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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 Mike's body is being kept. As they prepare to dissolve the body in acid, Jesse enters and asks if Mike got the money and escaped. Walt avoids giving a direct answer, saying only that he is "gone." Jesse suggests a vote to decide what happens with Mike's men, but Walt tells Jesse that, having quit, he no longer has a vote and Walt will handle them himself. He ushers Jesse out of the garage with a stern glare. The door descends between them.

Act I[]

At Metropolitan Detention Center, Hank rejects a proposed plea deal for Dennis Markowski. Meanwhile, at a cafe, Lydia defensively refuses to give Walt the names of Mike's men and the now-incarcerated lawyer who paid their families. She states that she has not written the names down and will only divulge them after her safety is assured. Eager to be of further use to Walt, she proposes a new business plan which involves selling Blue Sky in the Czech Republic, using her connections with Madrigal Electromotive. After negotiating a 30% commission of their joint business, Lydia gives him the names. After she leaves, Walt lifts his pork pie hat off the table and reveals a hidden ricin capsule, implying that he had intended to kill Lydia before accepting her offer.

Act II[]

5x08 Walt

Walter at home during the assassination of Gus' former employees

Walt meets with Todd's uncle, Jack Welker, and his neo-Nazi gang. They debate the logistics of killing ten inmates within a two-minute window inside three separate prisons. When Jack says it can't be done, Walt says, "It can be done ... and you'll do it." 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." Hank is pulled from a public appearance by Gomez and given the news.

Act III[]

Walt is visiting the Schrader residence and 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 drug proceeds and Saul watches the wires.

During a visit to her children at the Schrader house, Skyler helps Holly take her first assisted steps. Marie comments that she and Hank feel they might be "enabling" her and Walt during their marriage troubles, suggesting that it might be time for the couple to reunite with their children in order to heal as a family. Later that night, Skyler takes Walt to a rented storage unit where she is keeping a gigantic pallet-sized stack of cash. She admits that she has been unable to launder or count all of Walt's drug money, asking how big the pile in front of them has to be before she can have her kids back. Walt is taken aback by his mountain of money.

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 drops by Jesse's house. In a tense exchange in which Jesse is distrustful of Walt's intent, they reminisce about their old RV. Before he leaves, Walt tells Jesse that he left something for him. Jesse 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 his pistol and switches the safety back on; he apparently anticipated that Walt would try to kill him. Returning home, Walt announces that he's "out." Skyler realizes he is telling the truth.

5x8 to WW from GB

Hank discovers Walter's secret

That weekend, the Whites and the Schraders happily gather around the table beside the White's pool. 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: "To my other favorite W.W. It's an honour working with you. Fondly, G.B." Hank recalls his discussion of Gale Boetticher's lab notes with Walt, finally coming to the shocking realization that his brother-in-law was "Heisenberg" all along.

Official Photos[]

Trivia[]

  • The prison killings are inspired by the climactic scene of "The Godfather", in which the film's protagonist is made godfather to a child, whilst a string of brutal murders is carried out on his orders.
  • The name of the episode is also 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."
  • The entire cast appears in this episode. Jonathan Banks (Mike Ehrmantraut) appears briefly as a corpse in Walt's trunk 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" features a several week jump as Walt heals from his surgery, this one approx. three months.
  • 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 Boetticher gave Walter White that copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass in the episode "Sunset" (White was shown reading that book when he received a call from Hank). The book was also shown in the episode "Hazard Pay" when Walt was unpacking his belongings (he grins when he sees the book).
  • The inscribed copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass used in the show sold at auction for $65,500 on October 8, 2013.
  • Walt owns David Reynolds’s 150th anniversary edition of the 1855 Leaves of Grass which, strangely enough, does not include Gale's favorite Whitman poem, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer".
  • This episode features several 'easter egg' references to previous episodes in the series, including:
    • Walt seeing the fly on the table ("Fly").
    • The painting Walt claimed to have 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 seems to remember this and reacts with a hesitant expression.
    • 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").
    • Walt asks Jesse, "Who's we?" which is the question Jane asked Jesse after pretending not to know him when her dad visits ("Over").
    • 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").
    • Towards the end of the episode, when Walt and co. are sitting on his patio, before it shows them talking and Jr. strolling Holly, it features the same exact filming pattern as seen in several episodes of Season 2, in the flash-forwards featuring the Pink Teddy Bear.
    • Flynn gets called by Louis when he's around Skyler and Marie, which is a reference to the call he got in ("...and the Bag's in the River").
  • This is the last episode where Walt cooks meth. In this same episode, Walt officially retires from the meth business.
  • As revealed in "Saul Gone", the prison murders occurred on October 4, 2009. In addition, it's revealed that Dan Wachsberger was stabbed forty-eight times.
  • Jack Welker and his gang make their debut in this episode.

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)

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, and the episode takes place in 2009. Vince Gilligan admitted this was a mistake. However, it's possible to explain this away by arguing that Jack is one of the many conspiracy theorists that believes Bin Laden was taken out before then.

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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