Breaking Bad S06E05 Review: "To'hajiilee"
"Get on your knees." --Hank Schrader
Well, this was inevitable.
I'm sure a lot of people will take issue with this, but to me, Breaking Bad is at its best not when it's being completely unpredictable, throwing twist after twist at the viewer until the resulting whiplash renders them helpless, not to mention speechless. Granted, those moments of total unpredictability are the hooks that handcuff the viewer to the show forever, and it's always absolutely thrilling to get caught off-guard so often and yet stick around so faithfully, for five-plus years.
But the times when the series seems to be at its most Breaking Bad-esque are those that you can see coming from a mile away, but even so, the experience of simply watching the terrible tragedy of Walter White unfold in front of you keeps you as helplessly riveted as the more unconventional story beats do. The Walter vs. Gus showdown--and more importantly, Walt's hard-earned victory over Gus--is probably the best, most classic example of a storyline that plays out exactly as you'd expect it to, but in such a way that leaves you drained, and hollow, and jonesing for more of whatever addictive chemical the Breaking Bad writers have been injecting into the narrative every season.
Gus had to die; this was inevitable. Hank had to figure out his brother-in-law was Heisenberg; this was inevitable. And, because the world of Breaking Bad does not exist in a karmic vacuum, Hank had to catch Heisenberg dead to rights, slap a pair of cuffs on him, and Mirandize him, all with the help of Jesse, the spurned surrogate and ex-heir apparent. This was inevitable. And it was goddamn brilliant television.
As always, I took notes for this review, but after around the 27-minute mark, when Walt gets the picture of his opened money barrel and a follow-up call from Jesse, I was too focused on the screen to ever pick up my pen again. For the last twenty minutes of "To'hajiilee," I just sat there, frozen. Unable to stop Walter from taking that fateful drive out to the desert. Unable to tell him to shut his mouth about all the terrible crimes he unthinkingly confessed to Jesse over the phone. Unable to warn Hank, in what was surely the crowning moment of his DEA career, that a reckoning was coming for him, for Gomez, and for everyone Walter White has ever tainted with his toxic presence. Unable to keep the bullets from flying. Because it was inevitable that this could only ever end in blood and sorrow and death.
I find it endlessly fascinating that Walt himself never saw any of this coming. He was sure he could lure Jesse out into the open and deal with him in the same way he's always dealt with loose ends. He always arrogantly assumed he had Jesse under control, and until Jesse found out about Brock's poisoning, he was probably right. (After all, there's a reason that all the dog symbolism in the show gets tied to Jesse, right?) Hank, too, is someone Walt has always thought he could keep at arm's length, as he's explained to Jesse and Gus and Mike countless times over the years. But once the two of them--Jesse and Hank--finally realize the depth of their own agency in this story, their respective character arcs converge beautifully in a potent chemical mixture that can overpower the great Heisenberg in the most devastating way possible.
And so all this leads to the painfully drawn-out scene in which Walter realizes he's finally at the end of his rope. He has no more cards to play, no trick up his sleeve to help him wiggle out of an impossible situation. When Hank gets out of that car with Jesse and Walt makes the choice to (try to) call off the Nazi Horde, we see Heisenberg defeated at last. Bested by the two people who know him better, it turns out, than he knows himself, if you'll excuse the cliche. When Walt, humiliated, steps out of hiding, drops his .38, and raises his hands in surrender to the DEA, I could only think to myself, 'How is this not the series finale?!' This was it. This was an ending many, many fans have predicted for Walter since the pilot, and the only problem is that it's happening three episodes too soon. Unless we're spending the rest of the series in jail with Walt (which, given the flash-forwards, we're obviously not) something else must come into play.
And then Jack shows up. And then the guns come out. And then a storm of bullets drowns out everything else that happened in the episode, leaving us with a brutal cut-to-black that promises us that when we come back to Walter White's still-unraveling tale, the atmosphere will be nothing less than post-apocalyptic. I expect the show might have a dramatically reduced cast list in the next episode. And I doubt the bloodshed will stop there. This is the ride we all paid to take, and right now it's hurtling us toward a conclusion that we all signed up to see. And even as we're all starting to realize the ride's inevitably tragic destination, we're too helpless to do anything but watch it destroy us all.
Written by Modern Sin
