Impressions of S05E02
[details=Spoiler]Walt has accounted for everything he can foresee. In his mind, which lives in a hermetically sealed universe where everything is defined according to how convenient it is to his ego, he is prepared for every contingency. But there are obviously things he can’t foresee, such as the routing number, and the possibility of those things never even enters his thought process. Mike is absolutely right: it is only a matter of time before something Walt doesn’t know and doesn’t care to prepare for comes back to bring the whole enterprise down.
Loved, LOVED the dialogue play in Merker’s office. “He was there the whole time, right under my nose, and he was a different person entirely.” Are you listening, Hank?
One of the great things about Mike is that his arc is happening almost contrary to that of other characters. Breaking Bad tends to be about how the only thing separating good behavior from bad behavior is circumstance. Walt, for example, has always been Heisenberg, but 50 years of his life were spent in situations that stifled that side of his personality. Change the circumstances, and Walt is truly revealed.
In Mike’s case, we see him in new circumstances that reveal something about him that, until now, has been kept at bay presumably by circumstances of his careful choosing.
I never thought of applying Freudian theory to the Walt/Jesse/Mike scene until Remonster brought it up, but there’s some interesting food for thought there. I would suggest another trichotomous paradigm: strength of character (ethos), emotion (pathos), and logic (logos).
I would say Jesse pretty clearly fills the role of pathos. With Walt and Mike, it gets a little murky. Walt certainly thinks of himself as the ethos of the group. He sees himself as the final authority on everything in his purview, which he has essentially stated outright. But, being that this comes after much rationalization, I would say Walt is logos in spades. Recall that logic doesn’t necessarily have to reach a true conclusion; it just has to make sense by its own rules. That leaves Mike comfortably in the role of ethos, which Walt can only aspire to.
Of course, one of the themes of this show is of becoming the mask. Maybe Walt will realize his position as the ethos of the group, even as Mike’s resolve erodes.
It’s interesting that they seem to be keeping Skyler on the margins for now. She hasn’t really had any agency this season except as a vehicle to demonstrate Walt’s newfound sense of self-security. I don’t mean it’s interesting in and of itself, but it’s interesting in that I doubt I’ll know how to think about her this season until we get a better idea of where she’s going with it.
She’s showing obvious signs of not being merely scared, but of having the sense of no-control helplessness that comes with depression. Maybe her current funk will eventually blossom into an apocalyptic courage that will override the rationalized concerns for her family that have kept her docile so far.[/details]
[spoiler=]Yeah, at first I was half-expecting him to say “Ve vill cut off your JOHNSON.”[/details]
Walter Jr. is great. As the only character who hasn’t filled his own life with rationalizations and other bullshit, his occasional habit of blurting out a reality check to the other characters is pretty refreshing.
Although scenes of him eating or talking about breakfast have reached running gag status by now.