Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 5 Recap: Dead Freight

Wow, I think this was the best episode of the season thus far. Towards the end I was just stuck on the edge of my seat and I was so close to screaming at Walt through my TV screen.  Okay, if we are being honest I may have yelled a few times; this episode was that suspenseful and action packed!

We start off in the desert following a young kid on a dirt bike, innocently catching big freakin’ eight legged creature. Ugh!  Gross!

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Walt is really at the top of his game in this episode he visits Hank at DEA headquarters to admire his new office. When left alone the two of them start talking about Walt and Skylar’s marital problems and you can see how awkward this is for “I’m too macho to emote” Hank. Walt begins to tear and confesses that Skylar doesn’t love him and that she thinks he is a bad influence on the children. He explains that Skylar will be leaving to see a therapist soon. He begins crying harder and Hank cannot take it. He offers coffee and practically runs out of his office leaving the head of a budding meth empire, alone in the office of the man who runs the local DEA. Walt sits for a second then springs into action planting bugs and gaining access to the DEA computer.

We are then swept to a dank basement where Lydia has been captured and taken hostage. Mike handcuffs her to the table and we see that both Jesse and Walt are present. You can tell that Mike is itching to kill her, but in order to keep Jesse happy they hand Lydia a script and they dial Hank.

She tells him that she discovered trackers on the barrels and asks if they are DEA. (At this point I think she is totally guilty) Hank tells her he will be by soon to check out the barrels. They hang up and the meth dream team surrounds Jesse’s laptop to listen to the bug Walt planted earlier. Hank asks his people if they planted the device and they didn’t do it.  (Ha! Lydia is guilty!) Mike is ready to kill her now, but Jesse is still pleading with him to believe her cries of innocence.

Walt sides with Mike and just before she is shot Hank’s voice interrupts them. He has called another DEA branch and found out that they had planted the tracker! (Lydia, I apologize. I thought you were guilty! Woops) Jesse seems so relieved, but Mike still wants to kill her.  Mike tells his partners that Lydia put a hit out on him. They also discuss the fact that she is useless now that the DEA is watching the warehouse.  She pleads and says she can find a way to get them Methylamine, but it falls of deaf ears. In her desperation to live, Lydia she ups the ante with the best line, “Who said anything about Barrels, I’m talking an ocean of the stuff!”

This catches the men’s attention and they lay out plans for a heist. Apparently Madrigal gets their Methylamine from a freight train that happens to chug through their home state. On top of that this train has to pass through a dead zone. No cell reception, nothing! The men immediately discuss how to get the Methylamine with the least amount of hassle. Mike of course wants to kill the crew and steal the Methylamine snatch and grab style.

The men reconvene at Jesse’s house to discuss the possibility of a train heist. Mike and Walt are at each other’s throats again. Walt wants to stop cooking, but Mike is thinking of the Legacy money they need to keep his locked up men quiet. Jesse breaks up the fight by offering a way to siphon the Methylamine without killing anyone or even alerting the government that it has been stolen.

I’ll just sum up the plan.

They will have two tanks buried under the train tracks. One filled with water and one empty. The train will be stopped by a distraction and when the conductor is busy they will siphon the chemicals and add water to replace the missing weight. The water will dilute the chemicals by only 4% which will be noticed, but blamed on the origin; China. No one will know that the heist has taken place! Another genius plan thanks to Jesse. They need an extra pair of hands for this to work and they invite Todd along. I think his help with the Nanny cam on their first house cook earned him some points with Walt.

Back on Walt’s home front…

Hank and Marie are taking care of the kids and while the baby is fine and happy. Junior or as he prefers to be called, Flynn is frustrated and kind of pissed off. He doesn’t like being kicked out of his home without so much as a reason and it is adding tension to the whole situation. Flynn decides to go home and lock himself in his room until his parents tell him what is going on. Walt gives him a man to man talk and Flynn is unhappily on his way back to Hank and Marie’s house.

This leaves Walt and Skylar alone. Skylar offers Walt a deal; she will be the perfect partner. She will launder the money, keep all his secrets, take care of the home,  do whatever he asks, and all she wants in return is to have the children live with Hank and Marie for their safety.

She gives him an example that one day someone will knock on the door looking for Walt and they will instead find Skylar and their children. I personally think that Skylar is worried about who she and Walt have become more than a stranger coming to harm the children. I think part of her fixation with Walt being a bad influence is the fear of her own darkness affecting them.

Instead of accepting or declining her offer he tells her that she will be going out of town to visit a therapist. This is the lie he told Hank earlier in the episode and when she asks him if he is going to bury bodies he replies with the truth, “I’m going to rob a train.”

Speaking of trains, let’s talk Heist!

This was the most exciting scene of the whole episode. Walt had told the boys that they needed 920L of Methylamine to match with the water weight they were using to replace it. The train approaches and Mike signals the broken down dump truck to get into position on the tracks. They are situated where the train has just enough train track to stop before hitting the dump truck and its frantic driver. The driver is doing all he can to distract the conductors.

Meanwhile, Todd has climbed the train car and is opening the top to drop the water hose in. Jesse is under the train doing the same to attach a hose to get the chemicals out. Walt calls for them to start. The chemicals are flowing out and Todd is waiting for Walt to send the water his way. The tanks they have are huge and it takes a while to fill. The conductors are losing their patients with the truck driver and they attempt to push the truck, but it is also full of packed dirt. The truck is not going anywhere.

Quick cuts between the tanks and the conductors build up the suspense and then it is ruined when a man in a huge truck comes by and offers to push the decoy off the tracks. Mike urges Walt to stop, but Walt ignores him. They start pumping water into the train, but they are barely at 600L. The Good Samaritan circles around and pushes the dump truck off the tracks so easily that it is kind of impressive.

The tanks are at 800L now, but Walt is not stopping! (At this point I am yelling at screen hoping Walt will hear me telling him to be smart and stop) The conductors are back on the locomotive and you can hear the engines roaring to life. Walt is watching the gauge and it is over the 920, but he hasn’t stopped yet!! There is steam coming out and finally Walt yells for them to stop. Methylamine is spilling out of the buried tanks! Todd pulls the water hose and quickly rivets the cap in place and replaces the inspection tags. Jesse is doing the same underneath the train and it is pulling off the tracks. Todd is still on top and Jesse is lying flat on his back with the moving train inches above his body. Todd tweaks his ankle jumping off the moving train and Jesse is freaked out, but unharmed.

They all stand over the tanks and Jesse yells, “Yes! Bitch!” and you can finally exhale.  They celebrate a little then realize that they are being watched. This kid from the opening scene is standing there on his dirt bike with his spider in a jar. The kid waves at the men and they wave back completely freaked out.

Todd doesn’t hesitate; he just pulls a gun from the back of his pants and shoots the child. Jesse freaks!

END

Oh my god! This is the best episode so far. I enjoyed every minute. Todd is like the anti-Jesse, he has no moral qualms about getting his hands dirty and I think that will create a lot of drama in the future. Also give Walt and Mike a way to get things done outside of Jesse. He killed a child! I am still not over it.

Next week:

Jesse is upset about the child murder. And Mike is being tailed by the DEA leading to a declaration of I’m Out!

Great line: “Are we in the meth business or the money business?”  Walt: “Neither, I am in the empire business.”