After the Gus' gruesome murder of Victor, both Walt and Jesse develop their own ways of dealing with it. Walt buys a gun from Bobby Singer; or a character played by the same actor, but still. It was a great scene and he was fun to watch.
While Walt is initially a bit clumsy on the draw, he does start to get the hang of it. He even starts to psyche himself into murder mode at two points in the episode, only for it to end differently. One was a red herring, but the later one was especially pathetic. After failing to arrange a meeting with Gus, Walt goes to his house. Walt dons the infamous Heisenburg hat, starts to make his move...and Gus calls him on his cell phone and tells him to go home.
Walt jumps to the conclusion that he has people watching him, but couldn't Gus have just seen him through the window? It also seems like an awkward moment as he seems to just turn around and get back in his car.
On the other hand, Mike does say later that if things did get drastic that Walt's gun wouldn't make a difference. I'd be skeptical, but it seems to be the case when Mike reacts to Walt's proposition to kill Gus to save their own skin. A part of me would have liked to see Walt at least try to put up a fight, but I guess that he's still not to that point yet. I do feel like Mike will be a target now too, but I could be wrong.
It's actually a surprising turn. Walt does make a legitimate point about how Mike could be disposed of as easily as Victor. Still, points for loyalty, I guess. Either that or he knows that going up against Gus won't work for whatever reason.
On other fronts, Jesse isn't doing so hot. Considering the drastic turnaround from where he seemed to be last episode, I figured the fear for his life was starting to kick in, but others say that it's guilt over Gale's death. I guess there's no reason why the two would be mutually exclusive, it could be both.
In any event, he throws a huge party. It was great to see Badger and Skinny Pete again. As was the case with Jane, I was disappointed to see them relapse after they were making so much progress. They don't seem too torn up over it, though, and it does lead to some amusing banter like debating which zombie video game world is the best in which to live. Also amusing, was Badger's theory as to why the local pizza place doesn't cut the pizza into slices (they pass the savings on to you!) Skinny Pete, on the other hand, thinks that it's a more "democratic" approach as people can decide how big a slice they want. Who knows? It was just entertaining to hear the debate.
Things seem to be going well for Hank, though you wouldn't know it by his attitude. He's able to celebrate his progress with his physical therapist, who even Marie admits has a way with him before offering him a full time position. For some reason, though, he seems to be pushing his frustrations on Marie.
I'm not sure why, she's been pretty good to him. She doesn't even seem all that bothered with his new hobby except for when it wakes her up at 2 in the morning.
It just makes you miss the crass jokester from season 1. I know, character development, but he was much easier to connect to back then. He doesn't come off as very sympathetic now, which he really should be given his condition.
Rounding out the episode's material, we see Skyler make her bid to buy the car wash. She's very thorough and does her research to figure out how much money the place pulls in. She looks into the market value of the property and even throws in an extra 50 G's as a show of good faith.
It proves to be moot as the guy holds a grudge and won't sell to Walt. On the one hand, I'm surprised this never occurred to her, but I don't think she knew the exact specifics of how Walt quit. Either way, that laser tag idea seems much more feasible now.
I also liked the "new policy" about re-weighing the product that Walt and Jesse deliver. I guess it was only a matter of time before that came back to bite them and it seems like Jesse's side operation could be finished. Where as Gus may not have cared before, given how thin the ice is now, I'm guessing he won't put up with it anymore.
All in all, this was another strong episode. It had a good balance of dark tension and humor. There's solid character progression on several fronts. This season looks like it's shaping up to be a good one and we're only two episodes in. It'll be interesting to see where things go from here.
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