Breaking Bad - Recap: One Pack Is All It Takes

Credit: AMC

"Confessions" delivers one of those rare, jaw-dropping TV moments, where a character is so brazen, so dauntingly audacious that you can't help but be floored by what you're watching. That moment in this episode is a video of Walt (Bryan Cranston), recorded in an attempt to blackmail Hank (Dean Norris) and Marie (Betsy Brandt) into silence, in which the erstwhile Heisenberg "confesses" to his crimes by essentially pinning them all on Hank. The moment is built up throughout the episode, as Walt first records the video with Skyler (Anna Gunn) asking if he's sure this is the only way. Then, during a tense meeting at a Mexican restaurant (a moment that sees Marie telling Walt he should kill himself, and Hank briefly threatening to take Skyler down too, if she decides to stand by Walt in this), Walt slides the DVD across the table. He doesn't tell his in-laws what's on the DVD, he simply leaves it for the Schraders to discover themselves. Hank and Marie watch the DVD and are horrified not only by what Walt has boldly decided to do -- presenting himself as a poor chemistry teacher forced into the meth trade by his megalomaniacal brother-in-law -- but by the convincing nature of Walt's performance. He cries pathetically, and sobs when detailing Hank's supposed threats to keep him in the meth business, saying, “To keep me in line, he took my children.” (Referring to when Walt Jr. and Holly lived with the Schraders for three months)

What's most galling is that Walt's falsified explanation for his involvement in the meth business is astonishingly believable. Walt's story explains nearly everything in a way that makes Hank's guilt unimpeachable: Hank was openly friendly with Gustavo Fring, and he did take Walt on a ride-along during drug busts. And most tellingly of all is the fact that Walt did pay all of Hank's medical bills when he was in the hospital after having nearly been killed by Fring's men. Naturally, Hank is only just finding out about this now, and he's devastated when Marie reveals that she willingly accepted Walt's funds (although she swears she didn't know where the money was really coming from). Worse still, Hank still hasn't come clean to the rest of the DEA about his theory that Hank is Heisenberg, so if Walt is able to preempt Hank with the DVD, he'll look all the more guilty. And even if Hank is able to come clean to the DEA, his decision to withhold this information for so long will only contribute to Walt's assertions that Hank is a man who's hiding skeletons. As Walt blubbers, the Schraders recognize that he's won: "All I can do is make this video and hope that the world will finally see this man for what he really is.” Hank has Gomie (Steven Michael Quezada) call off the surveillance he'd placed on Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). In essence, Hank is a man who doesn't really have any other plays left, at the moment.

But even with his diabolically genius play on Hank, Walt has hardly won. Sure, he's been able to win Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) back to his side by revealing the return of the cancer and playing on his son's sympathies, but Walt isn't so lucky with his other "son." Walt meets out in the desert with Jesse and Saul (Bob Odenkirk), and learns from his former partner that not only does Hank have no evidence, he hasn't actually told the rest of the DEA about his suspicions. Walt seems appreciative of the information, but it's clear that this isn't why he's meeting with Jesse, as he tries to convince his former partner to get out of town and start over with a new identity. But Jesse takes offense with the fatherly way Walt frames his argument, accusing Walt of never giving a damn about him. Jesse asks Walt to quit "working" him for once and simply ask him for a favor. Jesse is at his wits' end with Walt, as he is convinced that Walt will kill him here in the desert if he doesn't take Walt up on his suggestion. It's a magnificent scene for Aaron Paul, as Jesse breaks down into Walt's arms and weeps. The fugue-like state Jesse has been in for the past two episodes pays off here in an explosion of emotion that only gets more pronounced as the episode moves on.

Credit: AMC

Eventually, Jesse is all set up and ready to move to Alaska to start all over again, waiting to be picked up by Saul's "vacuum repair" guy. But a slip-up by Huell (Lavell Crawford), in which Saul's bodyguard switches out the weed in Jesse's pocket for a pack of cigarettes, leads to Jesse realizing that this isn't the first time this has been done to him. He storms into Saul's office and begins beating on his former lawyer, relentlessly assaulting him for having switched out the ricin cigarette. Jesse recognizes now that Walt had Brock poisoned, and that he was wrong to have trusted him for so long. Saul begs off, but there's little he can do to dissuade Jesse from his rampage. He takes Saul's gun and storms off, grabs a canister of gasoline and drives to the White residence. Once there, he kicks down the door and storms through the house, dousing everything in gasoline. To say that the face of the White family's suburban life is about to go up in smoke would probably be an understatement at this point. But in the context of drama, this was nearly as good an episode for Aaron Paul as it was for Bryan Cranston, and for entirely different reasons: on the one hand, Paul had to communicate Jesse's explosive rush of suppressed emotions, while Cranston had to illustrate Walt's calculating, resourceful nature. It's full-scale chaos, and I can't remember the last time Breaking Bad has simply been this exciting, or this dangerous.

"Confessions" is a milestone episode in a tremendous final season, as everything is gradually coming out in the open. These episodes also continue in the tradition of series-best performances from undervalued performers like Besty Brandt, Bob Odenkirk, Anna Gunn and Dean Norris. Hell, even Jesse Plemons gets a showcase scene in the cold open, as he and his Uncle (and his uncle's henchman) eat at a diner after slaughtering Declan and his men. The giddy joy with which Todd recounts the train heist from the first half of the season really says a lot about the character and his romanticizing of the criminal lifestyle, but the scene also sets up what could be a big arc for the future, as Todd and his cohorts bring their product over the state line and back into Heisenberg territory. Breaking Bad is going for broke with these final episodes, and I can't imagine any other way to close out a series this intense.