Welcome back to the deep dive. Today, we are
doing something a little different. We aren't
just looking at a topic. We are stepping into
a time machine. Yeah, we really are. We are going
back to 2013 to a Sunday night that I think legitimately
gave half the viewing public an absolute panic
attack. We are talking. about Breaking Bad. And
not just Breaking Bad in general, you know. We
are zeroing in on the episode that basically
lit the fuse for the grand finale. Right. This
is season five, episode 13. Taji Lee. Just saying
that name. Uh, Tohaji Lee. It sounds almost mythical,
doesn't it? Like, a place where legends go to
die. It really does. And in this show, that is
pretty much exactly what it is. You know, when
we talk about television history, there are episodes
that function as set up, and there are episodes
that function as payoff. Like, the big, explosive
ones. Exactly. But Tohaji Lee is this incredible,
high -velocity hybrid. It starts as a careful,
strategic chess match, and it ends as a complete
demolition derby of literally everything Walter
White has built. It is the tipping point. Oh,
absolutely. And the source material we are looking
at today for this deep dive, which is based on
the incredibly comprehensive Wikipedia entry
for the episode, covers the plot, break down
the production notes, and the critical reception.
Yeah. It is a wealth of information. It really
is. And all of it points to this specific 47
minutes as the precise moment the Empire business
model officially fails. It is the exact moment
chaos just completely takes the wheel. So here
is the mission statement for everyone listening.
We are going to unpack this thing scene by scene,
beat by beat. Because you already know the plot.
Exactly. You know the plot. You know Walt gets
in a car. You know guns are drawn. But we want
to understand the why. The mechanics behind the
trap. Right. Why did the writer George Mastra
structure it this way? Why did the director Michelle
McLaren choose those specific wide angles? And
why, for the love of God, did Walt make that
phone call? That phone call is gonna take up
a very significant portion of our brain power
today, I can promise you that. Good, because
I, um, I still have nightmares about it, honestly.
It is deeply stressful television. Very. But
before we get to the panic attack in the desert,
let us start with segment one, the architecture
of the episode. Who exactly built this trap?
Well, you mentioned George Masters as the writer.
He has been with the show a long time and handled
some of the grittier, more plot -heavy episodes.
Right. He knows these characters inside and out.
He does. But the real headline here, from a production
standpoint, is Michelle McLaren in the director's
chair. The absolute queen of tension. Unquestionably.
If you look at her track record on Breaking Bad,
she directed One Minute, which is that incredible
shootout with the cousins in the parking lot.
Oh, wow, yeah. She also did Salude, which was
the massacre at Don Aladio's pool. She knows
exactly how to stage action, but more importantly,
she knows how to stage the dread before the action.
That is such a good distinction. Because Tohaji
Lee isn't an action movie for the first 40 minutes.
It is a western. It is a slow burn standoff.
It is pure Sergio Leone. And having her pair
up with Michael Slovis, the cinematographer,
and Kelly Dixon, the editor. That is basically
the A -Team right there. It really is. The visual
language of this episode is stark. It is wide
and it is unforgiving. They use the landscape
of New Mexico as a character in a way that feels
very, very final. Speaking of the landscape,
let us talk about the title, Tohaji Lee. It refers
to the Tohaji Lee Indian Reservation west of
Albuquerque. But for the characters, this is
not just a spot on a map. No, it is not. And
this is where the writing gets really elegant.
We have to go all the way back to the beginning,
the pilot episode. Oh, the cow house. Cow house,
exactly. For those who might have forgotten the
deep lore, explain the connection here. So in
the very first episode, when Walt and Jesse need
a place to cook meth in the RV where they won't
be disturbed, they drive out into the middle
of nowhere. Into the desert. Right. And that
location, specifically that cluster of red rock
formations, is Tohaji Lee. It is the birthplace
of their entire enterprise. Which makes it so
poetic that it becomes the burial ground, right?
It is a brilliant full circle moment, a narrative
bookend. You have the Alpha and the Omega. Walt
started his journey as a criminal in this exact
dirt, wearing nothing but his underwear and a
gas mask terrified of the sirens he thought he
heard coming for him. Just a panicked amateur.
Exactly. And now two years later in the show's
timeline, he returns to the exact same spot to
defend his massive fortune. It is interesting
because usually when a show brings you back to
the start, It is for nostalgia. It is a look
how far we have come kind of moment. Right, a
victory lap. Yeah, a victory lap. But here it
feels like a trap. It feels like the desert has
just been waiting for him to come back so it
can swallow him whole. That is a really beautiful
way to put it. The desert is completely indifferent
to him. In the pilot, the desert offered him
freedom and isolation. Now it offers him absolutely
no cover. Just dead space. It is just open space
where he can be seen from miles away. And that
visual openness is crucial to the tension of
the final act. There is literally nowhere to
hide. Before we get to the heavy thematic stuff,
I found a detail in the production notes that
I actually didn't know before, and it kind of
blew my mind. Oh, yeah. What was that? It is
about the driving scene. Filming began on February
4th, 2013, and later in the episode... Walt is
driving like a maniac to get to the money. Ah,
yes, the panic drive. Yeah, the panic drive.
He is weaving through traffic, running red lights,
screaming into his burner phone. And it turns
out Bryan Cranston wasn't actually driving. Not
at all. In fact, he wasn't even on the road.
Right, that entire sequence inside the car was
filmed on a green screen? Which is wild to me.
Because Breaking Bad prides itself on being practical.
They shoot on 35 millimeter film. They shoot
on location. They love that gritty tactile texture.
Why go green screen here? It was purely logistical.
To get the exact shots they needed with Walt
swerving into oncoming lanes and blowing through
intersections, they would have had to shut down
major arteries in Albuquerque for days. Oh, right,
the traffic. Yeah, the budget and the city permits
just wouldn't allow it. It was too massive of
an undertaking for a television schedule. Now,
here is where it gets really interesting to me.
I have seen people. Criticize that scene online.
They say the the lighting looks a little fake
or the background looks detached from the car
But honestly, I think it works better. I agree
with you completely really Why do you think so
because of Walt's mental state in that moment
Walter White has fully dissociated He is in a
fugue state of pure terror. He's not granted
in reality at all Exactly the world outside the
car should feel blurry and artificial He is trapped
in this metal box with his own voice and the
voice of his enemy on the phone. The slight uncanniness
of the green screen actually enhances the nightmare
quality of the sequence. He's like a fever dream.
The background is just whizzing by like a cheap
video game and all that matters is the phone.
Exactly. Sometimes production limitations force
a creative choice that ends up perfectly serving
the psychology of the character. Whether it was
intentional or not, it puts us right inside Walt's
claustrophobia. OK, let us unpack the setup,
because before Walt gets in the car, he has to
make a deal. And this, to me, is the darkest
move he makes in the entire series. It really
is the crossing of the Rubicon, or perhaps the
second or third crossing, depending on how you
count. But this one feels totally irreversible.
We open segment two with Walt meeting with Todd
and the Uncle Jack crew. And the contrast is
just so icky. Walt is trying to be the professional
and these guys are just casually wiping their
glasses and drinking tea. Walt is desperate.
He feels the walls closing in on him. Jesse has
gone rogue. Jesse tried to burn down his house.
Right, the gasoline everywhere. Yeah. Walt realizes
he cannot talk Jesse down anymore. The rabid
dog metaphor they used in the previous episode,
that is now his actual reality. So he puts a
hit out on Jesse Penkin. He does, and notice
how much trouble he has just saying the words
out loud. He dances around it. He wants the result,
but he does not want to articulate the crime.
He is still trying to maintain that thin veneer
of moral security. Like, I am not a murderer.
I am just a man doing what has to be done to
protect my family. Precisely. He asks Jack to
handle it. But Jack, and this is why Jack is
such a terrifying villain, Jack isn't motivated
by cash. Walt offers to pay him and Jack basically
just waves it off. Jack wants the legacy. He
wants the blue. Jack knows that the blue meth
is a global brand. It is the Coca -Cola of the
underworld. Right, it is priceless. And he wants
his nephew Todd to be the heir to that entire
kingdom. So he makes a counter offer. He says,
I will kill Pinkman for you. But you have to
cook for us. You have to teach Todd how to do
it, right? This is the ultimate deal with the
devil Walt has spent five seasons Violently protecting
his formula. It is his art is the only thing
that proves He's a genius and not just a petty
criminal. Yeah, and now he is willing to just
trade it away He is commodifying his life's work
to pay for the death of his surrogate son. That
is the equation happening here. It is tragic,
and it is horrifying. And the worst part is he
agrees. He agrees reluctantly, but he agrees.
He says one cook. That is what he tells himself
to make it OK. I will do one cook. He thinks
he can dip his toe back in, get the dirty job
done, and get out. He still truly believes he
has control over these men. And that is the fatal
flaw, isn't it? The sheer arrogance. He looks
at Jack and sees a blunt tool he can use. He
doesn't see a pack of rabid wolves that he is
casually inviting into his living room. He underestimates
them because they look like roughnecks. They
don't have his education. He thinks his intellect
makes him the alpha in the room. But bullets
do not care about your IQ. So the hit is on.
Walt goes home probably thinking he has neatly
solved the problem. But meanwhile, across town,
the good guys, if we could even call them that,
are cooking up a plan of their own. Which brings
us to segment three, The Trap and the Alliance.
Hank Gomez and Jesse, the most awkward road trip
group imaginable. It is a fascinating dynamic
to watch. You have the straight -laced DEA agent,
his fiercely loyal partner, and the junkie informant
they both completely despise but currently really
need. Yeah, they're not friends. Not at all.
But Jesse brings the one thing Hank has been
missing for a year, insight. Hank has the evidence,
or at least he has the trail of evidence, but
he doesn't actually understand Walt. He thinks
Walt is a monster, but he doesn't understand
the specific type of monster he is dealing with.
Right. Hank wants to catch Walt with physical
evidence of drugs. Or with murder weapons, you
know, standard police work. By the book. Exactly.
But Jesse stops him. Jesse says, you are looking
at it all wrong. You cannot get him on evidence.
He is too smart. He scrubbed everything. You
have to get him where he lives. His money. Jessie
understands that for Walter White, the money
isn't just currency to buy things. It is the
scorecard. Oh, that is a great way to look at
it. It is the proof that he existed and mattered.
It is the core justification for all the cancer,
all the lies, and all the death. If you take
the money, you kill Heisenberg. That there is
a massive problem. They do not know where the
money is. They know it exists. They know it is
hidden in barrels. But the New Mexico desert
is incredibly big, so they need a weak link.
They need someone who knows something but is
fragile enough to actually break under pressure.
Enter Huell Babineau. Poor Huell. I really love
this character. He is Saul's bodyguard. He is
huge. He looks super imposing. But inside, he
is just a guy who wants to go home and lay on
his pile of money. He is a mercenary, but a very
low stakes one. He is not a cartel guy. So Hank
and Gomez pick him up and take him to a DEA safe
house. And the scene, this interrogation, is
a master class in psychological manipulation
by Hank. It's purely performative police work.
Hank knows he has absolutely nothing on Huell,
really. Not enough to hold him in his cell forever.
So he has to utterly terrify him. And he does
it by weaponizing Huell's own ignorance against
him. Huell knows that people around Walt tend
to just disappear. He knows about Mike. He knows
about the brutal prison killings. He knows Walt
is dangerous. Right. So when Hank says Walt is
tying up loose ends and you are a loose end,
Huell completely believes it. And then Hank drops
the hammer. The prop. The staged photo. Can we
talk about how intensely gruesome that photo
is? Yeah. Hank pulls out his phone and casually
shows Huell a picture of Jesse Pinkman lying
on a floor with his brain seemingly blown out.
It is incredibly graphic. And to the audience
for a split second, it is genuinely shocking.
But we know Jesse is alive because we literally
just saw him in the previous scene. For Huell
though, this is immediate confirmation of his
absolute worst nightmare. Why does this specific
tactic work so well on Huell? Because Huell isn't
a hardened killer like Jack. As you said, he's
a facilitator. He picks pockets. He stands guard
at a door. He doesn't do wet work. It is out
of his league. Way out of his league. Seeing
that photo creates a visceral, immediate panic
response. It totally bypasses his logic centers.
He doesn't stop to ask, well, when did this happen
or where is the official police report? He just
thinks, I am next on the chopping block. And
LaVille Crawford, the actor playing Kuehl, plays
this so perfectly. That little widening of the
eyes, the nervous sweat, he cracks like an egg.
He spills literally everything he knows. He confesses
that he and Kubi stored the money in barrels.
He tells them Walt rented a van. He tells them
about the shovel. But, and this is the crucial
limitation of the entire plan, he does not know
the actual GPS coordinates. Right. He knows Walt
moved the money, but he doesn't know where it
was taken. So Hank has the method, but not the
location. I feel like most cops would be totally
stuck right there. They would hit a wall. Yeah.
But Hank, completely energized by Jesse, Jesse
realizes they can use this partial information
to aggressively bluff Walt. They have enough
very specific details, the rental van, the barrels,
the shovel, to make Walt genuinely believe they
know everything. It is a classic confidence game.
Which leads us directly into segment four, The
Phone Call. This is Psychological Warfare. This
entire sequence, it is just pure adrenaline.
Jesse sends the beat. A photo of a barrel full
of cash sitting open in the dirt. Now the notes
tell us this was actually staged in Hank's backyard.
It is completely fake. But to Walt. To Walt,
it looks totally real. And then the phone rings.
And this is a crucial character moment. Walt
actually answers it. Why does he answer it, though?
He usually ignores unknown numbers when he's
being careful. Because the threat is existential.
Jesse leaves a voicemail or sends a text saying,
I found it. Walt's curiosity and his deep -seated
fear just completely override his usual caution.
He has to know. He has to. And once he is on
the line, Jesse starts the countdown. He says,
I am going to burn it. $10 ,000 a minute. He
literally puts the sound of the lighter flicking
right in Walt's ear. Click. That sound, it triggers
a deeply primal panic in Walt. And this is where
we see the green screen drive we talked about
earlier. Walt tears out of the car wash parking
lot. He is screaming at Jesse. Don't do it. You're
an idiot. You're burning your own money. And
Jesse just keeps poking the bear. He says, I
don't care about the money, Mr. White. I care
about hurting you. And in his sheer desperation
to stop the burning, Walt starts confessing.
And this is so fascinating to me. He isn't confessing
to the police, or so he thinks. He is confessing
to Jesse just to try and win a twisted argument.
Exactly. He is desperately trying to rationalize
his atrocious behavior. He brings up Brock. The
poisoning. He screams, I poisoned Brock, but
I ensured his survival. I calculated the dose.
What actually goes through a man's head to think
that is a valid defense? That is the ultimate
narcissism of Walter White. He genuinely deeply
believes he should be thanked for it. Thank for
poisoning a kid. Yes. In his mind, he made a
hard executive decision to poison a child to
manipulate Jesse against Gus Fring. But because
he was quote unquote smart enough to not actually
kill the boy, he sees actions as somewhat benevolent.
I didn't kill him. I just almost killed him to
save you. It is incredibly twisted logic. But
in that car with the siren blaring in the background,
which is actually just the sound of his own internal
panic, he thinks if he can just. Calmly explain
the overarching strategy Jesse will finally understand.
He also confesses to the murders of the dealers.
He confesses to basically everything. And completely
unbeknownst to him, Hank and Gomez are recording
every single word. He is handing them the entire
federal case on a silver platter. The irony is
just so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Walt, the man who covers his tracks better than
literally anyone, is loudly shouting his crimes
into a recording device because he is simply
too greedy to let his money burn. Greed? and
massive arrogance. He cannot imagine a world
where Jesse Pinkman outsmarts him. Right. He
thinks Jesse is beneath him. Exactly. He assumes
Jesse stumbled upon the money by sheer dumb luck.
It never once occurs to him that this is an elaborate
trap set by Hank. So he arrives at Togy Lee.
The coordinates are 34, 59, 20. He screeches
to a halt. The dust settles. And it is completely
empty. Just the wind howling. No Jesse. No van.
No fire. And the horrible realization just washes
over him. You can actually see the gears turning
in Bryan Cranston's eyes. He looks down at the
dirt. It is totally undisturbed. He has been
had. And in that singular moment of extreme vulnerability,
he spots a car on the horizon. Now this is a
highly critical decision point for Walt. He is
panicked. He thinks Jesse is coming to kill him
right then and there. Maybe Jesse hired hitmen.
So what does he do? He immediately goes back
to the deal with the devil. He grabs his phone
and calls Jack. He gives him the GPS coordinates.
He says, I am pinned down. Get here now. He is
literally calling in an airstrike. He wants the
neo -Nazis to come out and completely wipe out
whoever is in that approaching car. But then
the car gets a little closer. Yeah. And he sees
who is actually in it. He sees Jesse. But Jesse
is not driving. Hank is driving, and Gomez is
right there in the passenger seat. And everything
just violently stops. This is segment five, the
showdown. This is the moment that completely
defines the rest of the series. Walt realizes
his enemy isn't a rival cartel gang or a hired
hit band. It is his actual family. It is Hank.
And Walt has one rule, the one single rule he
has never ever broken. You do not kill family.
He can mentally justify killing Gail. He can
justify killing Mike. He can justify having all
those prison witnesses brutally stabbed. But
Hank, Hank is completely off limits. So he yells
into the phone, don't come call it off. He desperately
tries to put the terrible genie back in the bottle.
Forget I called, do not come. But Jack, well
Jack is already on the move. And the cell connection
is really spotty out there. Did Jack actually
hear him? Did he even care if he did hear him?
Walt just drops the phone. He realizes in that
moment he is completely checkmated. The surrender
scene. This felt so incredibly surreal when I
first watched it on television. Walter White,
the great Heisenberg, just slowly walks out from
behind a red rock and puts his hands up. It is
a picture of total absolute defeat. He takes
off his glasses. Oh, the glasses. That gesture
is so incredibly significant. The glasses are
a key part of the Heisenberg mask. Taking them
off reveals the tired, weak, dying man underneath
the myth. Hank gets out of the car. He has his
gun drawn. Police drop it. Walt just freezes.
He drops the gun in the dirt. And Hank walks
up and handcuffs him. He reads him his Miranda
rights. Walter White, you have the right to remain
silent. Hearing those specific words spoken to
the main character after five long seasons of
watching him get away with everything, it felt
like the show was literally ending right there.
It felt like, okay, they finally got him. That
is the end of the story. It is a moment of immense,
profound catharsis for Hank. He finally, after
all this time, got his man. He looks at Walton
and says, hey, I got you. And for a very brief
fleeting moment, the world makes sense again.
The bad guy is in cuffs. The good guy won the
day. But then the emotional temperature violently
spikes again. Jesse walks up. Jesse is physically
shaking. He is looking at the man who repeatedly
manipulated him, abused him, and poisoned his
girlfriend's young son. And Walt is finally completely
powerless now. So Jesse spits on him. Right in
the face. A huge moment of humiliation. And Walt,
even while in cuffs, even totally defeated his
massive ego. simply cannot handle that level
of disrespect. He lunges at Jesse. He tries to
headbutt him or bite him. It is just purely animalistic.
Gomez and Hank have to quickly pull them apart.
They're yelling, hey, hey, cut it out. It is
really messy. It is not a dignified mastermind
villain defeat at all. It is a pathetic, ugly
scuffle in the dirt. It totally strips away the
Heisenberg myth. Walt isn't an evil genius here.
He is just a nasty, angry old man getting forcefully
shoved into the backseat of a police SUV. So
Walt is locked in Gomez's car. Jesse's put in
Wall's car, and Hank makes a phone call to Marie.
Which brings us to segment six, the false ending
and the cliffhanger. The writers give us one
collective breath. Hank calls Marie Schrader
and delivers the line, I have him. It is without
a doubt the happiest Hank has been in years.
He is absolutely beaming. He tells her it is
finally over. He says it may be a while before
I am home, but baby, I am coming home. Oh God,
that line, I am coming home. In the language
of cinema, that is basically signing your own
tragic death warrant. It is the ultimate retiree
trope. You know the cop who is exactly one day
away from retirement, or the soldier in the trench
who shows his buddy a picture of his girl back
home. It is a curse. It is. Whatever character
in a tense drama says it is over, I am safe,
you know, the heavy axe is about to fall. And
fall, it absolutely does. Because Walt is sitting
in the back of the SUV, and he looks in the rear
view mirror. And he sees the dust kicking up
on the horizon. Not just one car either. Two
heavy trucks. Jack and the Brotherhood have arrived.
They completely ignored the cancellation order.
Or maybe they didn't hear it. Or more likely
they saw the GPS coordinates and realized that
is exactly where the millions of dollars are
buried. Walt's face in that precise moment, it
is pure unadulterated horror. He starts violently
screaming again, Jack, Jack don't do it. But
he is completely trapped inside the soundproof
glass of the SUV. No one outside can hear a word
he is saying. He is literally a helpless spectator
at his own family's funeral. The trucks aggressively
pull up. And the blocking here by McLaren is
so incredibly intimidating. These guys... pile
out of the vehicles, they have tactical vests
on, they are holding automatic rifles, they slowly
line up. And Hank and Gomez? They are horribly
outgunned. They have standard -issue pistols
and one shotgun. They are standing out in the
wide open desert. The Nazis have the heavy vehicles
for solid cover. The standoff ensues. It is classic
high noon western tension. You hear the desert
wind whistling. You get these tight close -ups
on everyone's eyes. Hank is yelling, please drop
your weapons, identify yourselves. And Jack is
just casually chewing his gum. Kenny is calmly
polishing his glasses. They do not respect the
badge at all. They just see two minor obstacles
standing between them and a massive winning lottery
ticket. Walt is frantically banging his head
and hands on the window. No, no. He knows exactly
what is about to happen. And then the tension
finally snaps. Kenny abruptly opens fire and
the whole world just violently explodes. It is
not a beautifully choreographed cinematic slow
motion gunfight either. It is incredibly loud,
chaotic and totally overwhelming. Bullets are
absolutely shredding the SUV. Glass is flying
everywhere. Gomez and Hank are pinned down almost
instantly. They are desperately taking cover
behind the thin car door, which offers almost
absolutely no real protection against high caliber
automatic rounds. Jesse is terrified and cowering
under the dashboard of Walt's car. Walt is curled
up in a tight ball on the floor of the SUV trying
to avoid the hail of bullets. And the editing
here by Kelly Dixon is incredibly frantic. It
rapidly cuts from the bright muzzle flashes to
Walt's terrified screaming face to Hank bravely
firing back with his pistol. And then right in
the middle of the deafening battle, Black. Cut
to Black, executive producer Vince Gilligan.
The sheer audacity of the creative team to end
the episode right there in that exact second.
It was the ultimate television cliffhanger. You
have the lives of literally every major character
hanging completely in the balance. The screen
goes totally dark. And you are just left sitting
in your living room. in total silence with your
heart pounding out of your chest. I remember
vividly throwing a couch pillow at my TV screen.
I physically needed to know what happened next
right then. It was a wildly brilliant strategic
move by AMC and the creators. It completely ensured
that everyone, and I mean everyone, would be
frantically tuning in for the next episode, Ozymandias.
Let us talk about the reception in segment seven,
because obviously an episode this intense...
made massive waves. It was a cultural phenomenon.
The original broadcast viewership jumped to 5
.1 million people, which was up significantly
from the previous week's 4 .41 million. Wow,
that is a big jump. Yeah, the intense word of
mouth was spreading rapidly. People were saying,
you absolutely have to watch this live. You cannot
wait. And the critics? How did they react? They
were totally floored by it. Tim Surrett over
at TV .com called it a direct hit and said it
was potentially one of the best episodes of the
entire series. Seth Amidon at IGN gave it a perfect
10 out of 10 score. A perfect 10 that is rare.
Deservedly so, though. He highly praised the
pacing, the shocking twists, and the masterful
direction. He astutely noted that the show had
somehow managed to make us root for Hank. Hank
aggressively despised Walt, deeply pity Jesse,
and utterly fear the Nazis all at the exact same
time. The Ringer, much later on in 2019, actually
ranked it as the 11th best episode out of all
62 episodes of the series, which in a show with
a baseline caliber this high, is legendary top
-tier status. And we absolutely cannot forget
the editing awards. Kelly Dixon was officially
nominated for Outstanding Single Camera Picture
Editing for a drama series for this specific
episode. Did she win? She actually lost, but
she only lost to the editor of the series finale,
Felina. So Breaking Bad basically owned that
entire category that year. So as we wrap up this
incredibly tense journey. Yeah. Let us try to
synthesize all of this information. What is the
big thematic takeaway of Toajali? For me, the
biggest takeaway is about the dangerous illusion
of control. Walter White spent five grueling
seasons, truly believing he could neatly compartmentalize
his chaotic life. Right, keeping the two lives
separate. Exactly. He deeply thought he could
be a ruthless drug lord from nine to five and
a warm family man on the weekends. He actually
thought he could hire brutal murderers to do
his bidding, but somehow keep his own hands perfectly
clean. And this episode violently smashes that
entire illusion into pieces. Completely. Separate
worlds finally forcefully collide out in the
desert. The criminal world represented by Jack
aggressively arrives to kill the family world
represented by Hank. And Walt is just hopelessly
stuck right in the middle, handcuffed, entirely
unable to stop it. It is the ultimate consequence
of every single dark shortcut he ever took. He
hired Jack to cleanly solve a problem, and now
Jack is the absolute worst problem he has ever
faced. It is the classic Shakespearean tragedy
structure. The tragic anti -hero creates the
exact instrument of his own terrible destruction.
And the poetic irony of the physical location.
The exact place where he very first broke bad
is the exact place where his life finally breaks
completely apart. He fully surrendered. That
is the one thing that still really haunts me
about this episode. He actually gave up his empire.
He was fully willing to go to a federal prison
just to save Hank's life. But it was just way
too late. Way too late. The dark, violent forces
he originally set in motion were already aggressively
rolling forward. You cannot unring the bell.
You cannot uncall the hit. Well, here's a final
provocative thought for you, the listener. A
dark little nugget to carefully chew on. Walt
screams, don't come to Jack on the phone. He
peacefully surrenders to Hank in his own twisted
mind. He made the right moral choice at the very
last possible second. But does that actually
matter? That is the ultimate philosophical question
of the show. Right. Like if you build a highly
destructive bomb and you purposely light the
fuse and then you suddenly genuinely regret it
five seconds before it blows up, are you still
a bomber? I think the bloody shootout in the
desert gave us the definitive answer to that.
The bomb went off regardless of his regrets.
Indeed it did. And next time we do a deep dive,
we really have to talk about the toxic radioactive
fallout of that bomb. Because if you somehow
thought this week was intense, Ozymandias is
coming. I am definitely going to need a very
stiff drink before we sit down to record that
one. Oh, me too. Absolutely. Thank you all so
much for listening to The Deep Dive. Go re -watch
the episode. Close we look at those wide desert
shots. Look at the sheer terror in Cranston's
eyes. And we will see you on the other side.