Breaking Bad Season 4 Episode 10 Recap – ‘Salud’

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A lot was happening in Salud, and again I must say it was perhaps the best episode of the season. But I say this too often, so maybe I should wait three more episodes to decide which was the strongest episode of this excellent fourth season.

Watch next week’s episode of Breaking Bad Trailer - Crawl Space

Maybe I love this season so much because of Jesse Pinkman. I’ll be the first to admit I totally have a crush on that meth head, and since season 4 is his season, I may have overlooked other things. Credibility, for example. Breaking Bad is a great TV series, an A-class series. But in this season there were a couple of moments (and I mean this literally – one or two moments) which I thought were more style and less reality. For example when Skyler helped Ted – and that it actually worked (I talk about last week’s episode, with the surprise visit and that super act Skyler put on – she and Marie are too alike than we might have thought).

Jesse and Gus, bff. Breaking Bad - Salud episode review

But besides this scene, and perhaps a moment when Jesse hesitated before going on that plane in Salud – a moment I thought was too long – Breaking Bad is doing a fantastic job in making the darkest, rarest moments seem so..trivial. Or at least so possible and real.

Jesse was amazing, this entire episode. And I know that if you have watched Salud you don’t need to hear this from me. He was the hero, he was the strongest man alive, he could do the impossible. Killing your mentor, even metaphorically, is the first step of becoming areal man. This is a classic narrative, and the writers of Breaking Bad wrote last episode brilliantly – with the fight scene between Walter and Jesse creating a new unbeatable force.

But while Walter is half asleep with his son putting him to bed, we see history is one giant wheel. Again Walt talks, mumbles, before he closes his eyes – and he calls his son ‘Jesse’. This moment was so brief, I wasn’t sure at first I got it right. But I did, and so did Jr., and now the question is when will this small slip reach Hank. Jr. and Hank talk sometimes, and in fact Hank is the only one Jr. talks to (and this will remain the situation, as it is clear his mother cannot understand him, judging by the car she bought him).

And while his son is one potential risk, Walter’s wife is another. Why did she tell Ted she was the one to transfer him the $600,000? Was it pride, like in the case of Walter (when he talked Hank into investigating further who the real Heisenberg is), or was is disappointment from the way Ted used the money he was given? Will she have to kill him for what he knows, later on? Skyler is no killer, no doubt there, but I can see a small problem becoming a huge one – and with that it’s no longer Skyler’s business anymore.

Next week, and in the two weeks that follow, it’s going to be harder and harder to wait to see what’s happening next. And with the understanding of Walter that “it was all my mistake”, it’s not really about the what, but also about the how the season will end, it’s also the question of what will be left for seasons 5 and 6. Or in other words – Gilligan, we’re all yours, lead us to the darkness, you know best.