Breaking Bad : The Chemistry Must Be Respected

"A man provides for his family, even if he is unappreciated, unwanted, or unloved. A man provides."

And that is what Walt is trying to do in Mas. Feeling betrayed by Skyler's affair with Ted, Walt visits Gus, trying to find out why he was given half the money from Jesse's sale. Convinced to go for a drive with Gus, he is brought to a laundry centre, and underneath it is the state of the art laboratory that Walt has always dreamed of working in. However, he must make 2 pounds of meth per week for the whole process to be profitable. Walt hesitates, blaming his prior bad decisions to the loss of his family, but Gus simply says, "You did it for your family? Then they weren't bad decisions, Walter."

Meanwhile, Skyler is having second thoughts about her affair, which she feels would lead nowhere. She expresses her confusion to her divorce lawyer, who persuades her to leave Walt once and for all, for her own good. For the first time this season, Skyler shows that she still cares for Walt when she says "I didn't marry a criminal," but is shot down by her lawyer, who retorted "Well, you're certainly married to one now."

Returning home, Skyler heads for Walt/Holly's room, only to find that it's vacated. Walt has moved out. On the desk she finds the divorce letter, signed as she had always wanted it to be. But as she stares at the piece of paper with Walt's signature on it, she realises that she isn't happy or satisfied with how things worked out.

Hank becomes consumed by his pursuit of the blue meth, going to the extent of checking out all the RVs in the area. In one incident, he accidentally looked in on an elderly couple playing cards, which resulted in a lot of embarrassment for himself. His partner reveales that he is taking the job that Hank left behind, and a rift starts forming between Hank and Marie, who doesn't understand why her husband refuses to talk to her about anything.

Walt meets up with Jesse and Saul, returning the money given to him. But he tells Jesse that it's over between them, causing Jesse to throw a lump of cement on Walt's car, shattering the windscreen. Walt warns Jesse against ever using his formula again, because he was back in business.

Hank finally finds the right RV, which actually belonged to Combo's mum. Apparently, Jesse spent most of the money Walt gave him for the RV on a dozen prostitues, leaving him with 1400 dollars to get an RV. Combo brought him to his house and allowed Jesse to steal the RV for the rest of the money. When visiting Combo's mum, Hank finds a picture of him and Jesse with a prostitute, finally discovering a real lead in his case.

The best thing about this episode is that the emotional depth so lacking in the previous few is back. We see many scenes in which our hearts are touched, like the one where Walt comforts his crying baby. We see how much he loves her, and what he is willing to do to give her a good life. Skyler too starts realising that she still loves Walt, even after what he did to her, but it was too late. He had left, to go back into the meth-making business.

Even after Walt's speech about how chemistry should be respected, I still feel that he has some 'overweening pride' about his own formula, when he continuously refused to allow Jesse to use it. Gus finally manages to persuaade Walt to start cooking again, but with pretty lame excuses. Maybe Walt does want to cook, because it is the only place where his talents are appreciated. 

Heisenberg's personality is slowly creeping back into Walt, turning him to the dark side once again. What happens next, will definitely be explosive.

*Just a thought here, is Walt doing all this to keep Jesse off the drugs? I mean, he was worried enough about Jesse in the previous season to send him to rehab, and when Jesse came out, he was all "I'm the bad guy." thing. Maybe Walt is trying to put him on the right road once and for all by ending their partnership. He seemed to care about Jesse in a fatherly manner, and I don't think Walt is the kind of guy who gets jealous that easily. Is he secretly trying to help Jesse?