Breaking Bad - S5E10 - Buried

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Previously, on Breaking Bad: “Blood Money”

The final scene of last week’s episode was some of the best television I’ve personally ever seen, in terms of quality acting, writing, and seasons-long payoff. That confrontation Hank had with Walt, after finally realizing his true identity was fantastic.

Last week also saw Jesse have a pretty major breakdown when he drove down the street chucking stacks of his “blood money” out of his car and into the yards of one particularly lucky Albuquerque street. “Buried” opens with one resident of that street coming out of his home, getting in his truck, and then getting out of his truck at the sight of one of the aforementioned stacks of cash in his driveway. He picks it up and examines it; before he can pocket it, he sees yet another stack, so he picks that one up as well; why not? He follows the breadcrumbs of money to Jesse’s car rammed into a fence; it still has plenty of money in the backseat, but the driver’s seat is vacant. Where’s Jesse? The old man looks to a nearby playground; Jesse is there, mindlessly spinning around on a merry-go-round.

Opening credits.

When the show returns, we see it’s daylight now, and we’re back to the exterior of Hank’s garage. The door opens, and Walt exits. No words are spoken, as he slowly walks to his car, opens the door, and turns to look at Hank; Hank still says nothing as he just presses the button to close his garage door. Walt jumps behind the wheel and speedily backs out of the driveway where the neighborhood kid is still there playing with his remote control car. The kid wearing yellow… playing with his yellow remote control car. Walt doesn’t hit him or the car, but the camera clearly focuses on the fact that he almost does. The show seems to be enjoying playing with the colors, now that everyone is on-board with the color scheme and how it plays into the plot.

Walt stops in the street and calls Skyler, but she won’t come to the phone because she’s already on the phone. With whom? Hank, of course! Hank immediately called Skyler, and he sets up a meeting with her. At the meeting, which takes place in a diner, Hank tells Skyler she needs to move herself and the kids back into his house with himself and Marie. Hank plays “good cop” with her (sure, that may have something to do with him caring for her as his sister-in-law, but come on); he’s mostly doing this because he has absolutely nothing solid on Walt. After buttering her up, Hank pulls out a recorder and wants Skyler to tell him everything she knows. Hank is so desperate, and Skyler sees it. Surprisingly, Skyler handles this situation really well, even while Hank reveals to her that Walt’s cancer is back (something only Hank knew, to this point). Don’t worry, though; Skyler breaks down at the end of the conversation, starts yelling, and runs out crying; so she’s still a giant spaz.

Remember the storage room with that giant pile of money? Well, Huell (Saul’s bodyguard) and Kuby (Bill Burr) are sent to get that money. Why are they getting it? Well, because all Walt knows is Skyler went to Hank without talking to him. He doesn’t know anything about what she may have told him or whether she’s working with the police now, etc. Back at Saul’s office, he and Walt are talking about the situation, and Saul suggests sending Hank to “Belize”; you know, the same place Walt sent Mike. This exchange is hilarious, as Walt is like, “Send Hank to Belize? No way! I’ll send you to Belize!” They can’t contact Jesse, because he’s off going insane, and Walt can’t take any calls from Skyler, because he doesn’t know if she’s still on his side.

After playing Scrooge McDuck and laying in the money for a while, Huell and Kuby think about taking some of the money, but they aren’t fools; they know Walt will fuck them up. They deliver the money to Walt, and he takes off into the desert to bury it; alone, because nobody can be trusted.

At the White residence, Skyler is trying to call Walt, Saul, anybody; nobody will talk to her. That’s when there’s a knock on her door. Who is it? Marie. She’s there, and she says she’s not leaving, so Skyler has to let her in. They talk, and this is the moment I thought Skyler was going to fuck everything up. Skyler wouldn’t let Hank record her account of what happened, but Marie starts asking very pointed questions, and I was certain she was wearing a wire. She wasn’t, though. She just wanted to know if it was true. Skyler tearfully admits it’s true, but she doesn’t say very much. Marie does almost all of the talking (as per usual). Marie asks when Skyler knew; she thought it was when Skyler went all mermaid and walked off into the pool, but Skyler admits it was before then. Skyler says it was before the car wash; this leads Marie to ask if the gambling story was all a lie, and Skyler says yes (of course). Marie asks if Skyler knew before Hank was shot, and Skyler nods her head. This leads to Marie slapping the fuck out of Skyler; a moment that was very nearly just as satisfying as Tyrion slapping Joffrey. As she’s leaving, Marie grabs Holly and tries to take her; this makes Skyler defiantly go into protective mother mode. She will not let Marie take her daughter. Hank comes in and finally yells at Marie to give the baby back. Marie reluctantly does, she and Hank leave, and Skyler closes the door. In their car, Marie has now taken on the dogged attitude of Hank; she wants Walt to be caught just as badly as Hank does, now.

Out in the desert, Walt has been burying the money all night. For a man with cancer, he has a shitload of energy, but we’ve always known him to be a man of conviction. He notes the GPS coordinates of the money-in his memory, only-and then he promptly smashes his phone (or whatever GPS device he was using). He heads home and has cleverly gotten a lottery ticket with the GPS coordinates; this smart motherfucker thinks of everything, even after his cancer-stricken ass has spent hours out in the desert burying blood money. Skyler is there, but he won’t speak to her, as he goes into the bathroom to take a shower. Skyler follows him and starts asking questions as if she is trying to get information for the police, so it’s no wonder Walt doesn’t trust her. Standing in his tighty-whities, yet again, Walt finally collapses. When he awakes, Skyler is by his side, and he groggily tells her he knows she went to Hank and took a deal, so he will turn himself in on one condition: she keeps the money. After all of that, when the chips are down, he still just wants his family to be taken care of after he’s gone. She tells him she knows about his cancer’s return, and she tells him Hank doesn’t know shit. They’re just going to stay quiet, for now. Walt seems to trust her, now.

Out in another desert, Lydia-wearing a blindfold-is led to a seemingly innocuous junkyard of old cars and useless crap. As it turns out, this is where the new cook is making his meth. There’s no visible cook room. Well, that’s because it’s underground. They are cooking in what looks to be a buried bus. As you can imagine, it’s not clean, at all, and there’s almost no light. No wonder their product is so shitty. Lydia implores them to start using Todd again, but the guy doesn’t trust Todd. You may start to think, why doesn’t he trust Todd? I know I did. However, just as you’re questioning the paranoia, one of the guys on the surface yells down into the bus/bunker that there is a problem. The guys leave Lydia underground, as they go deal with whatever it is. Before long, you hear gunshots. As the gunfire dies down, someone opens the hatch and yells down to Lydia. Who is it? What happened? Well, it turns out it’s Todd, his uncle, and his uncle’s men. They killed everyone. Looks like there was good reason to not trust Todd. Todd leads Lydia out of the fray, with her eyes closed.

At Hank and Marie’s home, Hank is still going over whatever little evidence he has on Walt, and now Marie is sharing in his sleepless nights. She wants Hank to go to the other officers about Walt, but Hank knows such action will be the end of his career. Telling them the guy he has been chasing for the past year is actually his brother-in-law would be all she wrote for Hank-or at least his reputation. Still, Marie makes a good point: if they catch Walt without Hank’s help, they’ll want to know why Hank didn’t say anything when he knew. Hank and Marie could go to prison, too. If you look past the fact that several other cops know Walt, Walt has been in station a shit ton of times, and nobody else caught Walt yet, either, Hank and Marie’s fears make sense. I cannot look past those things, though. There’s no chance the police catch Walt without Hank; even if they did, they would all have just as much egg on their face for not catching Walt as Hank would.

The next day, Hank finally returns to work. He sets up a conference call and presumably plans to tell everyone about Walt and hope it’s seen as more than just the suspicions of a tired cop. Everything changes, though, when Hank learns that Jesse has been brought in. It turns out, you can’t throw millions of dollars out of your car, crash into a fence, and then get away with just a dizzy trip on a merry-go-round. Hank finagles his way into the interrogation room, alone with Jesse.

And that’s where the episode ends.

This episode continued the show’s tradition of having its title have several meanings: the money is now “buried”, the new cook room was “buried” (now the new cook is “buried”), and Skyler and Walt are going to continue to “bury” the truth. With that in mind, I can’t wait to see what next week’s “Confessions” has to offer.