Walt arrives home to find a strange car in his driveway, so he enters through the backyard, gun drawn. He sees the gasoline can in the living room and feels the soaked carpet underneath his feet. “Jessie? JESSIE! SHOW YOURSELF, RIGHT NOW!” Walt’s words are panicked, and his gun is unsteady as he makes his way around familiar corners. But Jessie is no longer in the house, and the car in the driveway has been abandoned.
Walt calls Saul’s guys for help cleaning up his house and asks Huell to check on his family, just in case Jessie goes after his son. Walt leaves Jesse a message. He says that he wants to fix this, whatever this is, and instructs Jesse to “sleep it off, and then call me.” Walt does not yet realize that Jesse doesn’t take orders from him anymore.
When the cleaning crew can’t get the gasoline smell out of the carpeting, Walt hatches a new plan that involves dousing his clothing in gasoline, splashing a bit on the interior of his car, and lying to his family. When Skyler comes home, he gives some spiel about a pump malfunction at the gas station and running home to take off his gas-soaked clothes…Skyler’s not buying it, and neither is Junior who thinks that Walt passed out at the pump from the fumes because he’s sick again. Since the house reeks of gasoline and there’s possibly a madman after them, Walt moves his family into a hotel.
Walt meets with Saul who has had the crap beaten out of him by Jesse. Saul and his men have looked everywhere, including Badger and Skinny Pete’s place, but cannot locate Jesse. Saul wants to know what Walt wants to do once Jesse turns up. “We were wondering if maybe this isn’t an Old Yeller-type situation.” Everybody loved that mutt, but he showed up rabid and, well, kerblammo! It was for Old Yeller’s own good, of course. But Walt refuses to endorse Jesse’s death, and instructs Saul to just find him. Fast.
At the hotel, Skylar pulls the information about Jesse out of Walt who assures her that Jesse has never hurt anybody. Sklyar insists that Walt “needs to deal with this.” Her rationale is that after everything they have done, “what’s one more?”
Flash back to Jesse dousing Walt’s house with gasoline and we see that he did it while high on drugs. Just as Jesse is about to light the house on fire, Hank bursts in and holds a gun on him, talking him down from burning down the house so that the two of them can burn down Walt, together. Hank takes a dead-eyed Jesse away in his car. But he doesn’t take Jesse downtown to the DEA. Instead, he gave him a couple of sleeping pills and crashes him out in the guest bedroom. While Jesse is passed out, Hank retrieves the phone message from Walt on Jesse’s Hello Kitty phone. The next morning, Marie offers Jesse coffee while Hank sets up a tripod. Hank’s boss, Agent Gomez, looks on. Jesse is nervous because if it’s Jesse’s word against Walt’s word, Walt’s word wins. “Just tell us your story, okay? Start from the beginning….”
Gomez believes the story Jesse told the camera, but the problem is that there is no physical evidence. Then Hank realizes that he has Jesse’s phone, and on it is a new message where Walt asks to meet Jesse at Civic Plaza at noon, to explain his actions and talk through everything, alone and unarmed. Hank wants Jesse to wear a wire. “So your plan is to do his plan?” Jesse asks. He can’t believe that Hank and Gomez are so naïve as to think that Walt isn’t going to shoot him right there in cold blood. Hank explains that Walt may be ruthless, but not when it comes to Jesse since he has gone out of his way to save Jesse time and time again. And he’s right. Except that was when Walt needed Jesse. Now, Jesse is a liability so there is no guarantee that the same rules will apply.
Walt is sitting on a bench in the middle of the plaza while Jesse is getting wired in Hank’s van, with Gomez listening in from a nearby car. Jesse sees something that doesn’t look right, a burly bald man watching from the corner of a nearby building. Jesse runs to a pay phone and calls Walt. “Nice try, asshole….I’m not doing what you want anymore…I’m coming for you…next time I’m going to get you where you really live.” Walt looks around and then leaves, passing the bald man without a glimmer of recognition. Hank picks Jesse up around the corner, and Jesse explains that there’s a better way to get Walt. But we’ll have to see which one gets gotten first because Walt then calls in a hit on Jesse.
Images: amctv.com
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