Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 6 Recap: Buyout

Walt and company are busy cleaning up after last week’s shocking murder and we start with a silent montage of how they disposed of the body. I love how they handled the scene. You see them carefully taking apart the dirt bike so it would fit into an industrial barrel which they fill with acid. Once this is done Walt brings out another barrel and you just know what they plan to do with the boy’s body.

Click for a full (yet concise) recap with pictures.

Jesse is nowhere to be seen during this scene and we find out when Todd goes for a smoke that Jesse is outside. Todd tries to get in Jesse’s good graces by making small talk and my favorite line of the whole episode, “Shit happens, huh?” to which Jesse replies **Punch**.

Todd is using this act to convince the three partners that he is dedicated to the business. Jesse wants him gone, but Walt and Mike outnumber him and decide to keep him close. Mike gives Todd the good news, but threatens him all the same. Todd scrambles away from Vamonos Pest, but we see that he has kept the jar with the dead boy’s spider. I think that is proof that Todd was not sincere at all about killing out of necessity. The jar is a sign that Todd is morally bankrupt and likes to keep trophies. Hopefully the fingerprints don’t come back to bite these guys in the ass.

Mike is suffering from his own issues this episode, mainly in the form of Hank’s DEA team. They are unsuccessfully having Mike followed which is dangerous for the business. He is obviously too smooth to be caught and even delivers a handwritten Fuck You to let them know he knows exactly what they are up to. He also still has access to the bug in the bosses office to keep tabs on them. Despite his skills he realizes that he needs to make a change and talk to his partners.

He decides to leave the business and take his cut of the Methylamine.  Jesse sees this as a way to leave the business as well and Mike has a buyer for his share of the chemical as well. The buyer will pay $10m and Mike offers to pay the legacy costs from his share of the profit. Walt does the math and says that if they cook the Methylamine over the next year and a half the take would be over $300m. Jesse tries to convince Walt to sell his share also. He explains that money is more important than the risks. “Are we in the money business or the Meth business?” We don’t learn the answer to this question right away.

Mike takes Jesse to meet his buyer with a gallon sample of the Methylamine. The buyer is excited, but reveals it is because he thinks he is getting Fring’s blue off the street. He tells them he will only buy the chemical if he gets all 1000 gallons. He will also pay 15k per gallon, which is the price Mike wants. Jesse decides to tell Walt himself and to his surprise Walt invites him to his home.

Jesse is freaking out as soon as Walt opens the door, because Jesse is not supposed to interact with Walt’s personal life. Eventually when Jesse is told Skylar is not home he calms down enough to tell Walt about the buyer’s offer. Walt is not willing to sell his share and tells Jesse about the company he started before he began teaching Chemistry. The partners bought him out for $5,000 and now the company is worth $1.6 BILLION. He then answers Jesse’s earlier question, “You asked me if I was in the money business or the Meth business. Neither, I am in the empire business.” Jesse counters with, “Do you think a meth empire is something to be so proud of?” Then Skylar walks in! Jesse jumps up as if he was caught with his pants down and Walt insists he stay for dinner.

Skylar has just come from Marie’s house where she was blindsided by Marie telling her she knows about the Ted Beneke affair. Skylar had almost spilled the beans about everything, but the affair secret kept her mouth shut.

The dinner scene is amazing. If you can only watch 5 minutes of this week’s episode that is what you should watch. Poor Jesse is trying to make small talk and Skylar is drinking. Walt is quiet and perhaps enjoying the tension he has created. Jesse compliments Skylar’s ability to run the car wash and she asks what else he knows about her. He admits not much and she asks Walt, “Did you also tell him about my affair?” She takes the bottle and leaves the table. Jesse is horrified, but Walt seems smug. He tells Jesse that his family is no longer supporting him and that the business is all he has.

You can hear the desperation in Walt’s voice when he talks about the business being all he has and it leads to a late night visit to Vamonos Pest. Walt thinks he can snatch the Methylamine, but Mike is there waiting for him. Mike locks Walt in the office for the whole night to ensure that he doesn’t steal the chemical before the sale goes down. Walt takes this calmly, probably due to the gun sticking out of Mike’s waistline. In the morning, Mike tells Walt that he will have to restrain him as he has a meeting to attend. The meeting is not the sale of the stolen chemicals, but Saul is issuing a warning to the DEA about their harassment of the innocent senior citizen; Mike. This gets Mike a 24hr window of unsupervised time.

Meanwhile, Walt has cleverly found a way to escape his restraints and steal the Methylamine. When Mike returns he finds Jesse and Walt waiting in the office. Mike wants to shoot Walt, but Jesse begs him to listen to Walt’s proposal. He has a way that both Mike and Jesse to get their $5 million AND Walt gets to keep his Methylamine.

Unfortunately this is also where the episode ends….cliffhanger ugh!

Next week Heisenberg meets the buyer / his competition. I am so excited! Check out this awesome fan art, it details where the money has gone and shows us what Walt is using to build his meth empire!