4.9 Bug Bug, more than most episodes of Breaking Bad, was very reminiscent of The Sopranos in some of its more intense moments – the first noticeable one came in Jesse’s slo-mo reaction shot to a fellow lackey of Gus’ having his brains shot out a few feet away from him, which was very similar to a scene in a later Sopranos ep, where Silvio carries on talking for a few seconds after blood has just sprayed him in the face. The slo-mo horror feels like a good representation of what it actually would feel like to be shocked with that kind of violence. It’s another good example of the ‘apocalyptic realism’ (someone else came up with this term on another forum, and I can’t think of a better way of describing the Breaking Bad aesthetic than that) which has always informed the show’s violent moments and given them such power. By the same token, it does such a great job of establishing plausibility and grounding its high concept in reality, why spoil it? It’s not like there aren’t a surfeit of incredibly tense, powerful and exhilarating moments in the show, and this episode added another all-time great scene to an already overstuffed pantheon. The final scene between Walt and Jesse was unflinchingly brutal, and again strongly reminiscent of The Sopranos, both in its emotional intensity (the impassioned arguing between the two men bringing to mind Carmela and Tony’s almighty contretemps late in the series – and let’s face it, Walt and Jesse is more of a traditional marriage at this point than Walt and Skyler), and physical intensity (Tony and Ralphie – nuff said). A year later, thanks to Walt’s influence, he’s been forced to assassinate the world’s most docile man; has seen shootings, throat-slittings, men being beaten to death, bodies dissolved in acid, decapitations, and enough horror and carnage to populate a minor land-war, and now he’s about to be sent to work for a Mexican cartel, which even Jesse knows isn’t the most stable employment in the world. He doesn’t even know that Walt purposefully let his girlfriend die, watching her as she did so. Even Walt’s one apparently heroic act (saving Jesse from being murdered by the street dealers) has to be viewed in the context of his later behaviour – perhaps it was motivated mainly as a power play aimed at Gus, or out of guilt over Jane, rather than being a genuinely altruistic act. If anyone in history ever deserved a total hiding from someone else, it’s Walt from Poor Jesse. Because, despite all this, Poor Jesse has remained totally loyal to Walt, despite being marginalised and ridiculed constantly by him. Jesse may act and speak like an idiot (although he’s mainly stopped tagging his sentences with “Bitch!” now), but he’s sensitive, thoughtful, and surprisingly perceptive. When it looks as though Gus is insinuating Walt will be killed, he immediately stands up for his ‘mentor’. The scene between Gus and Poor Jesse was interesting in the way Poor Jesse was made uncomfortable by Gus’ politeness– he’s so used to the high-pitched bickering between him and Walt, that he struggles to deal with Gus’ calm formality, and is suitably chastened when Gus asks if they can “Talk like men”. Poor Jesse got his chance to bicker later, though – did he ever. He pours his heart out to Walt, looking for advice on the bombshell that he will be shipped off to Mexico, and Walt just sits there, oblivious, stewing over his discovery (via the titular bug) that Jesse has been at Gus’ house and, once again, failed to kill him. That leaves Skyler, who is embroiled in problems of her own – Ted, her silver fox of a boss, showed up unexpectedly to inform her that her name is all over a rotten pair of books currently under investigation by the IRS. There was a great visual gag where Skyler told Ted to sell his BMW to pay off the debts, only to watch Ted seconds later climb into a grotty hatchback and drive off. What first seemed like an unnecessary reintroduction of a superfluous supporting character actually revealed itself to be a brilliant way of tightening the noose around Walt’s neck. Ted could lead the agents to Skyler’s precarious money-laundering operation at the garage, or Skyler could use the drug money to pay off Ted’s debts. Would she steal it? Would Walt refuse to give it, and order Ted be dealt with in a different way? Either way, Ted fans, I’m willing to bet his life is about to become a lot worse than just driving around in a hatchback. Read our review of the last episode, Hermanos, here. Follow Paul Martinovic on Twitter, or for more babble check out his blog.
