Whites vs Schraeders: Breaking Bad Shows No Signs of Letting Up in "Buried"

It's refreshing to watch a show as relentlessly paced as these final eight episodes of Breaking Bad. While last night's episode was not the shocking, teeth-clenching panic attack that last week's premier was (and they can't all be -- there's eight episodes in all, for heaven's sake), once again Gilligan and company has shown that the good people who keep us glued to our seats every Sunday know exactly what they're doing. Walt and his cohorts are headed for justice, or at the very least for catastrophe, and the results should be satisfying.

The noose keeps tightening for Walt as his secrets leak out. Suffice to say the battle lines between the Whites and the Schraeders have been definitively drawn, and no one is getting away easily now. Marie first learns the truth about Walt's from Hank, which pits her against her brother-in-law. But even more alarmingly, Marie begins to uncover Skyler's secrets from Skyler herself. This is bad news for Hank, who in the diner sequence seemed to think that Skyler was only a victim of Walt's criminal behavior and not something of a victimizer herself. At any rate, when Skyler takes Holly back from Marie it's clear that the gulf between the two families is officially unbridgeable. From the beginning of this episode, it became clear that the writers are setting us up for a seven-episode showdown between Walt and Hank (check out that shot-reverse shot of them on both sides of the garage door... chills). And as Skyler and Marie made clear in their scene together, both wives are squarely on the sides of their husbands, sisterhood be damned.

And speaking of those sisters, Anna Gunn was the champion of this episode. That long, slightly-out-of-focus shot of Skyler's face as Marie figures out the depth of Skyler's deception was remarkable. Equal parts coldly composed while emotionally broken, Gunn knocked that scene out of the park. Here's to more moments like that this season.

My only problem with this episode, really, was Skyler's assertion that Walt could not give himself up without giving up the money. Why on earth not? It's pretty well hidden, considering that Walt's got it buried at a secret location in the desert that only he knows. Why couldn't Walt confess, run out the cancer clock and, since the police have very little to threaten him with at this point, die with the secret of where the money was hidden? Or is Skyler concerned that Hank and Marie know too much about the meth to let Skyler get away with that when Walt is gone?

Who says crime doesn't pay?

Perhaps all will become clear later. But for now, I'm happy to say that we are two episodes deep in teh final stretch of Breaking Bad  and I'm still impressed. I'm really enjoying this pattern of putting almost no gap time between one episode and the next. Last week we saw Hank right straight out of that bathroom after learning the truth about Heisenberg, and now we got to watch Hank put that garage door right back up and Walt walk away from the confrontation. If the pattern continues, we'll get to start next week in the interrogation room with Hank and Jesse -- a scene I think we've all been looking forward to for awhile, and if the teasers for next week are any indication, should be a high point of the season.

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