Breaking Bad Blog: Problem Dog
Breaking Bad teasers are always important, and this week is no different. We get only the sparsest of details - a few drops of blood, a pair of loafers, and someone picking up their glasses from off the floor. After the credits, we see that the loafers belong to Walt, so for the rest of the hour, we're haunted by one question: what's going to happen to him?
He's standing in those loafers on Hank's driveway, waiting to drive him around on another mission. They head to Los Pollos Hermanos, to remove the tracking device from Gus's car, and see what data it has for them. Because Gus knew about it, he's been able to game the system so that it only shows him making one trip, to and from work. Stymied again, Hank wonders what to do next.
The next morning, he calls, Walt having found a new angle to wor. He's got the location of Los Pollos Hermanos's main distribution center, and wants to check it out. Walt tries to prevent him from going by lying about being sick, but when Hank suggests he'll just get another driver, he backtracks and they agree to go together in the next couple of days. Walt then calls Mike, to warn him, and is met with silence. We then see Mike with Jesse at the distribution center, removing all traces of the meth operation.
Skyler's at the carwash, creating fake transactions to help launder money, when Ted Beneke walks in, bearing bad news. His firm is being audited, and with his cooked books, he's facing jail time. He wants Skyler to help, and she realises that with her signature on his documents, she'll be investigated as well, and given Walt's occupation, she can't have that.
Back at the distribution center, Jesse is finishing the clean-up, when he asks Mike whether Gus is going to kill Hank. Mike flips the question on him, asking if he'd have a problem with that. Jesse is dismissive, wondering why anyone would care what he thinks.
Outside, they are loading up a truck when one of Mike's lackeys is shot through the head, stunning Jesse. Frozen in shock, he's a sitting duck until Mike drags him behind cover. That's when Gus emerges, and walks right into the line of fire, daring the sniper to take him out. He doesn't, merely firing a few warning shots at his feet. Later, Gus receives a phone call, ostensibly from the cartel, wherein he changes his answer to ‘yes.”
Mike and Jesse bring the dead body by the lab to be disposed of, which only serves to enrage Walt further. Afterwards, Jesse thanks Mike for saving his life, and asks what Gus was thinking when he walked into the bullets. Mike shuts him down, and tells him if he has questions for Gus, he should ask Gus himself.
At Ted's, he's being interrogated about his accounts, when Skyler walks in, dressed up like a dumb blonde. She plays the role perfectly, convincing the agent that the problems are a result of her stupidity and not an attempt to defraud. All Ted has to do now is pay the taxes he previously hadn't, which he tells Skyler is easier said than done. Skyler implores him to sort it out, because if he doesn't, she'll be the one with the most to lose.
That evening, Jesse has been invited around to Gus's place for dinner, so he can ask the questions that are eating him up inside. Before he can get to them however, Gus has a question for him - can he cook Walt's formula? Jesse accuses Gus of trying to manipulate him, by making him feel important before killing Walt off and using him instead. Jesse says he won't fall for it - he makes it clear that if Gus kills Mr. White, he'll have to kill Jesse too. Gus insists that isn't his plan, that instead, he needs Jesse's help to deal with the cartel.
After their next shift at the lab, we see that Walt's kept the tracking device, and has been using it to track Jesse's car, so he knows about his dinner with Gus. Jesse calls to arrange a meet, where he fills Walt in about what's been happening - the truck hijackings, the sniper - and what's about to happen. Gus is taking Jesse to Mexico, so he can teach the cartel how to cook Walt's formula; that's what they want from him.
Walt figures that if Jesse knows all this, he must have seen Gus someplace, and if so, why didn't he use the poison? After denying that they met at all, Jesse claims he never had the chance to do it, a story that Walt isn't buying. Jesse is spooked when Walt knows exactly how long he spent with Gus, and he wonders how Walt knew that. Walt pulls out the tracking device, which really gets Jesse going. The two come to blows, and the resulting fight isn't pretty. We're back at the beginning, and now we know what's happened to Walt. His closest, only friend has turned against him, seemingly for good.