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I want to write about another episode of Breaking Bad. Again, I’m late, about 13 days this time. Again, the opening credits include a non-element in the name of the DP. Again, it’s an awesome show.

In this episode, we see further how the bad in Jesse‘s and Walter‘s lives creeps along, spreads further. Jesse has to go protect his drug racket, and pulls out the revolver to do so. Skyler thanks their benefactors for the money her husband didn’t get from them, so a lie will be unraveled? This is the Act I setup, counterbalanced by an everyday event, a long chemistry lecture about carbon and diamonds and H. Tracy Hall, on the normal first day of school … where not everything can really be normal now, can it?

When we return to Jesse, he’s still waiting for his victims, but playing peekaboo with their unfortunate kid. Cute and dirty. Later we see — and even more so, hear — one of the grossest deaths ever, but it was particularly satisfying, too. How easily done, how deliciously deserved.

At the end I thought that in this episode a young boy plays a key role and this cute young actor never speaks. Well written, well acted, well shot. (Carmen Serano and Jessica Hecht give awesome guest star work, too.) The boy seems to be a parallel to the work Mark Margolis played earlier this season, non-speaking and brilliant acting at the opposite end of life’s spectrum. Heartbreaking situations. And beautiful.

The writing is so beautiful when you stop and think about how they are weaving in all these bad things, keeping the show fresh, a mix of expected and unexpected problems when you get involved over your head with drugs and such. The bad is beautiful to me on this show. With one exception: Skyler and Walter seem to be going nowhere in there scenes together because their scenes together are getting repetitive.