I loved how Hank speaks to his "troops" in a DEA meeting that there very well could be a new kingpin in town
while a teacher at a lowly school in town brushes his teeth, that being Walt.
With all the darkness in Walt's life—the cancer spreading from his lungs to lymph nodes, the lack of funds needed to purchase the services of the best cancer doctor in the area, the murder he had just previously committed, his emotional distance from his son, and Jesse's offer to him for producing more profitable meth—he does get a moment of bliss by using a windshield wiping tool to destroy a prick's car under the hood! This prick is one of those self-absorbed, self-important suits often embellishing his ego by tearing apart people while talking out loud (leaving those around him annoyed and bothered by his brash, noisy, crude comments; his personality repulses, but because he has confidence in his abilities to talk sh-t, he succeeds) to some buddy speaking to him in an ear piece. It happened while Walt is waiting in line at a bank, awaiting the chance to put his "meth cash" towards payments for cancer appointments. I don't want to dwell totally on this, but this is the firstfruits of the more "daring, f-all" Walt that just impulsively reacts to something that really sticks in his craw and gets under his skin.
Of course, this has a lot of emphasis on the cancer in Walt's life. He learns of a laundry list of side effects from chemo-radiation provided in straight-face by the cancer doc. Walt eventually cancels out all of it with the doc soon muffled until there's silence. Not only this, but we meet the straight-laced, clean-cut suburban family of Jesse, not exactly what you might expect. The father and mother have tolerated Jesse's slides into drugs, but put their foot down reluctantly when a "stinkweed" pot ciggie is found by the maid (actually the younger brother's!), insisting him to leave. This is the last straw, and, even if this wasn't Jesse's joint, his behavior in the past (he arrives in their yard stoned from meth, his leg caught in their patio chair!) has left them seemingly out of patience. I understand that these scenes are meant to place the parents under the microscope as squares, principled, with rules in their household, and expectations for the younger son (he wins rewards in school, performs a musical instrument, and writes papers on environmental issues: in other words, he seems to be a direct opposite of Jesse; the apple of his parent's eye, and a potential replacement for the bad son that disappointed them), and how they failed to get through to their son, just moving on because Jesse seems to be a lost cause. But I sympathize with them, in a sense, because I don't think they are bad parents, per se, just without an answer for how to address their own failures in Jesse's case. It is easy to just write off a junkie kid, but much harder for parents to look at their own contributions to his decline. It is an episode that defines where Walt and Jesse are at in their lives and why their situations bring them together for better or worse. Walt's uncertainty in treatment (the debt left behind) gives way to some intense moments, like when his son tells him to just go ahead and give up (and die), while Skylar seems gung-ho to do whatever it takes for her husband to fight this cancer-thing.
With all the darkness in Walt's life—the cancer spreading from his lungs to lymph nodes, the lack of funds needed to purchase the services of the best cancer doctor in the area, the murder he had just previously committed, his emotional distance from his son, and Jesse's offer to him for producing more profitable meth—he does get a moment of bliss by using a windshield wiping tool to destroy a prick's car under the hood! This prick is one of those self-absorbed, self-important suits often embellishing his ego by tearing apart people while talking out loud (leaving those around him annoyed and bothered by his brash, noisy, crude comments; his personality repulses, but because he has confidence in his abilities to talk sh-t, he succeeds) to some buddy speaking to him in an ear piece. It happened while Walt is waiting in line at a bank, awaiting the chance to put his "meth cash" towards payments for cancer appointments. I don't want to dwell totally on this, but this is the firstfruits of the more "daring, f-all" Walt that just impulsively reacts to something that really sticks in his craw and gets under his skin.
Of course, this has a lot of emphasis on the cancer in Walt's life. He learns of a laundry list of side effects from chemo-radiation provided in straight-face by the cancer doc. Walt eventually cancels out all of it with the doc soon muffled until there's silence. Not only this, but we meet the straight-laced, clean-cut suburban family of Jesse, not exactly what you might expect. The father and mother have tolerated Jesse's slides into drugs, but put their foot down reluctantly when a "stinkweed" pot ciggie is found by the maid (actually the younger brother's!), insisting him to leave. This is the last straw, and, even if this wasn't Jesse's joint, his behavior in the past (he arrives in their yard stoned from meth, his leg caught in their patio chair!) has left them seemingly out of patience. I understand that these scenes are meant to place the parents under the microscope as squares, principled, with rules in their household, and expectations for the younger son (he wins rewards in school, performs a musical instrument, and writes papers on environmental issues: in other words, he seems to be a direct opposite of Jesse; the apple of his parent's eye, and a potential replacement for the bad son that disappointed them), and how they failed to get through to their son, just moving on because Jesse seems to be a lost cause. But I sympathize with them, in a sense, because I don't think they are bad parents, per se, just without an answer for how to address their own failures in Jesse's case. It is easy to just write off a junkie kid, but much harder for parents to look at their own contributions to his decline. It is an episode that defines where Walt and Jesse are at in their lives and why their situations bring them together for better or worse. Walt's uncertainty in treatment (the debt left behind) gives way to some intense moments, like when his son tells him to just go ahead and give up (and die), while Skylar seems gung-ho to do whatever it takes for her husband to fight this cancer-thing.