Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We've got a massive
stack of notes today. Oh, yeah. It feels heavy
just holding it, honestly. It really does. Because
today, we're not just talking about a television
episode. We are dissecting what I'd call a philosophical
pivot point in modern media. Right. We are looking
at the exact moment where Breaking Bad stopped
being You know, a quirky story about a high school
chemistry teacher making drugs. And became a
full -blown Greek tragedy. Exactly. A tragedy
about the sheer cost of violence. That is honestly
the perfect way to frame it. We are diving deep
into season three, episode 12. The title is Half
Measures. Half Measures. Yeah. And if you look
at the entire five -season run of the show...
I really think you can divide the whole timeline
into two distinct eras. Before half measures
and after half measure. It's the Rubicon. It
absolutely is. It's the point of no return. Once
the credits roll on this one, nothing is the
same. Everything changes. Everything. So let's
ground ourselves here before we get too carried
away. Our source material today is the comprehensive
history and analysis of this specific episode.
Mostly anchored by its Wikipedia entry. Right.
But we've also expanded this with... critical
essays, production notes, and audience reception
data from the time. Just to give you all a complete
picture of what this hour of television actually
achieved. So for context, we are looking at the
32nd episode of the series overall. It originally
aired on AMC on June 6, 2010. Which puts it right
near the end of season three. It's the penultimate
episode in season. And the tension at this point
in the show is just... It's suffocating. Oh,
it's unbearable. If you remember where we are
in the story right now, the walls are closing
in on these characters from literally every side.
Yeah, you've got the cartel pushing in. You've
got the DEA getting closer. And the internal
strife between the main characters, it's all
reaching a boiling point. And the central theme
we're going to be wrestling with today is right
there in the title, half measures. Which, I mean,
it sounds like a corporate strategy, doesn't
it? Yeah, it sounds like something you'd hear
in a boardroom meeting. Right, like they're discussing
quarterly projections or something. Exactly.
But in the context of the Albuquerque underworld,
it's a life or death doctrine. It's the idea
that hesitation or mercy or trying to find a
middle ground in a world of extremes doesn't
just fail. It gets people killed. Yes. It is
a fundamental argument against compromise. And
the players on the board for this argument are
our core quartet. You have Walter White, the
chemist. Jesse Pinkman, who is really the soul
of the show. Gus Fring, the completely corporate
face of evil. And Mike Ermentrout, the man who
brings this whole philosophy crashing down on
their heads. It's such a fascinating mix of personalities
when you put them all in one narrative pressure
cooker. You have the pragmatist in Walt. The
emotional moralist in Jesse. The cold calculator
in Gus. And the weary, cynical veteran in Mike.
And this episode serves as the collision chamber
for all of those conflicting worldviews. So let's
get into the machinery of it all. Let's start
with section one, the setup and the schemes.
Because before we get to the gunfire and the
chaos, we have to look at the chess moves. We
really do. And strangely enough, the first aggressive
move, or at least the most strategic move regarding
their operation, doesn't come from a drug lord.
No, it doesn't. It comes from Skylar White. This
is such an overlooked part of this episode. I
think because of how incredibly violent the ending
is, people tend to forget the domestic side of
things in half measures. Yeah, the explosion
at the end kind of blinds you to the slow burn
at the beginning. Exactly. But Skylar's arc here
is vital. Up until now, she's been arguably a
victim of Walt's choices. Or at least a very
reluctant participant who has been dragging her
feet. Right. But here, she is taking the wheel
on the money laundering. The notes mention she's
heavily pushing the car wash plan. Now, let's
unpack this for a second. Because Saul Goodman,
the criminal lawyer, he already had a plan. The
laser tag place. Right. He had the laser tag
place lined up. It was easy. It was clean. Danny,
the laser tag guy, would play ball. It was a
turnkey operation for laundering drug money.
Exactly. So why fight for the car wash? Why does
Skyler insist on making it more difficult? Because
it's about narrative control. Skyler isn't just
trying to wash the money. She is trying to wash
their history. Think about what the car wash
represents to Walter White. I mean, it was his
place of absolute humiliation. Exactly. Go back
to the pilot episode. He's a genius chemist,
but he's working there part -time just to make
ends meet for his family. He's wiping down the
tires of a Corvette owned by one of his own high
school students. A student who actively disrespects
him while he's doing it. The car wash is the
ultimate symbol of his emasculation and his financial
struggle. So by buying it? By buying it, she's
flipping the script on their own lives. It's
not just a pragmatic business decision. It's
a psychological reclamation project. Wow. Yeah,
she wants to take the very side of his lowest
point and turn it into the engine of their future
wealth. It's poetic, really, in a very twisted,
pragmatic way. It really shows that Skyler isn't
just a passive wife anymore. She's becoming a
full partner in this enterprise. She's analyzing
the story they have to sell to the IRS. She's
thinking about what the neighbors will believe.
Because a laser tag place makes zero sense for
a 50 -something high school chemistry teacher.
Right. But a car wash. That's believable. He
worked there. He knows the business. It tracks.
It shows she's actually better at the cover story
aspect of the criminal enterprise than Walt is.
Walt wants the easy route with Saul. He just
wants the problem solved. But Skyler wants the
airtight route, the one that stands up to an
audit. She is making herself indispensable. She
really is. But while Skyler is playing SimCity
with the finances and dealing with the logistics
of their success, Jesse Pinkman is doing something
much, much more dangerous. He's playing detective
out in the streets. And Jesse is a terrible detective,
because he leads entirely with his heart, not
his head. He isn't out there gathering intel
for business leverage. No, he's gathering intel
for revenge. He's investigating the street dealers
who killed his friend. Combo Ortega. We have
to remember how fresh that wound is. Very fresh.
Combo wasn't just some low -level employee to
Jesse. He was one of his day ones. They grew
up together. And Jesse is out on the streets
using sex workers like Wendy. We have Julia Meshe
guest starring there to help him figure out who
is dealing on that specific corner. And he finds
the smoking gun. He manages to buy blue meth
from this specific gang. Which tells him what
exactly? Why is the blue meth the key piece of
evidence here? It confirms the entire supply
chain. If these specific street level thugs are
selling the blue stuff, which is Walt and Jesse's
exclusive signature product. They aren't competitors.
They're employees. Exactly. They work for the
same distribution network. Which leads directly
to Gus Fring. Precisely. It means the people
who murdered Combo are on the exact same payroll
as Jesse and Walt. It's a closed loop. Jesse
realizes he is essentially colleagues with his
best friend's murderers. That's the nightmare
realization. You're sitting in the metaphorical
break room with the guys who shot your friend.
But it gets even darker. Because the source material
highlights a very specific ethical line these
dealers are crossing. They're using kids. Specifically,
they are using an 11 -year -old boy named Tomás
Cantillo. Played by Angel Martinez. Yeah. And
just 11 years old. That is, even for Breaking
Bad, that is incredibly bleak. It is. And we
have to really understand Jesse's character to
get why this pushes him over the edge. Because
Jesse is fine with crime. Generally speaking
right he can deal with drugs. He can deal with
theft He can even deal with violence between
consenting adults in the game, but he has always
had this fierce Unwavering protective instinct
toward children. We saw it with the peekaboo
episode earlier in the series. Exactly. It's
his defining redeeming quality It's the thing
that keeps you rooting for him despite all the
terrible things he does So seeing little tamas
riding a bike slinging meth and knowing this
actual child probably pulled the trigger on combo
It breaks him. It completely violates his core
code. So he goes to Walt. He has a plan. And
I can tell you, it's not a let's talk to HR plan.
No, not at all. He asks Walt to cook up some
ricin. The ricin returns. The magic beans. The
silent killer. Jesse wants to poison these dealers.
He wants revenge, but he wants to be smart about
it. Or at least what he thinks is smart. He figures
poison is cleaner than getting into a shootout
on the street. But look at Walt's reaction in
this scene. The notes say Walt appears troubled
by the use of children. Troubled. That is such
a weak word for that situation. I know. Troubled.
It feels like Walt is looking at a spreadsheet
error, not a massive human rights violation.
He sees the child soldier issue as a PR problem.
or a logistical hurdle. Whereas Jesse sees it
as a moral emergency. That's the fundamental
disconnect between them. And it's what drives
the tension of this entire episode. Walt is operating
entirely on logic, business preservation, and
self -interest. He tells Jesse, you're being
rash. You're going to blow up our incredibly
lucrative deal with Fring. He's compartmentalizing
the horror. Completely. He thinks if he just
ignores the child on the corner, the millions
of dollars keep flowing into his duffel bags.
But Jesse can't compartmentalize. He feels everything.
So he gives Walt an ultimatum. He looks him in
the eye and says, I'm doing it with or without
you. Which is terrifying because we know Jesse.
He's not a hit man. He's an emotional wreck half
the time. If he goes after these guys alone,
these are two hardened professional street enforcers,
he's dead. And Walt knows that. He knows Jesse
is signing his own death warrant. Which leads
us directly into section two, the intervention.
Because Walt realizes he can't talk Jesse down.
Logic hasn't worked. Pleading hasn't worked.
So he decides he has to force him down. He goes
to Saul Goodman. The fixer. The man with the
Rolodex of highly questionable solutions. And
they hatch a scheme to get Jesse arrested. Yes.
Wait, let's stop and explain that logic to me
again because it sounds absolutely insane. You're
a criminal mastermind and your brilliant plan
to save your partner is to call the cops on him.
They view it as a timeout, a state -sponsored
timeout. Like sending a kid to his room. Exactly.
They figure if Jesse is sitting in county lockup
for a few days on some minor trumped -up charge
-like possession or disturbing the peace... He
physically cannot go out and kill the dealers.
He cools off behind bars. The dealers move on.
Problem solved. It's incredibly patronizing.
It is completely patronizing. It's Walt acting
like the father who knows best, treating Jesse
like a toddler having a tantrum at a grocery
store. He thinks he can just put Jesse in the
corner until he behaves, but it shows how dangerously
little Walt actually understands the criminal
world he's operating in. Because in this world,
secrets don't stay secret. And being in the system
is a massive liability. Enter Mike Ehrmantraut.
The man who hears everything. The man who cleans
up all the messes Walt makes. Mike shows up at
Walt's house, unannounced. I love the way Mike
enters scenes in this show. He doesn't knock.
He's just suddenly there, sitting in a chair
in the shadows. It's terrifying. And the dynamic
shifts immediately. Usually Mike is the cleaner.
He's the gref employee. But here, he steps firmly
into the role of the mentor, or the senior partner
dictating terms. He drops the veil. Right. Up
until now, Mike has been fairly ambiguous. But
here he admits he works directly for Gus. He
cuts right through the pretense. There was always
this plausible deniability about who Mike really
answered to, Saul's guy, Gus's guy. But here
he says it plainly. And he tells Walt very clearly,
do not have Jesse arrested. Because if Jesse
gets into the system. If his fingerprints get
booked, Gus will take it as a problem. I just
love the euphemisms in this show. Take it as
a problem. It sounds so bureaucratic, like a
zoning dispute. We know what it means. It means
we will kill him and we will probably kill you
too. Gus Fring runs a tight ship. He values anonymity
and security above literally everything else.
A loose cannon like Jesse in jail, potentially
looking at a plea deal to avoid prison time,
potentially talking to the DEA because he's emotional.
That is a liability Gus will not tolerate for
a single second. So Walt's clever little plan
to jail Jesse is dead on arrival. Dead in the
water. He's completely out of options. He can't
talk Jesse down. And now he knows he can't lock
him up without getting him murdered by Gus. And
this is where Mike sits him down. This is the
moment. The deep dive core of the episode. The
monologue. It's iconic. Jonathan Banks delivers
this story that just sucks all the oxygen out
of the room. He tells Walt about his days as
a beat cop in Philadelphia. Right. Because before
he was a fixer, before he was a cartel hitman,
he was a police officer. And this backstory is
so crucial because it finally explains who Mike
really is. He isn't just a mindless thug. He's
a man with a very strict code formed by years
of seeing the absolute worst of humanity. He
talks about a domestic violence call. a repeat
offender. Yeah, an alcoholic husband who routinely
beats his wife. Mike says he would go there,
break it up, and the wife would refuse to press
charges. Which is tragically a very common reality
in these cases. It is, and the cycle would just
repeat. Mike felt completely helpless. He was
the law, but the law was useless. It wasn't working.
It's that classic police frustration. You can
see the train wreck coming from a mile away,
but the procedure stops you from actually preventing
it. You have to wait for the major crime to happen
before you can act until one night. Right. One
night Mike snaps. He takes the guy out to the
middle of nowhere in the police cruiser. It's
raining. It's dark. He puts his service weapon
right in the guy's mouth. He steps completely
outside the law. He steps outside the law to
enforce his own version of justice. He has the
power right there in that moment to end the cycle.
to save the woman permanently. He has the full
measure in his hand. But he doesn't pull the
trigger. He hesitates. He thinks to himself,
maybe I scared him enough. Maybe having a gun
in his mouth is the wake -up call he needs. He
chooses mercy. He chooses the half measure. And
the result of that mercy. Two weeks later, the
husband beats the wife to death, caved her head
in with a television set. God, it's so visceral.
Just the image of that detail, a television set.
It is the defining trauma of Mike's life. You
can hear the regret dripping from his voice when
he tells it. He realized that his mercy wasn't
a virtue, it was a weakness. It was a strategic
error that cost an innocent person their life.
He learned the hard way that if you leave a threat
breathing, it will inevitably come back to destroy
the exact thing you're trying to protect. So
he finishes the story, looks Walt dead in the
eye, and delivers the line that defines the rest
of the series. No more half measures, Walter.
It chills me every time I hear it. But let's
really analyze that advice, because it's a terrifying
lesson, isn't it? It is. He's basically telling
a mild -mannered high school chemistry teacher,
the next time you have a problem, you need to
murder it. He's applying the brutal logic of
a war zone to their meth business. But there's
a subtext here that we really need to dig into.
Who is the abusive husband in this metaphor right
now? It's Jesse. Exactly. Jesse is the problem
that's coming back. Jesse is the erratic element
that refuses to listen to reason. When Mike tells
this story, he is implicitly telling Walt that
trying to save Jesse, trying to jail him, reason
with him, protect him, is a half measure. That's
the really dark interpretation of the scene.
Mike isn't telling Walt to help Jesse go full
measure on the street dealers. He's telling Walt
to go full measure on Jesse. That is certainly
how I hear it. He's saying, cut the dead weight
before it drags you both under. He's suggesting
that Walt needs to eliminate the problem, and
the problem is his partner. But Walt, Walt interprets
it differently. Or maybe he just rejects the
target Mike is painting. He absolutely refuses
to give up on Jesse. Let's move to section three,
the summit. Because Jesse is still moving forward
with his plan, he tries the raisin. The poison
burger strategy. He gets Wendy to deliver burgers
to the dealers, and he plants the raisin inside
them. It's so desperate, it's clumsy. It really
feels like something a kid would come up with.
I'll just poison their lunch. It does. And of
course, it completely fails. The dealers aren't
even at their usual spot. Because Mike is always
watching. Mike and Victor Gus's terrifying enforcer,
played brilliantly by Jeremiah Bitsui, they intercept
Jesse before he can do anything. And they drag
him to a sit down. This scene is incredible just
from a cinematic standpoint. The power dynamics
are perfectly mapped out. It's a masterclass
in blocking intention by the director, Adam Bernstein.
Set the scene for us. Where are they and who
is there? They're in this remote meeting spot.
It looks like a trailer or an office out at the
chicken farm. And you have Gus Fring, the CEO,
sitting calmly at the head of the table. You
have Walt. The middle management looking incredibly
anxious. You have Jesse, the rogue employee,
looking like a caged animal ready to explode.
And you have the street contractors, the two
dealers, looking like absolute stone cold killers.
That tension is just palpable. Gus is mediating
a deadly dispute between his top chemist and
his street enforcers. It's corporate conflict
resolution, cartel style. So what's the verdict?
How does Gus handle it? Gus acts the part of
the benevolent dictator. He listens to both sides.
He hears Jesse's grievance about the use of the
11 -year -old child, and he turns to the dealers
and orders them. No more children. Which, on
the surface, feels like a massive win. Jesse
got exactly what he wanted. He stood up to the
biggest boss in the region and forced a policy
change. It really seems that way. Gus forces
them all to shake hands to seal the deal. And
this moment, the handshake is crucial. Jesse
is furious. You can see the physical repulsion
in Aaron Paul's performance. He hates shaking
hands with child killers. It makes him physically
sick. But he does it. He agrees to keep the peace.
And Walt actually thinks it's over. On the drive
home, Walt is trying to spin this as a massive
victory. He's bubbling with relief. He's telling
Jesse, see, we won. Great job, partner. We threaded
the needle. And Jesse just stares out the passenger
window. The silence in that car is deafening.
Walt thinks this was a tense business negotiation
that closed successfully. Jesse thinks he just
sold his soul. Why? Because by shaking their
hands, Jesse has become complicit. Yeah. He sat
at a table with monsters, negotiated with them,
and treated them like valid colleagues. He realizes
that Walt is totally okay with that. Walt can
stomach the moral compromise as long as he stays
alive. But Jesse cannot. It highlights the massive
fracture in their relationship. Walt is pragmatic
to a fault. Jesse is deeply moralistic even in
this criminal underworld. And that fragility,
that fake peace shatters immediately in section
four, The Breaking Point. Because you can't make
deals with people who murder kids. You can't
rely on the honor of sociopaths. No. The tragedy
happens that very same night. The dealers adhere
to the strict letter of Gus's law, but definitely
not the spirit. Gus said, no more children. So
they fired the kid? They fired him in the gang
sense of the word. They eliminated the loose
end. Little Tomas Cantia was found dead on a
playground. It's the ultimate monkey's paw situation.
Jesse made a wish. No more kids in the game.
And the wish was granted in the most horrific
way imaginable. To the dealers, the kid was just
a liability who knew too much about their operation.
If they aren't allowed to use them to sell drugs
anymore, they just delete them. It's cold, brutal,
terrifying efficiency. And this exact moment
is where Jesse Pinkman ends. The kid he used
to be is gone. Andrea Tomas's sister. played
by Emily Rios, who is also Jessie's girlfriend
at this point. She is devastated. She and her
other younger brother, Brock, played by Ian Passada,
they're just destroyed. Jessie rushes to the
crime scene, and the guilt that washes over him
must be completely unbearable. Because he knows,
he knows that his demand to Gus to stop using
kids is the direct. approximate cause of this
boy's execution. He tried to save the boy and
his action triggered the boy's murder. That is
a literal Greek tragedy. It's Oedipus realizing
he's the one who brought the plague to the city.
It destroys him emotionally. Yeah. The very next
day, he doesn't show up to the super lab. Walt
is down there cooking alone, constantly looking
at the clock, getting more and more worried because
Jesse is just gone. But where is he? He's sitting
in his car in broad daylight, watching the dealers
on their corner. And he's holding a glass pipe.
He breaks his sobriety. He snorts math. And this
is a detail we really need to linger on because
it is so incredibly significant. He hasn't touched
the stuff since he went to rehab at the end of
season two. Right. He's been trying so hard to
play the part of the bad guy while staying clean.
But in this moment, the emotional pain is just
too much to bear. Why does he do it right then?
Is it just to numb the guilt? It's definitely
numbness, yes. But it's also psychological preparation.
He knows he is about to commit suicide. That's
exactly what it is. It's a suicide mission. He
has a gun, sure. But he's one skinny guy against
two hardened killers who are standing on their
own turf expecting trouble. He's high. He's shaking.
He's an emotional wreck. He knows he isn't walking
away from this confrontation. He just wants to
take them with him to hell. He's checking out.
The meth is him officially letting go of any
hope for survival. Which brings us to section
five, the climax. This sequence, I mean, even
reading the notes, my heart rate goes up. It
is one of the most masterfully edited sequences
in television history. It really is. And it starts
with a stark, brilliant contrast. You have Walt
at home. Domestic bliss. Yeah. He's wearing the
soft beige sweater, the ultimate uniform of the
harmless, boring suburban dad. He's sitting at
the dinner table with Skyler and his son, Walt
Jr. And then the local news report comes on the
TV in the background. Body of an 11 -year -old
boy found murdered. And you see the calculation
happen in Walt's eyes. Brian Cranston is so good
here. He doesn't wonder who that is. He doesn't
wonder if it's related to his business. He connects
the dots immediately. He puts down his fork.
The realization hits him in two ways. First,
Jesse's gonna kill them. And then the secondary,
much worse realization, Jesse's owing to fail
and Jesse's gonna die. And Walt moves. There
is no hesitation this time. No, let's call Saul
and figure out a scheme. No, let's ask Mike what
to do. He just gets up and goes. He grabs his
keys and leaves. Skyler asks where he's going,
and he doesn't even have time to invent a good
lie. He just walks out the door. Cut back to
the street. It's nighttime now. Jesse is walking
slowly toward the dealers. It's shot like a classic
Western showdown, but completely distorted. Michael
Slovis, the cinematographer, lights it so beautifully,
the dealers see Jesse coming. And they aren't
scared at all. They look almost bored by him.
They calmly reach for their waistbands to draw
their weapons. Jesse raises his gun, but his
hand is trembling uncontrollably. He's crying.
He's high. He's an absolute mess. He's hopelessly
outgunned. They are going to drop him before
he even gets a clear shot off. We are actively
watching Jesse Pinkman about to be murdered.
And then you hear the roar of an engine. The
Az - Walt's horribly ugly Pontiac Aztec screams
into the frame out of nowhere. It's moving like
a tank. And he plows directly into the two dealers
at full speed. The sound design in that moment
is incredible. It's not a standard Hollywood
thud. No, it sounds sickening. It sounds like
metal crushing bone and meat. It is. deeply jarring.
It's horrifying to watch. The car just crashes
right over them. One dealer flies up over the
hood and into the air. The other goes violently
under the wheels. The car smashes into a wall
and stops. Smoke is hissing everywhere. The horn
is blaring continuously because the airbag deployed
and Walt is pressed against it. And then there's
silence. Just for a split second, the dust is
settling. Then Walt violently kicks his door
open. He scrambles out of the wrecked car. He's
limping slightly from the impact. He looks around.
The one dealer is dead on him. broken on the
street. The other one, the one who went under
the car, he's broken too. His legs are completely
crushed, but he's alive. And he's trying to crawl
toward his dropped gun. And this is the moment.
This is the true no half measures moment of the
entire series. Walt sees the gun. He sees the
wounded dealer. He doesn't call 911. He doesn't
grab Jesse and drive away to hide. He walks over
calmly. He picks up the bleeding dealer's gun.
He picks it up. He doesn't say a single word.
He just points it directly at the man's head
and pulls the trigger. Bang. A point -blank execution.
It's cold. It's precise. It is easily the most
violent, deliberate thing Walter White has done
with his own two hands up to this exact point
in the series. Think about the progression of
his character. He killed Crazy Eight back in
season one, but he cried about it. He agonized
over it. He strangled him in self -defense, essentially.
Right. And he watched Jane die in season two,
but that was an act of omission. That was inaction.
But this. This is active, predatory, completely
unhesitating violence. This is an execution.
He identified a threat, and he eliminated the
threat completely. And what is Jesse doing during
this? Jesse is just standing there, frozen in
shock. His own gun is dangling from his finger.
He's staring at Mr. White like he's looking at
an alien creature. He simply cannot process what
his eyes are seeing. His nerdy high school chemistry
teacher just ran over two armed cartel enforcers
and executed one in the middle of the street.
And Walt turns, looks directly at Jesse, and
delivers the single most important word in their
entire relationship. Run. It chills me every
time. Run. It's command. It's a father saving
a son. But it's also a general realizing that
a massive war has just started. Exactly. That
there is no going back to the super lab tomorrow
morning. There is no clever lie or excuse that
covers this up. They just straight up murdered
Gus Fring's trusted men. This is what I meant
at the very beginning about the philosophical
pivot of the show. Walt actually took Mike's
advice. He did. Mike said no half measures. But
Mike meant Get rid of Jesse. He meant Jesse is
the liability. Walt inverted that entirely. He
applied the no half measure philosophy to protect
Jesse. He went all the way to save him. It's
a complete perversion of the advice Mike intended,
but it's undeniably effective. He saved Jesse's
life, but in doing so, he damned them both. He
crossed the line from a drug manufacturer trying
to stay under the radar to a gangster initiating
a cartel war. Let's take a breath and look at
section six, the production and reception of
this episode. Because when this aired in 2010,
people absolutely lost their minds. Oh, universally
acclaimed. It wasn't just considered good TV,
it was an event. The IGN review gave it a 9 .7
out of 10. That is near perfect in their scoring
system. They described it as fun, creative, well
directed, well acted, and they specifically noted
that it set up an awesome finale, which obviously
it did. And the retrospective rankings really
reflect that enduring quality. The Ringer ranked
it 15th out of all 62 episodes of the series.
And Vulture had it at 18th overall. Which is
saying something. Because when you consider that
masterpieces like Ozymandias and Crawl Space
exist, cracking the top 20 of Breaking Bad episodes
is a huge accomplishment. It stands the test
of time because, as we've said, it's the hinge
point of the entire narrative. We also really
have to talk about Aaron Paul. Yes, Jesse Pinkman
himself. He won the Primetime Emmy Award for
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series,
specifically for his performance in this episode.
And when you break down the episode, you can
completely see why. It wasn't just one flashy
scene that won him the award. It was the incredible
emotional range he had to display. Yeah, he had
to show the righteous. burning anger over a combo
in the beginning, then the heartbreak and absolute
devastation over Tomas. And finally that drug
-addled suicidal desperation at the end on the
street. The scene in the car where he's smoking
the meth, the look in his eyes where you literally
see the light just go out. That's Emmy material
right there. He perfectly conveyed a man who
had already accepted that he was a ghost. It's
a total master class in acting without words.
And we have to give immense credit to the crew
as well. Adam Bernstein directed this episode.
He did a phenomenal job. The visual language
he used, the heavy shadows in the negotiation
meeting with Gus, the chaotic, violent framing
of the final car crash. It's brilliant. And the
writing by Sam Catlin and Peter Gould. They managed
to take a standard 47 minute episode of television
and make it feel like a massive feature length
thriller. Even the guest stars brought their
A game. Jeremiah Bitsui as Victor. He barely
says a word, but his physical presence is just
terrifying. And the kids. Putting child actors
in a storyline this incredibly dark is a massive
risk for a showrunner, but it completely paid
off. Ian Passada as Brock and Angela Martinez
as Tomas. It really grounded the stakes. It reminded
the audience that this isn't a cool, glamorous
video game. Drug dealing kills actual kids. That's
the harsh reality Half Measures forces us to
look at. It stripped away all the slick glamour
of the Blue Meth empire and showed us the true
human cost. So as we move into the outro, let's
wrap this up. What is the final blast radius
of this episode? The impact is total. Before
this episode, Walt and Jesse were just employees.
High -paid employees, but employees nonetheless.
They were trying to keep their heads down and
make money. After this, they are active insurgents.
They are at open war with their powerful boss.
It perfectly sets the stage for season four,
which is basically a brutal 13 episode chess
match between Walter White and Gus Fring. And
it all starts right here. All because Walt refused
to take a half measure. But here's the takeaway
I really want to leave you with. As an audience,
we view this final scene as Walt saving Jesse.
Right. It feels incredibly heroic in the moment.
The tension builds, the Aztec crashes in, the
bad guys die. We sit on our couches and we cheer
for Walt. But I want to challenge that feeling
for a second. Let's complicate that heroic narrative.
Go for it. Was it really loyalty? Was he really
just the brave teacher saving his surrogate son?
Or, hear me out. Was this the exact moment Walter
White finally found a valid excuse to be who
he really wanted to be all along? You think he
actually wanted the violence? I think Mike gave
him a permission slip. When Mike sat in his living
room and said no more half measures, he inadvertently
gave Walt the moral framework to stop pretending
he was a good guy trapped in a bad situation.
Wow. He used Mike's advice to unleash the monster.
Exactly. He didn't just run over the dealer to
save Jesse. He picked up that gun and executed
the survivor because he could. Because he was
finally done being the victim in his own life.
That is a deeply disturbing thought. Yeah. That
maybe he wasn't saving Jesse at all. Maybe he
was just feeding Heisenberg. He saw an opportunity
to exercise ultimate power. The power over life
and death. And he took it without a second of
hesitation. And if that's true, then Mike's story
backfired in the worst possible way imaginable.
It's the ultimate law of unintended consequences.
Mike thought he was training a cautious soldier,
but he was actually awakening a ruthless kingpin.
Well, on that cheerful and terrifying note, that
is all the time we have for this deep dive. It's
been a heavy one today, for sure. Run. That really
is the word of the day. Thanks for listening,
and we'll catch you on the next one. Take care,
everyone. And remember, no half measures.