Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We're back at
it today, and we're doing something a little
special today. Very special. Yeah, we aren't
just looking at a broad topic. We are cracking
open a file on a really specific moment in television
history that I think it really defines the modern
era of storytelling. Right. We are looking at
the season two premiere of Breaking Bad. The
episode titled 737. 737. It's such a deceptive
title, honestly. It really is. It sounds like
a time of day, right? Or an airplane model. Which,
spoiler alert, it absolutely is. But it's also
a number that kind of haunts the entire series
from this point forward. Exactly. And look, if
you're listening to this, we are assuming you
know the broad strokes. You know... Walter White,
the chemistry teacher turned meth cook. You know,
Jesse Pinkman. Right, the basics. You know the
premise. But our mission today is different.
We aren't here to just recap the plot and say,
like, and then this happened and then that happened.
You can get that on Wikipedia. Exactly. Yeah.
You don't need us for a plot summary. We are
here to look at the mechanics. We want to really
pull this thing apart. We want to look under
the hood. Because this specific episode, it's
where the show stops being this dark comedy about
amateur criminals, and it shifts gears. Hard
shift. A really hard shift into a full -blown,
life or death psychological thriller. It is the
pivot point for the whole show. It really is.
Because you go from the explosive finale of season
one, which had this almost... triumphant feel
to it, like a high adrenaline. Yeah. They made
the deal. They got the bag of money. Right. They
blow up Tuco's office. They walk away looking
like badasses. But then this episode brings the
cold, hard reality of the aftermath. It's the
hangover. That is exactly it. It's the hangover
episode. It explores the psychological toll of
that adrenaline rush. And we have a really great
stack of sources to help us unpack this today.
We are pulling from the original production notes,
detailed plot summaries, critical reception analysis
from back when it... Some really good contemporary
reviews in there. Oh, yeah. And some really fascinating
details about the hidden codes baked into this
season's structure by the writers. The 737 mystery
is, I mean, it's one of my absolute favorite
pieces of television trivia. We're definitely
going to get into the weeds on that. It's mind
-blowing when you realize just how much planning
went into it. It speaks to the confidence of
the writers, you know. They were planting seeds
in episode one that wouldn't bloom until the
season finale. Here is the roadmap for today.
We're gonna start in the junkyard, right where
season one left off. We're gonna talk about the
sudden escalation of violence and how it completely
changes the genre of the show. Then we're going
to pull apart the title, both the literal meaning
involving Walt's bank account and the hidden
warning that it contains. And we also need to
spend some serious time on the domestic front
because the rot isn't just in the drug trade
anymore. No, it's spreading. It's seeping right
into the White household and the Schrader household,
too. The blast radius is expanding. And then
we'll look at the investigation. How close, yet
how far the DEA really is. We'll cover the paranoia.
The whole debate between using guns versus using
science. Right. And finally, that massive twist
ending that changes everything. It is a dense
episode. We have a lot of ground to cover. We
really do. So let's just jump right in. Segment
one. The junkyard. The catalyst. We open the
season and we are immediately thrown into the
deep end with Tuco Salamaka. Right. And visually,
it's just so striking. We're in the scrap yard.
It looks incredibly hot. Dusty. Dusty, yeah.
There is twisted metal everywhere. It's like
a graveyard for cars. And this picks up directly
after the drug deal. Literally seconds later.
Walt and Jesse have just sold the meth to Tuco.
And the vibe is not a celebration at all. You
would think, hey, we just made a massive amount
of money. This is a huge win. Right. Tend to
pop the champagne. But it turns into an absolute
nightmare in about five seconds flat. It really
does. And it all centers on Tuco, played by Raymond
Cruz, who is just... I mean, the energy he brings
to the scene is terrifying. It's electric. He's
laughing. He's screaming. He's violently sniffing
the meth off his Bowie knife. He is a literal
force of chaos. And this moment, this is the
inciting incident for the entire season's chaos.
It's not the drug deal itself that causes the
problem for Walt and Jesse. No. It's what happens
immediately after the deal is done. Because of
no dose. No dose. Tuco's lieutenant is one of
his main henchmen. Walk us through exactly what
happens here, because it's such a tiny, almost
imperceptible moment that leads to this massive
cascading consequence. Well, it's a study in
unhinged leadership, if you want to call it that.
Tuca was extremely high. He just snorted a massive
pure hit of the blue meth, and he's already an
aggressive guy. Right. And no -dos makes a very
small It's a very human mistake. He speaks up.
He speaks to Walt in Tuco's place. Exactly. Walt
asks a question or makes a comment about the
future arrangement, and no -dos just chimes in.
He says something like, just remember who you're
working for. Which, if you look at it from a
normal corporate perspective. Or even a standard
gang perspective. Yeah. It sounds like loyalty.
He's backing up his boss. He's being a hype man.
Completely. He is trying to be helpful. He is
actively trying to assert Tuco's dominance over
these two new cooks. But Tuco... Tuco does not
hear loyalty. He hears condescension. He takes
it as a direct insult. He sees it as no -dos
thinking that he, Tuco, is stupid. Like, oh,
you think I can't speak for myself. Exactly.
You think I can't handle my own business. You
think I need my subordinate to talk for me. You
think I'm an idiot. And that insecurity, fueled
by the methamphetamine, it just... triggers this
violent explosion. And when we say explosion,
we mean it. It is brutal to watch. Chuko just
starts beating him. Yeah. And I want to emphasize,
this isn't a typical TV or movie fight where
someone gets punched a few times and walks away
with a bloody lip. No. This is raw, vicious violence.
He is repeatedly punching him, kicking him, slamming
his head. It is primal. And what really stands
out to me in the scene is the direction, the
way the camera cuts to Walt and Jesse. And they
are just frozen. Pure terror. They are standing
there, completely immobilized, just watching
this happen. And you can almost see the wheels
turning in their heads, or rather, the wheels
completely stopping. This is the exact moment
the realization hits them. They are not dealing
with a rational businessman. They aren't dealing
with a corporate partner or even a standard predictable
criminal. They are in bed with an unpredictable
psychopath. It totally shatters Walt's worldview,
doesn't it? Because up until this exact point,
Walt has been operating under this massive delusion
that he can control this world. The arrogance
of Walter White. Exactly. He thinks he could
apply logic and chemistry and standard business
rules to the illegal drug trade. He thinks, well,
I have the best product, therefore I hold the
leverage. I am the smart one, so I set the terms.
That's his whole philosophy in season one. And
this scene proves that in the face of raw, unadulterated
physical violence, intelligence does not matter.
The periodic table doesn't help you when a guy
is literally beating a man to death three feet
away from you. Chaos is the ruling principle
in this world, not logic. And then after Tuco
drives off, we get this really interesting character
beat for Walt. Tuco just leaves no doze there,
twitching on the ground, bleeding out. And Walt
actually tries to save him. He does! He runs
over and immediately starts performing chest
compressions. Which is such a specific, fascinating
choice by the writers. He has just watched this
man get savagely beaten to death by the guy he
just did business with. And his first instinct
is to try and heal him. It reminds us that Walt...
isn't a killer by nature, at least not yet. He
is fundamentally a problem solver. He's a teacher.
He's a scientist. He sees a body shutting down,
a biological system failing, and he tries to
fix the mechanics of it. He checks the airway.
He pumps the chest. He's trying to apply a scientific
fix to a brutal reality. But it's futile. It
is completely futile. No does dies right there
in the dirt. And that failure is deeply significant.
It shows Walt that he can't just fix the consequences
of his actions. He cooked the meth that got Tuco
high enough to murder this guy. He is part of
that chain of cause and effect. He can't just
step in at the very end and act like a paramedic
to absolve himself. That is the pebble that starts
the avalanche for the whole season, because now
they have a body. And this brings us to the other
henchmen, Gonzo. Gonzo. The quiet one, the really
big guy. Tuco realizes no dose is dead or dying,
and he gives an order to Gonzo. He tells him
to hide the body, just get rid of it, put him
under an old car. Just treat him like trash,
like scrap metal in the junkyard. Exactly. But
Gonzo hesitates, and he says something that seems
so small at the time, but it is actually crucial
for his character and for the entire plot of
the episode. He says he should receive a Christian
burial. A Christian burial. We are in the middle
of a drug deal gone wrong surrounded by wrecked
cars after a brutal senseless murder. And this
hardened cartel enforcer is suddenly talking
about religious rights. It's a fascinating contradiction.
It shows that even in this hyper violent lawless
world, Gonzo has a code. He has a line he doesn't
want to cross. He complies with the order to
hide the body in the moment, because he is terrified
of Tuco. But that desire to do right by his friend,
to give him that proper burial, that is what
stays in his head. He's deeply disturbed by the
lack of humanity Tuco is showing. He is. And
we really should put a pin in that, because that
Christian burial comment... It's not a throwaway
line. That is the actual mechanic that drives
the climax of the episode. It absolutely does.
It's the setup for the final twist. If Gonzo
didn't care about his friend's soul, none of
the bad stuff that follows would have happened
to Walt and Jesse. It's the law of unintended
consequences perfectly illustrated. A random
act of intended kindness leads directly to disaster.
So Walt and Jesse manage to get out of there.
They are terrified. They part ways. Yeah. And
this brings us to the actual title of the episode,
737. Right. Now, on the surface, this title seems
like a straightforward math problem. A literal
math problem. Yeah. Because there's that scene
where Walt is sitting at his table outside. He's
got his notepad and a calculator. He is calculating
the exact... price of freedom. He is trying to
figure out mathematically how much money he needs
to leave for his family so that they are financially
secure after he dies from his lung cancer. Let's
actually break down the math he does, because
it's really revealing about his priorities and
how his brain works. He's incredibly thorough.
He lists the mortgage. He notes he has about
$170 ,000 left on the house. OK. He lists the
home equity line. He lists college tuition for
Walter Jr. and for the unborn baby. He estimates
what, $45 ,000? per kid for college? Roughly,
yeah. Which honestly, even for the mid -2000s
when this takes place, implies he's hoping for
a state school or significant scholarships. But
he puts down a number. Then he calculates the
cost of living for the family, food, utilities,
health insurance, for a period of exactly 10
years. And he assumes a modest 2000 a month for
that. Right? Adjusted for inflation. Yes. And
then he sums it all up. And he comes up with
a very specific, finite figure. $737 ,000. $737
,000. What does that number tell us about Walt's
headspace right now? Well, I mean, it tells us
he is bargaining. Yeah. With himself, mostly.
He is trying to rationalize his criminality by
putting a strict cap on it. Yes. He thinks, if
I just get to this exact number, I can stop.
I can get out. Yeah. I'm not a criminal. I'm
just a guy trying to hit a quota. He's treating
meth cooking like a contract job. Exactly. Like
a consulting gig with a defined end date. He
believes he can treat it like a rigid project.
I need X amount of money. I can make Y amount
per cook. Therefore, I need to do Z number of
cooks, and then I am done. It's just an equation
to be solved. Which goes right back to his delusion
of control. He thinks he can just dip his toe
into the cartel world, make his 737 ,000, and
then just walk away clean. He genuinely thinks
the drug world will just let him hand in his
two weeks notice. It's the classic just one more
score fallacy. But in Walt's mind, it's not driven
by greed. It's actuarial science. He is solving
an equation for his family's survival. He tells
himself his actions are noble because they have
a specific, mathematically justified limit. But
there is another layer to this title, isn't there?
A much darker, completely hidden layer. Because
the writers were doing something incredibly clever
here. Oh yes. This is where the showrunners,
Vince Gilligan and his writing team, were playing
a very, very long game. 737 isn't just about
Walt's money. Tell us about the foreshadowing,
because this involves those weird black and white
flash forwards we start seeing in this season.
Right. If you remember, season two is famous
for these surreal cold opens. Before the opening
credits even roll, we see these disjointed black
and white images. A snail. crawling on a wall.
A swimming pool, debris scattered everywhere.
And that iconic pink teddy bear. The pink teddy
bear. It's burnt, it's missing an eye, and it's
just floating in Walt's pool. And it's the only
thing in color in those scenes, that bright,
shocking pink against the monochrome background.
It is super creepy. It looks like a crime scene
video or something from a horror movie. It really
does. And these flash forwards appear in four
specific episodes spread throughout season two.
And if you look at the titles of those four specific
episodes, a hidden message appears. So we have
this premiere episode, 737. Correct. Later in
the season, there is an episode titled Down.
OK. Then an episode titled Over. 737 Down Over.
And the season finale is titled ABQ, short for
Albuquerque. 737 Down Over ABQ. Exactly. The
titles themselves form a sentence predicting
the massive climax of the season, the Wayfarer
515 disaster, which involves a Boeing 737 commercial
airliner colliding in midair with a charter plane
directly over Albuquerque. That is just the level
of planning that takes is incredible. So right
from the very first episode, they're explicitly
telling the audience that a plane is going to
crash and it's hidden right in plain sight. It's
brilliant structural writing, and it connects
back to the literal meaning of the episode too.
How so? Well, Walt is working towards Seventh
or Seven the money, but his selfish actions are
actually leading towards Seventh or Seven the
disaster. The money and the destruction are...
inextricably linked. That is fascinating. It
totally reframes the whole season when you think
about it like that. Walt thinks he is meticulously
building a safety net for his family, but he's
actually building a disaster that will rain debris
down on his own house. Perfectly put, he is calculating
the exact price of his family's future, but he
is completely failing to factor in the price
the entire city will pay for his hubris. Man.
Alright, let's move from the skies over Albuquerque
back down to the ground specifically inside the
White House because Walt comes home from the
junkyard and he is He is not okay. No, not at
all. He is vibrating with adrenaline and absolute
fear He is in shock really and this leads to
one of the most uncomfortable and deeply disturbing
Scenes in the early run of the show the scene
in the kitchen was Skyler. Yes Walt comes in
Skyler finds him standing there in the kitchen
Just staring at the TV or staring into space.
He's clearly disassociated from reality and then
he initiates sex But it's not romantic. No, it
is aggressive. It's forceful. It turns into a
sexual assault Skyler actively objects. She says
no multiple times. She's confused and she is
scared. And she's wearing this thick green facial
mask, a beauty product, which gives her this
almost alien doll -like appearance in the lighting,
which I think really emphasizes how Walt is seeing
her in that moment, not as his wife, not as a
person, but as an object. And Walt, for a long
moment, He doesn't stop. He forces himself on
her. He eventually stops when she really pushes
back and gets free. But the damage is absolutely
done. It's a horrific moment to watch. And we
have to analyze why the writers had this happen.
It's the bleed over effect, the power and the
extreme violence he felt at the junkyard, that
pure unchecked dominance he saw to go exert over
no dose and the sheer rush of his own survival.
He brings that toxic energy directly into his
marriage. It's like he can't switch off the Heisenberg
persona, even though he hasn't fully become Heisenberg.
He felt so utterly powerless in front of Tuco
like a bug about to be squashed. Exactly. He
was helpless in front of Tuco, emasculated even,
so he subconsciously tries to reclaim a sense
of power over Skyler. It is a direct transfer
of aggression. He needs to feel like the dominant
male again. Yes. It's toxic and it shows the
audience that his moral decay isn't just about
cooking illegal drugs. It is fundamentally changing
who he is as a husband and as a man. And Skyler
sees it. She might not know about the crystal
meth yet, but she knows something is fundamentally
dangerously wrong with the man in her house.
She sees a total stranger in her kitchen. She
sees a capacity for violence in him that she
has never ever seen before in their entire marriage.
Now, speaking of domestic trouble, let's look
at the other side of the family, the Schraders.
Hank and Marie are dealing with their own issues,
which honestly seem almost trivial in comparison,
but they are thematically linked. They are. The
show does this great thing of constantly contrasting
the two couples. While Walt is dealing with life
and death cartel violence, Hank and Marie are
having this intense argument about therapy. It
feels so mundane in comparison, but it's dead
serious for them. It is. It's revealed that Marie
is going to therapy for, quote, unspecified problems.
But we, the audience, and Hank know it's connected
to her kleptomania. Her shoplifting. Right. And
Skyler is refusing to take any of Marie's calls.
She's totally icing her sister out because of
the tiara incident from last season. Which puts
Hank right in the middle. He's trying to play
the peacekeeper. He visits Skyler to try and
broker a truce. He asks her to just talk to Marie.
He genuinely thinks it's just standard sisterly
drama. And this leads to that massive explosion
from Skyler. She just snaps at Hank. She screams
at him. She says, my situation is worse. That
line hits so hard. My situation is worse. It's
a desperate cry for help, but she can't actually
say why it's worse. She can't say, my husband
is acting like a monster and just assaulted me,
so she just screams about the sheer unfairness
of it all. And there's this incredible moment
of realization, right? Hank realizes that Skylar
knows about Marie's shoplifting, and Skylar realizes
that Hank knows about it too. It's a shared burden,
but it's based on a massive misunderstanding.
They both think they are talking about Marie's
shoplifting being the big, dark family secret.
Right. But Schuyler is holding onto a much bigger,
much darker secret regarding Walt's changing
behavior. It creates this amazing dramatic irony
for the viewer. And it really isolates Schuyler
even more. She's trapped in this house with a
man she's starting to deeply fear, and she can't
even confide in her sister or her brother -in
-law. And her brother -in -law is a DEA agent.
Which is the perfect segue to our next segment,
The Investigation. Because Hank literally has
the evidence of Walt's crimes right under his
nose at the DEA office. He does. He and his partner,
Stephen Gomez -Gomey, are sitting there watching
security footage. This is the footage from the
Mithalaman heist in season one, where Walt and
Jesse broke into that chemical supply warehouse.
Wearing those ridiculous ski masks, they look
like giant bobbleheads. Right. And Hank is sitting
there watching the tape and just relentlessly
criticizing their technique. He is actively profiling
them. And getting it completely, hilariously
wrong. Totally wrong. What does he actually say
about them? He disparages their skills. He calls
them rank amateurs. He thinks they are complete
idiots because they are rolling the heavy barrel
of methylamine so clumsily across the yard. But,
and here's the catch, he is intrigued by one
highly specific detail. The thermite. The thermite.
He notices that they used an advanced extremely
hot chemical reaction to melt the heavy lock
on the door. That is not something a typical
meth junkie knows how to do. So Gumi throws out
a theory. He says, are they chemistry students?
College kids. Which is, it is so close. It is
agonizingly close to the truth. You just want
to scream at the screen when you watch it. Right.
Gumi identifies the exact skill set, chemistry.
He identifies the intelligence level. educated.
But he gets the demographic slightly wrong. He
assumes college kids because that fits his preconceived
profile of who does this kind of weird non -traditional
stuff. Pranksters or smart kids looking for a
thrill. He cannot possibly imagine it's a 50
-year -old high school teacher and his burnout
former student. And he certainly cannot imagine
it's his own brother -in -law. That blind spot,
that is Hank's fatal flaw throughout the entire
series, he respects Walt too much, or perhaps
he respects him too little in terms of masculinity
to ever suspect him. He sees Walt as this gentle,
nerdy, overqualified teacher who is kind of a
pushover in life, not a criminal mastermind.
It's a complete failure of imagination. Hank
can imagine a bad guy. He knows what a cartel
hitman looks like. He cannot imagine Walter White
being a bad guy. Exactly. And Hank makes a really
dark prediction here, doesn't he? He says something
about how the established drug cartels are going
to handle these new guys. He says the cartels
will hurt them for disrupting the trade. He basically
predicts exactly what is happening with Tuco
at that exact moment. He knows the ecosystem
better than Walt does. He knows that amateurs
get eaten alive by the predators. He just doesn't
know the amateur is sitting at his Sunday dinner
table. So while Hank is watching tapes and making
jokes, Walt is at home watching the street. The
paranoia has fully set in. Big time. Walt sees
an SUV parked near his house. Just a random black
SUV. It's probably a neighbor or a lost delivery
driver. But in his mind... In his mind, it's
Tuco. It's the cartel coming to finish the job.
He spends the entire night just watching the
window. And this all -consuming fear drives Walt
and Jesse to meet up and look for a solution.
They realize they can't just sit around and wait
to be murdered, but they have very, very different
ideas on how to solve the Tuco problem. This
is the classic guns versus chemistry debate that
defines so much of their partnership moving forward.
Let's start with Jesse. What is his grand plan?
Jesse's plan is incredibly direct. It's street
level. It's violence. He wants to buy a gun and
shoot Tuco before Tuco shoots them. It's a preemptive
strike. So he goes to a hot dog restaurant. Yes.
The tall fry stand. The absolute glamour of the
Albuquerque underworld. He meets an illegal arms
dealer right there at a picnic table. And he
buys a Ruger SP -101. A snub nose revolver. It's
reliable. It's simple to use. Jesse tells Walt
they need to take care of Tuco. He even tries
to convince Walt to get a gun, too. He says double
our chances. Which, if you think about it logically,
sounds OK. Two guns are better than one. But
in reality... In reality, Walt knows that in
a straight -up shootout with a hardened, meth
-addled gangster like Tuco, a guy who probably
has automatic weapons and years of combat experience,
they lose. 100 % of the time. Right. They are
not gunmen. They are a mild -mannered teacher
in a high school dropout. So Walt rejects the
gun idea entirely. He falls back on what he knows
best. Science. He proposes a clandestine kill.
A silent kill. Poison. Reisen. Reisen. This is
the very first introduction of Reisen to the
Breaking Bad universe. It becomes such a massive
plot device in later seasons, but its origin
is right here in episode one of season two. Explain
the plan. How does he pitch this to Jesse? Walt
explains that they can process castor beans to
extract a lethal toxin. It's highly effective,
a tiny amount, literally the size of a grain
of salt can kill a grown man. And it mimics natural
illness so it doesn't look like a murder right
away. Why does he choose this method over the
gun? I mean, aside from the obvious skill issue
with firearms. It's about the psychological nature
of the crime. Shooting someone is messy, it's
loud, it's public, and it requires you to physically
look a man in the eye and pull a trigger. It's
visceral. someone feels more detached. It feels
medical almost. It allows Walt to maintain that
crucial psychological distance from the violence.
Wow. He can tell himself, I'm not a murderer,
I'm just introducing a chemical agent into an
environment. It feeds Walt's massive ego too.
He's gonna outsmart the brute. He isn't gonna
outfight Tuco, he's gonna outthink him. It's
the ultimate brain over brawn fantasy. So the
plan is set, they make the ricin, they are going
to trick... to go into taking it during the next
meth delivery. It seems like a pretty solid plan.
It does. For a brief moment, they feel like they
have regained some agency. They have a strategy
to survive. Until the phone rings. The phone
call that changes absolutely everything. Walt
and Jesse are finishing up the rice and prep.
Walt gets a call from Hank. Now, at first, Walt
is probably terrified Hank is calling to arrest
him. That's always his baseline fear. Every time
the phone rings, he thinks it's the end. But
Hank is just calling to apologize. He says he
screwed up with Skyler. He feels bad about pushing
her during that argument. But then he casually
mentions he's at a crime scene. Yes. He's at
the junkyard. And he drops a massive bombshell.
He tells Walt that Gonzo is dead. Gonzo? The
big guy who wanted the Christian burial for no
-dos. The very same. Now this is where the flow
of information creates absolute chaos. Hank explains,
or rather the audience learns through the visual
of the scene, how Gonzo actually died. It wasn't
Tuco who killed him. No. It was a complete accident.
A freak accident. Gonzo secretly went back to
the junkyard in the middle of the night to move
No Doze's body. I remember he wanted to give
him a proper burial because of his religious
beliefs. Right. In the process of moving the
heavy body, presumably to hide it better or transport
it, the giant stack of creft cars shifted. Gonzo
got his arm pinned between the vehicles. He couldn't
get out. He was crushed and he bled out. So his
loyalty, his desire to just do the right thing
by his friend, literally got him killed. It is
a tragic, bitter irony. If he had just left the
body exactly where it was as Tuco ordered, if
he had just been a cold, obedient, heartless
soldier, he would be completely fine. But Walth
and Jesse... They don't know any of those details.
They just hear from Hank, Gonzo is dead at the
junkyard. Exactly. Their extremely paranoid brains
instantly fill in the blanks. They assume Tuco
killed Gonzo. They think Tuco is cleaning house.
They think, OK, he beat No Doze to death. Now
he murdered Gonzo to cover his tracks. We are
the only other witnesses. We are next. That is
the only logical conclusion if you don't know
it was an industrial accident. So the careful
scientific plan to poison Tuco. Quietly, just
goes completely out the window. Now it is sheer
panic mode. Total unadulterated panic. Walt tells
Jesse to leave town immediately. Get out. Go.
Disappear. And Walt, what does he do? He goes
home. He's frantically trying to figure out his
next move. He's avoiding Skyler's questions.
He is essentially trapped in his own house, pacing
like a caged animal. And then another phone call,
or rather, a presence outside. He goes outside
to look. And there he is, sitting in his car.
Right in Walt's suburban driveway. And he's not
alone in the car. He has Jesse in the passenger
seat, held at gunpoint. This is the cliffhanger,
the ultimate oh no moment of the episode. Tuco
points the gun and forces Walt into the car.
Get in! And just like that, they are kidnapped.
And they are driven off into the unknown. Roll
credits. It's a terrifying ending, because all
of their planning, the gun Jesse bought, the
race in Walt made, the careful math of the 737
,000, all of it meant absolutely nothing. Tuco
just came right to their front door. And the
incredible irony of this whole ending is Tuco
didn't come there to kill them, did he? No. We
find this out in the next episode, but in this
moment, the implication is that Tuco is terrified,
too. He thinks the DEA is closing in on him because
his guys keep turning up dead. He thinks his
entire operation is compromised. He desperately
needs his cooks to flee to Mexico with him. He's
not cleaning house. He's violently securing his
assets. So literally everyone in this scenario
is acting out of extreme fear based on incomplete
information. Tuco thinks the cops are coming.
Walt thinks Tinko is killing everyone. Which
is the defining theme of the episode. Fear drives
bad decisions. If anyone had the full accurate
picture, this kidnapping would never have happened.
Man. What a ride. And to think, this is just
the first episode of the season. It sets the
bar incredibly high for what's to come. Let's
take a quick step back and talk about the production
of this episode. Yeah. Because there was a very
interesting credit on this one that people might
miss. Directed by Bryan Cranston. The man himself,
Walter White, directed this episode. It's remarkably
impressive. It's hard enough to act the lead
role in a show like this, carrying that immense
emotional weight in every scene, but to direct
it as well. To manage the pacing, the complex
visual setups in the junkyard, the performances
of the other actors. And think about the specific
scenes he had to direct here. The assault on
Skyler. He had to be in that scene, acting out
that monstrous aggressive behavior, and then
immediately yell, cut, and give technical notes
to Anna Gunn, or check the camera lighting. That
takes a level of professional compartmentalization
that is kind of scary in itself. It really does,
but he crushed it, and the critics widely agreed.
Donna Bowman from the AV Club gave it an A -.
She specifically praised Cranston's dual role,
highlighting his acting in his directing. And
Seth Amitin from IGN gave it an 8 .7 out of 10.
High praise. Very high praise for a premiere.
The critical reception at the time was strong.
But it's interesting, you know, when you look
at retrospective rankings of all Breaking Bad
episodes today, 737 usually lands somewhere right
in the middle. Right. The Ringer ranked it 39th
out of 62 total episodes. Vulture put it at 32nd.
Why do you think that is? If it's so tightly
written and well acted, why isn't it considered
top 10? I think because it is fundamentally a
bridge episode, it's a setup. It doesn't have
the massive explosive release of a season finale
or the sheer novelty of the pilot episode. Its
specific job is to intricately move the pieces
on the chessboard to set up the grilled episode
that immediately follows it. It does all the
heavy lifting so the next episode can just run
with the action. Exactly. It's the first act
of a two -part movie, really. 737 and Grilled
are almost one continuous long story. But without
the psychological tension built here, the money
calculation, the failed CPR in the dirt, the
sleepless paranoia, the climax of the next episode
wouldn't matter at all. True. You need to intimately
feel the screws tightening before they finally
snap. And this episode is just 47 minutes of
tightening screws. Before we wrap up, I want
to circle back to the mission we talked about
at the very start of the deep dive, the 737 concept
and this overarching idea of unintended consequences.
Central thesis. Yes. Walt genuinely thinks he
can control the outcome of his choices. He thinks
737 ,000 is the magic number that will solve
his life. But the universe or the inherent chaos
of the illegal drug trade always has other plans.
It's the central tragedy of Walter White's character
arc. He is an absolute genius at chemistry. He
perfectly understands how to manipulate variables
in a sterile lab. But he is entirely failing
at accounting for the messy variables of human
nature. He didn't calculate Tuco's drug induced
rage. He didn't calculate Gonzo's religious sense
of duty. He didn't even calculate his own wife's
sharp intuition. And because he arrogantly ignored
all those human variables, the equation didn't
balance. Instead of buying his freedom, he bought
himself a one way ticket in the trunk of Tuco's
car. And that number, 737 ,000, it essentially
becomes a tombstone. It's not the wealth he takes
with him, it's what destroys the city, symbolically,
via the plane crash foreshadowed in the episode
title. Which leaves us with a really big what
-if for the listeners. The provocative thought.
What if Gonzo hadn't died? It's a fascinating
thread to pull on. Right. If Gonzo had just ignored
his conscience, left no dose his body alone,
and gone home, he wouldn't have been found dead
at the junkyard the next day. Hank wouldn't have
called Walt with the news from the crime scene.
Walt and Jesse wouldn't have completely panicked.
They wouldn't have mistakenly assumed Tuco was
systematically cleaning house. They would have
calmly proceeded with the race and plan. They
might have actually tried to poison Tuco at the
next scheduled meet. Would it have worked? Maybe.
Or maybe Tuco would have been suspicious and
killed them on the spot. Or maybe Tuco still
would have kidnapped them anyway because he was
growing increasingly paranoid about the police
finding No Doz's body eventually. It's entirely
possible. But the immediate urgency, the sudden
get in the car right now violence was triggered,
specifically because Tuco thought his loyal crew
was being wiped out by an unknown enemy or the
cops. Gonzo's accidental death is the massive
hinge point of history here. One guy just trying
to be a good Christian in a dusty junkyard completely
changes the fate of everyone in Albuquerque.
That is the butterfly effect of Breaking Bad.
or as we should call it, the dead henchman effect.
The dead henchman effect. I like that. It's catchy.
Well, on that note, 737, an absolute master class
intention, long -term foreshadowing of the sheer
futility of trying to mathematically control
chaos. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Thanks for diving deep with us today. This was
a heavy one to get through, but man, was it worth
unpacking. Always a pleasure. We'll see you on
the next one. Take care.