Coming Home

Do You Know The Way To Santa Fe Albuquerque?

When you're the object of a nationwide manhunt, it's important to choose the right car to steal and use to (a) flee a scene without being apprehended by police and (b) drive most of the way across the country to tie up the last loose ends of your life. Here are some of the criteria you'll want to fulfill.

Reliability: You can't do much better than a Volvo. They're boxy but good!

Even Snow Cover: As long as you only wipe away a tiny circle of snow, the authorities won't even know you're in it.

Keys: You might not necessarily be great at hotwiring cars just because you happen to be a drug lord.

Tunes: Solid choice.

The Last Laundering

Who called the meeting? Walt (Bryan Cranston).

What's it about? Seeing Gretchen and Elliott (Jessica Hecht and Adam Godley) talking about their $28 million charitable gift for Albuquerque substance abuse treatment on Charlie Rose last week gave Walt an idea: if Junior (R.J. Mitte) won't take money directly from Walt, he probably wouldn't have any compunction taking a $9.72 million trust fund from Walt's old partners, who've publicly disowned him.

How'd it go? Gretchen's not thrilled about this idea -- to wit, "If you want to give your kids drug money, go do it yourself" -- but Elliott accedes pretty readily, and they both understand the wisdom of going along with Walt's plan when he signals his accomplices, Gretchen and Elliott find themselves targeted with red laser sights, and Walt explains that he's spent some of his nest egg on some pretty great hit men who are going to stay on Elliott and Gretchen and make sure they do exactly as Walt has asked. This is an extremely effective motivator, even if it turns out not to be 100% accurate -- by which I mean the people Walt actually hired were Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) armed with nothing more than a couple of laser pointers.

So: good meeting for Walt; bad meeting for the Schwartzes and their undoubtedly soiled undergarments.

The Special Love I Had For You, My Baby Box

Lovingly making a perfect wooden box for Mr. Pike's high-school vo-tech class is when Jesse (Aaron Paul) learned that anything worth doing -- whether crafting a project for a class assignment or cooking meth under extreme duress -- is worth doing well. Or, projecting himself backward into a time when Jesse was working on a craft he found deeply fulfilling is the only thing keeping him somewhat sane in his meth purgatory.

Favours

Who called the meeting? Todd (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia (Laura Fraser) have had this regular weekly meeting on the books for a while; knowing that, Walt crashes it.

What's it about? Walt says he's done the math and knows that Todd and company must be running low on methylamine -- but that Walt has worked out a new methylamine-free cook process, and will share it with Todd for $1 million; he claims he's run through all his money staying ahead of the authorities.

How'd it go? Lydia says it's fine, and when the waiter comes over to take Walt's order, Lydia uses the interruption to dismiss him. Todd's like, we shouldn't work with him, no disrespect, and Lydia's like, duh-hoy, we'll just get him to the compound and let your uncle take him out: "Jesus, did you look at him? We'd be doing him a favour." And then she dumps her stevia in her tea like she's done a million times before, nbd.

Ace Hardware!

Just because your training is in chemistry, that doesn't mean you can't plan to solve some of your life's problems with a combination of engineering and physics. When you need to build a contraption that will let you remotely kick off a shootout that eliminates all your foes in the Aryan Brotherhood, Ace is the place with the friendly hardware folks!

The One Who Knocks

Who called the meeting? Walt.

What's it about? It's about what Marie (Betsy Brandt) has just called to warn Skyler (Anna Gunn) about: Walt is back in town. Skyler and Walt's old neighbour Carol saw him at the house, Walt left the car he stole from New Hampshire in the parking lot at Denny's, and the authorities have been running around responding to calls about Walt's manifesto and plans to blow up City Hall and so forth. But guess where Walt actually is? At Skyler's crappy new rental. He wants to have "a proper goodbye. Not our last phone call."

How'd it go? As closure goes, you don't really get much better than this. ("Better," under these circumstances, being a relative term, but you know what I mean.) Walt tells Skyler that "they'll be coming" for him. She asks how, if he's in custody, he can be sure that the people he worked with won't come after her, and tells him about Todd's home invasion back in "Granite State"; he assures her that they won't be a factor after tonight. He has something to give her, he adds, and when he takes out his wallet, she tells him they don't want his money. He lies that he doesn't have any more, and gives her the lottery ticket, explaining what the numbers are and telling her to trade it to the cops in exchange for her freedom. But that's not the scene's biggest bombshell....

FINALLY

Parting Glances

Skyler gives Walter a chance to see his children one last time...

...not that they know.

Walt goes to see Uncle Jack (Michael Bowen) at his compound, and the first thing they do is take his keys -- complete with the trigger for his special spinning-gun machine.

Walt offers to partner with Uncle Jack on his no-methylamine cook process, and Uncle Jack passes and says they're going to just go ahead and kill him instead! So Walt counters by saying that Uncle Jack owes him, because he promised Walt he'd kill Jesse and then partnered up with him instead.

As Uncle Jack sends Todd to go get Jesse and prove how wrong Walt is, Walt snags his keys back.

Walt gets close enough to the empty husk that used to be Jesse to lunge at him, and while he's protecting Jesse with his own body, he activates his gun-o-matic and takes out virtually everyone in the compound (taking a richocheted bullet or shrapnel in the process).

When the dust settles, it turns out Todd survived...but not for long, as Jesse attacks him and strangles him to death with his chain.

As Jesse unshackles himself, a wounded but still-alive Uncle Jack tries to bargain for his life by offering to tell Walt where the rest of his money is, but before he can get a whole sentence out, Walt kills him with a splattery head shot.

Walt slides the gun to Jesse, who says that if Walt wants Jesse to kill him, he's going to have to ask for it...but when he does, Jesse spots the wound in Walt's side, and tells Walt to do it himself.

Once Jesse has left, Todd's phone rings; it's Lydia, calling to see if Walt's dead. Walt then has the pleasure of telling her that he poisoned her by putting ricin in her Stevia.

Outside, Jesse and Walt share a significant look of communion and mutual understanding, before a sobbing Jesse El Caminos into his new life, or whatever semblance of one he can cobble together.

Once he's alone (other than the corpses), Walt wanders over to the lab, inspecting the equipment he knows so well, as Badfinger's "Baby Blue" starts to play.

And as the cops swarm the compound, Walt succumbs to his wounds, and his story ends in a victory...for Walt. As promised.