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.