Breaking Bad - Season 5 Episode 6 - Video Recap and Review - Buyout

Breaking Bad has always been a show that toys with the idea of a permanent way out, from time to time. A way out of the meth business, a way out of a dead-end marriage, a way out of an untenable partnership. Yet "Buyout" is positively seductive in its presentation of a way out of what Walt (Bryan Cranston) considers "the empire business." Mike (Jonathan Banks) has proposed a buyout of the methalymine, selling their stake to an outside buyer, and he and Jesse are taking their $5 million cut and calling it quits while they're still free men, and in one piece. Walt, however, has never gotten over selling his share of the Grey Matter company he created in grad school alongside former colleagues and friends Elliott and Gretchen. He sold his share for $5,000, only for the company to go on to become profitable, currently having a net worth of $2.16 billion. It's a mistake Walt tortures himself with every day of his life, believing he sold his kids' birthright for pennies on the dollar. He can't let that happen again, no matter how lucrative and seductive the easy $5 million buyout happens to be.

The episode opens on a heartbreaking montage, as Heisenberg and co. go about destroying the evidence of the dirt bike kid that Todd murdered last week, dismantling the bike, and then opening a barrel for the kid to be placed in. Chemical disincorporation will follow, leaving nothing to ever be found. It's a hauntingly beautiful piece, shot from overhead, as we watch Todd dig around in the back of a dump truck, first uncovering the bike, and then the boy. It plays out like a mute nightmare, a terrible reality that must be dealt with, and we move through these moments with the matter-of-fact numbness of grim necessity. It's a devastating sequence, and is far from the only element of the episode to pack an emotional wallop.

Jesse (Aaron Paul) is wracked with guilt over the death of the boy, fourteen year-old Drew Sharp, and he's also furious that this would be tolerated by Mike or Walt. Todd, for his part, tries to justify it in much the same way Walt might have in past seasons, claiming that it was either "him or us," and that he did what was necessary to preserve the safety of the group. He even calls Walter "Mr. White," perhaps foreshadowing his role as a potential Jesse replacement. If nothing else, Todd is ambitious, constantly restating his dedication to the company and offering his uncle's prison connections. Mike and Walt decide that it's better to have him on the team than to fire him and pay him to keep quiet. Jesse is hardly pleased, and he's completely incapable of completing the next day's cook. It's a tremendous performance from Aaron Paul, who's really charted the progress of Jesse's emotional maturation. At some level, Jesse always knew the difference between right and wrong, but here, the forces of that knowledge are able to reach him in a way they never had before. He understands the value of life, and how casualties aren't necessary, nor really even justifiable, in this profession. It's no surprise, then, that he goes along with Mike's plan to sell their share of the methalymine to a Fring competitor that is desperate to have the blue meth off the streets, as it ensures that no one else ever has to get killed.

It's a naive assumption to make, but Jesse's hopeful optimism is encouraging, if not infectious. It provides a stark counterbalance with Skyler's ceaseless (yet well-founded) defeatism, as she is about to tell Marie (Betsy Brandt) the truth about Walt, only to have Marie cut her off at the pass by revealing she knows about the Ted affair. Anna Gunn plays the scene beautifully, particularly in the desperate way she clings to little Holly, sitting in her lap. It's not a death grip, but simply a need to hold onto one of the only things anchoring her in this life and giving her a reason to soldier onward.

Of course, Skyler can hardly draw strength from any well for too long before Walt comes back to pollute it. As he speaks with Jesse in the living room, refuting Jesse's attempts to sell him on the idea of the buyout, he invites Jesse to stay in a brazen act of open display. Once, Walt would have had to conceal Jesse's presence in his home, and would have had to come up with an excuse for his having been there, were Skyler to discover the two talking. Now, he's openly flaunting his criminal empire, and forcing both his wife and his partner into the uncomfortable situation of sharing dinner without discussing business: the elephant in the room, as it were. After a tense, awkward meal, Skyler excuses herself with a bottle of wine, leaving Walt to discuss with Jesse the toll the business has taken on their lives. His children are lost to him, as Skyler has forced Walt to send his kids away. His marriage is irreparably broken, and his teaching career at a standstill. The meth business, "the empire business," is all he has left. "And you want to take it away from me," he says to Jesse, guiltlessly guilt-tripping him.

Perhaps it's that guilt trip that turns Jesse back to Walt's cause. Mike chains Walt to the radiator of the warehouse to prevent Walt from cooking the methylamine, while he and Saul go to meet with the DEA and squash their suspicions once and fore all. The image of Walt, tied to the radiator, evokes Walt's first kill back in season one: Emilio, the cousin of Jesse's old partner, Krazy 8, who was tied with a bike lock to a pole in Jesse's basement. For a few brief moments, Walt appears to be as helpless as Emilio once was, unable to fashion a way out of his restraints, knowing that there's work to be done, but rendered incapable of doing it. Of course, Emilio was never as resourceful as Walt, who utilizes his extensive scientific acumen to MacGuyver a makeshift blowtorch to burn off his restraints. When Mike returns, the methylamine barrels are gone, and Jesse is somehow back on Walt's side, pleading with Mike to hear Walt's plan out. As Mike holds a gun to Walt's head, and Jesse is frantically screaming to keep the peace, Walt remains completely tranquil. We don't know just yet what Walt's plan is, but he insists that, with this new option, "everybody wins."

Somehow I doubt that.

With only two episodes left this year, and the DEA getting closer to discovering the truth, Walt really needs to be indulging in less hubris, instead of growing more opulently cocky. But then he wouldn't be Walter White. It'd be one thing if it were simply a matter of Walt bringing himself down, as we know he must, when this series is all said and done, but it's yet another tragedy altogether to know just how many lives he's likely to bring down with him.

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