This recap contains spoilers for the Breaking Bad episode, “Abiquiu.”
“Abiquiu” opens with a flashback of Jesse and Jane pontificating about the artwork of Georgia O’Keefe. The two are examining a more chaste collection of O’Keefe paintings featuring a series of doors, which Jesse finds boring and pointless, while Jane admires artistic liberties that O’Keefe took with each individual painting.
Jesse can’t understand why O’Keefe basically repeated the same painting with slight variations. “Isn’t that insane?” he asks Jane.
Jane counters that she believes you should go wherever the universe takes you, and by using Jesse’s logic, there is no point to repeating anything, even acts that are enjoyable. She takes a last drag and crushes her cigarette out in his car ashtray, leaving the tell-tale lipstick trace that caused Jesse to fish it out of the ashtray earlier this season, as it is the the last tangible remnant of her physical being.
The scene brilliantly cuts to a pair of feet dangling several feet above the ground. Uh oh, who is that hanging? Once the camera pans back, you see that it is Hank, in the Hospital, in some sort of harness device that is lowering him to the ground. A physical therapists encourages him to take a step while Marie, Walt Jr., and Skylar look on.
Hank labors intensely trying to will his legs to move, to no avail. At this point, he lashes out at his family members, which is a wholly believable response. I’d do the exact same thing.
Out in the hallway, Marie sheepishly asks Skylar if her offer to pay Hank’s bills still stands. Skylar assures that it does, and Marie hands over the bill. You see relief, embarrassment, and pity all wash over Marie’s face. She feels bad, but she really doesn’t have much of a choice, and since Walt and Skylar have come into all this money…
Jesse is annoyed with Walt because Walt won’t let him oversee the weighing of the meth product anymore. Later he attends his support group (with Peter and Brandon) and attempts to exploit the vulnerable participants by selling them meth. Frustrated that Brandon and Peter have been unable to actually make a sale, he targets a new Hispanic girl named Andrea.
He flirts with her and accompanies her home, where the two start kissing on the couch. He plants the seed for her to start using again. Just then, the door opens, and her son and mother come in. Jesse looks genuinely horrified about what he was trying to do to her. Seems the kid makes him grow a conscience.
Jesse delivers the best line of the night, once again, when he tries to interact with the boy (named Brock), “So, you’re a kid, huh?”
Jesse starts hanging out with Andrea and her son, and one day (in bed) Andrea decides to take Jesse up on his offer to get high. Jesse becomes indignant, “What kind of Mom are you?”
Andrea is defensive, and says she will never let what happened to her younger brother Tomas (sic) happen to Brock. She tells Jesse about her brother being courted by the gangs when he was eight years old, and then killing a man when he was ten as part of a gang initiation. He killed a dealer, just a few blocks away.
This is a real “holy crap” moment, because Jesse comes to the sickening revelation that Tomas was the person who killed Combo (back in season 2, episode 11.) Does anyone else get the feeling that these writers know a heck of a lot more where they have been going than the Lost writers did? I love how everything is intricately related, and here we are almost a season later and just discovering that it is all tied up together.
Jesse visits the same street corner that Combo got killed at and finds Tomas on his bike. He asks to buy a tenth, and Tomas signals a car to come around the corner and take the money. A menacing Hispanic duo drives forward, and takes the money. Tomas then slips Jesse the drugs. Jesse turns and walks away with a truly frightening look on his face. Once again, a great acting job by Aaron Paul. I could not decide if Jesse was angry about Combo, or pissed that Tomas is cutting into his business. At any rate, Jesse was crazy-pissed.
Meanwhile, Skylar has Walt over for dinner. She wants to make sure the money is “unimpeachable” by the time it pays for Hank’s bills. She demands to meet the person who is taking care of the money.
Skylar, meet sleaze-bag Saul. Saul, be your usual charming self and horrify her beyond belief. At the end of the day, Skylar decided she wants to be the one to launder the money. You know the saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”
Skylar thought that Walt buying a “laser tag” business as a front for his money was absurd and unbelievable. She encourages Walt to think about buying the car wash he worked at for four years. Only trouble is, the laser tag came complete with a “Danny”, or basically a manager of the business who looks the other way.
Skylar volunteers to become the “Danny” for the car wash. Gosh, whatever could go wrong here? Skylar is fully embracing the life of a criminal. Oh, yeah, and she never actually signed the divorce papers. Married folk can’t actually testify against one another. Has Skylar been plotting all this for a while?
Finally, Hank is adamant to Marie that he will not leave the hospital until he can walk. But what if he never walks again? There are only a few episodes left. What do you think will happen?
By the way, if you are geographically challenged like me, the title (Abiquiu) is a city in New Mexico.
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