A proper analysis of "Problem Dog"
Aug. 29th, 2011 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chaniFirst off, Donna Bowman wrote a good review at the A.V Club, so I'll be only adding my two cents** here.
It was an exciting episode and yes Aaron Paul was amazing once again. It's interesting that everybody and their uncle say that it's the best episode of the season so far, given that it was rather Walter-light.
Of course Walter got the car scene which was rather cool and the cool shots that recalled season 1 again (my favourite being the inside-the-car cam view of Walt standing outside), along with the ricin bits, but apart from Walt behaving like a Rebel Without a Cause as Saul pointed it, Bryan Cranston didn't have much to do and took the back seat this time. It was Jesse, Gus and Hank show. The three actors were great, but Aaron was truly fantastic, delivering another stellar performance and stealing the episode.
Even when Walt tried to use his usual manipulative speech on Jesse, it wasn't his show, and Jesse saying "drop the sell, I'll do it" put him in his place again. It was interesting in terms of character study. On the one hand Jesse now sees through Walt's speeches, he is no longer his puppet (he so knows that Walter made him his bitch!), but at the same time on the other hand, his reaction seemed to say that he's accepted to be that guy, it is as if he just told Walt "Ok I know that I'm just the guy who kills for you you don't have to convince me, I get it". In other words it looked like he has resigned himself to be to Walt what Mike is to Gus. But has he really?
It was echoed later in Mike's car when The Cleaner said that his guess about what Gus sees in Jesse was "loyalty"...before wondering whether Jesse didn't put his loyalty "in the wrong guy". So I don't think that the point is really about Jesse switching sides, but about whether Jesse is going to become a new Mike, a cleaner who will just obey and kill.
And speaking of blind loyalty, I'd like to know the backstory between Gus and Mike...
The first Walt/Jesse conversation also made me think to season 3 and "The Fly". Once again Jesse is on a ladder and Walt is talking and talking, and there's murder in the subtext, but the situation has changed a great deal and it hurts my heart to think that once upon a time, Walter was there trying to prevent Jesse from falling, telling him that Jane's death wasn't his fault and eventually telling him to give up and let the fly live.
BTW the scene in the lab when Walt and Jesse are cleaning stuff was reminiscent of "The Fly" too, especially with Walter asking if he sees "any residue there". This time of course, Walt is pretending, putting a show on for the camera so he can ask Jesse the real question. For a few seconds I also wondered if it was a metaphor of their former relationship...is there anything that remains from that time in season 3 when they do love each other and had a true bond? But Jesse looks and looks at the bottom, and of course he can't see anything.
We never got to hear the end of the conversation between Gus and the Cartel guy, just like we didn't get to hear the Mike/Gus chat about Jesse last week...so maybe we are beeing misled about many things.
As for the central scene that is Jesse's speech in the Therapy group, it's raw and indeed an amazing performance but it is also a complex scene, addressing the very idea of rehabilitation and a key scene showing that Jesse isn't in Mike's shoes yet.
If he were a potential Mike he wouldn't have come out like that, sharing his sins, breaking down with tears in his eyes, his heart bleeding for anyone to see. The most heartbreaking moment was his coming clean about his first goal to be there being to sell meth to the recovering addicts; his "you're nothing to me but customers !" was poignant.
And "I made you my bitch!". What a great mirror moment! Basically Jesse is talking to someone he sees as a reflection of himself, so he's telling himself to stop "accepting" and when his "alter-ego" who killed his daughter (the sin of sin) says "No", it's Jesse deciding to stop being "a bitch"; About time indeed. Things must change.
Next? Jesse lies to Walt in the lab, saying he hasn't seen Gus. He is no longer Walt's bitch, but I don't think he's willing to be Gus' either.
And it's all connected to the beginning of the episode. The cold open with the Rage game -- that cold open would have been great had the director not chosen to insert pictures of Gale every time Jesse shot an enemy between, we didn't need that to understand the parallel and what was going on in Jesse's head, the camera angle and the game was enough thanks!-- had Jesse failing the mission ("Mission Failed" was written on the screen which is echoed when later Jesse fails at killing Gus, btw the "ricin mission" always fail !) and facing a choice eventually: to quit or to restart. He hesitates, lingers on QUIT but finally click on RESTART.
The beauty of the whole thing is that it could mean several things, some of them being contradictory. I loved that ambiguity and how this may foreshadow Jesse's future.
"Restart" means remaining IN the game, but it could also mean, move on from one failure and try again until you success; not give up and even get a fresh start.
It is then possibility for redemption, a hope within the game that is life. Later we see Jesse painting the wall of his house, cleaning his home, starting anew...and he gets clean in regard to crystal meth too as he says to the group (4 days only). There's hope in that, so we could think that had he chosen QUIT, he might be still in the same place he was at the beginning of the season, giving up on life...
But of course QUIT might also mean, "quit the dangerous game Walt put him into", quit cooking meth with him, quit working for drug lords like Gus and putting your life in danger, quit being a bitch and causing misery or death. At some point Skyler is facing the same problem as Walt asks her whether she wants to be in or out. She chose "in" (but we already knew that she let her chance to go out pass after she cheated with moving the coin on the Four Corners Momument) which seems to echo Jesse's choice*...
Jesse chose "restart" and the episode showed him plotting with Walt again. So picking" restart" might mean that Jesse is doomed, beyond redemption, trapped in a vicious circle. Meanwhile Walter was driving in circles (to ruin the car's tyres) which had to be significant besides the fact it showed juvenile and risky behaviour that carries on the Self-destructive Walt stuff!
The vicious circle thing is a true leitmotiv as it is used again during Jesse's speech when he says that "No many dogs I kill, I just do an inventory and accept?" or earlier when Walter recommends that they'd take care of one maniac at a time !
"Problem Dog" is the kind of unsual title you only understand once you have seen the episode, much like" I.F.T", but I think that, as usual, it has more meaning than the obvious one. The Problem Dog was Gale whom Jesse killed to save walter, Gale who never bit anyone but was a problem that had to be dealt with, yet others characters could be seen as problem dogs too. You can always become someone else's problem dog.
Gus himself has become a Problem Dog for the Cartel, and by the end of the episode, Hank has become a Problem Dog too for he nailed it and is now endangering Gus' little empire, especially since it's likely that Mr Fring has a mole inside the D.E.A. I just hope it isn't Gomez....
And there's still that Problem dog named Walter White...
I loved that Walt and Jesse seemed to work together again, with Jesse genuinely sharing what happened with Gus in the previous episode, and the two of them re-enacting the old alliance against Tuco with the ricin, but I'm not delusional and it's obvious that things have changed. I want to believe that there's still love between them, but the team looks broken, the partnership severed (another echo to the Gus/Cartel thing).
So perhaps when Jesse picked "restart" it wasn't foreshadowing a repetition of what we have seen before (by the way Walter tried to repeat his cool "I walk slowly away from an exploding car" from season 1 but he failed, and his channeling his inner Heisenberg looked rather pathetic) but a new game with a possible different outcome, even a victory in the end.
I said in my last BB entry that Jesse might be a Michael Corleone in the making rather than a mini-Mike, so perhaps he's learning the rules not to survive and be a company man but to master the game and win. He doesn't aim at being a loyal Cleaner, but maybe a Master for he ain't no bitch anymore.
It's a dark route but Breaking Bad has the balls to take it. As much as I'd like Jesse to have a second chance and start a new life away from Methland, I think it's too late now. If Jesse is to survive, it will be either as a drug lord himself or as an inmate because he would have accepted the consequences of his killing Problem dogs and would have wanted to be judged. It's Walter in "Full Measures" who forbid to go to the D.E.A after all, but Jesse is no longer Walter's bitch and Hank still wants Heisenberg.
* and there's the "yes or no" answer that The Cartel is waiting from Gus while Chicken Man just wants to severe the partnership. Again with the facing the "In or out" options.
** ETA: I know, it turned into a long review, as usual.
It was an exciting episode and yes Aaron Paul was amazing once again. It's interesting that everybody and their uncle say that it's the best episode of the season so far, given that it was rather Walter-light.
Of course Walter got the car scene which was rather cool and the cool shots that recalled season 1 again (my favourite being the inside-the-car cam view of Walt standing outside), along with the ricin bits, but apart from Walt behaving like a Rebel Without a Cause as Saul pointed it, Bryan Cranston didn't have much to do and took the back seat this time. It was Jesse, Gus and Hank show. The three actors were great, but Aaron was truly fantastic, delivering another stellar performance and stealing the episode.
Even when Walt tried to use his usual manipulative speech on Jesse, it wasn't his show, and Jesse saying "drop the sell, I'll do it" put him in his place again. It was interesting in terms of character study. On the one hand Jesse now sees through Walt's speeches, he is no longer his puppet (he so knows that Walter made him his bitch!), but at the same time on the other hand, his reaction seemed to say that he's accepted to be that guy, it is as if he just told Walt "Ok I know that I'm just the guy who kills for you you don't have to convince me, I get it". In other words it looked like he has resigned himself to be to Walt what Mike is to Gus. But has he really?
It was echoed later in Mike's car when The Cleaner said that his guess about what Gus sees in Jesse was "loyalty"...before wondering whether Jesse didn't put his loyalty "in the wrong guy". So I don't think that the point is really about Jesse switching sides, but about whether Jesse is going to become a new Mike, a cleaner who will just obey and kill.
And speaking of blind loyalty, I'd like to know the backstory between Gus and Mike...
The first Walt/Jesse conversation also made me think to season 3 and "The Fly". Once again Jesse is on a ladder and Walt is talking and talking, and there's murder in the subtext, but the situation has changed a great deal and it hurts my heart to think that once upon a time, Walter was there trying to prevent Jesse from falling, telling him that Jane's death wasn't his fault and eventually telling him to give up and let the fly live.
BTW the scene in the lab when Walt and Jesse are cleaning stuff was reminiscent of "The Fly" too, especially with Walter asking if he sees "any residue there". This time of course, Walt is pretending, putting a show on for the camera so he can ask Jesse the real question. For a few seconds I also wondered if it was a metaphor of their former relationship...is there anything that remains from that time in season 3 when they do love each other and had a true bond? But Jesse looks and looks at the bottom, and of course he can't see anything.
We never got to hear the end of the conversation between Gus and the Cartel guy, just like we didn't get to hear the Mike/Gus chat about Jesse last week...so maybe we are beeing misled about many things.
As for the central scene that is Jesse's speech in the Therapy group, it's raw and indeed an amazing performance but it is also a complex scene, addressing the very idea of rehabilitation and a key scene showing that Jesse isn't in Mike's shoes yet.
If he were a potential Mike he wouldn't have come out like that, sharing his sins, breaking down with tears in his eyes, his heart bleeding for anyone to see. The most heartbreaking moment was his coming clean about his first goal to be there being to sell meth to the recovering addicts; his "you're nothing to me but customers !" was poignant.
And "I made you my bitch!". What a great mirror moment! Basically Jesse is talking to someone he sees as a reflection of himself, so he's telling himself to stop "accepting" and when his "alter-ego" who killed his daughter (the sin of sin) says "No", it's Jesse deciding to stop being "a bitch"; About time indeed. Things must change.
Next? Jesse lies to Walt in the lab, saying he hasn't seen Gus. He is no longer Walt's bitch, but I don't think he's willing to be Gus' either.
And it's all connected to the beginning of the episode. The cold open with the Rage game -- that cold open would have been great had the director not chosen to insert pictures of Gale every time Jesse shot an enemy between, we didn't need that to understand the parallel and what was going on in Jesse's head, the camera angle and the game was enough thanks!-- had Jesse failing the mission ("Mission Failed" was written on the screen which is echoed when later Jesse fails at killing Gus, btw the "ricin mission" always fail !) and facing a choice eventually: to quit or to restart. He hesitates, lingers on QUIT but finally click on RESTART.
The beauty of the whole thing is that it could mean several things, some of them being contradictory. I loved that ambiguity and how this may foreshadow Jesse's future.
"Restart" means remaining IN the game, but it could also mean, move on from one failure and try again until you success; not give up and even get a fresh start.
It is then possibility for redemption, a hope within the game that is life. Later we see Jesse painting the wall of his house, cleaning his home, starting anew...and he gets clean in regard to crystal meth too as he says to the group (4 days only). There's hope in that, so we could think that had he chosen QUIT, he might be still in the same place he was at the beginning of the season, giving up on life...
But of course QUIT might also mean, "quit the dangerous game Walt put him into", quit cooking meth with him, quit working for drug lords like Gus and putting your life in danger, quit being a bitch and causing misery or death. At some point Skyler is facing the same problem as Walt asks her whether she wants to be in or out. She chose "in" (but we already knew that she let her chance to go out pass after she cheated with moving the coin on the Four Corners Momument) which seems to echo Jesse's choice*...
Jesse chose "restart" and the episode showed him plotting with Walt again. So picking" restart" might mean that Jesse is doomed, beyond redemption, trapped in a vicious circle. Meanwhile Walter was driving in circles (to ruin the car's tyres) which had to be significant besides the fact it showed juvenile and risky behaviour that carries on the Self-destructive Walt stuff!
The vicious circle thing is a true leitmotiv as it is used again during Jesse's speech when he says that "No many dogs I kill, I just do an inventory and accept?" or earlier when Walter recommends that they'd take care of one maniac at a time !
"Problem Dog" is the kind of unsual title you only understand once you have seen the episode, much like" I.F.T", but I think that, as usual, it has more meaning than the obvious one. The Problem Dog was Gale whom Jesse killed to save walter, Gale who never bit anyone but was a problem that had to be dealt with, yet others characters could be seen as problem dogs too. You can always become someone else's problem dog.
Gus himself has become a Problem Dog for the Cartel, and by the end of the episode, Hank has become a Problem Dog too for he nailed it and is now endangering Gus' little empire, especially since it's likely that Mr Fring has a mole inside the D.E.A. I just hope it isn't Gomez....
And there's still that Problem dog named Walter White...
I loved that Walt and Jesse seemed to work together again, with Jesse genuinely sharing what happened with Gus in the previous episode, and the two of them re-enacting the old alliance against Tuco with the ricin, but I'm not delusional and it's obvious that things have changed. I want to believe that there's still love between them, but the team looks broken, the partnership severed (another echo to the Gus/Cartel thing).
So perhaps when Jesse picked "restart" it wasn't foreshadowing a repetition of what we have seen before (by the way Walter tried to repeat his cool "I walk slowly away from an exploding car" from season 1 but he failed, and his channeling his inner Heisenberg looked rather pathetic) but a new game with a possible different outcome, even a victory in the end.
I said in my last BB entry that Jesse might be a Michael Corleone in the making rather than a mini-Mike, so perhaps he's learning the rules not to survive and be a company man but to master the game and win. He doesn't aim at being a loyal Cleaner, but maybe a Master for he ain't no bitch anymore.
It's a dark route but Breaking Bad has the balls to take it. As much as I'd like Jesse to have a second chance and start a new life away from Methland, I think it's too late now. If Jesse is to survive, it will be either as a drug lord himself or as an inmate because he would have accepted the consequences of his killing Problem dogs and would have wanted to be judged. It's Walter in "Full Measures" who forbid to go to the D.E.A after all, but Jesse is no longer Walter's bitch and Hank still wants Heisenberg.
* and there's the "yes or no" answer that The Cartel is waiting from Gus while Chicken Man just wants to severe the partnership. Again with the facing the "In or out" options.
** ETA: I know, it turned into a long review, as usual.