Breaking Bad episode review — 5.11 — Confessions

Original air date: August 25, 2013
Director: Michael Slovis
Writer: Gennifer Hutchison

Rating: 9/10

Hank speaks with Jesse and lets him know that he knows Hank is Heisenberg. He wants his help to bring him in, but Jesse isn’t too cooperative.

Their meeting is cut off when Saul Goodman arrives, and teases Hank (“beat any good suspects lately?”). Apparently Jesse didn’t call Saul, who heard about him on the news.

Jesse and Saul meet with Walt out in the desert. Jesse tells him what Hank told him, and he also adds that he doesn’t think Hank really has much, and he appears to have not told the rest of the DEA.

Hank tries to convince Jesse to leave town and start a new identity, with the help of Saul. He claims he wants to help him, but Jesse demands that he just admit that he needs him away, because Hank knows.

It’s an emotional, well done scene, in which both characters’ perspectives are easy to understand. Jesse has every right to think that Walt is trying to manipulate him again, but Walt may genuinely care about Jesse and want to see him happy and safe.

A big thing with these next two episodes is the connection of Walt and Jesse. Nobody else seems to understand it, but Walt does seem to have principles when it comes to Jesse. There’s definitely a bit of a father-son thing there.

Todd officially takes over as the cook behind Jack Welker’s (Michael Bowen) operation. We’ll see more on this in future episodes, of course, because not much comes of it here.

Walt has a plan for dealing with Hank that we don’t get to fully see. We see him start to record some kind of confession on DVD, and he and Skyler meet with Hank and Marie at a Mexican restaurant.

Skyler and Walt demand that Walter, Jr. be left out of everything. Skyler insists that whatever Hank says Walt did is in the past, but he (and Marie) are still hellbent on putting him behind bars. Walt leaves him the DVD as he leaves.

The DVD isn’t a real confession, as Walt instead claims that Hank forced him to cook for him, using his connections to the DEA and to Gus Fring.

Hank and Marie watch, horrified, and this is where Hank learns that Walt covered his medical and rehab expenses. This makes disproving Walt’s claims a lot more difficult. It is just his word against Walt’s at this point.

Saul sets Jesse up with his disappearer. He explains that the guy’s really professional, and won’t work with him if he comes with marijuana or shows up late. Jesse says he thinks he wants to go to Alaska.

As Jesse leaves, he has to brush past Huell. When he’s about to meet with the guy, he finds that his marijuana is missing, realizing that Huell has lifted it, and also that Huell lifted his ricin cigarette earlier, meaning Walt poisoned Brock in order to try and get Jesse on his side.

He breaks into Saul’s office, beating him and pointing a gun at him.

Saul admits to doing that for Walt, but insists he didn’t know it was about poisoning a kid. He said that Walt told him he was trying to help Jesse.

Jesse then takes Saul’s car and goes to Walt’s, pouring gasoline all over the living room.

Walt takes his gun that’s hidden in the vending machine at the car wash, and heads to his home to confront Jesse. And that’s how it ends.

This episode is very, very good. It has some incredibly emotional moments, and this is a really great Jesse episode. It may be Aaron Paul’s finest hour.