Watch Full Episode here: http://tinyurl.com/m82oeu4
Watch Full Episode here: http://tinyurl.com/m82oeu4
Watch Full Episode here: http://tinyurl.com/m82oeu4
And we know that we're in good hands in the first few seconds of the terrifying opening scene, one that features Future Walt for the first time since the opening scene of season 5 premiere Live Free Or Die. In that earlier scene, it was heavily implied that terrible, terrible things are going to happen to Walt; this scene just serves to confirm it.
On returning to his house to retrieve the ricin cigarette, we see that the once homely White residence has been stripped bare and vandalised with grafitti'd Heisenberg slogans. The drained swimming pool is filled with snickering skate punks, and the whole house has effectively become a Boogeyman's lair, the kind of place neighbourhood kids dare each other to sneak into on Hallowe'en. Something really bad happened there.
"Who do you think you see?" is a question that Walt once asked Skyler, pointedly, before launching into the now legendary 'I am the one who knocks' monologue. It's a question that has resonated through the series since. When neighbour Carol sees Future Walt outside the house, she reacts as if she's seen a ghost (before dropping her oranges - Breaking Bad never passes up the opportunity to give a hat tip to a classic gangster trope). When Walt looks in the cracked mirror of his abandoned family home while stood in the defiled and violated ruins of his true life's work - his family - who does he see? Is it Heisenberg? Is it Walter White? Or is it neither?
Who does Jesse see, when Walt looks him directly in the eye and swears to him that he didn't kill Mike? Jesse, ironically, probably knows Walt better than anyone else in the world after what the pair have been through together, despite the fact that he's been the victim of more lies from Walt than probably even Skyler. As the two men sit together on a sofa, symbolically divided by the two huge bags of titular blood money, poor Jesse once more has to sit there while Walt pisses all over him and tells him it's raining.
But even through a depressed bong-haze and Walt’s well-honed, Oscar-winning earnestness it's clear that Jesse is now wise to Walt's antics. If this means Walt can no longer rely on being able to emotionally manipulate Jesse when he's in a pinch, where now for their relationship? Certainly, Jesse no longer seems to fear or respect the man in front of him - his prevailing emotion rather appears to be sheer disgust.
As for Skyler, her new-found apparent contentment suggests that rather than seeing the one who knocks, she sees her old husband Walter White finally coming back to her; only this time, with the added drive and ambition required to run and operate his own successful car wash business. Walt, for his part, seems to be enjoying his return to his mild-mannered ways, with his lovably dorky opinions on air freshener merchandising, chipper valedictions ("Have an A1 day!") and painfully beige outfits (interesting that Walt wears this same outfit at the car wash in the pilot episode: it's what he's wearing when he first explodes with rage after some mild bullying from the substantively eye-browed owner).
