Breaking Bad: Bit by a Dead Bee Rewatch

September 4, 2014 10:13 AM - Season 2, Episode 3

Walt and Jesse cover their tracks, but as a result, both of their financial situations suffer. Meanwhile, Hank and his DEA colleagues may have a break in their meth investigation.
posted by scody (10 comments total)

Marie: "It wasn't Whole Foods, was it?"

I'm a few episodes ahead now, and this one doesn't stick very strongly in my memory; it's very much a transition out of the Tuco plot and into the main Season 2 plotline of "Walt and Jesse try to go it alone".

These episodes must've been a weird pitch to Mark Margolis: "So, your character is mute and mostly paralyzed." "Uh-huh; interesting, I could try some takes on that." "And then in your last scene, you're going to shit yourself."
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:19 PM on September 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

"...but shit yourself with attitude..."
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 1:13 PM on September 6, 2014

I'm thinking this might be the episode where Walt starts to become a clever and accomplished liar--except, as I mentioned on one of the other episodes, the more Walt lies to Skyler the less she believes him, even though he gets much better at it over time.
posted by johnofjack at 4:48 PM on September 8, 2014

I'm thinking this might be the episode where Walt starts to become a clever and accomplished liar--except, as I mentioned on one of the other episodes, the more Walt lies to Skyler the less she believes him, even though he gets much better at it over time.

This brings up a point that I was wondering about as I rewatched this episode. (And I agree, the episode doesn't feel like it sticks much as others; there's something about outlandishness of the Walt-fakes-amnesia thing in order to get out of the Tuco mess that that somehow makes it come off as less compelling, rather than more.) So when Walt is first visited by Skyler and Walt Jr. in the hospital, they are clearly very concerned as well as generally affectionate/warm towards him. But by the time he gets home, they both seem much more detached and cool towards Walt.

But... I don't quite get why that happens. The psychiatrist can't tell anyone that Walt has admitted to faking it (even if Walt keeps lying about why he faked it), but Skyler and Walt Jr.'s attitude seemed as if they did know (or at least suspected), which is underscored by Skyler's skeptical response at the very end when he says he doesn't know anything about the second cell phone.

I mean, we know that he's lying -- and in that sense Skyler's not "wrong" -- but in the world of what Skyler knows, her skepticism doesn't seem wholly clear to me, unless she has already started to believe that Walt's entire "fugue state" is a lie. Does it turn out later that Walt 'fesses up on this score and Skyler says she knew it all along?
posted by scody at 5:04 PM on September 8, 2014

Yeah, I don't really understand that either. I did get the impression that Skyler doesn't entirely trust him even at this point, but I would have liked to know a bit more about why. Was the psychologist a bad liar? Is Skyler just not convinced because of Hank's revelation of the second phone? Is it that plus the way Walt's generally been acting--disappearing for hours at a time and not explaining where he's been, and only giving halting unsatisfying answers about long walks and nature when he's confronted about his absences in the support group?
posted by johnofjack at 7:24 PM on September 8, 2014

I think some of the cooling attitude is also that thing where you thought someone was dead or in danger and when it turns out they're okay, at first you're relieved. But after the relief and happiness has worn off a bit, a leeetle bit of anger seeps in. You spent all that time worrying for nothing! But they were really in trouble so you can't tell them off. And in Walt's case it might happen again and there's nothing they can do about it. It's irritating but you can't blame the victim so you just kind of get in a grump.
posted by harriet vane at 3:00 AM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Is it that plus the way Walt's generally been acting--disappearing for hours at a time and not explaining where he's been, and only giving halting unsatisfying answers about long walks and nature when he's confronted about his absences in the support group?

I really think this is it. I mean, we find out at the end of the season that Skyler did all the sleuthing necessary to connect the dots, but the thing that's already clear about Walt is that as much as he is an unrepentant liar (which does go pretty far), he's not always a convincing liar.
posted by psoas at 9:16 AM on September 9, 2014

I mean, we find out at the end of the season that Skyler did all the sleuthing necessary to connect the dots

Thanks -- I was vaguely remembering something like that, but couldn't recall if it happened this season or next.

And yes, I agree that Walt is not consistently a good liar. His "two phones, you say? Curious!" lie here is pretty amusingly transparent. I was just thinking that the diagnosis of the doctors (even though they have to sort of cobble together a diagnosis to explain it as a one-off thing) would give him some plausible deniability for awhile.
posted by scody at 9:33 AM on September 9, 2014

One thing I wondered on watching this again--Tio Salamanca is obviously livid when in the room with Jesse, and according to Gomez he's OG, which is why he didn't rat him out to the DEA. But why wouldn't Tio have had the cousins track him down and kill him? According to Tuco in the previous episode, they were already on their way down.

I know it's possible the authors just hadn't mapped out who the cousins were at this point and how completely ruthless they--and Tio--could be, but it feels a bit like a dropped thread in rewatching it.
posted by johnofjack at 5:03 PM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]

Or maybe the cousins turned up to a shitshow of cops and noped out of there?
posted by iamkimiam at 4:01 PM on July 25, 2022