We’ll start at the end, because there’s really no better place to pick up than the thundering shoot out that concludes this Breaking Bad Season 5 episode (13). As a quick bit of background, Jesse and Hank lure Walt out to the desert with a clever (and fake) threat that Jessee has uncovered the buried money and is about to burn it (I guess this counts as hitting Walt where he lives?) Sensing a trap, Walt calls up his neo-Nazi attack dogs, only to try to call them off when he sees Hank arrive with Jesse. Unwilling to violate his “no family” rule, Walt surrenders and Hank cuffs him in triumph, pausing afterwards to make a loving and victorious phone call to Marie, which conveniently lasts just long enough for the fascist cavalry to arrive and open up on our heroes/anti-heroes with their heavy artillery.
The situation looks grim. Walt dives across the seat of the car he’s in as it’s riddled with bullets; he can’t be in that much danger, though, because we know that he has to survive so that he can order some eggs and bacon in a roadside diner as Mr. Lambert a year in the future. Jesse’s survival is less certain, though I have to think that they’d keep him around for just a little big longer. The odds, sadly, look much more grim for Hank and Gomie, who are hopelessly out-numbered (what was it, 5 on 2? Something like that?) and outgunned (a pistol and shotgun versus several pistols, semi-automatic rifles, and what looked like an honest-to-God automatic machine gun). It’s already a miracle that both agents survived the initial assault, but I can’t imagine that they’re going to survive much longer. Hank’s sentimental call to Marie (“You probably won’t see me for a while.” talk about an unintentionally poor closing line!) pretty much marks him for death, right?
Furthermore, it seems pretty clear from the flash-forwards that although Walt was publicly outed as Heisenberg, he was not in prison, and probably not hiding through some federal witness protection program, so he somehow managed to stay out of the DEAs hands. Even if he survives, I can’t imagine Hank would let Walt off the hook (if he survives, Hank would probably, rightfully, blame the Nazi attack on Walt, which would only make him more furious and intent on bringing him in for justice.) So it seems likely that both Hank and Gomie will meet their ends out in the desert, and perhaps Marie will blame Walt for Hank’s death, pick up the torch, and try to burn the White family name and reputation to the ground.
Breaking Bad Season 5 Episode 14 Trailer:
As for Walt and Jesse, who knows at this point, though the Nazi’s are having problems getting their meth sufficiently pure. Maybe they’ll force the master chemists to work together one last time.
There’s still a lot of ground to cover, so I expect this final triumvirate of Breaking Bad Season 5 episodes will move at a pretty quick pace. I’m going to say that Mr. Lambert’s machine gun is reserved for Todd and the Nazi clan while the ricin is going to be used on Lidia. Then again, I’m frequently wrong in my predictions. Maybe next week, Hank and Gomie will take out the Nazi’s and survived unscathed, and I’ll have to come up with a new theory for the machine gun’s intended use. Either way, it’s fun to guess.
