Breaking Bad: Season 4, Episode 12 – “End Times” Review

Sunday night we saw the 2nd to last episode of the season, and despite the ending, it was still the calm before the storm, and overall, not a great episode.  As we start we see the fallout of Walt’s actions last week. The DEA has been warned of a threat on Hank’s life and the whole family is being put into protective custody. The whole family minus Walt, who is holed up in his house with a gun waiting to be executed.

While in protective custody, Hank convincing Gomey to take a look at the laundry, to which Steve begrudgingly agrees. While there Gomez has no idea that Pinkman is right below him cooking meth. Gus’ laundry disguise for the meth lab worked perfectly despite Hank’s  insistence – they found nothing.

The biggest development however is the way in which Gus decides to deal with Walt. Since Jessie won’t ok the hit, Gus has to figure a way to change Jessie’s mind. One method is to make Jessie think it’s his own idea, which is why Brock suddenly gets sick. It becomes apparent pretty quickly that Brock has been poisoned with RICIN!!! DUN DUH!!!

Pinkman freaks out, and think back to his earlier conversation with Saul, deduces (incorrectly) that Walt is responsible. This is the desired effect Gus was shooting for and Jessie heads over to Walt’s. Once there he easily obtains Walt’s gun and confronts him for (not actually) poisoning Brock.

Once Jessie calms down, Walt is able to convince him Gus must be responsible for the ricin, and they plot to finally handle Gus once and for all. So the plan is that Jessie will skip the cook and wait at the hospital, luring Gus there. This works perfectly. While Gus is inside, Walt wires Gus’ dorkmobile to explode. Problem is, Gus, as usual, is a few steps ahead of the game, and does not re-enter his car.

So Gus’ apparent 6th sense has saved his live. This is how the episode ends, with Walt utterly defeated again. Like I said, I didn’t think the was a great episode, but that is in no way an indication that I thought it sucked, it’s just simply further setup for this upcoming Sunday night.  I’d say 3/5. 

As for what’s in store this week, I think Hank is gonna get to play hero again. I was kind of hoping Gus would just kill Walt’s whole family and then we could see Walt explode and rampage his way through the organization. Also, I’ll be curious to see what kind of role, if any, Mike plays in the finale…