Symbolism, Schmymbolism

"The Fly" is a textbook example of television writers trying to prove that they are smarter than their audience. David Chase did this every so often on The Sopranos, specifically with the dream sequences and coma episodes. These episodes are heavy on the symbolism and light on actual plot. I consider myself to be a pretty bright guy, particularly when it comes t.v. shows, but I struggled mightily to comprehend what I was watching. Clearly something deep was going on, I just couldn't tell exactly what that something was.

This week all of the business with Hank, Marie, Gus, the Cartel, Saul, and Skylar was tabled in favor of a heavy dose of Walt and Jesse at work. The entire episode is spent dealing with a containment in the lab, namely a solitary fly.

Walt is clearly losing it, to the extent that Jesse asks, in all seriousness, whether Walt was sampling their product. Given Walt's behavior in the episode, that seems like a pretty legitimate question. Then Jesse, astutely, suggests that Walt's cancer my have spread to his brain. Walt poo-poo's both of these theories and continues to chase the fly around the lab like a maniac, falling off catwalks, constructing elaborate fly swatters and eventually convincing Jesse to join in the lunacy.

Walt becomes a tab more coherent toward the end of the episode (after Jesse slips some sleeping pills into his coffee) when he admits that he wishes he had died before the cancer went into remission. He laments that his oncologist has given him a clean bill of health and that there is "no end in sight". Things were simpler when he had an actual end game, making enough money to support his family after his imminent death. "I've lived too long, you want them to actually miss you," he tells Jesse, in reference to Skylar and his kids.

While I certainly didn't completely "get" this episode, I have to give the show props for making a silly "fly chase" ultra-suspenseful. The best example is toward the end when Jesse is teetering on a ladder stacked on-top of cabinets with wheels trying to kill the fly. Walt is struggling to stay awake while holding the ladder steady and babbling about Jane. Is Jesse going to slip? Is Walt going to let go of the ladder? Is Walt going to spill the beans about Jane's death? None of these happen, but for a second or two they all seem possible, which is how suspense is supposed to make you feel.

So what the hell does the fly represent? Comments with ideas and guesses would be much appreciated.

"One taste and you'll know..."

Breaking Bad utilizes the first minute of each episode better than any show on TV right now. The flashbacks and little vignettes that air before the opening credits do an amazing job at showing (not telling) the audience details about the world in which these character's operate. This season alone we have been treated to nuggets like the origin of the infamous RV, the Cousins as kids in Mexico, and of course this week's awesome Pollos Hermanos commercial (more on this later). The second great success of the week is the show's uncanny ability to provide game-changing plot development and extreme power-shifts through simple conversations between people. The two conversations I am referring to this week (between Walt and Gus and between Skylar, Marie and Walt) were every bit as intense as any shoot out or car chase could hope to be.

I, like most television viewers, cannot stand commercials. That said, how sweet was the Pollos commercial the show opened with? Not only did the opening sequence give us a (most likely bullshit) story about the humble beginnings of the restaurant, but also a detailed look into the logistics of Gus Fring's less legitimate business operation. In a tight, concise pseudo-montage we get a look how the meth is cooked (Walt and Jesse toiling in the lab), processed (using a system so sophisticated it makes Nino Brown's crack factory look like Namond's bedroom-bagging-operation), packaged (in Pollos fry batter buckets which are stamped with black light ink to make them identifiable) and shipped (using Pollos delivery trucks) to the various Pollos Hermanos franchise locations that make up Fring's territory.



Sometimes, with all of the idiotic and naive things that he does and says, it is easy to forget just how smart Walt really is. He reminds us this week when he calls a sit down with Gus to clear the air. Walt has put together the pieces of Gus' master plan to separate himself and his operation from the Cartel. During this scene Walt is extremely calm, speaking softly and slowly, while Gus quietly listens, which makes the whole thing feel even more tense. In one of the most jarring pieces of dialog, Walt says to Fring, "I know I owe you my life, and more than that, I respect the strategy. In your position, I would have done the same." The respect seems to be mutual, as Fring appears impressed that Walt has figured everything out. Then, in a moment that secures this episode's place in the pantheon of great hours of television, Walt asks the question that everyone on the blogs and message boards have been debating all season; What happens once the three month contract is up? The consensus was that Fring would use Walt for his formula and then get rid of him once the three months had passed. Not so fast, internet TV geeks. Gus does the unthinkable; he offers Walt an open ended contract worth $15,000,000 per year. Isn't it amazing how Walt vacillates between totally clueless and completely razor sharp?


I think we are witnessing the beginning of the end for my boy Jesse. I don't know if he is extremely greed, just plain dumb, or some combination of both. He has done some figuring of his own and calculated that the value of the product he and Walt are cooking is in the neighborhood of $96,000,000. He is unsatisfied with his $1.5 million cut and claims that he and Walt are getting "fisted". Walt responds with, "You are now a millionaire, and you're complaining? What world are you living in?" Sick of being everyone's bitch, Jesse decided to skim some of the blue meth from the lab and sell it on the side with Badger and Skinny Pete. Evil Jesse (the guy that convinced an innocent teen to accept a bag of meth in exchange for a tank of gas) returns as he starts to advertise his product in his NA meetings. This can only end badly for Jesse. It is only a matter of time until Gus finds out what he is up to and puts a quick, violent end to it.



The episode ends with yet another classic scene. With Hank's medical bills piling up and insurance balking, Skylar offers a solution. She explains to Marie, with Walt sitting idly by, that Walt has made a small fortune playing black jack and that they would be glad to finance Hank's recovery. She seems to have genuinely come to grips with the motivation behind Walt's criminality, which would make sense given the warmer treatment she has been giving him since last week. All of that is shattered in the final moments, when Walt tries to congratulate her on the great display of bullshitting he had just witnessed. Skylar calmly, and coldly tells Walt that she suspects that he is the reason that Hank is in the hospital and she will never forget that.




Leftovers:
I got a strong Bubs vibe when Jesse was telling the story in NA about when he traded a box he built for an ounce of weed. By the way, who wouldn't trade a lame-ass box for a fat sack?

How funny was it when Jesse referred to his job as "totally corporate"?

Hank was pumping that morphine button pretty hard. I smell an opiate addiction in someone's future.

Saul's money-laundering lesson with q-tips and cotton balls was very informative. Does anyone on TV do more with less screen time than Bob Odenkirk on this show?

The final thing I have written down in my notes about this episode is "Best episode of the season". I still feel that way

Who's up for a rousing game of Truth or Claire?

I haven't written about Modern Family in awhile because I have already made my feelings about the show pretty clear (I love it) and it is kind of tough to write an entire column every week about a half-hour sitcom. But last night's episode, "Hawaii", was too good not to talk about, if for no other reason than to rehash some of the awesome zingers.

This episode was the second in a three-part season finale dealing with the family going on vacation to Hawaii for Jay's birthday. Generally, I hate these "The Gang Goes on Vacation, Check Out These Fish Out of Water"-type episodes, but the Modern Family writers have proven that they are smart enough to avoid making these episodes feel hackneyed.

"Hawaii" followed the typical "3 main stories, with a couple of peripheral stories" format that works so well on this show. The first story involves Phil and Claire (a.k.a the prettiest white woman on Maui), who get a chance to have the honeymoon they never got when they got married because Claire was pregnant with Hailey ("My bad!!!"). Phil, of course, is more into the whole thing than Claire is. She claims that she is "a mom traveling with three children, this is not a vacation, this is a business trip". Undeterred, as always, Phil attempts to carry her across the threshold (a.k.a. the hotel lobby) but can only lift her about halfway. "God, you're solid," Phil gasps. Great line.

For me, the best part of this episode were the scenes with Manny and Luke, who are forced to share a hotel room. I absolutely love these two characters together. ABC should consider lending them out to the Disney Channel for a Suite Life With Zach and Cody-esque spin off where Manny and Luke are sent away to boarding school together. You know you would watch that. Luke breaks in the hotel room by jumping on the beds, Manny inspects the closets ("Score, there's an iron in here!" An iron that Luke ends up making prison-style grilled cheese sandwiches with). While Manny unpacks his linen jacket and fedora, Luke throws a shower cap over his face and arms himself with a hotel hairdryer, transforming into a "Bathroom Martian from the Nebula of the Great Toilet". Classic. Later, Luke complains to his family that, "Manny is the worst roommate ever, everything he finds, he folds. Last night we had a fire drill. Not the hotel, just us."

Jay is dealing with a reminder from his brother than their father died when he was Jay's age, 63, by abandoning his plans of relaxation and indulgence in favor a commitment to get back in shape. This leads to a couple of decent sight gags involving Jay pulling his back out and getting stuck in a hammock with Phil.

Meanwhile, Cam and Mitchell take relaxation a bit too far, losing Lily, not once but twice. The first time in the hotel and the second time at a banana plantation. This was probably the weakest of the stories, but it did lead to the best line of the night. Panicked, Mitchell questions Cam's wardrobe choice for Lily, "Why did you dress her in jungle print?! She's going to think she is back in Vietnam!" I nearly spit out my Natty Boh. I love it when they make jokes about Lily's Asain roots, like when Jay calls her his "little potsticker" early on in the season.

Taking advantage of the lack of parental supervision, Hailey gets drunk and ends up sick in the hotel bathroom. Claire warns her, "One minute you're having wine coolers and the next minute the game Truth or Claire sweeps your high school." Damn, that sounds like a kick-ass game.

Eventually Phil realizes why he and Claire can't have a true honeymoon; they haven't had a real wedding. In true MF fashion, the episode ends with the whole family coming together for and "awwww" moment. Phil surprises Claire with a ceremony at which they renew their vows while a Hawaiian guy plays a sweet ukulele version of "Eye of The Tiger".

As hilarious as this episode was, the best part of it was getting to see all of the female characters in bathing suits. Here are my grades:
Claire: B-
She appears to have had a boob job awhile ago and they are starting to kind of separate. Not great.
Gloria: B
Pretty nice, but she is working with some seriously large thighs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I think I detected a bit of cellulite.
Hailey: A
Although we don't get to see her in a full bathing suit, we get a scene with her in a bikini top. My thoughts on Hailey are already on record so I won't beat dead horse. I probably would have given an A+ but her bathing suit scene happened right after she threw up and was flopped on the bathroom floor. Well, actually now that I think about it, that makes it even hotter: A fucking +.
Alex: A+
Who doesn't enjoy a pre-teen in a bikini? Kidding, kidding, calm down people.

"Tell your douchebag brother-in-law to head towards the light"

This week's Breaking Bad episode followed a similar arc to last week's. Most of the episode was devoted to dealing with the aftermath of the last few minutes of the previous episode, with a spurt of violence coming just before the ending credits. While "I See You" wasn't quite as strong as the few previous eps, it certainly had a few moments of brilliance, which we have come to expect from the show.

First, Walt informs Gale that he will be replaced. Gale responds, rather pathetically with, "I thought things were going well, I thought we were kinda simpatico, ya know?", which sounds like something Doug would say to his wife on Flight of the Conchords if she was to leave him for Bret or Jemaine. We are treated to a series of pretty funny scenes that juxtapose Jesse's excitement with his new gig with Gale's disappointment with his firing.

Walt spends most of the episode in the hospital waiting room (fixing wobbly tables), with Skylar, Marie and Walter Jr. I don't know if is the stress or what, but something strange and subtle starts to happen; Skylar actually seems to be reconnecting with Walt, something that I don't think anyone predicted. First, she stands up for Walt when Marie blames him for introducing Jesse into their lives, then she seems genuinely touched by Walt's "I'm not half the man your husband is" speech (the first time this season that Walt makes any reference to his battle with cancer, although I don't think he actually uses the "c-word"), and craziest of all, Skylar rests her head on Walt's shoulder (the first time we have seen them touch in a long time). But even after all that, the status quo returns in full force when Walt tries to explain to Skylar who he was talking to on the hospital courtesy phone and she just turns and walks away, uninterested in hearing any more lies.

While Walt is at the hospital, Jesse (who has just been released from the very same hospital) is hard at work in the lab. And by hard at work, I mean hand-drumming on the lab equipment, sliding around on a rolly-chair and inflating his haz-mat suit with air (think Missy Elliott) while jamming out to a dance-hall version of Old Dirty Bastard's seminal hit Shimmy Shimmy Ya. Eventually Gus' man at the laundry facility checks in on Jesse and notices that nothing is being cooked, setting up what I predict will be the theme next week's episode: a week long cook-a-thon during which Walt and Jesse have to produce 400 pounds of blue meth.

The end of the episode reminds us just exactly how powerful Gus Fring really is. He shows up at the hospital and feeds the entire law enforcement contingent waiting on news about Hank's condition. When he enters the family waiting room, Walt's heart skips like 10 beats. The connections between Fring, himself, the Cousins, Tuco and Hank's shooting are starting to come together in Walt's head.

Gus tells Walt not to worry, as the surviving Cousin is likely dying. What he doesn't tell him is that Mike, the fixer, is also at the hospital making sure the Cousin succumbs to his injuries.

Meanwhile, Juan, the Cartel boss is hip to Gus' plan for the Cousins demise and vows to pay him a visit as soon as the heat from the DEA and the Federales dies down. But he seems to underestimate Fring's reach, because as soon as he hangs up the phone he is gunned down in the foyer of his own home. The identity of the shooter is unknown, but we have to assume that it is someone working with Gus, right? Who knew he had enough juice to take down a Cartel boss...in Mexico?!

Gus' ultimate goal now seems pretty apparent. He wants to completely separate from the Cartel. We know he is a proponent of vertical integration when it comes to his businesses, as evidenced by his chicken farm and his chicken restaurant. Now that he has Walt, he can control the production and distribution of all the meth in his territory, and cut out the middle man, which in this case is the Cartel. The question remains; does Gus have the muscle to hold his territory once the Cartel has a chance to regroup?

How the Fuck Did Hank, a Fucking DEA Agent, Become the Coolest Character on this Show?

Breaking Bad is one of those shows in which action occurs in fits and spurts. Last week's episode was an action packed tour de force, so I wasn't that surprised when this week's episode had more of a "procedural" vibe, with the characters dealing with the fall-out of the RV stand-off...at least until the final 5 minutes.

Hank, who is still apparently oblivious to Walt's connection to the RV, shows up at Jesse's house and, after demanding to know who he is working with and how he got his cell phone number, promptly delivers a world-class ass-kicking. This sparks a series of events that display Hank's true colors and proves once and for all that he is a better man than Walt in his current incarnation could ever be. Instead of lying and digging himself in deeper (which is what Walt would do), Hank takes responsibility for his actions. After a moment of complete honesty with Marie (something Walt and Skylar haven't shared in a long time) in which he acknowledges his fears, mistakes and personal/professional shortcomings, Hank turns in his badge and gun.

Recovering in the hospital, Jesse vows to "haunt (Hank's) crusty ass forever" and assumes (at Saul's suggestion) he will be able to leverage the attack into a get-out-of-jail-free card. Hank isn't the only target of Jesse's rage. He threatens to rat on the infamous Walt/Heisenberg if he is ever caught cooking. "You're my free pass, bitch," he spits at Walt.

The honey-moon is over for Walt and Gale (the guy I was referring to last week as Neil). No more scientifically brewed coffee or poems. Walt is a complete dick to him at work, perhaps because he feels threatened by his chemistry knowledge and suspects Fring might be trying to steal his blue meth formula. Walt calls Fring to demand he fire Gale and hire Jesse as his replacement. This makes sense for Walt, he wants to keep Jesse close to keep from freelancing (and inevitably getting caught), but I can't understand why Gus would agree to this. But he does, so we shall see what he has up his sleeve for young Master Pinkman.

When Walt initially broaches the subject of renewing their partnership, Jesse flat out turns him down saying, ""Ever since I met you, everything I have ever cared about is gone". While this is true, Walt could say pretty the same thing about Jesse. That's why they are always drawn back together. Their relationship is like the drug that they are cooking; even though they realize it is ruining their lives, they keep coming back to it thinking "this time will be different". Jesse comes around only after Walt complements his meth-cooking acumen. Walt seems to understand that the way to get someone to do what you want them to is by stroking their ego, he just doesn't seem to get that Gus did just that to him.

The genius of this show is in the way that it pretty much tells the audience what is going to happen, but in a way that when it actually happens the audience is still shocked. We knew that the Cousins were going to go after Hank, we knew that it was going to happen sooner rather than later, but when I saw those two silhouettes through Hank's windshield I was still like, "Nuh uh...". But if I had to pick a nit (and isn't that what blogs, and the entire internet to a certain degree, are all about?) about the last scene it would be that it felt a bit clumsy and a little too convenient. I like the fact that the surviving Cousin would decide to finish Hank off with the chrome axe, but if a gun was too "facil" why didn't they attack him with the axe in the first place?

So, do we think Hank survives? And who was it that called him to warn him moments before the attack? It had to be Fring right? Who else knew about the Cousins targeting Hank? The intro scene establishes (at least I think this was the meaning of the scene) that things have been rocky between Fring and the Cartel for years, so I'm guessing Gus decided to use Hank as a way of getting rid of the Cousins. Getting rid of two of the group's most bad-ass killers would be beneficial for someone who plans to separate himself from the Cartel in the near future, right?

Lastly, this episode has further convinced me that the only for this show to conclude is with Walt's death. In the Breaking Bad universe, if you come clean to yourself and your family about the kind of man you really are (Hank), you survive. If you continue to live in a delusional, fantasy world in which your choices should come with no consequences (Walt), you are bound to die. Anyone agree? Disagree? ....Is anyone even reading this?