Breaking Bad, Season 5. Episode 5 Recap: Dead Freight

It’s a great feeling to watch a television show so intently that you allow yourself forget even the most obvious plot points.  Like the no-name kid we watch trapping a tarantula in the first ten seconds, who then disappears for the rest of the episode.

I thought about the kid a few times during the hour – I wondered who he was, when he’d come back. I knew he’d end up meaning something important to Walt and Jesse – I was aware of this fact without being distracted by it, so when the time came for the kid to play his pivotal role, I felt vindicated and also shocked. The perfect combination: a writer wants his audience to be in on the story, but not ahead of it.

I find myself likening the structure of this season to a rollercoaster. Half the fun of flying down a sheer drop is being cranked up the track and hovering on the edge. This episode is perfectly engineered to deliver a thrill, and it works because we’re all just watching it come.

Breaking Bad reached a crescendo in last night’s episode with a train heist – a cliché so tired that the characters couldn’t help but joke about it. A formula so tried and true, you can’t help but be sucked in. What would ruin this meticulous plan?  Walt’s maniacal determination?  Mike’s overly conservative pragmatism?  Or one of the many, many unknowns – the conductors, the Samaritan, or the newbies, Lydia and Todd?

Despite some close calls, the heist is pulled off with near perfection. New recruit Todd is flawless, jumping off the moving train without so much as a scratch. Lydia delivers exact and irreproachable information. Jesse’s plan to swap water for methylamine is inspired. Even the train conductors blithely play their parts to a T.

Until the return of the kid.

Of course he had to die. Walt made absolutely sure of that by warning Todd how important it was to keep the theft quiet as the grave. Mike helped Todd along as well in episodes past, warning the employees of Vamonos Pests to do whatever Walt and Jesse tell them, leaving the consequences of not doing so heavily unspoken. All this lends itself to an atmosphere where nothing is left to chance. As Mike says: “There’s only two kinds of heists; ones where they get away with it, and ones where they leave witnesses.”

Jesse, emerging this season as the show’s moral center, is excelling at more than just cooking. Starting with the ingenious use of the magnet, Jesse’s strength in creative problem solving is solidifying his place on the team. And his instincts about Lydia are, for once, better than Mike’s.

Jesse’s come a long way this year, but he’s still no leader. It’s never clearer than when he crouches on the track, helplessly appealing to Walt: “Mr White!” as the train’s wheels slowly begin to churn beside him. His instincts are screaming for him to get out of there, but he won’t move until Walt gives the go-ahead. For all his moral turpitude, Jesse lacks the courage of his convictions. He allows Lydia’s fate to be put to a vote, which is all but sealed, even after her innocence is proved.

Jesse is letting a lot slide with Walt. This is what Walt’s banking on, same with Hank and with Junior. Walt has a store of good will saved up with these three, and it’s providing the cushion to get him through this transitional period.

But the walls are starting to crumble – I have to wonder, as Jesse hits the deck just moments before the freighter slides inches from his head, what Jesse makes of this situation. Once again, Walt places Jesse’s life in danger for his gain. How long before Jesse realizes he’s a pawn in Walt’s game?

Hank and Junior are starting to put together the puzzle pieces as well. Hank zeroes in on Walt’s incongruous lifestyle before being deftly misdirected by an insipid show of emotion. Junior, too, is stonewalled by that basic paradigm of parenthood: “Because I’m the adult and I say so.”  But these subterfuges will only work for so long. Junior, increasingly sullen and newly mobile in one of Walt’s flashy automotive purchases, could easily blow the lid off this entire thing. An angry, isolated teenager who wants answers can be most intrepid in his search for information.

These slow-burning elements will surely explode, and their presence made it even more gratifying to feel the tension of real action. Breaking Bad is at its best when volatile personalities meet with uncontrollable situations – exactly what Dead Freight was all about.