| Breaking Bad season 4 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | United States | ||
| No. of episodes | 13 | ||
| Broadcast | |||
| Original channel | AMC | ||
| Original run | July 17, 2011 – October 9, 2011 | ||
| Season chronology | |||
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| List of Breaking Bad episodes | |||
The fourth season of the American television drama series Breaking Bad premiered on July 17, 2011 and concluded on October 9, 2011. It consists of 13 episodes, each running approximately 47 minutes in length. AMC broadcast the fourth season on Sundays at 10:00 pm ET/PT in the United States.
Contents |
| № | # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | U.S. viewers (million) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 34 | 1 | "Box Cutter" | Adam Bernstein | Vince Gilligan | July 17, 2011 | 2.58[1] |
| Walt and Jesse are held hostage by Victor and Mike, anxiously awaiting Gus's reaction to the murder of Gale. Skyler fears the worst when she can't get ahold of Walt. Saul is paranoid about bugs, wiretaps, and surveillance now, even hiring a personal bodyguard. Hank struggles with life at home after his injury, snapping at Marie and becoming more preoccupied with collecting and cataloging minerals. Gus shows up, changes into a lab suit, slits Victor's throat with a box cutter, then changes back to his work clothes and tells Walt and Jesse to get back to making meth as he leaves. Walt is more shaken than Jesse, who later tells Walt that they don't need to worry about being killed when it's as if, stuck in their situation now, they're already dead. | ||||||
| 35 | 2 | "Thirty-Eight Snub" | Michelle MacLaren | George Mastras | July 24, 2011 | 1.97[2] |
| Walt illegally buys and begins carrying a Snubnosed revolver but Mike soon tells Walt he'll never see Gus again. Jesse, in an attempt to distract himself from having murdered Gale, buys an elaborate stereo system and throws an ongoing party with Badger and Skinny Pete. Hank continues to push Marie away. Skyler attempts to buy the car wash but the owner angrily refuses. Walt goes to Gus's home, presumably to kill him, but receives a call from Tyrus telling him to go home. Walt later follows Mike to a bar, tells Mike that he might be in danger as well, then asks Mike to get him in a room with Gus and Walt will "do the rest". Mike punches Walt, kicks him twice on the floor, then leaves. Badger and Skinny Pete leave Jesse following a binge of partying at his house. Jesse sits alone in front of one of his speakers, visibly distraught. | ||||||
| 36 | 3 | "Open House" | David Slade | Sam Catlin | July 31, 2011 | 1.71[3] |
| Walt furiously notices that a motion-detecting surveillance camera has been installed in the lab. Later that day, Skyler convinces Walt in a meeting with Saul to buy the car wash by mentioning how the owner insulted his manhood. She devises a plan to trick the owner into selling by having a hired-gun (supplied by Saul) pretend to be a water-tester who's shutting down the business out of concerns over contaminants. The owner promptly sells to her, agreeing to an even lower price than her original offer. Jesse is still feeling numb from recent events, attempting to clear his head with nostalgic go-kart trips. He continues to open his house up for all-night drug fueled orgies, deliberately throwing piles of money in the midst of the chaos. Feeling stressed from her husband's coldness, Marie renews her kleptomania. She starts stealing objects from real-estate open houses, where she also makes up elaborate stories about who she is, but is eventually caught by a real-estate agent. A livid Hank pulls strings with a senior cop to get her out of being charged. The same cop drops by to leave the lab notes, found in Gale's apartment, for Hank to look at in case he can help them with their investigation. Hank initially shoves away the notebook, but begins to read it later that night. | ||||||
| 37 | 4 | "Bullet Points" | Colin Bucksey | Moira Walley-Beckett | August 7, 2011 | 1.83[4] |
| Mike is patiently waiting inside a refrigerated truck, seemingly with advance knowledge that it will be hijacked. After the armed hijackers stop the truck and fire automatic weapons into it, Mike shoots them both and emerges with a wounded ear. Walt and Skyler craft an elaborate story of gambling addiction to explain why they have enough money to purchase a business. They rehearse the story and even attend a support group for gambling addicts, but Walt remains too distracted to put much effort into the charade. During a family dinner, Hank tells Walt that he is informally consulting on a murder case for the local police and reveals evidence that implicates Gale as cook of the high grade blue meth that's been turning up in the Southwest. Jesse's detached complacence leads to over seventy-thousand dollars in cash being stolen from his house. Jesse seems genuinely apathetic about the loss, but Mike recovers the money and warns Jesse that he's on thin ice. Gus and Mike have a brief meeting, shortly before which, Mike can be seen focusing on a small pen-knife resting in a cup on Gus's desk, showing a growing concern for his safety, or a growing desire to preserve it. Regardless, Mike reports back that Jesse has become "incautious" and something needs to be done. The episode ends with Mike driving Jesse to an unknown destination. | ||||||
| 38 | 5 | "Shotgun" | Michelle MacLaren | Thomas Schnauz | August 14, 2011 | 1.75[5] |
| Fearing for Jesse's safety, Walt tries to confront Gus at Los Pollos Hermanos, but Gus is not there. Mike assures Walt that Jesse is safe, and he takes Jesse with him while he collects drug money for Gus. Walt and Skyler purchase the car wash and make love, after which Skyler asks Walt to move back into the house. Jesse fights off two attackers at one of the money collections, appearing to be a hero. He informs Walt that he will be making pick ups with Mike as a second job from now on. Gus and Mike discuss the attack on Jesse, and reveal that Gus set up the attack, planning for Jesse to win the confrontation. When Hank suggests to an intoxicated Walt that Gale was a genius, Walt's pride gets the better of him and he tells Hank that he believes Gale more likely copied another's work. Hank's pursuit of the case is renewed, and he expresses his puzzlement at finding a Los Pollos Hermanos napkin in Gale's belongings, as he was a vegan. | ||||||
| 39 | 6 | "Cornered" | Michael Slovis | Gennifer Hutchison | August 21, 2011 | 1.67[6] |
| When Walt wakes with a hangover, Skyler tells him she thinks his scoffing of the Gale-is-Heisenberg theory to Hank was a self-sabotaging "cry for help." Walt angrily denies that, telling her he's not in trouble because "I am the danger." Alarmed, Skyler leaves. Walt, worried, buys a flashy new car for Walt Jr. Walt picks up the keys to the car wash from Bogdan, who tells him he must be a "tough" boss; Walt, seething, refuses to let Bogdan take his framed first dollar from the business. He breaks the glass and uses the dollar to buy a soda from the vending machine. Rather than wait them out with Mike, Jesse cleverly tricks two meth-heads into surrendering product stolen from one of Gus's shipments. The lid has a message from the opposing cartel and Gus, preferring to maintain a "cold" war, tells Mike to arrange a sit-down. Walt tells Jesse that he suspects Gus is driving a wedge between him and Jesse and Jesse's heroic stopping of the stick-up was a set-up; he tells a fuming Jesse that "it's all about me!" Skyler drives to the Four Corners and flips a coin—it lands twice on the Colorado side but she reluctantly decides to return home. She tells Walt he must return Walt Jr.'s new car tomorrow and that "Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family." | ||||||
| 40 | 7 | "Problem Dog" | Peter Gould | Peter Gould | August 28, 2011 | 1.91[7] |
| After Skyler tells Walt she's negotiated the return of the car to the dealership, Walt, angry, drives the Challenger to a parking lot near the airport, burns donuts and crashes into a parking block, then stuffs the ownership papers in the gas tank, lights them afire, and blows up the car. Saul covers up the outburst, which costs Walt $52,000. When Walt drops off more than $250,000—his biweekly take—to Skyler, she's stunned by the amount, unsure how she'll launder his meth-lab earnings (over $7 million annually) through their car wash. Walt convinces Jesse to kill Gus and concocts a ricin poison in the lab that Jesse then hides in one of his cigarettes. At the sitdown with the cartel, though, Jesse hesitates and doesn't add the poison to the coffee he makes for Gus. The sitdown involves only a flat ultimatum from the cartel, rejected by Gus. Jesse returns to the 12-step group; during his turn, he angrily disagrees with the organizer about not judging oneself, noting he had used the group as potential meth-buyers and recently killed a "problem dog"—believing he should be judged for what he has done. Hank visits Gus's restaurant with Walt Jr. and manages to get Gus's fingerprints on a cup, which he uses to confirm that Gus had been in Gale's apartment; he reveals his evidence to his DEA chief, suggesting they now know who's funding Heisenberg. | ||||||
| 41 | 8 | "Hermanos" | Johan Renck | Sam Catlin & George Mastras | September 4, 2011 | 1.98[8] |
| In a flashback, Gus visits Hector (Tuco's uncle) and informs him of the death of his nephews after their attempt to kill Hank. In the present, Gus is questioned by Hank and the DEA, but has explanations for all their questions. These explanations are accepted by the DEA and local law enforcement, however a still suspicious Hank has Walt drive him to Gus's restaurant; once there, he tells Walt of his suspicions and tells him to slip a tracking device onto Gus's car. With instruction from Gus, Walt plants the device and Gus later removes it. Walt, alarmed by Hank's investigation into their boss, tells Jesse to poison Gus as soon as possible but he suspects Jesse's been putting it off. Gus is reassured by Mike that Hank is acting on his own, after being informed by an inside source. In another flashback, Gus and his business partner Max meet Hector when they approach drug kingpin Don Eladio, requesting to go into meth production with him. At Don Eladio's instruction, Hector shoots and kills Max as a warning to Gus. | ||||||
| 42 | 9 | "Bug" | Terry McDonough | Moira Walley-Beckett & Thomas Schnauz | September 11, 2011 | 1.89[9] |
| Walt drives to Gus's restaurant with an eager Hank to retrieve the tracking bug he left on Gus's car. Hank's suspicious when the bug only shows Gus driving between home and work: "He's so clean he must be dirty." Skyler is alarmed when Ted, whose company's cooked books Skyler signed off on, visits to tell her the IRS is auditing him. She pretends to be his ditzy, untrained accountant, putting off the investigation so long as he pays the fines and back taxes, which Ted tells her he doesn't have the money to do. Hank's research uncovers Gus's depot, so Jesse is brought in to help clean and move all the product out of it. While there, one of the cartel's top lieutenants, sniping, kills one of the workers, but Mike pulls a shock-stilled Jesse to safety. Gus calls the cartel, giving in to their demands; Gus invites Jesse over for dinner and asks him if he can cook Walt's formula. The next night, Jesse calls Walt to come over; he then explains that Gus is sending him to Mexico to show the cartel how to cook Walt's formula. Walt responds by asking him if he poisoned Gus; Jesse says he didn't see him. Walt knows he saw him, he says, because he put a bug on Jesse's car that showed he was at Gus's. Jesse, furious at Walt's distrust, throws the bug at him, cutting his forehead open. The two fight and Jesse gets the upper hand, punching Walt repeatedly in the face, then telling him to leave and never come back. | ||||||
| 43 | 10 | "Salud" | Michelle MacLaren | Peter Gould & Gennifer Hutchison | September 18, 2011 | 1.80[10] |
| Skyler shows Walt Jr. his sixteenth-birthday present, a PT Cruiser, but he's quietly disappointed. He goes to his dad's and Walt, recovering from his fight, lies about his injuries, saying they came about because he was gambling again; he breaks down, confiding to his son: "I made a mistake. It's my own fault." Skyler has Saul concoct a story about an inheritance to give Ted enough money to pay off his back taxes, but Saul follows up and finds that Ted immediately spent some of it on leasing a new Mercedes. She urges Ted to pay the IRS, but he refuses; Skyler finally tells him that she gave him the money. Jesse, Mike and Gus fly to the cartel's meth lab in Mexico where Jesse acts tough in front of the cartel's condescending chemist and Jesse's replication of Walt's formula results in an impressively 96.2% pure product; however, Jesse is then informed that he now belongs to the cartel. When Jesse, Mike, and Gus go to Don Eladio's estate to celebrate their alliance at a party with all of Don Eladio's capos present, Gus gives Don Eladio a rare, but poisoned, tequila. All but Mike and Jesse drink a glass, but Gus has previously taken an antidote. He goes to the bathroom soon after drinking, forcing himself to vomit it up as, poolside, Don Eladio and his men begin to die. During the trio's escape under fire from the estate, Tio's grandson Joaquin shoots Mike. Jesse kills him and drives away with Mike and Gus, who is still mortally ill despite his precautions. | ||||||
| 44 | 11 | "Crawl Space" | Scott Winant | George Mastras & Sam Catlin | September 25, 2011 | 1.55[11] |
| Jesse drives Mike and Gus to a clandestine medical clinic; prearranged by Gus, who is brought to a full recovery but Mike must stay there for a week. Gus tells Jesse he can run the lab now but Jesse tells him not to kill Walt. Ted refuses to take the money from Skyler; desperate, she calls Saul. Gus visits Hector again, telling him Don Eladio and his crew are all dead before showing him Jesse, who killed Hector's grandson and last relative Joaquin; Hector still refuses to look at Gus. Walt drives Hank to scope out the depot again but, en route, Hank tells him to go to an industrial laundry he's linked to Gus and Gale. Walt, panicking that he'll find the meth lab there, pulls into oncoming traffic, causing an accident and giving Hank whiplash. Saul's henchmen visit Ted and force him to write a check to the IRS but then Ted tries to flee, tripping over a rug and crashing headfirst into a counter. Walt realizes someone's been cooking in the lab, goes to Jesse's house, and begs him for help, saying Gus will kill him if Jesse replaces him. Jesse spurns Walt, and Gus's henchmen stun-gun him, driving him to the desert, where Gus tells Walt he's fired. Walt retorts that Gus can't kill him because Jesse won't let him. Gus says he'll now take care of Hank and, if Walt interferes, his family will die. Walt rushes to Saul and gets the number of a man who'll disappear him and his family; he tells Saul to tip off the DEA about a hit on Hank. When Walt gets home and goes down into the crawl space, he finds there's not enough money for disappearing; Skyler tells a frenzied Walt that she gave it to Ted. Walt, in disbelief, starts laughing hysterically as Skyler, horrified, takes a call from Marie about sudden police-protection of Hank after there was a tip that the cartel's gunning for him. | ||||||
| 45 | 12 | "End Times" | Vince Gilligan | Thomas Schnauz & Moira Walley-Beckett | October 2, 2011 | 1.73[12] |
| Skyler; Walt, Jr.; and Holly go into DEA protection at Hank's on Marie's insistence. Hank harries ex-partner Steve into investigating the laundry; as Steve looks around there, Gus calls Jesse in the lab to tell him what's happening is Walt's fault, but Jesse still refuses to "sign off" on eliminating Walt. Saul summons Jesse to his office, where he's anxiously packing up, saying it's the "end times"; he gives Jesse's savings to him and tells him Gus threatened Walt's family. Jesse is called to the hospital by Andrea because her son Brock is in critical condition with a mysterious flu-like illness. Jesse, suspecting what has happened, fishes for a cigarette, finds the ricin vial missing and tells Andrea to have the doctors treat Brock for poisoning. Jesse goes to Walt's house, where Walt has barricaded himself inside with just a revolver for protection. As Walt rambles, Jesse picks up the gun and accuses Walt of poisoning Brock; Walt pleads for his life and tells him Gus must be behind the poisoning, using it to get Jesse to kill Walt. He presses the revolver against his forehead, daring Jesse to kill him but Jesse can't, as he believes Walt. Jesse is now determined to kill Gus but Walt tells him to let him help. He rigs small explosives and plants them on Gus's car while Gus meets with Jesse in the hospital chapel, where he tells Jesse to return to work immediately. But Jesse faces him down, telling him only that Brock has been poisoned; Gus tells Jesse he may return next week. As he walks back to his car in the garage, though, while Walt watches from a nearby rooftop through binoculars, ready to detonate the explosives, Gus seems to suspect something and walks away from his vehicle, dashing Walt's plan. | ||||||
| 46 | 13 | "Face Off" | Vince Gilligan | Vince Gilligan | October 9, 2011 | 1.90[13] |
| After Walt's car bombing fails, Jesse is brought in for questioning by detectives because of his remark that Brock may have been poisoned by ricin. Walt pays a hefty bribe to Saul's secretary to get in touch with Saul, and with Jesse's help they realize that Gus may be vulnerable if he visits Hector at the nursing home. Walt visits Hector and offers him a chance for revenge against Fring: "I know that you despise me, but I'll bet that I know someone you hate even more." Hector then requests a meeting at the DEA office, but tells them nothing, only crudely insulting Hank. Tyrus has been tailing Hank and sees Hector leave the DEA office, and informs Gus. Jesse is released after no ricin is found in Brock's bloodwork. As he leaves the police station, Jesse is kidnapped. Tyrus visits Hector's room and sweeps it for any bugs; he informs Gus that it's clean. Gus arrives and berates Hector for speaking to the DEA, calling him a "crippled rata" and prepares to kill him. Hector finally looks him in the eye and then rings his bell, detonating a bomb that he has allowed Walt to plant in his wheelchair. The door is blown off of the room and Gus walks out into the hall and straightens his tie, apparently unharmed. The camera angle changes, revealing that Gus has been horribly injured, the entire right side of his face having been blown off. Gus falls to the floor, dead. Jesse is working at the lab under duress and under guard when Walt arrives and executes Jesse's two captors. Walt and Jesse then flood the lab with chemicals and set it ablaze, wiping their fingerprints off the door as they leave. Later, Walt meets Jesse at the hospital parking garage, and Jesse tells him Brock's going to pull through and was poisoned by a Lily of the Valley plant, not ricin. When Jesse leaves, Walt calls Skyler, who's watching coverage of the nursing home bombing on the news; she asks, "Was this you?" Walt replies, "It's over. We're safe. I won." As he leaves the parking garage he smiles at Gus's car, still parked there. In the final scene, on the deck of Walt's swimming pool, the camera slowly zooms in on a potted plant—a Lily of the Valley. | ||||||
On June 14, 2010, AMC announced that Breaking Bad was renewed for a fourth, 13-episode season.[14] The writers began brainstorming and writing for the season in early July 2010.[15] At the 2011 Television Critics Association press tour, it was announced production on the season would begin January 13, 2011.[16] Filming ended in mid-June of that year.[17] Although the writing staff knew the fourth season would focus primarily on the ongoing feud between Walter White and Gus Fring, they did not specifically plan out the entire season before production began, but rather developed the story as the episodes progressed. This followed a pattern similar to that from the third season, and differed distinctly from the second season, where the entire storyline of the season was planned out in advance. Gilligan compared the fourth season to a "13-episode chess game" between Gus and Walt.[18]
Originally, mini episodes of four minutes in length were to be produced before the premiere of the fourth season,[19] but these did not come to fruition.[20] Actor Bryan Cranston commented that the season would debut in July 2011 in an interview with New York Magazine, he also said, regarding the premiere date, that "It was a decision from AMC that they wanted to position us in July... They want to attract as many eyeballs as possible, away from the heavy competition of the September, November [or] January start."[21]
The fourth season of Breaking Bad received critical acclaim, garnering a 96 out of 100 on Metacritic,[22] though some fans expressed frustration that Walter was more powerless than in previous seasons due to his falling out with Gus. Vince Gilligan said he was not surprised by the reaction, but felt the best way to develop Walter as a protagonist was to place him in a situation where he was matched and regularly bested by his rival.[18]
The series earned three nominations for the 2012 Writers Guild of America Awards; for Best Drama Series, and two for Best Episodic Drama, Vince Gilligan for "Box Cutter" and Thomas Schnauz & Moira Walley-Beckett for "End Times".[23] Bryan Cranston received his second consecutive Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series.[24] Cranston is also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series for the 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards, with the series nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.[25]
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