Breaking Bad: Cancer Man Rewatch

August 14, 2014 6:11 PM - Season 1, Episode 4

Hank starts looking for the new drug kingpin. Walter reveals that he has cancer at a family barbecue. Jesse goes to visit his family.
posted by scody (6 comments total)

Hank tells Walt that no matter what happens, he'll take care of Walt's family. It doesn't seem to occur to either of them that Skyler might be able to take care of the family herself.

Early in this episode I remembered one of those piss-takes where they said Walt has the kind of cancer that makes you cough a lot. Of course, towards the end of the episode they make us think the coughing means that the cancer is farther along than it is.

Walt Jr. to Walt: "What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you acting so weird? You're acting like nothing is going on." Is Walt Jr. more emotionally intelligent than Walt? And, again, what is the story between Walt and his mother? I love the characterization in this show; almost all the characters and their interactions feel real to me.

The Ken scenes at the bank and at the gas station are one of the ways the show prompts us to accept Heisenberg--they contrast Walt with someone much less sympathetic, showing outrageous and/or obnoxious behavior, and then show Walt/Heisenberg lashing out, expecting us to take vicarious pleasure in it.
posted by johnofjack at 7:46 PM on August 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

Is Walt Jr. more emotionally intelligent than Walt?

The pizza on the roof is more emotionally intelligent than Walt.
posted by jeather at 7:53 PM on August 14, 2014 [10 favorites]

We meet Jesse's fmaily here: clearly something went very wrong there. I guess his parents are so high pressure that Jesse (and his brother) rebelled. Maybe they weren't that impressed with Jesse being good at wood working.

I watched this episode around the time I found out that my mother in law and aunt had cancer, so it got pretty hard at times. Fortunately for me at least the show doesn't spend too much more time dwelling on the realities of cancer treatment (with Walt miraculously recovering later on.)

Yeah the gas station scene is interesting. It is clearly meant to win us over, as that guy is a dick, but it does show just how extreme Walt is being, and how unconnected he is feeling from his actions: because he is committed to death, he thinks he can do anything.
posted by Cannon Fodder at 12:07 AM on August 15, 2014

Being a Vince Gilligan show I thought of the Cancer Man from the X-Files. Apparently the cigarettes smoked by the now very dead by acid Emilio were Morley's, the same brand of course, smoked by the Cancer Man.
posted by juiceCake at 10:16 AM on August 16, 2014 [3 favorites]

Nice! Watching the early episodes I remember my ears pricking up every time someone said "Erlenmeyer Flask".
posted by comealongpole at 7:21 AM on August 19, 2014

Hank tells Walt that no matter what happens, he'll take care of Walt's family. It doesn't seem to occur to either of them that Skyler might be able to take care of the family herself.

Part of that is Hank's swaggering machismo (a big part of the character at this point); and of course Walt is clueless to that kind of thinking.

I thought it was a wonderfully ironic thing to say, given how the story plays out; and, of course, the DEA makes life hell for the remaining Whites when Walt runs.
posted by nubs at 5:02 PM on August 24, 2014