Breaking Bad: ...And the Bag's in the River   Rewatch 
August 10, 2014 2:18 PM - Season 1, Episode 3 - Subscribe

Walt and Jesse clean up last week’s mess and Walt must face holding up his end of the deal. Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank, warns Walt Jr. about the dangers of drug
posted by scody (18 comments total)
 
Coin flip, bitch!

Also: hi Wendy!
posted by RainyJay at 11:18 PM on August 10, 2014


And another tally for the Heisenberg kill column, and another tally for the Walt-to-Heisenberg transition.
posted by RainyJay at 11:39 PM on August 10, 2014


This is Walt's first proper kill, although again it is motivated somewhat by survival, in that Crazy 8 needs to attack him before he will fight back. It's probably the most brutal murder he is directly involved him, and the last time he will really have so many qualms as he does now.

I forgot about the whole gas mask thing. That was a plotline that went nowhere, eh?
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:40 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


He had qualms until suddenly he realised that everything Crazy 8 told him was playing him. I think that's why he killed him, really; Walt couldn't stand that someone as stupid as Crazy 8 fooled him.

I forgot how much an asshole Hank was at the start.
posted by jeather at 6:15 AM on August 11, 2014


This is Walt's first proper kill, although again it is motivated somewhat by survival, in that Crazy 8 needs to attack him before he will fight back.

I remember being really, really intrigued the first time I watched the show with how they were going to deal with Crazy 8; it was obvious that he needed to die, but I also felt that if Walt just outright killed him, it would be too much too fast - the audience can accept the mild mannered school teacher making meth and killing in self-defense, but not killing a helpless man.

So it's a whole justification thing - Walt needs to find a self-defense justification because he's not that hard yet, and the audience needs it too. Even if it is a little thin.
posted by nubs at 7:55 AM on August 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Is it a thin justification? I can't believe that you could kidnap a drug distributor and lock him to a post for days, killing his cousin and dissolving the body (such that the blood drips down in front of the dude you've kidnapped while he's locked to a post) and then let him go without him trying to kill you. I mean sure, Krazy 8 is no Tuco, but still.... If someone did that to me I'd want to kill them, and I'm just a nerdy wallflower librarian.

I can't imagine Krazy 8 forgetting about it; and there's no way he's going to the police. Even just mentioning it to anyone else in the cartel means they'd kill Walt and probably kill his entire family too, just to make a point: you do not cross the cartel.

That's an interesting comment about Walt's additional motivation, though; I didn't realize that his enormous ego was probably also playing into it.

It's odd that I never saw it before, given the setting (and that garage showdown with Hank in Season 6, and the shootout in To'hajilee), but suddenly the series seems like an anti-Western.
posted by johnofjack at 9:15 AM on August 11, 2014


Is it Crazy or Krazy?

Anyhow.

It's a thin justification because essentially he has to kill because of actions he did -- it wasn't like the other death was THAT much of a surprise, and that only happened because of Walt's actions. In the tv show, it seems justified, but I think seeing where Walt goes it becomes less justified in retrospect.

I figure that Walt's enormous ego plays into every single thing he does. It's his biggest motivating factor. He's not so great with people, though -- he didn't see what C/Krazy 8 was doing, he never could figure out what the neo-Nazis would do (to Hank's loss), he clearly never understood Jesse.

He did manage to predict that Gus would go visit Hector Salamanca if Hector saw the DEA, and he managed to predict Lydia's use of sugar sweetener, but they were like Walt, or like Walt wanted to imagine he was: rational, nearly emotionless. (Once Lydia got past that brief moment of terror, but then we saw Gus have that too, in the flashbacks. Though of course those were facades too.)

He never understood Skylar, or Walt Jr/Flynn, or Hank, or Mike. Or himself, except maybe when he was dying alone in a cabin in NH.
posted by jeather at 9:35 AM on August 11, 2014


For whatever it's worth, IMDb has it with a K.

Sure, I agree that almost every death in the series can be traced back to Walt's bad choices (not Max's, and maybe not Spooge's--as he & his woman seem fundamentally broken--but almost every other one). Within the situation Walt was in, at the point where he had to choose whether to kill Krazy 8, it makes sense that he does.

I think part of how the show succeeds is in getting us to adopt that mindset, however briefly, ignoring the surrounding context of Walt's bad decisions. There is no way we would have made the horrible decisions Walt did and so we would never be in Walt's situation, choosing whether to kill someone locked to a post (or cuffed to a table, or locked up in prison). I found myself struggling with this more and more throughout the show, and I've wondered more than once where Vince Gilligan sees the line Walt crosses--he's mentioned an "unforgivable act" Walt commits, apparently in Season 5 or 6, and I just see so many along the way.

In watching the series again, I've also been wondering what exactly happened to Walt growing up. He's narcissistic, egotistical, and proud (with little worth being proud about), he rejects help from people who care about him, choosing to focus instead on some (imagined?) slight from the past, and IIRC he never even tells his mother he has cancer (Skyler does). I think he does genuinely love Skyler, Walt Jr., Holly, and Hank, and possibly also Marie, but as you say he doesn't understand them. I'm assuming that's because he's too wrapped up in himself to think about others much, if at all.
posted by johnofjack at 10:13 AM on August 11, 2014


Is it a thin justification? I can't believe that you could kidnap a drug distributor and lock him to a post for days, killing his cousin and dissolving the body (such that the blood drips down in front of the dude you've kidnapped while he's locked to a post) and then let him go without him trying to kill you.

I think there's a difference between knowing that letting him go will lead to negative outcomes, and using that as justification for strangling them; or letting him have a small weapon and then killing him for attempting to use it. It makes Krazy 8 an immediate threat.
posted by nubs at 10:16 AM on August 11, 2014


I'd agree, except that Krazy 8 has a small weapon and attempts to use it. Walt sees him pulling it towards the top of his pocket and pauses behind him, holding the key.
"Unlock me, Walter."
"The moment I do, are you going to stick me with that broken piece of plate?"
[Krazy 8 tries to stab him and Walt grabs the lock to strangle him.]

You could argue that that's not much of a weapon. No, it's not. And Walt's not even in immediate danger; he could just back away out of range. The problem is that Walt's too stubborn and proud, and thinks too highly of himself, to imagine that he should take responsibility for his actions and accept the consequences. He's got this idea that he can do whatever he wants, to or with whomever he wants, and control the outcome.
posted by johnofjack at 10:35 AM on August 11, 2014


Walt pulling the plate shards out of the garbage can and piecing them back together is the moment I knew this show was something truly special.
posted by EmGeeJay at 11:39 AM on August 11, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oh, sure, there's some justification -- that is, as johnofjack points out, one of the things the show does well, give just enough justification that in a tv universe, it's sensible that Walt kills Krazy 8 -- he has no choice. Because in tv-world, this is more or less true. And in time the show turns a bit more, and shows us it has never been true, and it never is true.

I don't know which act it is that Gilligan thought of. Jane? I am curious what I will think on rewatch. I'd have said Gale is the Moral Event Horizon. He could have come back from Jane, maybe, had he been someone else.

The problem is that Walt's too stubborn and proud, and thinks too highly of himself, to imagine that he should take responsibility for his actions and accept the consequences. He's got this idea that he can do whatever he wants, to or with whomever he wants, and control the outcome.

So comparing him with Gus here -- Gus, or his fantasy of Gus, is who Walt sees himself as. (Except smarter.) But Gus accepts that there are limits. Compare the car he owns with the cars Walt buys. (I don't know enough about cars, but I think it would be interesting to go through who owns what car, including the guy whose car he blows up.)


I also think Walt loves his family. He loves himself more.
posted by jeather at 12:43 PM on August 11, 2014


Is it a thin justification? I can't believe that you could kidnap a drug distributor and lock him to a post for days, killing his cousin and dissolving the body (such that the blood drips down in front of the dude you've kidnapped while he's locked to a post) and then let him go without him trying to kill you.

If those are the only two options, sure. But Walt could turn himself into the police for what he has done, something that doesn't ever seem to cross his mind.

Jane is the first murder (and its basically a murder) of an innocent Walt commits, and not only that, someone who Jesse cares about. His justification for all his murder is to protect his family (which he allows Jesse to be part of), although it is always really about protecting himself.

I also think Walt loves his family. He loves himself more.


Quite. I think this is key, and over time his actions become less and less about his family and more about himself. The drip drip drip of bad decisions go on and on.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:03 AM on August 12, 2014 [1 favorite]


In watching the series again, I've also been wondering what exactly happened to Walt growing up. He's narcissistic, egotistical, and proud (with little worth being proud about), he rejects help from people who care about him, choosing to focus instead on some (imagined?) slight from the past, and IIRC he never even tells his mother he has cancer (Skyler does). I think he does genuinely love Skyler, Walt Jr., Holly, and Hank, and possibly also Marie, but as you say he doesn't understand them. I'm assuming that's because he's too wrapped up in himself to think about others much, if at all.

This is a great description of a lot of people in real life (not to mention a description of a lot of the boyfriends of female friends), hence during times of war it's quite easy to find people willing to do some rather horrible things and in faux war, such as business, these types are quite prevalent, hence the horrible things going on right now in terms of how are economy and politics are conducted that bring about a lot of misery to a lot of people. Walt is ultimately criminalized because he chose an illegal dubious profession rather than a legal dubious profession.
posted by juiceCake at 1:36 PM on August 12, 2014


I forgot about the whole gas mask thing. That was a plotline that went nowhere, eh?

I was thinking that too, but I've been viewing ahead and this will become important in ep6 when Hugo the janitor gets the blame for it. We can talk about it then if it comes up but it seems to me the way Hugo is treated and the way Tuco treats Jessie are big factors in Walt moving over to make way for Heisenberg.
posted by GeckoDundee at 2:18 AM on August 13, 2014


Is it a thin justification? I can't believe that you could kidnap a drug distributor and lock him to a post for days, killing his cousin and dissolving the body (such that the blood drips down in front of the dude you've kidnapped while he's locked to a post) and then let him go without him trying to kill you.

"So there's that."

The "he'll kill your your entire family if you let him go" argument was indeed the only entry in the "kill him" side of Walt's list; against it on the "let him live" side, amongst others, "it's the moral thing to do" and "MURDER IS WRONG".

For me: this absolutely is a corrupting moment for Walt. It's a deliberate and premeditated murder -- one he'd been considering for days. Krazy 8 almost talks him out of it, but when Walt discovers the missing fragment and sets off back down those stairs he absolutely has decided to kill.

Krazy 8 and Jane's deaths are chilling in very different ways. Krazy 8's death is brutal, visceral, Walt angrily choking the life out of him; Jane's death is largely a result of Walt's inaction and disengagement as he watches her suffocate.

"This line of work doesn't suit you, man. Get out before it's too late."
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:39 PM on August 17, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also, a couple of bum notes in the writing of this and the previous episode that indicate that they didn't quite have everything quite dialled in yet:

Last episode: the "will this be on the murder?" mis-hearing seemed a little too fantastical.

This week: the entire Gray Matter framing -- the gauzy "There's got to be more to a human being than that." / "What about the soul?" metaphysics -- really doesn't ring true to Walt's rational current-day character.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:47 PM on August 17, 2014


To be fair, it was Gretchen suggesting that the missing percentage was the soul, and Walt's response was something like "there's nothing but chemistry here." But yeah, I'd agree that that scene and the "will this be on the murder" line were a bit too on-the-nose.
posted by johnofjack at 6:28 PM on August 17, 2014


« Older Mad Men: A Night to Remember...   |  Breaking Bad: ...And the Bag's... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster