones. Nice. It was clear immediately that Skylar noticed Walt’s admission. And even though this didn’t come to a head until the end of the episode, Skylar took plenty of time to dig into Walt’s life and learned that he has just been telling lie after lie. I knew the lies would catch up with him at some point, but this is a bad time, especially after how his son praised him so much in front of the local tv station cameras. Walt was ready to jump out of his skin. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation.

As if the possibility of Walt’s family splitting weren’t big enough to take in, Walt’s drug dealer now knows that Walt’s brother-in-law is a DEA agent and that Walt has been trying to cope with lung cancer. Oh, yeah, and on top of that, Jane’s grief-stricken father caused two airplanes to crash in mid-air.

The stuff with Hank at the DEA office made me miss his character. We haven’t seen a whole lot of Hank on official business since the incident in Mexico. We’ve really only seen him as friend and family member lately. I would like to see him included just a little more in every other episode or so.

This was a depressing, yet event filled episode. Some of the stuff with Jesse was just plain boring even though I know he was feeling a lot of guilt.

I have to credit Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan for another great season. I didn’t think this was nearly as interesting of a season as the first, but it’s still better than most of what is on network television.

Rating: 8.9

In the previous episode, we saw Walt was facing a tough choice: either deliver the drugs or go to the hospital to see his baby girl be delivered. I presumed he would take care of the drugs first and that’s what he did, netting over a million dollars, leaving $480,000 for each he and Jesse after Saul took his 20% cut.

Jesse proved to be a waste of a life when he wasn’t there to help Walt with the drugs. He was too busy being stung out on his own. He and Jane have gotten dangerously into shooting up a combination of crystal and heroin. I still can’t believe AMC would show them using it, even if it is all fake.

Can we get a price check on…

As the episode went on, Jesse told Jane more about his relationship with Walt and everything began to spin out of control. With Jane knowing so much about Walt, Walt was forced to give Jesse his half of the cash. Walt had resisted doing it because he knew Jesse would just spend it all on drugs. He just wanted the kid to get clean first.

Well, so much for that, right? Walt later found the two of them lying in bed after using again. It looks like they may have used too much. I’m not familiar at all with drug use, but it would seem that Jane had died of an overdose and it’s hard to tell if Jesse will live to see another day. He seemed to be alive, but totally out of it when the episode ended.

Walt was in a bad position. Does he call the police or leave? Whatever he does, Walt will likely get involved in an investigation somehow. The large amount of money at the premises is going to raise a few eyebrows and then Walt had to go and leave his prints on the needle that Jane and Jesse used. While it’s nearly impossible to get a print off of something that small, this is television, where anything is possible.

Overall, I thought this was a very good episode, full of anticipation. I can’t wait for tonight’s conclusion to the season. I wonder if Walt will run into Jane’s father again. That was quite a coincidental meeting at the bar!

Rating: 8.6

After one of the few remaining dealers gets gunned down by a child, Walt and Jesse are left reeling. They also lost Skinny Pete who bailed on them after his friend was shot and even Badger has been laying low in recent days. The group no longer has the street cred these days now that the ATM machine incident was correctly blamed on someone else. Jesse is no longer the badass the people thought he was.

With no dealers, Walt and Jesse have no way to push their product. Thirty-eight pounds of crystal meth is a lot to sell so Saul helped them with that aspect of the venture.

Finding and talking to the person who Walt and Jesse were supposed to work with was quite an interesting ordeal. It initially looked like the guy stood them up on their first meet, but he was there and decided Walt wasn’t nearly as careful as he was said to have been. His partner in crime Jesse not only arrived late, but he was also high as a kite.

Walter White (Bryan Cranston)

The conversation between Walt and the new dealer was frankly fascinating to watch. I would have never expected the chicken restaurant owner to be a drug dealer, but that’s what makes him so good at his job. Twenty years of dealing and he’s never been caught!

Meanwhile, Skyler found a huge accounting problem at her new job. It seems her boss has been skimming the books and has been setting aside a lot of money because he claims the company has had a slow year. He doesn’t appear to be keeping it for himself, but for his employees, should the business have to close. This is money that the IRS wouldn’t be able to get their hands on and tax supposedly.

I don’t know where this story is going, but I don’t particularly care for it or for how Skyler’s acting.

The relationship with Jesse and Jane took a sour turn in “Mandala.” Clean for some time, Jane found the only way to stay close to Jesse would be to return to her old way, drug use. Watching people use drugs, even it it’s all simulated isn’t something I feel shouldn’t be on television. Maybe I’m alone, but I have no interest in seeing these to shove needles into one another’s arms.

I would have been opposed to killing Jesse off last year, but he’s become a liability. He is no longer helpful to Walt and is only causing him problems. Jesse also is no longer an interesting character. It’s sad that the character has essentially been written out of the show like this.

I really liked the ending. Walt was forced to choose where he was going to spend his time. Either with his wife who is in labor or deliver the drugs to his new partner. Whatever decision he makes is going to cost him something big.

Rating: 7.7

The good news that Walt got the other week didn’t change that. His moment of joy was really for his wife and family. He was back to his old self minutes afterwards and the little party that was put together was just a continuation of this. He wasn’t very pleasant to be around and acted like a total ass, much worse than normal. I thought for sure he would take a swing at Hank.

Since getting the news about his cancer being in remission, Walt has had to take a look at his life and determine what to do. Cooking meth can’t last forever and this was really just about making some money for his family before he passed on. Now that he’s got a new lease on life, Walt decided to quit cooking and just teach. This wasn’t surprising. In fact, it seemed to be the most logical decision for him to make.

Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Walter Jr (RJ Mitte) and Hank Schrader (Dean Norris)

Jesse is often overshadowed by Walt’s actions, but I don’t consider him any less important. Without Jesse, Walt wouldn’t have gotten this far with his venture and now Jesse has gotten himself a sexy girlfriend in Jane. Jane really screwed up by dissing Jesse when her father came by. While I agree that the father not knowing about the relationship is a good thing, it was still rude of Jane to do that without telling Jesse about it ahead of time. And her apology was great. That was a perfectly-drawn picture! I wish I had that. I’d have it framed instantly.

Having retired from the meth business, Walt had to find another way to take up his time and he set his sights on the house which had begun to fall apart. The hot water heater and the connecting pipes were a disaster.

Skylar’s gone off the freakin’ deep end. I can’t believe she’s interested in hooking up with her boss again. I know it’s difficult with Walt, but come on.

Walt’s home improvement ambitions were great while it lasted, but one trip to the home improvement store made him change his mind on the retirement plan. A new team has moved into the area and they’re looking to encroach on Walt’s territory and he didn’t have any of that.

His confrontation with the guys in the parking lot let it be known that people aren’t to step into his neighborhood and I think they got the message. I wonder how long until someone will give him a run for his money though. It’s not like Walt has much of a team to hold off bigger dealers. They don’t have the people or the gunpower to hold the area down. A mean scowl is only going to go so far.

Rating: 8.7

This lit quite a fire under Walt. He immediately rallied Jesse and the two were headed to the middle of the desert for a 4-day cookathon. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, however. Not only did Jesse have to get out of a date with his new girlfriend, but Walt had to lie to his family and free up some time.

Instead of spending time with his mother, Walt was busy making pound after pound of meth in the desert with Jesse. But whenever these two are together, something always goes wrong and it was Jesse who screwed up twice. He left the keys in the ignition, draining the battery, and then he dumped the rest of the drinking water on a fire.

Bryan Cranston as Walter White

I could understand the first mistake. Still, I would like to think I would have just left the keys on the dashboard instead of in the ignition. I was shocked when Jesse dowsed the fire with the remainder of the water. When I saw Walt turn around and head into the RV, I knew immediately he was going after a fire extinguisher, but Jesse didn’t think that obviously. So he just used their water. D’oh!

The makeshift battery that Walt designed was clever, but I wonder it if would actually work. MythBusters, were you watching?

Outside of the cookathon plot, there was a lot of drama surrounding Walt’s latest tests. He went in at the start of the episode to get a new scan of his body to see if the tumor had changed. When he got a look at the scan, Walt looked concerned, like the tumor had grown. Thankfully, Walt’s tumor had shrunk… by 80%. This is a staggering amount. I’m wondering if those chemicals that he’s around when he’s cooking have had any affect on this. I know he uses a respirator, but I have a difficult time believing that nothing gets into his lungs.

After receiving the news, Walt and his family were understandably happy. However, after some time had passed, Walt seemed upset. The reality of the drug business began to set in. What’s Walt going to do now? It looks like he just may live a lot longer than expected. So when and how does he get out of the meth business? He may not have Tucco on his ass anymore, but he and Jesse both have Saul as a partner and I doubt he’s going to allow Walt go just leave.

This was a terrific episode. I can’t wait until the next one!

Rating: 9.4

I figured it wouldn’t be long until one of Walt’s dealers got picked up. I just didn’t expect it would be this quickly. It’s not like they have a bunch of people. He and Jesse only have a couple of dealers working for them and it was Badger who was picked up. That scene was ridiculous, however. It’s hard to imagine someone would have fallen for the undercover cop, especially since he picked the guy out as a cop. It was just silly.

Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, Bryan Cranston as Walter White

I’m still not sure what to make of Jesse’s relationship with his apartment manager. She is cute, but she’s also come a long way from the druggie that Jesse is today. She’s been off of marijuana for some 18 months now and seems to be doing a good job of avoiding it, but that may not be possible now that she and Jesse are spending more time together. I hope the relationship doesn’t backfire on Jesse, but chances are it will somehow.

I love the new Saul character. He’s slick, funny, but also also annoying at the same time. He’s on to what Walt and Jesse are doing and it didn’t take long for Saul to track them down. I think Saul could be good for the guys in the short run, but I question his longterm value. He just seems like the guy who would screw you over if he could.

“Better Call Saul” was a decent mid-season episode which introduced a new character and managed to move the plot along in the process. I was mostly disappointed with how that first bust scene went down. I swear the writer/director must have been high when he/she conjured up the idea for that to go down. It wasn’t well done at all.

Rating: 7.4

After taking care of business last week, Jesse found himself depressed over how everything went down. Walt, on the other hand, saw this as an opportunity to expand the size of the business, to bring in more customers, and to sell more drugs. He used the word on the street to his advantage and had Jesse supersize the number of dealers that they had.

Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, Bryan Cranston as Walter White

It seems to me that Walt isn’t playing this as smartly as he should. The bigger of an operation that he has, the more enemies he’ll wind up with, and not all of them are the police. The Mexican cartels will be moving in and they’ll be coming in hard. A single revolver and a reputation won’t be enough to keep them at bay forever.

Hank’s “promotion” didn’t turn out to be quite what he had in mind. He is with an entirely new group of DEA agents and is closer to the border. Hank is at a significant disadvantage with this because he doesn’t speak a whole lot of Spanish. I honestly felt sorry for him for the the first time since the show began.

The way the “turtle” story played out wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The guys sure gave him a hard time, but his going back to the truck after seeing Turtle’s decapitated head proved to be a life-saving decision.

Of all of the stories in this week’s episode that surprised me, I would have to admit that Skylar’s story was the most surprising. It wasn’t so much that she decided to get a job, but that she had an affair one time with someone a few years ago and Walt doesn’t even know about it. I’m quite surprised by Skylar’s past behavior. I never would have expected her to do such a thing.

And speaking of questionable decisions, what about Jesse’s neighbor? I like that she’s actually involved in the story now, but I didn’t expect she and Jesse would become close so quickly given the fact that he lied about his own name when he began renting the apartment that she manages.

At some point, Jesse’s new friend will catch wind as to what Jesse does for a living and I don’t know if this will be a good thing for Jesse. While she doesn’t seem like someone who would run right to the cops, she doesn’t seem like someone who would be okay with her boyfriend cooking and selling drugs.

“Negro Y Azul” proved to be a very good episode, much better than I figured it would be considering the lackluster episodes that have come before it. Still, we’re not quite where we were at the end of the first season. It reminds me of the second season of Heroes, where everything was slow again after the exciting conclusion of the first season.

Rating: 7.7

I’m constantly amazed (and frustrated) by the fact that Walt almost always gets away with his lies. It’s just unbelievable that things seem to work out for him in some fashion, even when it looks like he’s toast.

Bryan Cranston as Walter White

His lies about the source of the money appeared to have finally caught up to him, but he somehow managed to squeak by, by using other lies. I wish I knew how many lies he has told to his family. It’s difficult to believe Walt is still getting away with it all.

Jesse had his hand full this week. Not only did he have to deal with the breakage, but he had to make sure a child didn’t get hurt in the process. I wasn’t surprised to see a child introduced so much as the child was in terrible shape. He looked filthy, but he barely said a word in the entire episode. He only seemed to know how to say “I’m hungry” and I can only imagine what his addict parents give him.

The way in which all of that played out didn’t hold many surprises. The only surprise was that there was an ATM machine that they tried to break open and it took them forever to do it. I know they’re made quite well, but this was embarrassing to watch.

“Peekaboo” will probably only be memorable because of the young boy who was pictured. It’s hard to get that imagery out of your head. I felt sorry for the little tyke. That being said, there wasn’t a whole lot to keep me interested in this episode. It was a fairly bland episode compared to the majority of the series’ run of episodes.

Rating: 7.2

It wasn’t a piece of cake, mind you. Jesse worked his tail off to get everything set up, even buying a car, getting a place to stay, taking care of the RV mess, and even getting distributors set up.

It was the distributor part of the episode I was most curious about. It made sense for Jesse to go to the guys he is friends with, but I can’t help but wonder how well these guys are going to come through. Skinny Pete got robbed, but he didn’t screw Jesse over. He and the other two seem to be on the up and up.

Dean Norris as Hank

I wasn’t sure what to make of Hank’s episode in the elevator. I don’t know if that was a heart attack, a panic attack or something else. When those home brewed bottles of beer started popping, I thought that maybe Hank was just having flashes of his encounter with Tuco, that the sounds he was hearing were just in his head. When it was explained that the beer was blowing up, I was quite surprised.

The personal stuff with Walt, Skylar, and Marie doesn’t seem to be making a whole lot of progress. I wish I knew where the writers imagine this stuff going. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for Marie to apologize to Skylar and now she and Walt still aren’t talking as much as they should. There’s a big attitude problem with Skylar and I can’t wait for this crap to be over with. Skylar has turned out to be a very unpleasant person this season.

Despite my disappointments with some aspects of this episode, “Breakage” was a solid episode. The drama was clearly present and I’m glad to see Walt and Jesse have gotten their little enterprise back up and running. The issues that arise from this are always the most dramatic moments and I love it.

Rating: 8.0

Jesse Pinkman has gotten himself in a load of trouble and has lost his aunt’s house and is now homeless. After getting turned down by all of his friends, Jesse is forced to go after his RV and had to steal it when the guy threatened to sell all of the cooking equipment inside.

Bryan Cranston as Walter White

Jesse didn’t play it any smarter after this, angering Walt. Walt was repeatedly bothered by Jesse, and Walt had his own problems to deal with.

His relationship with Skylar has sunk to an all-time low as now she is the one walking out, not wanting to talk. It’s understandably frustrating for Walt. He is trying, but also won’t reveal the truth about his cooking. Until he does this, I don’t see how Walt will be able to fix things at home.

The father/son scene was so-so. I liked the idea of them actually doing something together, even if there was a fair bit of tension in that car. Walter Jr just can’t seem to get the hang of driving yet.

There wasn’t a whole lot to enjoy about this episode. The show is lacking the nail-biting tension and action that the first season and the first two episodes had. We’re definitely seeing a lul of some kind and I hope it ends soon.

Rating: 6.3