Breaking Bad Review: The Scientific Method

Breaking Bad’s highly anticipated fourth season got off to a somewhat silent, but definitely deadly, start as creator Vince Gilligan kept the dialogue to a minimum and provided the show’s trademark unblinking tension with bone-chilling exposition that spoke for itself. After last season signed off with a stunning cliffhanger that saw Jesse (Emmy winner Aaron Paul) fire a gun in the face of an unsuspecting Gale (David Costabile), viewers were left wondering if the eager, opera-loving heir to Walt’s throne had really fallen victim to Jesse’s impulsive ploy to save Walt’s life. While all these questions got answered with unequivocal certainty, a whole new host of inquiries regarding the future of Walt (three-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston) and Jesse’s volatile business relationship with the methodically ruthless Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) cropped up to help build suspense for perhaps the most gripping season of Breaking Bad yet.

Before Gale’s unfortunate fate could be revealed, however, the premiere opened with a curious flashback to Gale’s first days as Gus’s primary meth cook. While the episode’s title, “Box Cutter,” certainly refers to Gale himself as he opened the newly delivered lab equipment with unbridled glee (“That sound?” he chirped while giving the metal a gentle knock. “Quality!”), it’s soon discovered the name mostly pertains to the box cutting tool itself when a pointedly lingering shot established the blade as an ominously foreshadowing Chekhov’s gun.

Further enlightenment was introduced as an overly chatty Gale expressed awestruck befuddlement at the quality product his “competition” could produce. Gus initially waved away Gale’s insistence that the difference between 99 percent purity and 96 is chemically gargantuan, declaring that the creator of the whiz-bang blue stuff wasn’t “a professional,” in spite of his elite background in chemistry. Poor, clueless Gale simply lacked the fundamental ability to know when to shut up and shrugged, “If he’s not a professional, I don’t know what that makes me.”

This important scene helped fill the cracks of Gale’s background with Gus, giving viewers the crucial revelation that Walt had only been brought in for his coveted formula and was considered disposable all along. Unfortunately for Gale, Walt’s “unprofessional” qualities, along with the “other considerations” Gus found unattractive, turned out to be useful survival instincts that led to Gale’s untimely demise, as the crime scene at Gale’s apartment exposed the success of Jesse’s reckless, but requisite, decision. While Mike (Jonathan Banks) held Walt captive at the lab, Victor (Jeremiah Bitsui) made the sloppy mistake of investigating the gruesome evidence of Gale’s murder with a group of gawking witnesses gathered in the doorway. Angry and undoubtedly frightened about Gus’s impending reaction, Victor then found a catatonic Jesse sitting in his car, too paralyzed with despair to flee.

While an increasingly resourceful Skyler (Anna Gunn) continued to break bad on her own terms while searching for Walt (faking a panic attack to convince the dubious locksmith to let her inside Walt’s condo was brilliant, and thrusting the wailing baby in his arms certainly didn’t hurt, either), he and Jesse sat in lockdown at the hands of Mike and Victor to await the wrath of Gus. Here began the trend of deafening silence and desperate testimony that saturated the episode with ratcheting tension. Once the calculated sound of Gus’s footsteps entered the cavernous lab, the men launched individual fight-or-flight tactics in attempt to stay alive. Victor knew he blew it by stomping through the crime scene in plain view of Gale’s neighbors, and scrambled to prove his worth by replicating Walt’s cooking method step by step. As Jesse remained mute in a consuming grief for what he’d done, Walt thrust himself into the defense strategy he knows best: asserting inarguable logic. When a steely-eyed Gus stoically changed out of his blazer and button-down into an alarming hazmat suit, Walt provided the only words spoken for the majority of the scene as he urgently reminded his boss that his “recipe” needs more than a “short-order cook” like Victor to ensure productivity. By the time a still-silent Gus seized the box cutter with menacing control, however, neither Walt’s declaration nor Victor’s demonstration could sway his decision. Victor’s throat was then suddenly sliced with calculated horror, made all the more gruesome as Gus held his gasping victim’s head back to spray the onlookers with a sputtering fountain of blood, staring at a nauseous, recoiling Walt. Jesse, on the other hand, seemed to come alive at the extreme measures unfolding before him, leaning forward with a threatening sneer as though he finally embraced the severity of the situation he’d found himself in.

At this point even Walt was rendered mute as Gus, having successfully conveyed his message, retreated to put his sport coat and spectacles back on before stepping past the gaping onlookers and drained corpse and finally announcing, “Well? Get back to work.” Those five words are the only dialogue Gus uttered throughout his entire reign of terror, but each moment of his presence conveyed volumes.

The final minutes of the episode provided a much-needed dose of Breaking Bad’s signature dark humor, in spite of the macabre circumstances. A winking nod to an earlier season’s snafu was introduced as Walt, Jesse, and Mike were left to dispose of Victor’s body. Mike’s priceless look of incredulous amusement as our dynamic duo stuffed Victor into a plastic cylinder gave way to sickened skepticism as hydrofluoric acid helped literally dissolve the evidence. Ew. After a not-so-subtle segue transports Walt and Jesse from mopping up blood in the lab to swirling fries in a mound of ketchup at Denny’s, we learn they took a cue from the Pulp Fiction playbook and apparently trashed their Victor-soaked clothes in favor of ill-fitting cargo pants and Kenny Rogers t-shirts. As Jimmie Dimmick would have said, they looked “like a couple of dorks.”

Interestingly, the increasing dichotomy between Jesse’s transformation and Walt’s illustrated a trajectory opposite from what we saw in the lab before Victor’s murder. As Jesse heartily dug into a syrup-coated Grand Slam, he conveyed a cocksure confidence that he and Walt are “on the same page” as the merciless Gus. “What page is that?” asked a hesitant Walt. “The one that says, ‘If I can’t kill you, you’ll sure as shit wish you were dead,’” Jesse replied, displaying none of the core-shaken trauma that riddled him mere hours earlier.

Although Walt and Jesse at least agree on the notion they’ve bought themselves some time to thwart Gus’s formulating revenge, the final shot of the episode let viewers know that Gus may be the least of their problems. As police pored over Gale’s apartment, a folder emblazoned with the words “LAB NOTES” came into full frame, opening up an entirely new set of roadblocks that may force Gus to become an ally after all for the sake of the business, and proving to be a threat even more, ahem, cutthroat than the box cutter’s unforgiving blade.

Were you satisfied with the season premiere of Breaking Bad? Do you think Gus whacked Victor because of his foolishness, or to simply send a message to Walt and Jesse? Is Saul skipping town? Is Hank developing a “crystal” problem of his own? Why was Gale cooking meth in the first place, anyway? Post your thoughts in the comments section below!

Season 4, Episode 1: Box Cutter (originally aired July 17, 2011)

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Photographs courtesy of AMC/Ursula Coyote.