Breaking Bad - Season 5 Episode 5 - Video Recap and Review - Dead Freight

Breaking Bad gets its heist on with "Dead Freight," an episode that offers Walt and his crew an opportunity to actually live the Jesse James fantasy, as they discover that, due to their barrels of methylamine being bugged by the DEA, they now have to boost a train for a new supply of the organic compound. The episode gets away from the meditative nature of some of the more quixotic Breaking Bad hours, but it's none the less effective. As the episode opens, a kid is riding his dirt bike around the dry New Mexico wilderness, finding a tarantula, placing him in a jar, and speeding off. We don't hear or see about the kid until the episode's tragic climax.

"Dead Freight" really is wall-to-wall suspense, from Walt (Bryan Cranston) visiting Hank (Dean Norris) at the DEA and feigning an emotional breakdown over Skyler just for a chance to plant a bug behind his family photo, to the train heist sequence itself, as complicated and exciting a sequence as any show has ever done, much less this one. The plan comes about as the result of the discovery that the methylamine hoarded by Lydia (Laura Fraser), Madrigal employee and constant source of fear and paranoia, is now unusable due to the tracking devices planted on each barrel by the DEA. Mike doesn't believe Lydia when she swears that she wasn't responsible for the devices being placed, although the information gleaned from the bug in Hank's office seems to imply that it wasn't the DEA either, leaving only Lydia to take the fall. As Walt, Jesse (Aaron Paul), and Mike (Jonathan Banks) contemplate what to do about Lydia, Hank is heard over the connection, calling the Houston office and inquiring as to whether anyone had placed any bugs on the methylamine barrels. The conversation exonerates Lydia, as they find that it was the Houston branch that hastily planted the GPS devices on the barrels.

Now that it is apparent she can be trusted, Lydia offers the group a solution to their methalymine shortage: there are trains coming into New Mexico carrying methylamine, and she could look up the names and locations of the trains with the compound via the Madrigal train manifest. From there, the group can find a way to stall the train and rob it. It's a risky proposition, and one that will require acceptance that there will be civilian casualties since, as Mike says, "There are two kinds of heists: those where the guys get away with it, and those that leave witnesses.” And so the Heisenberg crew gets to work, attempting to come up with a way to boost the train without leaving any witnesses behind to implicate them. Ultimately, as in the Magnet Heist, it's Jesse who comes up with the solution. Stall the train with a distraction, and use hoses to swap out the methylamine for water. No one will notice anything is amiss until the train reaches its destination, and even then, the discrepancy will be attributed to the Chinese, who offered an inferior, watered down batch of the compound.

As the gang goes about setting up, Vamonos Pest Control henchman Todd seems absolutely enchanted by Walt and Jesse's ingenuity, such that it's easy to read the ambition playing across his face. He's like a more raw, ruthless, naive version of Jesse, looking for a way to play with the big boys, to win their acceptance at any cost, even maybe their respect. He doesn't call Walt or Jesse "sir" because Mike instructed him to. He's genuinely taken with what they are, and what they represent. To that end, he establishes himself as an essential member to this new operation, loyal to a fault, if not outright idolizing. But blindly following orders in situations with room for leniency can be every bit as much of a liability as leaving witnesses.

This brings us to the heist itself. Kuby (Bill Burr), one of Saul's henchmen, parks a truck on the tracks while Mike observes from a nearby outcropping of bushes. Once the train has stopped, Walt sends Jesse to open the drain and place the hose in the undercarriage, while Todd removes the bolts with a drill and opens the lid to the tanker before dropping the water hose into the depths below. The methalymine comes out, and water goes in.

Except an unknown variable comes into play: a good Samaritan who offers to push Kuby's truck off the tracks. Walt is two hundred gallons away from his concrete goal of 1000 gallons, and Mike is adamant with Walt, telling him to pack up and get out of there. But Walt stands his grown, and just as the meter hits 1000, the train is in motion, with Todd leaping off the ladder and onto the moving ground below, while Jesse lays flat below the undercarriage as the train passes by overhead. They've done it. They've pulled off another heist, and no one on that train will be any the wiser.

But then there's that ending. As Walt, Jesse, and Todd are celebrating their successful heist, the dirt bike kid happens upon the scene. Both sides are frozen, until the awkwardness is broken with a wave from the kid. Todd returns the wave...before reaching back in his waistband for a gun. Jesse shouts for Todd not to do it, but it's all for naught, as Todd guns the kid down in cold blood and we fade to black.

This is the point in the series where Walt has to come to terms with the kind of operation he plans on running, while Jesse must confront whether or not this is a business he even wants to be in anymore. Skyler (Anna Gunn) has already come to the decision to the reluctant decision to remain Walt's partner, laundering his money and keeping his secrets, though only on the condition that the kids remain with Hank and Marie (Betsy Brandt), away from all the danger that goes with the territory of being a drug kingpin. Skyler refers to herself as Walt's hostage, and its an assertion he can't really refute, and so he agrees to her terms. Walt, it would seem, is gradually beginning to allow a bit of sense to seep into his accruing hubris, and decides to pick his battles, with Skylar, Jesse, Mike, and even Lydia. It's simply shrewd business. But there will always be outside variables, external forces that can't be accounted for or predicted. There will always be dead weight, and consequences in disposing of it.

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