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'Breaking Bad' Recap: Suffer the children

By April MacIntyre Aug 20, 2012, 15:04 GMT

There is a moment when you are watching a fictionalized drama, and the acting is so good, the situation in front of you becomes all the more horrific, intensely emotional and heartbreaking.

There is a moment when you are watching a fictionalized drama, and the acting is so good, the situation in front of you becomes all the more horrific, intensely emotional and heartbreaking.

Aaron Paul's character Jesse Pinkman brought me there last night, as we imagine the anguish of a sweet young boy's family who sit and wait, worrying, despairing and who will never have a body to recover for a funeral, or even worse, the lifetime pain of never understanding why it was that their child was randomly chosen one day to die, an unlucky twist of fate.

Jesse's anguish said all of that and more as he dealt with the fallout of the psychopath Todd who even kept the kid's tarantula pet as a bizarre trophy. There are criminals for profit and gain, and then there are those who do evil and lay waste to people by their actions. Paul's Pinkman is at that crossroads where he is too close to the latter to feel comfortable about any of this anymore.

And Mike (Jonathan Banks), an icy criminal and also a loving grandfather, is keeping it closer to his chest. Yet he was equally disgusted by Todd's actions too. Walt (Bryan Cranston), seemed to be repulsed 'on paper', but we didn't feel his remorse the way we did with Jesse and Mike. Interesting.

Walt, Jesse and Mike are now in possession of the methylmene via an exhilarating train heist. Our young unfortunate lad on a dirt bike was the sacrificial lamb to this great scene thanks to an outside element to the team: Todd.

The tribunal of Jesse, Mike and Walt sit in judgment of Todd, who talked too much. In the end they vote to keep him on as part of the team, which is Walt's preference.

Mike has had enough of being followed by the DEA and he is tired in general. He wants to retire from all of it, and Jesse is on that same page too after the news puts a name to our dead kid: We learn he is Drew Sharp, and he was just 14.

So there is the methylmene to sell, to a serious buyer with loads of cash who wants Fring's blue ice off market. The Phoenix buyer doesn't want Mike and Jesse's product, unless Walt sells his share of the raw methylmene too.

Jesse heads over to Walt's house to sway him, but it doesn't work. Skyler gets home and an Albertson's prepared dinner where he learns the depths of her hatred for him and the situation in full.

Walt is dug in, not selling and heads to the shop only to find Mike waiting for him. He knows that Walt wants all the methylmene. Walt is held captive until the final sale of the product the next day. But Mike ties Walt up using a plastic tie which he escapes from. Mike is busy getting a restraining order against the DEA agents, but when he returns, he discovers Walt and Jesse back at the shop, and Walt proposes a way that he can cook and Jesse and Mike can cash out.

"Everybody wins." says Walt, which closes our brutal episode of "Breaking Bad."