Breaking Bad 101 by Alan Sepinwall

Author:Alan Sepinwall
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781683350774
Publisher: Abrams Press
Published: 2017-10-10T04:00:00+00:00

SEASON 4 / EPISODE 4

“Bullet Points”

Written by Moira Walley-Beckett

Directed by Colin Bucksey

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“Oh, God. How did everything get so screwed up?”—Walt

“Bullet Points” is an oddly structured, but never uninteresting, episode of Breaking Bad. We get our usual self-contained teaser sequence, this time with a chilly Mike taking out a pair of Gus’s rivals who are attacking the latest shipment, but after that, things get a bit … different.

There’s an extremely long segment about Skyler prepping herself and Walt for unleashing their gambling lie on the rest of the family, then a comparably long sequence at Hank and Marie’s house in which they tell the lie and Walt discovers that Hank is investigating the late Gale. Just when it seems like this might be the first episode of the series to not feature Aaron Paul, Jesse turns up around the midway point, and the episode suddenly becomes all about him. Even when he’s not on-screen, he’s all anybody can talk about.

What ties all these vignettes together, though, is the larger sense that everything is spiraling out.

Every character is here attempting damage control. Despite the clever chess moves he played against the cartel last season, Gus is not invulnerable, and his operation still leans heavily on Mike to keep functioning. Skyler is fumbling around, desperately playing catch-up to the criminal life we’ve watched Walt live for three seasons while trying to take control of a situation that’s been out of her grip for most of that time. Walt is so busy attempting to move forward by ignoring his horrible past deeds that he’s thunderstruck to see Gale singing karaoke on Hank’s TV. He attempts to deal with his mess, and his own guilt, by apologizing to his family, but the apology he gives to Skyler during their rehearsal is bogus (the one he gives later on to Walter Jr. is real, even if it’s not about the thing Walter Jr. thinks it’s about). Jesse has managed to find a way to take his mind off what he’s done and who he’s become, but only so long as someone like Mr. White doesn’t come and force him to think about it. But while Walt and Mike both realize that Jesse has become a liability, Mike is the only one who chooses to do something about it.

Skyler’s moral prospects look worse and worse the more she gets tied up in the family business, but she’s also working blind, racing to find out information that the audience already knows. Walt kept this deep, horrible secret from her, and has backed her into a corner with few options: She either has to take his drug money or go broke. Yes, Skyler is controlling, but so is her husband, and she’s only had a few months (in show time) to absorb all that he’s been up to. It’s a damned uncomfortable position to be in, and it’s understandable that she’d try to grab the reins of her life, even while it’s stampeding in the wrong direction. Does she go way over-the-top in preparing for the dinnertime confession to Hank and Walter Jr.

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