Uh oh, Beastler in more or less the first scene. Does not augur well for the episode. Generally, the overall quality of a "Breaking Bad" episode and the amount of minutes Beastler is on screen tend to have an almost direct inverse relationship. Think of the great episodes from the past: "Sunset," "One Minute," the ends of seasons 2 and 3. Very little relative incidence of Beastler. And THOSE eps were before 100% of her wardrobe came from Lane Bryant.
CORRECTION: was not an SRT8 Challenger that Beastler was making Walt take back. Looks like an RT model. With automatic trannie.
"Trannie? did someone ask for me? Is it you, Ted? Can I get jiggy with you on your heated bathroom floor because my husband turned to a life of crime to provide for me and our children?"
Uh, no, Beastler, we meant transmission. And with Dodge's notoriously sluggish auto it is a wonder Walt can do all those burnouts and such. Before burning the car! Ah, hubris. Another waypoint on that protagonist/antagonist journey. Pity to see such a beautiful car destroyed. Even if it is only an RT with an automatic. And one tail pipe! Did RTs even come with that for 2009? Supposedly the Hemi Orange paint would not have been on an SE. Could the show's producers have mocked-up and repainted an SE here? SEs would not have had the fog lights and chrome fuel door though, and mocking that up would seem like a lot of work just to convince the .05% of people who would understand what the Monkey was talking about right now. So an RT, then, and likely the most base model of it.
Anyway, isn't Beastler the one who is supposed to blow shit up like hospitals and ferry boats and poison the city water supply and things like that?
"Soldier of Fortune!?!?!?!" Is that even still around!?!?! Awesome. The Monkey used to read that in high school. Probably shocks the fuck out of you - what with your obvious thought that the "New Yorker" would have been more a propos. But, but yes that was indeed true.
Walt trying to manipulate Jesse into going after Gus. Walt, you think you're being too subtle here. "Ah, Jesse, would someone with a last name of Pinkman PLEASE rid me of this meddlesome fast food merchant?" But Jesse catches on and agrees - the writers now seemingly remembering that he was going to martyr himself in payback for Fring having the little gangbanger kid capped something like 5 "show" weeks prior.
Oh fuck, another scene with Beastler. Who doesn't know where to hide all this money and has her hideously carved-up face in its usual mien of disapproving genralized bitchy shrewishness. Beastler - two things:
1) Black is slimming but ain't no slimming THAT.
2) Seems like there would be a lot of space to hide all that money... in your ASS!!!!!!
(Juvenile, yes, but the Monkey has made himself laugh here and that is the whole point of all of this.)
Plotting with ricin. Remember how that worked out with Tuco? Come to think of it, that episode from early season 2 was another all-time great with very little incidence of Beastler in it.
Off to Pollos with Hank and Walt. What, no handicapped spaces there? Just saying. Nice pull of getting Gus' fingerprints from Hank, who as a character and actor is having a standout season.
Jesse brings the fruit bowl and makes the coffee for the high level summit meeting between Gus and the Cartel. One imagines this is how it goes in the White House. Obitchba brings the hors d'oeuvres and makes coffee in anticipation of John Boner rolling up to dictate the country's legislative agenda. And in the event, the meeting in this episode goes the same way. Gus/Obitchba immediately offers to give away the store. Boner/Cartel dude says "no, but here is our ultimatum. Accept it or we will kill you."
But unlike Obitchba, Gus apparently does not immediately cave in. Ironic, because in real life the Cartel would presumably be more powerful than Gus. By way of contrast, Obitchba is president and Boner just a flaccid, alcoholic, empty suit representing a minority party in control of one half of the most emasculated of the three branches of US government. In other words: GROW A PAIR OBITCHBA!!!! PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON WOULD BE WEARING BONER'S BALLS AS EARRINGS AND HIS SEVERED 3" PENIS AS A NECKLACE!!!!!!!!!
Okay back to our regularly scheduled program.
Jesse at the AA meeting. Now don't get the Monkey started about the unbelievable whackness of the whole AA-inspired culture. And fortunately the show does not disappoint, as Jesse ends up doing the best blow-up job on one of these gay meetings this side of that episode of the Sopranos where they tried to do that "intervention" on Christopher and it ended up turning into a beatdown.
"Christapha, when we first stahted going out we made love every day. Now you can barely function as a man."
And then Pauly - our all-time favorite character (and in real life an actual mob soldier) coming in with the classic channeling of the Monkey: "You're WEAK!!!!!!! You're a DISGRACE!!!!!!!" No touchy-feely psycho-babble pussy-ass nonsense from Pauly. No indeed.
Bringing us to what will turn out to be an all-time great scene from the Breaking Bad pantheon. Hank at the DEA. Obligatory racial blast at Steve Gomez insinuating that he has found his natural calling as a doorman. Nice line - kind of a humorous and affectionate un-serious channeling of Pat Buchanan's nightly bile on MSNBC. Of course Buchanan would want Gomey to open a TRAIN CAR door. Before climbing in.
Then the meeting. A bravura performance by Dean Norris that had the Monkey on the edge of his seat and which sets up what will no doubt be the climactic arc of the season. Hank appears ready to concede his theory is a reach "except......"
FUCKING GOOD SHIT. Too much Beastler (which is to say ANY Beastler), but otherwise a strong contender for the top five of great episodes in the history of this badass show.
AGAIN written under the influence of Sangria.
