2.02 Grilled

Summary and spoilers

Skyler fears that Walt may have committed suicide; he disappeared from the house, obviously distraught, and there is no sign of foul play. Hank pulls himself away from the manhunt for Tuco to manhunt for Walt. Also called in is a detective friend of Hank’s; he comes to the house and interviews Skyler. He’s very thorough, but Skyler is impatient with being asked for clues when she was kind of hoping that the detectives would find the clues.

Tuco has taken Walt and Jesse to a small, isolated house in the desert, where an old, catatonic, wheelchair-ridden man named Hector lives. Hector is related to Tuco in some way, and Tuco alternates between taking care of the man and screaming at him. Walt and Jesse are badgered, and Jesse’s life is threatened, but Tuco still sees some value in them (especially Walt). Tuco’s plan is to take them as virtual prisoners to Mexico, where they can cook all day and all night. They have no choice but to go along with this. Tuco says his cousins will be there by sunset to smuggle them in a truck; he prepares some food to give them strength for the long journey.

Tuco is on the run; his place of business was raided by the DEA. Tuco has assumed that Gonzo (the big guy who got crushed underneath the car stack) was the snitch; he doesn’t know that Gonzo is dead. When a news story about Gonzo’s death plays on TV, Walt changes the channel. Hector, who isn’t as out of it as he appears, notices this. He also notices when Walt spikes Tuco’s burrito with the poison meth. Hector, who can only ring a bell to communicate, saves Tuco’s life by demanding the burrito. Tuco thinks this is because it is larger. When Hector gets the burrito, he summons all his minimal strength to fling it off the table, eliciting a vicious response from Tuco.

Walt Jr. prints ‘missing’ posters on the home printer, unaware that just below the desk is a diaper box with wads of cash and a gun. Skyler and Marie have formed a truce; they distribute the posters as fast as Walt Jr. can print them.

Tuco has finally started to ‘listen’ to Hector. He interrogates him, and through a series of yes and no bell noises, realizes Hector believes that Hank and Walt are lieing. Tuco goes mad, dragging Jesse outside and beginning the process of beating him to death. Walt stops this carnage temporarily with the only weapon he has available: shock. He admits to Tuco that he and Jesse had tried to poison him. Tuco loses concentration for a moment; Jesse smashes him with a rock, and in the ensuing fight, Jesse grabs Tuco’s gun and shoots him in the chest. They then dump him in a hole to let him bleed to death. Walt and Jesse prepare to make their escape, but the keys are not in Jesse’s car, and there’s another problem; another car is approaching. They slink away to hide and watch, assuming this car contains Tuco’s cousins, but it’s Hank; looking for clues about Walt, he has tracked Jesse’s car to this location. Walt and

Hank arrives, expecting to find Jesse, but instead, he ends up in a machine gunfight with Tuco. Hank avoids numerous bullets and kills Tuco with one well-placed shot, while Walt and Jesse watch in disbelief, cowering, then take off and run, still undetected, through the desert.

Comments

Hank may be a wanker in the world of social skills, but he’s a very good cop. Despite being outgunned by an automatic-weapon-wielding drug-dealer, he still manages to win the shootout. And he’s poised throughout.

What was the small device that Hank quickly found and removed from the wheel well of Hank’s car? Should we assume it was a tracking device planted earlier by Hank? And that brings up an interesting theory that I can’t believe I had ignored. Let’s go back to episode one of the series. Hank raids a meth lab and Jesse escapes out a second floor window. Jesse is implicated as the snitch. Now Tuco has been raided. Is Jesse still the snitch? Has Jesse been feeding information to Hank? And has Jesse also implicated Walt?

Nits

Jesse has been kicked around plenty during the course of the series, but his quick recovery after being pounded and tossed around like a rag doll by Tuco is nothing short of miraculous. He should be quite groggy at this point, with a serious concussion, but he just jumps up and gets in the car.

Memorable Moments

• Tuco and the motor on the lo-rider both die in the desert, side by side, at about the same moment
• As Hank stands above the dead body of Tuco, he hears Hector’s bell chime three times

Quotable Quotes

"So…study the face, study the file, get a big old raging hard-on at the idea of catching this piece of shit! Oh – my apologies to the HR Department. ‘Grow tumescent with anticipation’."
- Hank

Detective: Anything else you can think of?
Skyler: Anything else…um, I called the credit card providers, and there’s no report of any, um, recent activity. I checked with every hospital within 50 miles, every police station, every morgue. So, no, I really don’t, I don’t have anything else. I was actually hoping that you had something else, being that you’re the expert. [pause] I’m – I’m sorry.

Walt: No, no no NO no – I need him, Tuco. I need him very, very badly. He’s my partner. And if he doesn’t go, I don’t go.
Tuco: I’ll tell you this: my cousins are driving up here right now to smuggle us back down – they’re gonna be here by sunset, and you’re gonna be on that truck, or you’re gonna be DEAD! [turns to Jesse] And you – you’d better hope they’ve got room in the trunk.

Walt: How was I supposed to know you were chauffeuring Tuco to my doorstep?
Jesse: Well, at least he wants you alive.