Breaking Bad – Season 4 Part 9

Episode 9: Bug

When I saw the name of this episode I was worried that it was going to be another episode like “Fly” from last season, where Walt went crazy and chased a fly around the lab the whole time. I hated that episode.

But no, something very bad is happening here. The episode opens with Walt’s glasses broken on the floor and blood dripping on his shoe. This must be a flash-forward, because in the next scene, Walt is fine.

We immediately see Hank getting into Walt’s car for more surveillance. They go to get the tracker off of Gus’s car (while Hank sings “Eye of the Tiger”–he really is a different person when he’s working on a case) and they find out…nothing. Gus seems to have gone only home and to work at the restaurant. Of course, that’s because he knew about the tracker and took it off when he was going anywhere else, but Hank doesn’t know that. Walt leaves Hank and sees Tyrus sitting on Hank’s house and calls the cops on him. That’s not going to play well with Gus.

Walt goes to work at the lab and Jesse says he already started the batch. Walt then tries to actually have a nice friendly conversation with Jesse, but it’s so unusual and he’s so bad at it that Jesse immediately thinks it’s some way of putting pressure on him to get on with the job of killing Gus. Without prompting, he says, “I said I would do it and I’ll do it.” Walt says, “What does it matter, we’re both dead men anyway.” It’s unclear what exactly he’s referring to, but it’s not a nice way to end what started out as a nice conversation.

Skyler is getting Jr. another car for his birthday, but not like the car that Walt previously got. She suggests that the car wash is doing well and Walt should start looking for an exit strategy for his illegal second job. Walt says he’s working on it. Either Skyler actually does care about Walt, or she’s just trying to keep his activities from hurting the rest of the family. Walt’s reply doesn’t exactly sound like he’s eger to get out.

Hank wants Walt to drive him out to the Pollos Hermanos distribution center. Walt knows this would be a disaster, so he plays for time and calls Mike to report this. Mike listens to the report and then hangs up on him. No love for Walt lately.

Mike is using Jesse and others to clean out the DC so that nothing illegal can be found there. It’s unclear whether this is because of Walt’s call or if it was already happening and Walt’s call just confirmed what they already needed to do. Mike’s not telling Jesse anything either.

Skyler is doing some creative laundering at the car wash. She rings up several fake sales for every real sale. Ted comes to visit and tells her he is being audited by the IRS criminal division. She is alarmed, not just for him, but because she’s sure the IRS will come after her too because her signature is in his books. Ted wants her to help him by “uncooking” the books but Skyler knows that’s not possible. Ted leaves saying he will take care of it on his own. Doesn’t sound very convincing.

Jesse asks Mike if Gus is going to kill Hank. He’s figured out that Hank is the reason they’re cleaning up the DC and his thinking out loud about the problem gets Mike worried:

Mike: “If something were to happen to the man, would you have a problem with that?”
Jesse: “Who really cares what I think?”

Jesse’s nihilistic outlook once again causes him to miss an opportunity to engage. Mike doesn’t ask others’ opinions often or lightly. Jesse should have taken the time to actually answer the question.

Once outside, Jesse and his co-workers are loading the trucks when this happens:

Gus knows the shooter is from the cartel and is there to send a message, not kill him. Still, it takes a certain kind of badass to walk into the face of sniper bullets that just killed a guy. Gus is eerie like that. Later, he gets a phone call and says, “Tell them the answer is ‘yes’.” It appears he’s giving the cartel what they want, but we don’t yet know exactly what that is. My guess is that it involves “Heisenburg” and/or his product, but I have no idea.

Walt is at the lab and opens the door for Jesse and Mike who are bringing in the body of the guy who was shot by the cartel sniper. Walt, as usual is unwilling to take Mike’s hint and has to comment on the situation. It’s more than obvious that he’s doing it for Jesse’s benefit, and he has the facts all wrong, but his campaign to pressure Jesse to kill gus continues unabated. Mike threatens Walt in front of Jesse and therefore plays into Walt’s game: Walt gives Jesse a meaningful look as if to say “See what I’m saying?”

Outside the lab, Jesse thanks Mike for saving him and asks what the deal is with Gus’s terminator imitation. Mike says that the cartel needs Gus and isn’t interested in killing him. Jesse asks if Gus is doing anything to protect his employees, and Mike says, “You’ve got questions; ask them yourself.” Sounds like Jesse is going to get his meeting with Gus.

Skyler walks into Ted’s IRS audit and puts on a show as a ditzy blonde bookkeeper who didn’t know what she was doing. Somehow the IRS agent buys it and offers to settle with Ted for back taxes and penalties rather than jail time. Skyler tells Ted he needs to take the settlement so that they don’t reopen the investigation, but Ted says he’s got no way to pay the $617k in back taxes and penalties.

Jesse takes his lucky cigarette and goes to Gus’s house for dinner. Gus says, “Mike mentioned that you have some questions.” Jesse looks around at the food cooking and gets out his cigarette. We don’t see whether he is able to use it or not. Later, as they talk over dinner, Gus asks Jesse if he can cook Walt’s formula. Jesse interprets that as meaning that Gus intends to kill Walt and says, “You kill Mr. White and you’re going to have to kill me too!” But that’s apparently not what Gus means. He says he needs Jesse to avoid a war with the cartel and tells him to answer the question. We don’t see what happens next.

Skyler’s at home late at night and is contemplating the money in the crawl space. She has an idea about what to do with it. Oh no.

Walt is leaving the lab and we see him get a tracking device off of Jesse’s car. He really isn’t trusting Jesse at all. He checks it at home and sees that Jesse has been to Gus’s house. Jesse calls and asks him to come over. Walt is not friendly:

There’s a lot of ways Walt could have played this. He could have focused on the fact that Jesse is telling him all this info when he doesn’t have to and probably was told not to. He could focus on the fact that Jesse is asking for help, and that Jesse has saved his life on more than one occasion. But he doesn’t do any of that. Instead he focuses only on the fact that Jesse is not telling the truth about seeing Gus, and didn’t use the ricin to kill him. Forget that Jesse has already, at Walt’s request, killed Gale to protect Walt, it’s just “who have you killed for me lately?” Karma being what it is, Walt justly gets his ass kicked.

The next move should be interesting but Walt is spiraling down into a very dark place. I’m not sure he can come back from it. He’s managed to alienate everyone he works with, including his own hand-picked partner/assistant. The future looks dim.