2.03 Bit by a Dead Bee

Summary and spoilers

Walt and Jesse bury the gun that was used to shoot Tuco. They walk out across the desert and, eventually, reach a road. They split up by design, with Walt accepting a ride in a pickup truck, while Jesse staying behind to get home some other way. Walt turns up naked in a convenience store, again by design; when he is rescued, the story he tells is that he has no memory of what happened the last two days. The story backfires a bit when his doctors show grave concern and insist that he stay in hospital indefinitely for psychiatric observation. Walt cuts his stay short by confiding the truth – that he remembers everything that happened – to his psychologist in their first session. His memories, however, are of simply walking and hitchhiking, and do not involve shooting any drug dealers. His honesty is safe with the psychologist, who is bound by the rules of doctor/patient confidentiality, and it means Walt can leave the hospital after one more night.

While in the hospital, Walt finds out more about Hank’s shootout with Tuco. Walt is worried that Hank is getting closer and closer to knowing something about him. Truly, Hank is inching nearer to Walt’s trail. Toward the end of the episode, Hank muses on the connection between Krazy 8’s death, where a very pure meth was found, Tuco, where a very pure meth made with P2P was found, and the video of the ‘two stooges’ breaking into a warehouse to steal a barrel of P2P.

Hank is about to be crowned a hero by his peers for killing Tuco, but first he does have to face some hard question from his superiors about why he was there in the first place. He has all the right answers. His co-workers throw him a party with a cake and a special gift: Tuco’s diamond bridge. Later, Hank shows this gift to Walt, and Walt is almost sick on the spot.

Jesse and Badger wait for the cops to stop poking around the outside of his house, then get in quickly to move the meth lab equipment back into the RV, which is then towed away by Badger’s cousin.

Jesse and his girlfriend Wendy are busted by Hank and a DEA squad, dobbed in by Badger (as per Jesse’s instructions). Jesse is interrogated by Hank and Gomez. Jesse says he was in the hotel room partying for three days, and had no idea his car was stolen. Hank thinks Jesse knows who killed Tuco. Jesse’s girlfriend Wendy is also questioned, but she sticks to her story. Jesse believes he will be released until he hears a familiar bell sound from the hallway: Hank and Gomez have brought in Senior Salamanco, the wheelchair-bound elderly man that was there with Tuco. But Salamanco abides by the code that states that latino gangs should never help the FEDs, and refuses to admit that Jesse was at the house.

After a debrief from Jesse, Walt freaks about the stashed cash at his house. He sneaks out of the hotel and into his own house and moves the cash from the diaper box back into the wall vent.

Walt is happy to be back home, but Skyler seems ill at ease with the events of the past two days. She questions Walt about whether he has two cell phones, and accepts his answer that he has only one – but she seems almost resigned to the fact that he is still hiding much from her.

Comments

If you’re looking for a moral upside to this series, you can latch onto the fact that Walt and Jesse have now killed three drug dealers further up the chain than themselves.

Breaking Bad is fond of using ‘reverse perspective’ camera angles (for example, in the premiere episode, when Walt is drying money in the dryer, we see the view from inside the dryer looking out). Here, we get ‘shovel cam’: a ground-up perspective as Walt and Jesse scratch out a desert grave for their gun.

Quotable Quotes

"I mean, he was naked, naked in a supermarket. It wasn’t Whole Foods, was it?"
- Marie

"I think you know who Tuco Salamanco was. I think your car was there ‘cause you were there. Tuco had a bullet in him when I got there, and I think you know somethin’ about that too."
- Hank to Jesse

Walt: Look, doctor, I feel fine, really. If this is truly necessary, can’t I continue as an outpatient?
Psychologist: Walt, a fugue state is a very serious event. What if you were to disassociate when you were driving? What if you were to get into a situation where you could be shot by the police?

Psychologist: Why run away? What did you feel you had to run from?
Walt: Doctor, my wife is seven months pregnant with a baby we didn’t intend. My fifteen year old son has cerebral palsy. I am an extremely overqualified high school chemistry teacher. When I can work, I make 43,700 dollars per year. I have watched all of my colleagues and friends surpass me in every way imaginable, and within eighteen months, I will be dead. And you ask why I ran?

Jesse: You still want to cook – seriously?
Walt: What’s changed, Jesse?

"Uh…say, honey, uh…I was just thinking about going out to 7-11. Do you…need anything? Big gulp? Slim Jim?"
- Walt, naked again