A New Song

You don't take out an international, multi-million dollar drug empire with out ramifications.  Last week, on Breaking Bad, we had Walt, Jesse and Mike deal with the immediate loose ends to keep themselves out of jail.  This week, in the season's second episode, "Madrigal," the repercussions are spreading out further.

We start in Germany, where the head of a company, Mr. Schuler, is tasting new sauces, but not with much gusto.  What is this, Lost?  BB rarely leaves Albuquerque and I don't think it's ever gone outside the Southwest.  But this is the Madrigal corporation that Gus Fring worked with, the one that supplied his superlab equipment.  So now German authorities are checking out the place to find out what's the connection, even as they're taking down their Los Pollos Hermanos signs around the building.  Schuler leaves the tasting, sees the police in his office, goes into a bathroom and commits suicide (by forcing a heart attack in a rather ornate way).  It may be one loose end tied up, but there's lots more to go.

At the White residence we watch Walt prepare a fake dose of ricin as we overhear a previous conversation where he and Jesse discuss the missing poisonous cigarette.  This is the rational old Walt we hear, not the arrogant Heisenberg--except he's doing it to fool Jesse.  He needs Jesse on his side--and does honestly seem to care about him--and if Jesse discovered he poisoned Brock (not to mention he allowed Jane to die) it'd be a fight to the death.

So Walt goes to Jesse's place to "look" for the cigarette, or at least the vial inside.  He allows Jesse to discover it in his Roomba.  As Walt flushes it, Jesse starts to cry.  He almost killed Walt over this, and he feels sorry.  Now he needs Mr. White, and his approval, more than ever.  Heisenberg has made sure he's got a solid partner.

Walt and Jesse have a sitdown with Mike, who only meets with them out of courtesy (and mostly courtesy to Jesse, I'd guess). They can cook, but he can hook them into the old distribution network.  Mike has seen enough of Walt, judging him (correctly) to be a dangerous person to work with and wants nothing to do with the enterprise.  (Gus was relatively level-headed and look what happened with him.)

At DEA HQ, Hank is walking again--if not well--and Gomie welcomes him home.  Hank must be some sort of hero now, having spotted Fring when no one else believed him.  The DEA are meeting with the Madrigal people, who wish to help to get rid of all the damage to their reputation.  Later, at the chief's office, it's clear their boss is getting the boot. He had Gus Fring under his nose the whole time and didn't catch on. The dramatic irony--Hank has Walt under his nose--is not lost on the audience. Hank is actually brilliant at his job, but Walt, whom he still sees as a clueless milquetoast, is his one blind spot.  We only have so many episodes left, so the question is when will Hank catch on, and what happens next.  We also discover Fring's laptop data was encrypted, and for all we know the authorities wouldn't have found anything, but thanks to the magnet caper, they found the routing number to overseas accounts.

At an out-of-the-way restaurant Mike has a meet with the mysterious Lydia, whom we've never met.  She's nervous.  She and Mike both worked for Gus, and there are a lot of loose ends--Lydia has a list of eleven names--who will likely be picked up by the DEA and could finger them.  (Some fans have complained that Gus's organization always seemed too small, but I just assumed we didn't see most of it--furthermore, I'd expect it to be compartmentalized.  No reason for everyone to know everyone else, as Lydia doesn't even know Gus's chemist, and she sure doesn't know he killed Gus.) Mike is disgusted she'd suggests murdering them--they're good men that he vetted, and they won't crack.  They've all be paid well by Gus, and part of that pay was to ensure they'd keep their mouths shut.  Lydia also brings up Chow, whom we saw at the end of the last season in some sort of caper that we didn't quite understand. All we know is Chow and the others were part of the organization.

Back at home Walt plays the father to Junior and Holly.  Meanwhile, Skyler is still in bed.  She doesn't want to go to the car wash. She doesn't want to do anything.  She now realizes just what she's bought into, and there's no way out (not until Walt dies, anyway), and she's depressed.

At the DEA, Mike is called in for an interview.  He sees Chow who's leaving.  Turns out Hank (with sidekick Gomie) want to talk to Mike. These two tough guys have never shared a scene together, and so this is a great moment.  They're questioning everyone who worked at Los Pollos Hermanos and Gus was head of security.  They go into his past. He once was a cop in Philly who left under unpleasant circumstances. (Could this be the "half measures" speech he made in season three?)

They want to know how a big league tough guy like Mike was hired to do security checks on fry cooks.  If there's one guy you can't sweat, it's Mike.  He gets up to walk out when Hank drops the bomb.  They've found out about Gus's secret accounts, including one that goes to Kaylee, Mike's beloved granddaughter.  She's got two million in her account. (Mike said Walt got paid a lot more, and I supposed that's true, but Mike was doing okay for himself.) Mike can't say anything about it, of course, just as Jesse had to watch the bag of money he left behind in his car go to Hank when he claimed he knew nothing about Tuco.

When Mike leaves, he knows everything has been shot to hell.  Not only does he and his grandkid have little to show for his work, but all those eleven guys Lydia listed will have their dough confiscated as well.  They're not going to be happy.

At Saul's place, Walt and Jesse discuss their new plans.  Walt wants Saul to find a new place where they can cook with no one watching.  No more RV, that's for sure.  As far as what they need to cook, they've got everything except the secret ingredient, methylamine.  It's just not out there, but there's no way Walt will go back to doing a pseudo cook.  Saul suggests maybe they just be happy they're still alive and walk away.  Walt will have none of it.  He's broke, for one thing.  More important, he's Heienberg, and Heisenberg is a drug lord, not a patsy.

Meanwhile, "Pop Pop" is playing with his when Chow calls.  The DEA have taken his money and he needs to talk about it before he talks to them again.  Mike agrees to come over.  Chow is being held at gunpoint when he says this, by the way.  Mike gets there, knowing something is up.  He gets the drop on the guy who wants to kill him.  It's one of the eleven whom Lydia has hired to kill the rest, including Mike.  The guy has already killed Chow.  Mike regretfully kills his former teammate.

(At this point there's an absurd anti-Romney ad that tries to make his financial experience a reason to vote against him.  Can this approach possibly work?)

We're in a very fancy residence and a little girl, Kira, gets a cookie from a Latino maid. In a dark corner, Mike waits with a gun.  Who's he gonna kill?  Lydia comes her--her place, her daughter. Mike pulls her aside and has her dismiss the maid.  He wants to kill her cleanly and dispose of the body, but Lydia's last request is the kid find her dead body and know she wasn't abandoned.  Ultimately, Mike can't pull the trigger, even though she put out a hit on him and two others have died already.  He simply asks if she can still get ahold of methylamine.  Looks like we're back in business.

So Mike, with no money (and a network of guys who need money) reconsiders and calls Walt.  He's in.  Walt goes to bed with Skyler, who's still cowering under the sheets.  He calmly tells her that she'll get used to hurting people like Ted once she realizes she's doing it for a good reason--family.  It's a cold moment, and reminds us that Walt's original reason to cook was always nonsense.  Gangsters and movie gangsters may make the family excuse, but no one should believe it.

Breaking Bad is the fastest hour of  TV out there.  And without much else on right now, it's tough to have to wait another week for the next refill.