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"Gliding Over All" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of Breaking Bad and the fifty-fourth episode altogether. It is also the mid-season finale.

Summary[]

Teaser[]

At Vamonos Pest, Walt is observing a fly when Todd informs him that he has disposed of Mike's car. The two open Walt's trunk, where Walt stashed Mike's body. As they prepare to dissolve the body in acid, Jesse enters. Todd shuts the trunk and hides the barrel before leaving while Jesse asks if Mike got the money and escaped. Walt avoids giving a direct answer, saying only that Mike is "gone." Jesse inquires about what their next steps are regarding the men Mike has in prison, but Walt tells Jesse that, having quit, he no longer has a vote on what happens and that he will handle them himself. He ushers Jesse out of the building before shutting the garage door.

Act I[]

At Metropolitan Detention Center, Hank rejects a proposed plea deal for Dennis Markowski. Meanwhile, at a cafe, Lydia meets with Walt. She correctly deduces that the only reason Walt is moving forward with killing the nine men, plus the now-incarcerated lawyer who paid their families, is because Mike is no longer alive. Worried that Walt may see her as a loose end after she divulges the names, she proposes a new business plan which involves her selling Blue Sky in the Czech Republic, a country with a high rate of meth users, using her connections with Madrigal Electromotive to handle the international distribution. After negotiating a 30% commission of their joint business, Lydia gives him the names of the men. After she leaves, Walt lifts his pork pie hat off the table, under which he had hidden a ricin capsule, indicating that he had intended to kill Lydia before she changed his mind with the Czech business plan.

Act II[]

5x08 Walt

Walter at home during the assassination of Gus' former employees

Walt meets with Todd's uncle, Jack Welker, the leader of an Aryan Brotherhood neo-Nazi gang, at a motel. Walker's gang, who have inmates within the prisons as well as guards on their payroll, debate the logistics of Walt's plan of killing all ten inmates within a two-minute window despite the men being scattered between three separate prisons. When Jack says it can't be done, Walt replies that it can be done and orders him to "figure it out". The next day, Walt paces around his house watching the seconds pass on his watch, while his targets — including Dan, Dennis, Ron Forenall, Andrew Holt, Jack McGann and William Moniz — are shanked or burned alive by Jack's imprisoned associates. Walt receives a call from Jack confirming, "It's done." At the Albuquerque DEA Field Office, Hank is pulled away from a public appearance by Gomez and is notified of the murders.

Act III[]

A few days later, Walt is at the Schrader residence playing with Holly when Hank comes home, feeling dejected from the prison murders. Hank offers Walt a drink and proceeds to reminisce about his first job in college, which involved walking around forests and tagging trees that were slated for logging. He wonders aloud if that job was better than his current one, which he describes as "chasing monsters."

5x8 money

Skyler reveals Walter's accomplishment to him

Walt and Todd resume cooking meth, delivering shipments to Declan and Lydia, the latter of whom exports it to the Czech Republic. Over a period of three months, they perform several cooks in various fumigated houses while Skyler launders the immense amount of money Walt is earning.

During a visit to her children at the Schrader house, Skyler helps Holly take her first assisted steps. Marie comments that as much as she and Hank love the children, it has now been three months; therefore, she suggests that it might be time for the couple to reunite with their children in order to heal as a family, adding that she and Hank feel they may be "enabling" Skyler by allowing the children to live away from them. Later that night, Skyler takes Walt to a rented storage unit where she is keeping a gigantic pallet-sized stack of cash, which contains several millions of dollars. She admits that she has been unable to launder or count all of Walt's drug money due to how much he is bring in. Skyler tells Walt that she wants her old life and children back, and having stated that the millions they have will sustain them for over ten lifetimes, asks him how much more money he needs until it is enough for him to quit.

Act IV[]

Episode-8-jesse-245734-6346720-246897235

Jesse receives an unexpected visit

When Walt goes to the hospital for his routine MRI, he visits the bathroom and notices the paper towel dispenser he punched after receiving news of his remission. He then decides to drop by Jesse's house. Jesse is suspicious of Walt's presence but allows him inside; Jesse tries to hide his bong, but Walt notices it and smirks, due to his previous comment that Jesse has no one in his life to return to or any meaningful activities to do when retired. Jesse reveals that he is aware Walt killed the men in prison, having heard it from Saul, to which Walt retorts that it needed to be done. The duo reminisce about their old RV. Feeling tense, Jesse claims that he has plans with other friends and needs to leave, and Walt chimes in that he has to leave as well. As he exits the door, Walt tells Jesse that he left something for him. Jesse notices and hesitantly edges toward two large duffel bags on his porch and, to his relief, finds they contain the $5 million he is owed. Upon moving the bags inside, he takes out the pistol he had hidden behind him and switches the safety back on, grateful that he did not have to shoot Walt. Returning home, Walt tells Skyler that he has quit the meth business, much to her delight.

5x8 to WW from GB

Hank discovers Walter's secret

That weekend, the Whites and the Schraders happily gather around the table beside the Whites' pool, where Walt and Skyler smile and are on happy terms. Hank excuses himself to use the bathroom. As he sits on the toilet, he looks around for reading material and comes across Walt's copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. He thumbs to the front of the book and finds an inscription in a familiar handwriting that says: "To my other favorite W.W. It's an honor working with you. Fondly, G.B." Hank recalls his discussion of Gale Boetticher's lab notes with Walt, where he jokingly wondered whether the "W.W." that Gale mentioned was Walter White, to which Walt replied "You got me." Hank's face fills with shock and fury as he realizes that his own brother-in-law is Heisenberg.

Official Photos[]

Trivia[]

  • The name of the episode is the name of one of Walt Whitman's poems: "GLIDING O'ER ALL, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul--not life alone, Death, many deaths I'll sing."
  • This is the last episode where Walt cooks meth, as Walt officially retires from the meth business.
  • As revealed in "Saul Gone", the prison murders occurred on October 4, 2009, meaning that due to the three-month time skip in this episode, the present day of the series is now 2010. In addition, that episode reveals that Dan Wachsberger was stabbed forty-eight times.
  • This episode features several references to previous episodes in the series, including:
    • Walt seeing the fly on the table ("Fly").
    • The painting Walt mentioned having seen before ("Bit by a Dead Bee").
    • The damaged paper towel dispenser in the restroom of Walt's cancer clinic ("4 Days Out").
    • Lydia mentions the line, "We're gonna make a lot of money together," which is the same exact line Tuco said to Walt before he beat No-Doze to death ("A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal").
    • Walt tells Lydia, "Lydia, learn to take yes for an answer," which is exactly the same advice Mike gave him in the bar ("Thirty-Eight Snub").
    • Jack describes the plan to kill the inmates with the expression, "Boom, boom, boom," which is how Jesse and Walt described the plan to kill Tuco ("Seven Thirty-Seven").
    • Skyler asks Walt to, "Take a drive with me," to go see the cash, just as Gus asked Walt to go see the superlab ("Más").
  • Jack Welker and his gang make their debut in this episode.
  • In "Ozymandias", Walt reveals that the pile of cash in the storage unit amounts to $80 million.
    • According to series creator Vince Gilligan: "I asked prop master Mark Hansen, and he and his guys had tried, just for their own edification, to figure out how much that would be if it was roughly a half-and-half mix of twenties and fifties, and he guessed somewhere in the vicinity of eighty million dollars—eighty, eighty-five, ninety—that's a lotta dough. I don't know, we may have erred on the side of showmanship there instead of reality, I don't know if [Walt] could've made that much that quickly."
  • The entire main cast of characters technically appear in this episode. Mike Ehrmantraut appears briefly as a corpse in Walt's trunk (albeit a stand-in and not Jonathan Banks) and Bob Odenkirk (Saul Goodman) appears in his office, but without any speaking lines.
  • This is the second episode to feature a large time jump. The second season finale "ABQ" featured a several week jump as Walt healed from his surgery, while this episode has a three-month time jump.
  • According to Peter Gould, this episode originally featured a scene where Walt is told by his doctor that his cancer is still in remission. However, the scene was cut, allowing the writers fluidity when writing Season 5B.
  • When Walt opens the trunk with Mike's corpse, his car doesn't have a license plate.
  • The lyrics of "Crystal Blue Persuasion" are used here as an obvious reference to the blue-tinged methamphetamine produced during that montage scene, but songwriter Tommy James has stated that the "crystal blue" refers to the crystal lake in the Book of Revelation and "persuasion" to James becoming a Christian. It was written in 1969.
  • Gale gave Walt the copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass in the episode "Sunset". The book was also shown in the episode "Hazard Pay" when Walt was unpacking his belongings.
  • The prison killings are inspired by the climactic scene of The Godfather. In this episode, Walt is sitting at home while the murders he planned are executed by other men. In The Godfather, Michael Corleone is attending his nephew's baptism while the murders he planned are executed by his men.

Errors[]

  • Jack refers to the 10 prison murders as being more difficult than the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. However, bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011, while the pre-time skip portion of this episode takes place in 2009. Vince Gilligan has admitted this was a mistake.

Production[]

Credits[]

Co-Starring

Uncredited

  • Michael E. Stogner as Prison Guard
  • Tommy Goodwin as Prison Inmate

Featured Music[]

  • "Night in the City" by Paul Abler (as Walt & Lydia meet in the café)
  • "Clear Skies" by Paul Abler (as Walt & Lydia meet in the café)
  • "Spindrift" by Alexander McCabe (as Walt & Lydia meet in the café)
  • "Pick Yourself Up" by Nat "King" Cole and George Shearing (during the prison murder montage)
  • "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by Tommy James and the Shondells (during the meth production montage)
  • "Up the Junction" by Squeeze (in the background while the Whites & the Schraders eat)

Memorable Quotes[]

Skyler: "Take a drive with me. Walt, this is it. This is what you’ve been working for. I rented this place, and I started bringing it here, because I didn’t know what else to do. I gave up counting it. I mean I had to. It was just so much, so fast. I–I tried weighing it. I figured one bill of any denomination weighs a gram. There are 454 grams to a pound, but there’s a variety of denominations, so..."
Walter: "How much is this?"
Skyler: "I have no earthly idea. I truly don’t. I just stack it up, keep it dry, spray it for silverfish. There is more money here than we could spend in ten lifetimes. I certainly can’t launder it, not with a hundred car washes. Walt, I want my kids back. I want my life back. Please tell me–How much is enough? How big does this pile have to be?"
―Sklyer and Walt facing a mountain of banknotes at the storage facility.

Videos[]

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