Breaking Bad- I.F.T, WTF?!

After a violent intro in which The Cousins lop Tortuga's head off, Breaking Bad shifts into the, becoming all too familiar, 'Skylar at Walt's throat mode'. These scenes are becoming increasing difficult to watch. Walt is desperate and pathetic, Skylar is desperate and furious. You can actually feel the hatred radiating from Skylar's eyes when she actually brings herself to make eye-contact with Walt.

Walt stops by the house to remove the pizza from the roof (it still looked pretty edible, I wonder how long it was up there) and decides, "it's [his] house too, [he's] staying". Skylar arrives and demands that Walt get the hell outta there. Walt refuses and Skylar calls the police, vowing to tell them about Walt's second profession. Before the cops show up, Walter Jr. walks through the door. Skylar can't bring herself to rat on Walt. I wonder if she would have gone through with it if their son wasn't present? This agonizing scene ends with the police unable to remove Walt due to a lack of a court order. Skylar makes her contempt for Walt clear with a simple yet chilling, "Welcome home".

Meanwhile, Jesse has shut himself into his furnitureless new/old house to mourn his dead girlfriend. This manifests itself in a string of compulsive calls to Jane's cell phone to hear her voice on the answering machine. Very sad stuff, although I'm pretty sure I would be doing the exact same thing in his situation. He is interrupted by Saul, who stops by to try again to convince him to convince Walt to get back into the cooking game. He even throws in a financial incentive. Eventually Jane's cell phone is disconnected and he can no longer hear her voice, effectively ending his mourning period and sending him out into the desert to do the only thing is good at; cook meth.

Speaking of lawyers, Skylar pays a visit to hers and spills the beans about Walt's criminal involvements. Despite her lawyer's insistence that the information would stay between the two (due to the attorney/client privilege), I have a feeling that this might be the first domino in a chain that leads to Hank discovering the truth about his brother-in-law. The scene ends heartbreakingly, with Skylar expressing hope that "things will resolve themselves", meaning she is looking forward Walt's death.

Hank is dealing with his own demons at the moment as well. After receiving word that he will be transferred back to El Paso, the sight of a gruesome cartel bombing that shook him to the core (literally and figuratively), he freaks out and starts a bar fight with two massive thugs. His motivation for the attack is debatable. Does he just want to prove to himself that he is a badass and not just a pansy that has panic attacks? Does he want to be injured or suspended from his job to avoid having to go back to El Paso? Has he simply snapped? It isn't clear.

The Cousins reappear with Don Salamanca (the guy in the wheelchair who I didn't recognize last week) and a cartel honcho at Gus Fring's chicken farm. The group explains to Gus that they are in the Estados Unidos to kill Heisenberg in order to avenge Tuco's death (The Cousins are Tuco's cousins and the Don is Tuco's uncle). Gus, in very impressive Spanish, replies that Heisenberg/Walt still works for Gus and the cartel is to keep their hands off until their work together is complete. It is clear that Walt is going to need Gus's protection at least as much as Gus needs Walt's kick-ass blue tweak.

Walt attempts to smooth things over with his wife by showing her a bag of cash and explaining that all of the horrible things he did to earn it were for her and the kids. Skylar doesn't seem particularly touched by the gesture and decline (at least for now) to accept the money.

She does, however, accept some dick from her book-cooking boss, Ted Beneke. Granted, tax fraud is much less taboo than drug manufacturing, but is it really all that easier to stomach? Apparently for her it is. It The episode ends with Skylar informing Walt of the affair matter-of-factly, as if to punish him for his sins. The look on Walt's face says it all. He wishes he would have just succumbed to cancer last year.

Leftovers:

Skylar fucks up the lyrics to "Old MacDonald" at the beginning of the episode. Either she is really dumb or has a whole lot on her mind.

Skylar has taken up smoking in an attempt to cope with the stress in her life. It would have been better if she was smoking a jay instead of a cigarette though.

The title of the episode is "I.F.T.", which is an apparently stands for "I Fucked Ted', which is what Skylar spits hatefully at Walt in the episode's last piece of dialogue. It was sort of shocking to hear a half-way bleeped "fuck" kinda-uttered on basic cable. As soon as the sentence left her lips I felt like I got slapped in the face. I felt terrible for Walt.

Why are The Cousins only targeting Walt? Are they unaware of Jesse's involvement?

Walt's "I did it for my family" rationalization for cooking meth rings a bit hollow because he could have accepted the money his former business partner offered him for treatment last season. His ego was too big to accept the money then and it is too big to accept responsibility now.

It was good to see Walt back in costume with the cook's apron on at the end of the episode. I just hope the next time we see him in it, he is cooking something other than pot roast.

As much as I appreciate and enjoy this show, it is kind of veering in the Mad Men direction in terms of focusing so heavily on Walt and Skylar's marriage. I really hope at some point soon we get a big fat dose of Jesse, Saul and a camper full of toxic fumes.