Spoilers if you haven't seen tonight's episode of Breaking Bad ("To'hajiilee")!
Ok, you've been warned. Let's talk about those incredible intense final moments Honestly, who cuts to credits in the middle of a shoot-out? Breaking Bad does, apparently. Usually, when I'm watching a suspenseful TV show, I have one eye on the clock just to give me an indication of how close we're getting to the end of the episode, but during tonight's episode of Breaking Bad, my full attention was focused on the screen the moment Walter White handed over the coordinates to creepy Todd's creepier uncle. Because it seemed too relevant that Walt managed to hand over those numbers before he realized it was Hank and his partner Gomez who were escorting Jesse to the location of the money.
Knowing that Jack and his guys had Walt's location and were all suited up and ready for a fight, here are the thoughts that were going through my head as Walt slowly walked toward Hank with his hands behind his head.
1: Todd, Jack and their criminal pals were going to show up after Hank, Gomez, Jesse and Walt left the scene. They'd steal all the money and Hank would no longer have any physical evidence, so Walt would go free. (I did wonder if maybe Hank recorded that conversation Jesse had with Walt on the way to the desert, considering Walt gave up a whole lot of incriminating information in that angry chat.)
Then Hank told Gomez to stay behind, which brought me to:
2. Gomez was going to be standing around in the desert when Jack and his guys showed up. They'd kill Gomez and steal all the money. Walt goes free. Hank goes insane with rage.
But then Hank called Marie and said something about it being a while until he got home. The call was celebratory and a little bit smug, and it took way too long to happen. It was too happy and a little bit purple, which brought me to:
3. Hank's dead. He and Gomez are done for. They're totally outnumbered. They can't possibly survive this.
But on the bright side, it cut to credits before either of them appeared to be mortally wounded, which to me suggests there's a chance they could walk away from this. Or one of the can. I really feel like Hank's call to Marie could be the last time he ever speaks to her. And maybe it is. But maybe the relevance of that call was really just a demonstration of Hank's ego causing him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he had just gotten in his car and left, maybe he would've missed the run-in with Jack and his guys.
If there's a bright side to this cliffhanger, it's that neither Walt nor Jesse want this situation to be happening. Walt's cuffed and might not be able to do much, but Jesse looked like he was trying to escape or do something. So maybe one of them will figure out a way to get all of them out of this nightmare.
In the meantime, Walt earns points for making the clearcut decision not to let Hank get caught in the crossfires of his vendetta against Jesse. Of course, he loses those points for putting a hit on Jesse in the first place. He was planning on letting Jesse get killed. But considering I'm not usually one to defend Walt's less than moral actions, I do think it's worth noting that Walt took a moment to decide what to do about Hank when he realized he was with Jesse, and then told Jack it was off. He even tried to reiterate that to Jack and his guys when they showed up, not that it did any good.
Will Hank and Gomez survive this mess? We have all week to wait, and with only three episodes left, there's really no predicting how things are going to turn out!
Watch the video below, which shows the making of the shootout scene…
