Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today we are not
just scratching the surface. We are going, well,
we're going all the way down to the bedrock.
We really are. Yeah, we're taking a stack of
sources here. Yeah. So we've got articles, we
have critical reviews, production notes, even
some scientific fact checks. And we're unpacking
all of them. to understand the machinery behind
one of the most pivotal hours of television history.
It really is one of those hours. It's one of
those episodes that when you look back at it,
you realize it set the trajectory for literally
everything that followed. It's the exact moment
the show decided what it actually wanted to be.
Exactly. So let's orient ourselves for a second.
What is our mission today for you listening?
We are focusing our laser beam on Breaking Bad
Season 1, Episode 2. The title is Cats in the
Bag. Such a great title. It is. And if you think
the pilot, which, you know, we all know is iconic,
if you think that was a chaotic adrenaline rush.
Oh, it totally was. Yeah. This episode is where
the hangover hits. It's where the adrenaline
wears off, the headache sets in, and the messy,
gruesome reality of what just happened starts
to solidify. That's a really great way to put
it, actually. The pilot is the crime. And this
episode is the consequence. The consequence.
Usually in television, you have a pilot that
sets up the premise and then the second episode
basically repeats the premise to make sure the
audience gets it. Right. Just like hammering
it home. Exactly. But this episode doesn't do
that at all. It immediately deconstructs the
premise. So let's set the scene. Based on the
sources we've got lined up, we have the production
history, we have critical breakdowns from IGN
and the AV Club and the plot mechanics themselves.
And I want to start with a question for you,
just looking at the big picture here. What is
the vibe shift from episode one to episode two?
Because looking at these notes, it feels drastic.
Oh, it's totally drastic. The pilot is almost
a heist movie in miniature. Yeah. It's fast.
It's frantic. You have the sirens. You have gas
masks. You have explosions. The pants flying
through the air. Right. The pants. But this episode,
which aired on January 27th, 2008, it puts the
brakes on hard. It was written by the series
creator Vince Gilligan and directed by Adam Bernstein.
And it forces the characters and honestly the
audience, too, to just sit in the massive mess
they made. And the critics seem to really love
that shift, which is interesting because usually
slowing down. is kind of PV code for boring.
Right. But looking at the numbers in our sources
here, IGN gave this episode a staggering 9 .6
out of 10. Wow. I mean, that is incredibly high
for the second episode of a brand new series.
Usually shows are still, you know, kind of finding
their footing. It is remarkably high. And the
A .V. Club gave it an A -. There is this fantastic
quote from Seth Emanatin over at IGN that I think
really nails what we are going to be talking
about today. Oh, it's here. He was discussing
the chemistry of the characters. He said it's
like they're puzzle pieces and they're jagged
edges aren't even close to matching, but they
fit somehow. Jagged edges. I love that. Because
literally nothing about this episode is smooth.
It is all jagged edges, literally and metaphorically.
You have the jagged edge of the broken plate,
which will. We'll definitely get to that later.
And the jagged edges of Walt and Jesse's relationship.
And that leads us right into the big aha moments
we need to look out for in this deep dive. We
are definitely going to talk about the infamous
bathtub incident. Oh, ma 'am. Which I know you
are excited to unpack because the science behind
it is, let's just say, volatile. Oh, I cannot
wait to get into the chemistry of that catastrophe.
I have so many questions about hydrofluoric acid
that need answering. We will definitely get there.
But we are also going to look at a really fascinating
piece of production history regarding the character
Crazy. Right. There is a very specific reason
he is in this episode at all, and it actually
wasn't the original plan. That's wild. It's a
perfect example of how happy accidents can totally
shape a masterpiece. See, that is the stuff I
absolutely love. The accidents that shape the
narrative. Yeah. Okay, so let's dive right in.
Let's start with the title itself, Cats in the
Bag. It sounds like a nursery rhyme, or maybe
something your grandfather would say. But knowing
this show, I have a feeling it's something a
bit darker. Much darker. It's actually a direct
cultural reference to a classic 1957 film noir
called Sweet Smell of Success. Okay. I haven't
actually seen it, but I know it's legendary for
its dialogue. What is the specific connection
here? So in that film, you have a character named
J .J. Hunsaker. who is this extremely powerful,
very corrupt newspaper columnist. And he asks
a character named Sidney Falco about a dirty
scheme they are cooking up. Okay. He asks him,
that means you've got a plan. Can you deliver?
And let me guess, the reply gives us our title.
Precisely. Sidney Falco replies, tonight, before
you go to bed. Cats in the bag and the bags in
the river. The cats in the bag and the bags in
the river. Okay, let's unpack this for a second.
In the movie, that phrase clearly implies that
the problem is solved. It's handled. Right, it's
a done deal. The problem is contained in the
bag and disposed of in the river. Exactly. It
implies a perfectly clean resolution, a specific
plan executed perfectly. It really implies ultimate
competence. And the irony here, the whole reason
Vince Gilligan chose this specific title, is
that in Breaking Bad, absolutely nothing is in
the bag. Right. The cat is definitely not in
the bag and the bag is definitely not in the
river. No. It is the complete opposite of a clean
resolution. It's almost like the show is mocking
its own characters. It totally is. It frames
the entire episode as a study in absolute failure.
They think they have a plan. They think they
are living in a slick movie where they can just
handle it. But reality just keeps getting in
the way. So let's look at where we left off to
really set the context for this whole failed
plan. Yeah. We are picking up immediately after
the pilot. There is no time jump here. We are
right there in the panic. Walt and Jesse are
in the RV. They've got the gas masks on. They've
literally just poisoned two drug dealers, Crazy
8 and Emilio, with phosphine gas. And they are
actively driving this massive mobile meth lab.
back to jesse's house now a really key detail
here that the sources point out this house used
to belong to jesse's late aunt all right the
ant it's a suburban setting it has a nice lawn
it has neighbors this isn't some sketchy warehouse
in an industrial district it's a quiet normal
street which just makes the presence of a bullet
riddled rv containing a meth lab and two bodies
even more jarring the contrast is immense that
dissonance is so key to the show's entire visual
language so they park the rv they open the door
fully expecting to just drag out two corpses
just a simple disposal problem right but here
is the twist that kicks the whole episode into
gear what do they actually find they find that
emilio is dead he's gone But Crazy 8, he is still
breathing. That is the exact moment the clean
plan goes completely out the window. He somehow
survived the phosphine gas, which, by the way,
is incredibly nasty stuff. But he's alive. So
now Walt and Jesse aren't just dealing with a
gross disposal issue. They're dealing with a
hostage situation. They have abruptly moved from
accidental killers to kidnappers actively contemplating
murder. And this leads us right into what I call
the comedy of errors segment of our deep dive.
Because you'd think, OK, he's alive. They are
criminals. They'll handle it. But they are so
bad at this. They are terrible at it. So bad.
And that's the absolute brilliance of the writing.
It completely de -glamorizes the crime. The next
day, there's this scene that That is almost slapstick
comedy, but so incredibly dark. Walt is driving
to Jesse's house to figure out what to do. And
who does he see? He sees Crazy 8. Right. A completely
bedraggled Crazy 8 just staggering down the street
in the middle of this nice suburb. The visual
here is just wild. You have this terrifying drug
dealer. But he's probably half poisoned. His
clothes are all messed up. He's stumbling around.
Walt pulls up, probably panicking, and tries
to get his attention. He does. And Crazy 8 looks
at him, recognizes him, probably is the guy who
just gassed him, and tries to run. But he is
in absolutely no condition to run. The source
material describes it so perfectly. It says he
runs into a tree and collapses. He runs into
a tree. You know, in normal action movies, the
villain escapes into the night. He scales a giant
fence, steals a car, and breaking back. the villain
runs into a tree because he's woozy. It's so
deeply grounded in reality. It really is. It
strips away the whole myth of the super criminal.
He's just a guy who is seriously hurt and disoriented.
So Walt has to physically load this unconscious
heavy man into the trunk of his car. Oh man.
Just imagine the stress of that. This is a mild
mannered high school chemistry teacher manhandling
a drug dealer into a trunk in broad daylight
just praying Mrs. Johnson next door doesn't look
out her front window. And then they managed to
get him back to Jesse's basement. So now they
have a real containment problem. How do they
secure him? They don't have police handcuffs.
They don't have a holding cell. They use a bike
lock. A bike lock. They chain him by the neck
to a wooden structural pole in the basement using
a heavy -duty U -lock. Again, the improvisation
is just so striking. They aren't using professional
cartel gear. They're using whatever junk Jesse
literally has lying around his aunt's house.
It just highlights how unbelievably unprepared
they are for any of this. Exactly. So now the
situation has evolved. They have a corpse in
the RV, that's Emilio, and a living witness in
the basement. Crazy 8. And this brings us to
one of the most crucial psychological turning
points in the entire series. The coin toss. Oh,
it was a huge moment. Yeah. Because they can't
decide what to do. They are completely paralyzed.
They're arguing in the kitchen. Voices raised.
Panic really setting in. They are. Walt suggests
disposing of Emilio's corpse using chemical means.
Hydrofluoric acid. Which we will get to the messy
specifics of that. Oh, we will. But they also
realize Crazy 8 is a massive liability. He knows
who they are. He knows their faces. He knows
where Jesse lives. So Walt says. We have to flip
for it. Let's just pause on that for a second.
We have to flip for it. It is a complete abdication
of responsibility. Walt is the one who logically
knows Crazy 8 has to die for their own safety,
but he simply cannot bring himself to make the
active decision. He wants the coin to decide.
He essentially wants fate to take the blame.
It's cowardly, isn't it? It's trying to keep
his own hands clean while actively planning a
murder. So they flip the coin. What is the breakdown
of the toss? Jesse wins the toss. And what does
winning even mean in this twisted scenario? Yeah.
Usually winning means you get the prize. Here
winning means you get the slightly less traumatizing
job. Right. Winning means he gets to choose his
horrible job. And Jesse very quickly chooses
to dispose of the corpse. Which really tells
you something profound about Jesse, doesn't it?
Dealing with a dead body is incredibly gruesome.
It's heavy lifting. It smells. It's disgusting.
But it's passive. Exactly. It's gross, but it
is not killing. A corpse is already just an object.
By choosing the corpse, Jesse forces Walt into
the other role. Walt loses the toss. He is left
with the direct task of killing Crazy Eight.
This is where it gets really interesting for
Walt's character development. I mean, he just
broke bad in the pilot, sure. He killed those
guys in self -defense in the RV. But this. This
is straight up premeditated execution. That is
the absolute key distinction. In the pilot, it
was pure reaction, pure adrenaline. Here he has
time to think. He has hours to think. He has
to actually walk down those basement stairs,
look a conscious man in the eye, and end his
life. And what we'll see in this episode is that
Walt is simply not ready for that. He is not
a killer yet. Let's talk about that internal
struggle. Because Walt doesn't just march down
there and do the deed. He hesitates. He stalls
constantly. He agonizes over it. He actually
prepares to do it at one point. He prepares to
asphyxiate Crazy 8 with a plastic bag. There
is this intense shot of him holding the bag,
breathing heavily, really trying to psych himself
up. The irony of the title comes back again.
Cats in the Bag. He's literally holding the bag.
But he stops. He just can't go through with it.
And instead of violence, the pendulum swings
wildly to guilt. He starts actively taking care
of him. It's bizarre to watch, right? He's keeping
this guy a prisoner, chained to a pole, but he's
acting like his private nurse. Yeah. It's this
weird cognitive dissonance. He brings him food.
He makes him a sandwich and actually cuts off
the crusts. The crusts. Right? He brings him
water. He provides a bucket for a toilet. He
even brings him a roll of toilet paper. It's
like he is desperately trying to hold on to his
own humanity while doing something completely
monstrous. He wants to believe he is still a
good guy, even though he is a man chained by
the neck in a basement. There is that moment
where Jesse comes back upstairs and asks, is
he dead? And Walt lies to him. Or maybe he's
just bargaining with himself. He promises Jesse
he will do it tomorrow. He is just buying time.
He is hoping, perhaps, that the problem will
somehow magically solve itself or that he'll
magically find another way out without having
to pull the trigger. While Walt is playing nurse
and struggling with his conscience in the basement,
we have a whole other storm brewing on the home
front. Skylar White. Skylar is such an important
character to analyze here. In so many crime dramas,
especially from this specific era of television,
The wife is just a prop. She's there to be nagging
or completely oblivious. But Skylar is highly
intelligent. She is intuitive. She absolutely
knows something is off. Yeah. Walt is acting
weird. He's disappearing at odd hours. He's taking
strange phone calls and whispering. So what does
she do? She doesn't just sit there waiting. She
investigates. She goes into full detective mode.
Jesse had called Walt's home phone earlier in
the chaos. That was a huge mistake on his part.
Skyler takes that number, which he tracked via
star 69 or caller ID, and uses the Internet to
trace it. Which, you know, in 2008 was a bit
of a novelty for audiences, seeing that... reverse
lookup search on a chunky desktop computer. It
really places the show in a specific time. And
she finds something. She discovers Jesse Pinkman's
social media website. I love that the source
mentions this specifically. It's probably a MySpace
page or something very similar. It really dates
the show in a charming way, but it also shows
exactly how sloppy Jesse is. He's got his entire
life online. So she confronts Walt. She has the
printed page. She has the name. Who is this Jesse
Pinkman? And Walt is forced to come up with a
lie right on the spot. And this is kind of the
birth of the Walt. The Walt is a bad liar trope.
Or maybe the Walt is a surprisingly good manipulator
trope, depending on how you look at the results.
What is his cover story? He tells her that Jesse
sells him marijuana. Marijuana. It's such a beautifully
small, manageable lie compared to the reality
of I am manufacturing crystal meth and I have
a hostage locked in a basement. It really is.
And it works, at least partially. It explains
the sudden secrecy. It explains the erratic behavior.
It even explains the association with a young
burnout like Jesse. But it also puts Skylar on
an immediate warpath because she doesn't just
accept it and move on. She decides she needs
to confront the source directly. This scene creates
incredible tension. Skylar drives to Jesse's
house, the very house where the bodies are currently
located. It creates this classic Hitchcockian
suspense. We, the audience, know exactly what
is inside that house. We know there's a dead
body in the RV and a live hostage in the basement.
Skyler does not know any of this. She confronts
Jesse right outside on the driveway. And what
is Jesse doing right at that exact moment? He
is actively moving Emilio's body from the RV
into the house. Oh, my God. Yeah. Talk about
jagged edges. She is angrily yelling at him about
selling pot to her husband, and he is frantically
trying to hide a literal corpse. He's literally
shielding the body with his own body while she
lectures him. She warns him off. She plays her
ultimate trump card. She tells him point blank
that her brother -in -law is a DEA agent. Yeah,
which obviously terrifies Jesse. thinks the raid
is imminent right then and there. But the incredible
irony, and the source points this out specifically,
is that Skyler does not notice the corpse. It's
right there. She is so hyper -focused on the
moral issue of the marijuana that she completely
misses the capital crime happening right under
her nose. It's a huge near miss. But it firmly
establishes Skyler as a major force to be reckoned
with. She isn't going to make this criminal life
easy for Walt. She isn't a passive observer.
She's an active participant in the unraveling
of Walt's secrets. Not at all passive. And it
reinforces that Walt's two worlds, the criminal
underworld and the domestic family life, are
on a massive collision course. Okay, so we have
Walt stalling on the murder. We have Skylar closing
in on the truth. But we really have to get to
the main event of the episode, the disaster that
completely defines this hour of television, the
bathtub incident. This is where hard science
meets absolute incompetence. And it's where the
show firmly proves it has a very strong stomach
for gore. So Walt, being the genius chemist,
gave Jesse very specific instructions on how
to dispose of Emilio's body. Let's really unpack
the science here, because it sounds like dark
magic, but it's pure chemistry. Right. Walt tells
Jesse to use hydrofluoric acid. Now, this is
a nasty, nasty chemical. It is highly corrosive.
But he gives him a very crucial condition along
with the acid. He tells him he must buy a bin
made of polyethylene. Polyethylene, a very specific
type of plastic. Why? Why does plastic survive
this super acid when bone and metal don't? It's
all about molecular structure. Hydrofluoric acid
attacks things that contain silicon, like glass
or ceramic, and it attacks many metals. But polyethylene
consists of these really long chains of carbon
and hydrogen atoms that are incredibly stable
and nonpolar. The acid essentially cannot grab
onto the molecules to break them apart, so it
just sits there harmlessly. So the plastic is
the perfect shield. But Jesse... Poor impatient
Jesse. He goes shopping. He tries to find this
specific bin. But he fails. He goes to the local
hardware store and he just can't find a plastic
bin big enough to fit a fully grown man. And
Jesse, being Jesse, he gets deeply frustrated.
He just wants this horrific chore over with.
So he makes a massive assumption. He looks around
and assumes, hey, I have a perfectly good bathtub
upstairs. It's big. It's heavy. It's ceramic.
It's tough. I take baths in it all the time.
Why not just use that? It is a fatal assumption.
He drags the body all the way upstairs. He puts
it in the tub. He pours in the gallons of acid.
And then he just waits. And we, the audience,
if we know anything about basic chemistry, or
honestly, if we just trust Walt's absolute panic.
When he finds out what Jesse did, we know this
is going to go spectacularly wrong. The visual
payoff here is truly iconic television. We are
downstairs with Walt. He's standing in the hallway
drinking coffee, just trying to ignore the horror
of his current life. And suddenly the ceiling
above him starts to groan. There is this incredibly
ominous creaking sound. And then. Crash. The
entire ceiling collapses. The heavy bathtub falls
straight through the weakened floorboards. And
it's not just the tub falling. It's the horrific
contents of the tub. The source material describes
it vividly as Amelia's liquefied remains completely
spilling onto the hallway below. It's red. It's
sludge -like. There are visceral chunks. It's
a straight -up horror movie scene. It is grotesque.
It is absolutely revolting to watch. But it's
also, in a very dark, twisted way, kind of funny.
Because it's such a spectacular, preventable
failure. It really is. And it perfectly illustrates
the fundamental difference between theory and
practice, or, more accurately, between Walt and
Jesse. Walt knew the exact theory. Hydrofluoric
acid will dissolve many things, but not polyethylene.
Jesse completely ignored the theory and ended
up with a hallway full of human goo. Walt's reaction
to this is just, it's pure exasperation. He's
not even screaming at this point. He isn't vomiting
like you'd expect. He's just... deeply, profoundly
disappointed. He looks at the massive mess and
just delivers that line about the chemistry.
It's a teaching moment straight from hell. He
looks at Jesse amidst all this horrific carnage
and says calmly, hydrofluoric acid will dissolve
many things, but not polyethylene. It's like
he's grading a failed high school test paper,
but the test paper is a dissolved human being.
I noticed in the sources we use for this deep
dive, there is a, see, also links to Mythbusters.
Did they actually test this specific scenario?
Because honestly, it looks almost too effective
on the show. They absolutely did. In the 2013
season, they did a dedicated Breaking Bad special.
It was episode 206. They really wanted to see
if hydrofluoric acid would actually eat through
a ceramic bathtub and the wooden floorboards
like that. What were the results? Could it happen
in real life? Could we actually replicate this
disaster? Well, without completely spoiling the
whole Mythbusters episode for you, let's just
say that Breaking Bad took some pretty heavy
creative liberties for the sake of the visual
impact. The acid is incredibly corrosive, yes,
but it takes a very long time. It wouldn't eat
through a heavy cast iron tub and a thick wooden
floor that quickly or that dramatically. So it
was definitely exaggerated for the drama of TV.
Definitely. But the core concept, the idea that
different materials react very differently to
specific acids, that is entirely sound science.
Yeah. Honestly, the thematic point is what truly
matters here. Right. It's the visual metaphor
that matters. Yeah. It perfectly symbolizes the
complete and utter collapse of their plan. The
cat is definitely not in the bag. The cat is
melted all over the hallway floor. Precisely.
It is the physical, tangible manifestation of
their terrible situation. A messy, highly toxic
disaster that has literally destroyed the foundation
of the house. They have quite literally melted
a hole in the floor of their one supposed sanctuary.
Now, I want to pivot a bit to the production
side of things, because as intentionally messy
as the plot is, the actual production of this
episode was incredibly tight. But you mentioned
way earlier that Crazy 8 wasn't actually supposed
to be here. This is a truly fascinating behind
-the -scenes detail. In the original outline
for the show, Crazy 8 and his cousin Emilio were
supposed to die much, much earlier. The original
plan was likely for both of them to just die
in the pilot or immediately after. The whole
hostage in the basement arc wasn't the main plan
at all. So why did they decide to keep him alive?
Why force Walt to deal with this incredibly tense
hostage situation for multiple episodes? It was
entirely because of the actor, Max Arseniega.
Really? Just based on his performance? Yes. The
producers watched his performance during the
filming of the pilot. They saw what he did with
the character, the genuine menace, but also the
underlying humanity he brought to it. And they
just loved it. That's so cool to hear. So they
literally changed the trajectory of the story
because the actor was just too good to kill off
yet. They actively begged Vince Gilligan to let
him stay longer. And think about how profoundly
that one production decision changed the entire
show. If Crazy 8 dies immediately in the RV,
we completely lose this entire episode of intense
moral struggle. We lose all those quiet, tense
conversations in the basement that happen later.
We lose the slow, agonizing belief. transformation
of Walt it definitely slows down the pacing of
the season but in a very necessary good way it
forces the character development to happen It
forces Walt to confront the actual living individual
he is planning on killing. It's not just some
faceless bad guy in a shootout. It's a real person
he has to talk to and feed sandwiches to. That
incredible emotional depth only exists because
they realized they needed to keep Max Arseniga
around. It really is a testament to being totally
adaptable in the creative process. Sometimes
the absolute best storylines come from deviating
completely from the original outline. So looking
at where this specific episode stands in the
pantheon of Breaking Bad episodes, we have some
critical rankings here in the sources. We do.
The Ringer, in their massive definitive ranking
back in 2019, they put Cats in the Bag at number
31 out of the 62 total episodes. Bang in the
middle. Exactly halfway. And Vulture, they ranked
at 33rd overall. That feels incredibly right,
doesn't it? It's not the massive explosive finale.
It's not Ozymandias, which everyone always points
to as the best episode of television ever. But
it is the crucial structural beam that holds
the entire house up. It's what you'd call a workhorse
episode. It does all the heavy emotional lifting
of moving the characters from accidental criminals
to people actively dealing with a life of crime.
You simply cannot have the massive emotional
highs of the later seasons without this foundational
grounding work. It firmly establishes the real
stakes. It establishes that actions have consequences,
deeply messy, highly acidic consequences. Before
we wrap up the plot analysis completely, there
is one last loose end the outline mentions that
we need to touch on. It's a very small detail,
but it feels incredibly ominous. The scene out
in the desert. Right. While Walt and Jesse are
actively dealing with the horrific bathtub disaster
back at the house, the camera suddenly cuts away
back to the desert where they cooked the meth.
It's this beautiful, wide, quiet shot. We see
two young Native American children just playing
in the scrubland. They're running around, totally
innocent. And then they find something half buried
in the dirt. they find the gas mask walt's specific
gas mask from the pilot the one he threw away
in a panic when he thought the cops were coming
the young girl picks it up and actually puts
it on her face it is a genuinely chilling visual
image the stark symbol of industrial necessity
and crime is now literally a toy for an innocent
child this is just classic vince gilligan foreshadowing
yeah walt and jesse think they're cleaning up
they're melting bodies they're scrubbing floors
but they left a massive glaring piece of physical
evidence just sitting out in the It perfectly
reinforces the core theme of the show. You can
never truly clean up everything. There is always
a trace left behind. There is always a loose
thread that can completely unravel the whole
sweater. The desert remembers exactly what happened
out there. So what does this all mean for us?
Let's zoom out to the big picture. We have a
title that openly mocks the very idea of a clean
plan. We have a supposed protagonist who is too
paralyzed to actually kill to protect himself
and a sidekick who flunks basic chemistry class
with genuinely disastrous results. And we have
the crucial introduction of Skylar as a highly
formidable active investigator in her own right.
Those jagged edges we talked about earlier really
are the defining theme here. Walt and Jesse do
not fit together smoothly. And the criminal life
definitely doesn't fit Walt smoothly yet. And
yet, despite all of that, they are completely
stuck together. The chemistry, both the literal
science and their interpersonal dynamic, it forces
them to remain locked in this reaction. They
are deeply bonded by the mutual trauma of what
they are failing to do properly. I want to bring
it all back to that sweet smell of success quote
to close us out today. The quote was, tonight,
before you go to bed. The cat's in the bag and
the bag's in the river. Think about exactly how
this episode ends. Do they go to bed with a neatly
resolved plan? Not even close. It's a nightmare.
No. They go to bed with a giant gaping hole in
the second floor ceiling. A hallway completely
full of toxic biological sludge. A live hostage
still chained by the neck in the basement who
Walt explicitly promised to kill but didn't.
And the DEA, via Skyler's brother -in -law, is
completely unknowingly sniffing around the outer...
perimeter of their lives. It really asks a big
provocative question for you listening. Is planning
even remotely possible for these two characters?
Or is this entire show just going to be them
wildly reacting to the disastrous messes they
constantly create? I think we are clearly seeing
that they are purely reactive at this stage.
They are frantically surfing a massive wave of
chaos and they really haven't learned how to
swim yet. They are just desperately trying to
keep their heads above the acid. A wave of chaos
and hydrofluoric acid. Not a great mix. Definitely
not. Highly discouraged. Well, that is our deep
dive into Cats in the Bag. An incredibly messy,
absolutely brilliant, truly horrifying episode
that proved Breaking Bad was never gonna be afraid
to slow down and really look at the gore. And
it definitively proved that if you are ever going
to dissolve a body, you really need to listen
to your high school chemistry teacher. Always
double check for the polyethylene stamp on the
bottom of the bin. Just good, solid life advice
right there. Essential. Thanks for listening
to The Deep Dive. We will catch you on the next
one, where we might just finally find out what
happens to the actual cat in the bag. Or the
bag in the river. Take care, everyone. Bye -bye.