5.7 Say My Name Unlike previous episodes at this stage of a season, however, Say My Name had a quiet inevitability to it. Mike and Walt have been at loggerheads all season, and their conflict was clearly coming to an end, so did anyone truly think that Mike would make the clean break and live happily ever after? No one ever gets out unscathed on Breaking Bad without first paying the price for their mistakes, and Mike’s biggest mistake throughout the entire series was to continually underestimate Walt – to let him worm his way out of trouble and into positions of power time after time after time. Last week, Mike left Walt limply cable-tied to a radiator next to the keys to the treasured methylamine which was parked next door – clearly not the actions of a man who is taking significant, or even adequate precautions But Mike was different (describing him in the past tense like this is brutal, by the way). He saw Walter for exactly what he was, as he demonstrated in what proved to be his final blazing argument with Walt: made to leave town after his lawyer was caught with hundreds and thousands of dollars of hazard pay and subsequently flipped by the DEA, Mike is heartbreakingly forced to abandon his granddaughter and quickly get out of dodge. He’s required to leave in such a hurry that he isn’t even able to grab his ’go-bag’, a case possibly full of clothes, toiletries, duct tape, makeshift torture instruments, and low-level military weaponry. Therefore, he’s required to have one final interaction with Walt, who readily volunteers to make the drop as he wants something in return – the nine names of the men who, now that their hazard pay has been stemmed, he knows will be being leaned on heavily by the DEA. While Mike’s amateur psychology here was first rate, ironically, it perhaps was Mike’s own pride that stopped him from dealing with Walter as effectively as he might have during their working relationship. Mike correctly identifies Walt’s ego as his biggest weakness, so if he had been able to at least pretend to respect Walt even a little bit, he would probably have found him a lot easier to deal with and may have ultimately escaped with his life. Easier said than done though. Mike ultimately couldn’t even feign respect for Walt, so violently opposed were their two approaches to business – Mike with his unerring loyalty, strong (relative) code of ethics and principles; and Walt with his cutthroat, do-whatever-it-takes to survive mentality. As a result, Mike was so disgusted by Walt that he refused to ever take him seriously as a man, let alone a boss – consistently skeptical of his ideas, addressing him in an almost constant sneer, and physically intimidating him on a number of occasions. And unless you haven’t noticed, Walt is all about being taken seriously as a man. He’s primarily in two businesses: 1) the empire business, and 2) the being taken seriously as a man business. But mainly the second one. Take the opening of the episode as Exhibit A, which saw Walt/Heisenberg at possibly his most swaggeringly aggressive yet, demanding that some high-level meth dealers “say his name” after they first were all-but forced to accept the terms of a counter deal he just laid out for them: “Heisenberg…” “You’re goddamn right.” It’s a crowning moment of machismo for Walt and his swinging dick Heisenberg persona, and even Mike is briefly and grudgingly respectful. But when Walt tries this same trick again later in his confrontation with Mike – using tough talk in a stubborn, steel-eyed negotiation as they face each other down like gunslingers – it has absolutely no effect on his weary ex-partner. Walt’s stunned to see that Mike’s not only not scared, but also ready to drop that quick, scathingly unflattering psych profile on him, one that also fairly transparently belittles his manhood (“You should have known your place!”) He then walks right up to him and snatches the bag right out of his hands, as if he were just an ordinary man and not a mythic drug lord. And it’s in these final moments Walt unwittingly cements himself as that absurd figure, perhaps more absurd than even Mike ever thought possible, as he suddenly comes around from an extremely ill-timed ‘senior moment’ to realize that his murder had been in vain – he could have easily got the names he was after from Lydia. This is already one of my favourite moments in Breaking Bad history – I laughed out loud when Walt metaphorically sniffed the gas he’d left on, as it was such a hilarious and character-appropriate way to illustrate Walt’s ever-loosening grip on reality. (As a quick aside, Jonathan Banks and particularly Bryan Cranston were both phenomenal in this episode, conveying some deeply complex character arcs with an intensity and intelligence that will surely be rewarded during the American awards season. Banks, and Mike, will be sorely missed.) All that’s left are yes-men who are either intimidated by him (Saul) or in thrall to him (Todd). We see a preview of Walt and Todd’s working relationship, and realise that the greatest asset of Jesse to Walt was his subservience, and his ability to be easily manipulated – here, however, Walt is surprised and happy to realise that manipulation now won’t be necessary, as he now has a pupil who is just as obedient, eager to learn and eager to please, with none of the fussy moral hang-ups that would consistently plague Jesse’s work getting in the way. Before Jesse got out though we got a nice best-of of Walt’s manipulation tactics, as he tried to use guilt, scorn, ridicule, pity, flat out anger, and money to persuade Jesse to stay. Walt’s endless lies and circular logic have become too much for even Jesse now, however – “It’s bullshit, every time” – and Jesse proves his moral fibre by agreeing to walk out on $5m if it means finally cutting ties with the increasingly deranged Walt. Or will Hank prove to be Walt’s main stumbling block to his empire-building, and a confrontation that’s been brewing for even longer will get resolved? Now that the main lead in the case has been murdered, it’s sure to cement Hank’s resolve that he’s getting closer, after his bosses all but shut down the investigation, and convince him to pump more time and effort into the project. But, perhaps most pressingly, how will the murder of Mike affect Walt, at least in the short-term? Walt’s self-mythologizing is heavily built around his status as a master planner, someone who canvasses every detail and outwits every other player in the game by always being sure he is a few moves ahead at every point: so for him to make this, the most basic of errors, one that would lead to him committing yet another murder (shortly after assuring Jesse that they were to be a thing of the past) out of pure, spiteful hot-headedness, should even penetrate Walt’s inches thick layers of denial and self-justification and make him realize that he is beginning to lose control. If he were to make another mistake like that, in another of the dangerous, precarious scenarios that Walt seemingly so craves being a part of, it could cost him any or all of the following: his freedom, his fortune, his life, and his children’s lives. Read Paul’s review of last week’s episode, Buyout, here. Follow Paul Martinovic on Twitter, or for more babble, check out his blog here.
