Breaking Bad - Episode 5

When Season 3 of "Breaking Bad" premiered I wanted to do an episode recap each week. Unfortunately I found that I don't really have the time to do so, at least to the level of quality I aspire to. Luckily, Hunter Stephenson of slashfilm.com has been doing this for Season 3, and has been doing a hell of a good job. So my plan is to link to his recap each week and offer some of my thoughts/observations as well. Here is the link to last Sunday's fifth episode, "Mas" (for recaps of episodes 1 -4, please see the following links, respectfully, here, here, here and here.

Some thoughts on Episode 5:

-I thought there were a number of nice directorial touches throughout the episode: the wooden beam dividing the screen in half at the dinner scene, separating Walt from Skyler and Walt Jr., then Walt and Skylar, and ultimately Walt and the baby from Skylar; the towel separating Skylar's feet from Ted's heated floor (Natasha Vargas-Cooper felt it was one of the many insinuations of hell in the episode; I feel it was more of a symbol of temptation for Skylar for which life she is going to choose; Jessie smashing Walt's windshield (remember, Jesse indirectly caused Walt's windshield to be crushed last season, all while they were passive-aggressively fighting. Now Jesse directly smashed the windshield; foreshadowing a climatic clash between the two?)

-I feel Gus is often wearing yellow; an illustration of his cowardly nature/potential back-stabbing ways?

-NVC felt Gus' tempting of Walt was similar to Satan tempting Christ in the desert. I like this interpretation, though I think Eve and the apple is a more appropriate allusion. Walt is Eve, Gus is the Serpent, the lab is the great desire/temptation, and the United States government is God. That's probably too simple though.

-When David Simon talks "The Wire", he often invokes the idea of Greek tragedy, in that post-modern institutions take the place of the gods and that the human characters have no control over their tragic future. I think "Breaking Bad" is proving to be a wonderful contrast to "The Wire" as it is proving to be the modern Shakespearian tragedy. In it we see character after character slowly but surely succumbing to their own hubris and in the end, self-destruction.

-In my eyes, the primary themes of this episode were temptation and inadequacy.