"Buried" is largely a transitional episode of Breaking Bad where the show takes the time to catch everyone else up on what Walt and Hank now know: that Walt is Heisenberg and that Hank has become aware of this fact. By the end of the episode, everything is out in the open with Skyler having learned that Hank is in on Walt's secret and Marie being filled in on the whole ugly truth. The end result is a sometimes tough to watch hour of TV that may not rank among Breaking Bad's best episodes but certainly qualifies as one of its most heart-wrenching.
"I don't know what he did to you to force you to keep his secrets," Hank tells Skyler early on when he succeeds in reaching her before Walt can after their garage showdown. The two meet up in a diner where Hank attempts to get her on the record about what she knows about Walt's double life. It's a move that's naive, callous and desperate all at the same time, a complex range of emotions that Dean Norris handles well. Hank can't begin to guess just how involved Skyler is in Walt's meth-making business, yet he knows she's his best chance to get hard evidence on Walt before he has a chance to counter. So he presses her hard with little regard to Skyler's emotional well-being. And when that fails spectacularly — the scene ends with Skyler hysterically shouting, "Am I under arrest?!" over and over as she heads for the exit — he sends Marie over to her house in a last-ditch attempt to get her to talk.
That leads to a stand-out scene featuring Anna Gunn and Betsy Brandt doing some of their best work of the series. Marie begins hammering Skyler with questions, and without saying a word, Skyler answers every single one of them. The tears streaming down her face tell the full story, and when Marie learns that Skyler was privy to the truth even before Hank was shot by The Cousins, she slaps her violently across the face, her strike reverberating throughout the house. The scene ends with the painful sight of Marie essentially attempting (and failing) to kidnap baby Holly — to get her away from these people she only thought she knew. This is a family burnt to the ground, and while the still-hot ashes fall, Walt is nowhere to be found. He's out in the desert, burying his money that Saul's peeps were able to move from the storage unit. He returns exhausted and distrustful of Skyler, having assumed she spilled her guts to Hank, and collapses on his way to the shower. When he wakes, he discovers that Hank told Skyler that his cancer had returned. He begs her to keep the money for herself and their children, even if she turns on him. "Please don't let me have done all this for nothing," Walt says.
Meanwhile Hank breaks the news to Marie that, no matter how things play out, they likely won't be getting a happy ending. "Look, the day I go in with this," he says, "it's the last day of my career. I'm going to have to walk in there, look those people in the eye and admit that the person I've been chasing the last year is my own brother-in-law. It's over for me. Ten seconds after I tell this story, I'm a civilian." That speech goes a long way toward explaining why Hank feels it's so important to nail Walt, no matter the toll it might take on the rest of his family.
If there's one facet of this final season of Breaking Bad that's felt a bit disappointing it's the marginalization of Aaron Paul. Since season five started last year, Jesse Pinkman has been used more and more like just one member of an ensemble cast rather than as one of the show's two leads. Some episodes feature him heavily, while other times he nearly disappears for several hours in a row. One wonders if the writers alienated Jesse so much from Walt that they felt it wouldn't ring true to throw them back together for extended periods of time. If so, it's understandable, but you end up with episodes like "Buried" where Jesse only appears briefly at the beginning and again at the very end. Any time Lydia gets more screen time than Jesse, as happens this week, the show feels slightly unbalanced. This episode's closing shot — with Hank entering a police interrogation room where Jesse's been brought after making stacks of cash rain down around town — hints that the character will play a major role going forward, as he gets trapped between Walt and Hank. That's good news. I really hope the writers find ways to keep him in the forefront for the six episodes we have left.
Some other thoughts on "Buried" …
– Speaking of that last scene, I felt like it ended about 10 seconds too soon. The cut to black would have made a bigger impact, I think, had we at least seen Jesse's reaction to Hank walking into the room. A line of dialogue or two wouldn't have hurt either.
– I mentioned Lydia. She spent this week having Madrigal's new and under-performing meth cooks eliminated. She wants someone who worked under Walt in charge, and that means Todd is now back on the scene.
– Did you notice that the shots of Walt leaving Hank's garage early in the episode were composed as if the two were gunfighters in a western? The camera, set at hip level, jumped from one to the other, with their hands dangling in the frame, as if there were six-shooters strapped to their thighs just out of sight. Good stuff, for which I guess we should credit Michelle MacLaren, who directed this episode.
– You weren't the only one who wondered if Walt might just try to off Hank. Saul goes so far as to suggest it this week, but Walt shoots him down instantly with a simple statement: "Hank is family." Maybe there is still a little bit of good left in the guy.
– I thought Walt hiding the GPS coordinates to his buried fortune in plain sight on a lottery ticket was quite clever. Even this late in the game, Walt has his wits about him.
– Of course Huell goes all Scrooge McDuck on Walt's giant pile of money. Of course he does.
