Breaking Bad Episode 4.06 Cornered

Reminiscent of the teaser of Episode 404, Cartel thugs ambush a Los Pollos Hermanos refrigerated truck. This time they pump it full of exhaust. After the two guards traveling inside the shipment suffocate to death, the thugs enter the trailer -- but take only a single marked container of fry batter.

At home, Skyler takes a break from researching the Boetticher case on the Internet. She repeatedly plays back Walt's phone message wherein he tells her he loves her. Something bothers her about both.

That afternoon Walt's still hung over from the night before. Skyler asks if the people he works for killed Gale. "Definitely not," Walt replies -- technically true, but she can sense the lie. Skyler says that she's been trying to figure out why Walt would tell Hank that the mystery meth maker was still at large. "I think you're scared," she theorizes, adding that she now realizes that his declaration of love was a goodbye message.

Walt becomes furious when Skyler suggests that he secretly wants Hank to catch him. Skyler has no idea how much money he makes, Walt retorts, or how important he is to the drug operation. "I am not in danger," he snarls. "I am the danger." After taking a shower to decompress, Walt goes to apologize to Skyler, but she's left the house with baby Holly.

That evening, Walt heads to the car wash to get the keys from Bogdan, who lectures him about how tough bosses have to be. Of course, Bogdan taunts, Walt can always turn to Skyler if he isn't tough enough himself. Walt takes the insult... but also takes Bogdan's symbolic framed "first dollar" which Bogdan is clearly attached to. When Bogdan's gone, he smashes the frame, and spends the dollar on a soda from the vending machine.

Later, at a diner with Mike, Jesse's got the shakes as he comes down off the meth. Mike pushes his meatloaf over to Jesse to try to encourage him to eat, and then leaves following a call from Gus.

The next morning, Skyler still hasn't returned home. Walter Jr. tells Walt he blames his mother for not understanding that Walt can't help his gambling addiction or his cancer because both are diseases. His situation isn't about disease, Walt insists, but rather choices he's made, ones that he stands by.

While driving Walter Jr. to school, Walt admits that he's not moving back home. Sensing his son's disappointment, Walt detours to a used car dealership to buy him a car for his upcoming sixteenth birthday. "If you're going to buy me off," Walter Jr. says, annoyed, "buy me off." He casts a meaningful look at a fancy sports car on a billboard. Later, Walter Jr. steers a brand new Challenger into the White's driveway.

Outside Gus's laundry facility, Walt questions Jesse about his new role backing up Mike. Jesse contends that he proved his worth by thwarting a robbery and gets irritated when Walt suggests it could have been staged to make Jesse look heroic. Gus hates being dependent on Walt, so he's trying to drive a wedge between him and Jesse, Walt explains. "This whole thing," says Walt, "it's all about me." Jesse doesn't buy it.

In the superlab, Jesse gets a call from Mike and leaves on another assignment. Frustrated that Jesse's absence means that he has to clean the lab equipment himself, Walt pays three immigrant women from the laundry facility to perform the task. While they scrub, Walt toasts the security camera with his coffee cup.

Meanwhile, Skyler drives through the remote desert. She arrives at the Four Corners Monument. Skyler stands on the bronze disk marking where the borders of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet and flips a coin, seemingly deciding something momentous about her life. It lands in the Colorado quadrant. When a second flip yields the same result, she slides the coin with her shoe into New Mexico -- despite everything, she can't abandon her home... yet.

Mike and Jesse stake out the house of two meth heads that Mike says are selling stolen blue meth. The tweakers are high and probably armed, so Mike just wants to observe for now. Jesse ignores his instructions and attempts to make a buy; he fails. Undeterred, he takes Mike's shovel from the trunk of the car and starts digging a hole in the meth heads' front yard. Paranoid and tripping, one of the meth heads comes out and takes over digging the hole, as Jesse pretends to go inside to use the bathroom: a perfectly executed trick.

Inside the house, the second meth head, far more belligerent than his cohort, brandishes a shotgun. While trying to talk the tweaker down, Jesse notices the stolen Los Pollos Hermanos batter container. Mike enters the house and distracts the meth head. Jesse bashes him over the head and disarms him. Mike picks up the container lid, which has a message in Spanish written on it.

Back at the laundry facility, Tyrus angrily confronts Walt and the three women who helped him clean the lab. He tells him that they're being sent back to Honduras. Disturbed that he's gotten them in trouble, Walt says that Gus should blame him, not the women. "He does," Tyrus replies.

At the diner that evening, Mike asks Jesse to step outside when Gus arrives. The cartel thugs weren't after the meth, Mike explains to Gus, but wanted to send a message. "Ready to talk?" Mike translates. Mike suggests hiring additional operatives and hitting back hard, but Gus responds, "This war stays cold for now," and instructs him to set up a meeting with the cartel.

Outside the diner, Jesse stops Gus. He asks, "Why me?" He likes to think he sees things in people, Gus replies somewhat cryptically.

Skyler arrives home and notices the new Challenger in the driveway. Walt apologizes for having "overstated things" the other day, but says he needs her to understand that she and the kids are "completely safe." Everything he does, Walt continues, is to protect the family. Skyler mockingly asks if buying the car was also to protect the family, then demands that Walt return it to the dealer because it contradicts the cover story they've constructed.

Walt complains that Walter Jr. will blame Skyler if he loses his car. Of course he will, Skyler concedes. "But you know what?" she says, cold and very certain, "Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family."