What Walter White Should Have Done in ‘Blood Money’
Welcome to TV RetCon where we do a quick character breakdown of an episode of one of our favorite shows. Last night, the majority of the world was tuned into the Breaking Bad season premiere, kicking off its final eight episodes. It was non-stop dramatic tension from the opening moments till the end credits.
So what did I think of Walter White’s actions in this episode?
I’m not going to go too deep on the cold open since we’re still not sure what Walt’s up to. We know his house has been condemned, we know he’s been living in New Hampshire under an assumed name, and we know that the world knows SOMETHING about him because of ‘Heisenberg’ on the walls and his neighbor’s reaction. It would seem that his returning to the house for the ricin is probably not the smartest move, but it’s ricin… so, if he’s taking that kind of risk for something so serious, he must have good reason. But after that…
Walt Tells Lydia No - Lydia and her manic ass arrived at the car wash and begged Walt to go back to cooking, or at the very least, go back for a week to teach Todd how to make meth that’s better than the 68% purity and falling shit he’s currently cooking. Walt tells her to beat it, even after she hints that bad shit will happen to her if he doesn’t.
Walt Should Have… done exactly that. One, she was all up in his legitimate place of business with his wife in the next room. Even if he wanted to try and negotiate with her, two: Lydia is a fucking mess. She’s twitchy and paranoid. She’s going to be his downfall.
Sidenote: Walter told Skyler the truth about who Lydia was, and she in turn also told Lydia to not let the door hit her. Not sure how wise that was on either of their parts.
Walt Lies to Jesse - After finding out that Jesse tried to use Saul to give his $5 million to Mike’s granddaughter and the parents of the boy Todd shot, Walt shows up at Jesse’s to tell him to stop tripping. When he questions why Jesse is tripping, Jesse admits that he suspects Walt killed Mike. And Walt lies all up in Jesse’s face. He was so smooth with it, I believed him and I saw him kill Mike!
Walt Should Have… done exactly like that. Hear me out: If Walt thinks that Jesse doesn’t believe him and is going to be a problem, Walt will have to kill Jesse. And he doesn’t want to do that. And we damn sure don’t want him to do that. So, even though we are all sick of Walt lying to our boy, it had to be done.
Walt Confronts Hank - After realizing that the book Leaves of Grass is missing from the shitter, Walt gets nervous. Walt later finds the police tracking device Hank gave him to use on Gus under his car. He knows Hank is on to him. He heads over to Hank’s and tries to make small talk, feeling him out. Hank tries to assure him that everything is cool and as Walt turns to leave, he stops and decides to ask Hank about the tracker instead.
OMG, what?!
Walt Should Have… kept it moving! I know we only have 7 more episodes so we don’t have a lot of time to do the whole cat-and-mouse, I-know-you-know-and-I-know-you-know-I-know bullshit, but DAMN. Walt may not realize it, but he has other fish jumping in the fryer. Sure, it’s hard to know when Lydia is justifiably freaking out because she’s constantly in shit-her-pants mode, but he has to know that her international cohorts are not going to take no for answer when Todd is cooking up shitty meth. What Walt should have done, is taken a page from Gus’ playbook, and used the tracking device to his advantage. Walt may do some of his best maneuvering when he has it coming at him from all sides, but that’s also when people make mistakes.
That said, I give him mad credit for tap dancing like Alfonso Ribiero in that Pepsi commercial once Hank closed the garage door - Seriously, did you die? Cause I about died. - and accused him of being Heisenberg. He basically admitted to nothing, but at the same time played the “you ain’t got no evidence” card. He also played “My cancer came back and I give zero fucks” card, too.
So, what did you think of Walt’s moves last night? What would you have had him do? Tell us in comments!
