Breaking Bad 5.12, Rabid Dog Review
rating: 4
Rabid Dog is the episode in which Breaking Bad assumes the role of a straightforward cop drama. Nearly all of its airtime is devoted to showing the principal characters setting their endgames into motion. There isn't much room in this one for the periphery cast. Unlike most episodes of the show that jump around from scene to scene, location to location, and even place in time, Rabid Dog deals with the here and now particularly Hank's pursuit of Walt and Walt's pursuit of Jesse exclusively. It's a step up from last week's episode. Nothing seems especially contrived. For the most part, it is just a tight, action-focused episode. Which is actually what is ever-so-slightly disappointing about it. The principal actors are firing on all cylinders trying to outmaneuver and outguess one another, but by the episode's end not a whole lot has changed from where Confessions ended. The board still looks pretty much the same, save for one very crucial development Hank and Jesse are apparently working together. Their partnership is not happy or strong, but it is formed. Most fans knew Jesse would not successfully burn down the White household because it is still standing in a flash-forward. How he'd be stopped was what audiences spent the last week guessing. Unfortunately the Walt/Jesse showdown Confessions seemed to be setting up didn't happen. Instead, when the episode starts we see Walt arriving, gun in hand, to an empty house. Jesse is nowhere to be found. In my opinion, the scene drags on a little too long. If there can be one problem that's said to run through this entire fifth season, it is a ton of suspenseful buildup that ultimately leads to nothing. Not just this scene; many others that started with such promise ended up being anticlimactic. Hank's initial interrogation of Jesse, the cliffhanger after Walt and Hank's standoff in the garage, last week's teaser with Todd and his uncle's gang they all packed in a great amount of suspense and mystery but ultimately saw the characters exeunt with little change or development to the story. Still, Breaking Bad is not a show that's properly judged episode to episode. An especially temperamental critic could potentially give each individual entry a single-star review, due either to let-down expectations or a stumbling of the pacing, and then turn around to give the series as a whole a maximum rating. For the direction Rabid Dog takes the show and the story turns it sets up, the episode is important. I could sum up the events of the episode in a small paragraph. Walt misses Jesse at his house by mere seconds; we later learn that Hank arrived in time to prevent Jesse from setting the house on fire. Jesse agrees to work with Hank to try to bring Walt down. Walt goes on a search for Jesse and moves his family into a hotel in the meantime. A meeting is set up between Jesse and Walt and Jesse shows up to it wearing a wire. Instead of meeting with Walt, Jesse grows suspicious that it's a trap. He calls Walt from a payphone, threatens him, and tells Hank he has a better idea. Walt then calls Todd and ominously tells him he's got another job for Uncle Jack.
There is more focus on characterization than plot in this episode. It's a little late, though, to flesh out Walt Jr. and Marie, which the episode tries to do. Anyone who (perhaps rightly) criticizes the show for being all about male power fantasies and having no strong female characters is encouraged to stay away from this one: Marie does little but talk to a therapist and stand by her man. Walt Jr., meanwhile, seems to be around for the sole purpose of reminding audiences about Walt's cancer. Sadly, his scenes are clunky and RJ Mitte's chemistry with Bryan Cranston is not what I would call excellent, particularly since they are supposed to be father and son. But there is ongoing development in the main characters. For one thing, Walt's real feelings about Jesse are kept murkily unclear. He tries to confront Jesse at the beginning of the episode with a gun, but tells Saul that killing him is not an option. After trying to explain that to Skyler, she chillingly instructs Walt to "fix" the problem with Jesse, telling him, "We've come this far. What's one more?" It's a notable moment that solidifies Skyler's descent all the way to Walt's dark depths. Still, by all appearances, Walt showed up to his meeting with Jesse unprepared to do him any harm. Then in the show's closing teaser, it's strongly suggested that Walt is going to turn Uncle Jack on Jesse. Is Jesse really on Walt's no-hit list, or is he ultimately disposable if push comes to shove? All throughout the series, Walt has simultaneously taken ruthless advantage of and evinced a sincere concern for Jesse. This conflict is summed up perfectly in an exchange between Hank and Jesse where Hank outlines all the good Walt's done for him, including paying for his rehab and running over Gus's drug dealers. Jesse counters by saying Walt rips him off, calls him an idiot, and poisons people he's close to. Hank also takes a drastically dark turn in this episode. After instructing Jesse to record a lengthy video confessional, probably just so he has something to counter Walt's bogus confession from the last episode, he all but orders Jesse to accept the meeting with Walt. When Jesse expresses concern that it's a trap and he won't make it out alive, and even after Gomez acknowledges there might be some validity in Jesse's paranoia, Hank shrugs it off. A dead Jesse Pinkman is as good to Hank as a live one in this case; one almost gets the sense that Hank hopes he is sending Jesse into a trap. If Walt kills Jesse, then Hank's got him red-handed. Hank is openly manipulating Jesse just as Walt has done all along. The way Hank is pursuing Walt and using Jesse is certainly unethical, and I wonder if it's legal. With Gomez involved, either Hank will stay on the up-and-up or Gomez, too, will be sucked into Heisenberg's black hole of soulless, single-minded immorality. But perhaps the strongest development of character is Jesse. He's been Walt's second banana all along and starting with this episode, it looked like he might be becoming Hank's. But he takes matters into his own hands for the first time since the third season, threatening Walt that he's going to strike him where he really lives. Since Jesse doesn't mean Walt's house, it's hard to guess what he's got up his sleeve. Obviously Hank will play no part in Jesse's plan if it has anything to do with harming Skyler or Walt's kids. It leads me to one of two possibilities: either Jesse will somehow find Walt's money, which is after all what Walt is really in love with, or he will have something truly remarkable up his sleeve that manages to both double-cross Hank and bring Walt down. My guess is that everybody is going to be in for a surprise when Jesse sets his plan into motion. 
