Review: Breaking Bad ‘Rabid Dog’ – He Was My Teacher

“What’s one more?”

All throughout ‘Rabid Dog’, Walt continuously finds himself fighting his own reputation: his family knows he’s pretty much always full of shit, and his track record speaks to the kind of person he’s become. But all through ‘Rabid Dog’, we see Walt struggle to deal with the person he’s become: although his behavior hasn’t changed from previous seasons in any way or fashion, the desperation and thinly-veiled deceits he tries to play in the episode aren’t as effective as they once were, all because Walt is resisting the words of Heisenberg inside him. But what he doesn’t realize until the very end is that for all intents and purposes, Walter White no longer exists: no matter what he does or says, people can only see him as the man with the black hat and a violent disposition in regards to ‘dealing with problems’. And now that Jesse no longer sees the Mr. White he knew and (tumultuously) loved, Walter finally makes the decision that damns him forever, breaking the one rule he insisted just episodes ago he’d never break: he’s going to try and kill a member of his family (Jesse).

There’s an important change in the tide of Breaking Bad‘s world in this episode that Jesse poignantly points out while sitting down with Hank and Gomez: Walter White is not only a dangerous, quick thinking, violent person: he’s a lucky motherfucker for a person with lung cancer. And Jesse’s always played into that luck: whether loving a child that Walt could manipulate him with, or answering his phone in time to get to Gail’s house and save both their lives. But the minute Jesse walks away from his ride to freedom and a new life, Walt’s good luck ran out – even though it appeared to still be hanging around after the episode opens with Walt’s house still intact, and no sign of Jesse around.

It takes 21 minutes of watching Walt scramble to find Jesse to find out what happened to him, but it’s certainly bad news when we do see it (confirmed by Marie: “Is this bad for Walt?… Good, I’ll go heat up some lasagna”). Even when it appears that Jesse’s knowledge would turn up fruitless, Hank’s recent string of good luck continues when he happens to hear Jesse’s phone message to Walt, thinking he can set Jesse up to frame Walt, either by recording his confession to Jesse about Brock or videotaping Walt murdering him.

What makes ‘Rabid Dog’ work so well is the build-up to this meeting; for me, the biggest question on Breaking Bad for the last few seasons is not “will Hank catch Walt?” – it’s been “when does Walt try to kill Jesse?” (I’d say the end of s2/beginning of s3 firmly established that this is the emotional core of the show, and the most important factor to the final decision on Walt’s soul). Everybody else just assumes Walt is a homicidial monster – except Hank of course, who points out to Jesse that for all the shit he’s done to Jesse, he’s always tried to help him recover from it (though nobody except Walt knows the story of Jane’s death, a juicy tidbit I’m assuming Gilligan is saving for the final half of this half-season).

But would Walt kill Jesse? By splitting the episode’s point of view from Walt to Jesse midway through the episode, we’re left to wonder how seriously he’s “mulling his options” out by the hotel pool (Walt sitting by the pool thinking is NEVER, EVER a good sign for things to come). Saul’s euphemisms can only go so far: at some point, Walt will have to say the words “Jesse Pinkman” and “kill” in the same sentence – something he still doesn’t do at the end, even when he calls up Todd to finally set the plan in motion everyone expected him to.

The part that seals ‘Rabid Dog’ as a fantastic Breaking Bad hour, though, is how it all goes to shit: when Jesse arrives to meet with Walt, he sees a tough-looking guy in a leather jacket and runs away. Even Jesse can’t believe that Walt wouldn’t lie to him: although Jesse tries to appeal to Hank that Walt is ‘retired’, there’s no retiring from your reputation. Walt is Heisenberg whether he wants to admit it or not (and confirms it when he calls Todd) – and even though he did want to talk, Jesse mistaking that for a ruse to kill him makes perfect sense. At the end of the day, ‘Rabid Dog’ is about the day Walt’s luck went bad: and how Jesse went from his good luck charm to the ominous embodiment of Walt’s destruction. After Walt realizes Jesse is gone, the bell rings, announcing the arrival of his downfall, a tremendous ending to my favorite episode of the final season so far.

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

– the book Jesse is holding in Hank’s house is Teri Woods’ Dutch, a crime novel (and first of a trilogy). It’s an urban mobster story, about a guy who goes from small-time car thief to criminal kingpin, culminating in a “month of murder” when he took down an opposing boss’s entire regime. Sound familiar?

– Marie is wearing dark, dark purple this week. Not so happy.

– Saul: “I never should’ve let my dojo membership go out.”

– I saw some complaining on Twitter that Jesse’s realization of what happened to Brock was a big leap of logic; let’s not forget we’re watching television. It was a great way to push Jesse into action, reminding us that he’s more intelligent than anyone gives him credit for, and allows Jesse to make decisions for himself as a character for the first time, an important step in destroying the bond between him and Walter (which at its core, was Walt using Jesse for specific means and ends, manipulating him to do as he bid).

– unfortunately, all the DEA got from three hours of audio from Badger’s house was a lot of Bablyon 5 talk.

– Jesse: “You can’t keep getting away with it!!!!”

– Marie, talking to her therapist about poisoning Walt: “I would never hurt anyone, but it feels good to think about it.”

– “Mr. White? He’s the devil.”

– Hank, testing out the audio equipment: “Pancho Villa Salma Hayek.”