My Favorite Breaking Bad Moments: The Fly #BreakingBad

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Fun Fact: This is a "bottle episode", an episode with limited cast and sets produced due to limited budget. The show had spent much of the budget on the building of the superlab so a low-cost episode was needed.

Open with several extreme closeups of a fly.

Walter's alarm goes off and he heads to the "office." He's sitting in the car, zoned out when Jesse knocks on the window and the two head down to the lab. The two clean out all of the equipment and Jesse complains the entire time. Walter can't figure out why they are short about a half pound every time. Jesse comes up with several possibilities and then leaves. Walter says he's staying. Walter notices a fly. He proceeds to chase the insect around the lab, in the process breaking a light and falling from a skywalk onto a large vat and then landing on the floor.

The next day Jesse arrives and we see Walter's car hasn't moved. Jesse spots one of Jane's cigarettes in his car ashtray.

Walter has turned the ventilation up because there has been a "contamination." Jesse begins panicking until he is told the contaminant is a housefly. Walter has even fashioned a fly swatter. Walter refuses to let them continue cooking until the fly is killed. Jesse tries to start cooking and Walter smacks him with the swatter. The fly lands on Walter's head and he tells Jesse to "get it." Jesse drills him in the head but misses the fly. Walter tells Jesse the fly will ruin their batch and tells him they have no margin for error with the people they are working for. Jesse wants to take Walter outside for some air. Walter manages to steal Jesse's keys and lock himself in the lab. While Jesse looks for a way back in, Walter corners the fly. Before he can swat at it Jesse cuts the lights for the lab.

Jesse brings several bags of fly killing devices. They end up hanging fly strips all over the lab. Jesse makes Walter coffee and secretly drops in several sleeping pills. Jesse tells a meandering story about his aunt (who died of cancer)'s problem with an opossum. He says the cancer had spread to his aunt's brain and her paranoia about the pest was a result. Walter tells Jesse he saw his oncologist the week before and he is still in remission. Walter then tells Jesse he missed the perfect window for dying, that he has now lived too long and Skyler will never understand what he has done. Walter tells Jesse the story of meeting Jane's father at the bar. He tells Jesse Donald told him to "never give up on family." Walter wonders what it says about the universe that he met Donald on the very night his daughter died. The drugged Walter says he never should have left home that night and recalls listening to Skyler and Holly on the baby monitor. "If I'd lived right up to that moment and not one second more," he says, "that would have been perfect."

Walter and Jesse stare at the fly, which is near the ceiling, and Walter staggers. Jesse gets him a chair and Walter says the fly will never come down. Jesse places a ladder on top of two tables and tries to get the fly with a drugged Walter holding it steady. While Jesse swats Walter tells him he's sorry about Jane. Walter seems to give up killing the fly. Jesse starts climbing down the ladder and spots the fly. He kills it with a paper but Walter has fallen asleep.

The next morning Walter and Jesse discuss their just-finished batch. Walter gets in his car and calls Jesse over. He says that he couldn't say anything inside the lab, but if Jesse has been stealing the missing meth, Walter won't be able to protect him. "Who's asking you to?" Jesse says.


Cut to Walter sleeping in his bed. He wakes up and spots another fly on the ceiling.