User Reviews

In this episode we see Jesse and Walt each having to deal with their own separate problems. After learning who ripped off Skinny Pete, Jesse goes to their house to get his money back; there is no sign of them though; the only person at home is a small, filthy and obviously neglected young boy. As Jesse waits for his parents return he feeds and plays with the child. When they get back he demands the return of his money and the drugs; of course there isn't much left as they've lost or spent it. The man claims to have money though as they'd recently stolen an ATM in what they consider a victimless crime. We are shown the scene of their 'victimless crime': a store owner is shown; lying dead against the counter. They try with no avail to break into the machine; then as Jesse plays peekaboo with the boy the woman hits him from behind... it looks as if he is in real trouble till things take a surprising turn and he not only gets away but also gets the contents of the machine. Walt meanwhile has returned to work; everything is going well until Skyler gets a call from Gretchen Schwartz. Understandable Skyler thanks her for helping Walt and she doesn't know what to say as Walt turned their offer down. Later Walt goes to see her to ensure that she doesn't tell Skyler the truth; this inevitably leads Walt into yet more lies when she calls Skyler to say that they can no longer pay for the treatment.

The two protagonists' stories were entirely separate here and of the two I found Jesse's to be the more interesting. The scenes between Aaron Paul and Dylon and Brandon Carr who both played the young boy were really sweet yet tragic; showing that Jesse is a caring person despite his dubious profession. The scenes in the house involving the parents showed just how serious the effects of his trade could be as they clearly only cared about getting their next fix. Walt's scenes weren't bad but we've seen him creating his web of lies before and it is inevitable that we will scene them again. The most revealing part of Walt's story wasn't his lies but seeing his bitterness towards Gretchen; he clearly believed that she and her husband got rich based solely on his work.

"You have a good rest of your life, kid."

'Peekaboo' is one of the best episodes of Breaking Bad yet, for a number of reasons. Interestingly, this is the first episode in which Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul share no scenes together. We still follow both their stories though, as Gretchen Schwartz finds out that Walt has been lying to Skyler and Jesse takes care of the breakage from the last episode.

Walt's lies finally catch up with him, at least to some extent, as Gretchen realises that Walt has told Skyler she and Elliott are paying the medical fees. She sees Skyler and goes along with Walt's story, only for them to meet up later at a restaurant in a terrific scene. We find out a little more of the Gray Matter back-story and it's a shocking but brilliant moment when Walt tells Gretchen "fuck you!".

The Jesse storyline is by far the best bit of the episode as he pays a visit to Spooge and a woman I'll call Skank here (let's hope she doesn't read this review). Jesse goes in with his gun, but his plan changes significantly when he finds their young son there alone. Spooge and Skank return home and in one of the most brutal moments the show has done yet, Spooge gets his head crushed by a stolen ATM machine. Jesse can't believe they'd let a kid live in those conditions, so he calls 911 and leaves the kid on the step, making sure he keeps his eyes closed as they walk through the house.

If the word gets out on the street that Spooge stole from Jesse and ended up dead, the chances of anyone else trying to rob him don't look to be very high. This is a terrific hour of television, as we really get to know Jesse better through his sympathy for the young boy. Only 'Grilled' so far surpasses this in terms of the quality of episodes this season.

10/10

Walter cooks. Jesse and the gang sell. Two really disgusting people rob a dealer. This sends Jesse back to either get the money or the drugs from them. Meanwhile, Walter's way of getting Skyler to accept the cash payments for his treatment, is that rich couple that pretty much robbed Walter of his ideas. Walter lays a couple more big ones on his wife. He is starting to have to think through any statement he makes to his family. This is a fast paced and really golden episode. It also shows Jesse's compassion.

This is one of those episodes that reminds you why you watch this show. This season has had many moments when you begin to think, its just dragging on for too long (and for the most part it is). However it is episodes like this, that gets to the heart of Meth addiction and the consequences of the actions taken to maintain it.

Peekaboo is the type of episode that reminds us that Jesse is a human and that Meth can drag anyone down into the hellish world it has created, including an innocent child.

This series could easily continue further if they would just get away from the constant lies between Mr. White and his family and focused more on the macabre existence of Tweekers.

Another very strong episode, with a good mix of material. Walter's family situation and his awkward conversations with Gretchen really add layers and real-life strife to the scenario, while the most cinematic element is the big second-half set-piece with Jesse and the addicts. Even this adds in plenty of humanising touches which are surprisingly sweet.

Inadvertently Walt helps a child but it's Jesse who does the saving. The endless lies Walt tells Skyler gets rather tedious so this viewer is glad to see Jesse's side of life.

This episode was Aaron Paul's finest hour. Sure Mr. White tells Jesse he has to be forceful and get back his cash and stash from the junkies who robbed Skinny Pete but Jesse lacks the gumption to do it. He decides to go to the flop house and demand the money but what he encounters is a small, neglected and dirty child who's hungry. Jesse takes the time to try to find him some food and gets him to smile. Breaks your heart to see this child thrown away by such neglect. The junkies return to the flop house and Jesse has to perform.

So by sending Jesse to get back the stolen loot Walt helps save the life of a child. He doesn't mean to because later when Jesse starts to tell him about this kid in the house, Walt doesn't care.

Jesse shows his empathy for this child like he did for his brother and later for Brock so when the sequence of events leads Jesse to profit from this mission and escape he makes sure that little child gets the help he so desperately needs. When he tells the child to stay put on the porch and to have a good life, well who wouldn't tear up?

Rewatching 'Breaking Bad' second time now after a few years, and the emotional effect of this episode is overwhelming and overpowering to the point I rewatched this episode for the second time in two days just to get a glimpse of the angelic Jesse and his connection and desire to help out the little toddler child living in horrible conditions to drug addicted parents. 'You have a nice rest of your life kid' and the camera zooms out. Anyone with a soul would understand and empathize with the characters.

This is what makes this show great. Not just the gripping plot and character development but also being able to spread a powerful message, like the message that this episode communicates on the effects that drug addiction has on others, to the point where they completely neglect their toddler child and are solely concerned with taking their next hit. Likewise, this episode also shows Jesse's kindheartedness(despite his illegal acts) and this is shown when he goes out of his way to make sure the child is safe, which is something that not even the parents did. We also see Walter further add to the ever growing web of lies, and we can see his personality and attitudes change, which is shown in the restaurant scene with Gretchen. In the space of a few moments, he changes from being quite calm to clearly angry. This Walt is a different man to the nice, innocent chemistry teacher with hair that we knew in Season 1.

Great episode. One thing we see more of is Jesse being a nice human. we see it in a metaphorical way in the beginning when he doesn't crash the bug. And it feels very hard for him to do anything to the junkies that stole his and Walt's money. This is in way also the reason why he ends up being on the head. But he still ends up getting out. It is a pretty cray ending there. Well done, and the moment of hi bringing the child out was very sweet.

I admit I was a bit bored by the Walt and Gretchen story. But it in a way it is necessary to build up all the issues and show more bout him struggling with his lies. Plus the acting was great.

This episode started with a really simple premise: one of Walt and Jesse's drug dealers is ripped of by a redneck "couple" for his meth, and because of Walt's perfectionism, Jesse has to go get the money back. He could've just been written to force his way into their dilapidated house, intimidate them to give him the money and go away. That's what Walt would likely do, but not Jesse: it was already suggested that he's actually a good person at heart, and luckily writers acknowledged it.

The nervous Jesse breaks in, but finds no one but the couple's neglected toddler. He doesn't even panic at the sight of a stranger in his home: it's clear that with all the possible abuse and neglect he endured from the addicts, he's used to a lot worse. The writers didn't make it a throwaway episode it might've looked like, but actually explored what people like Walt and Jesse are actually bringing to the world around them; there are so many children living in that kind of horrible, horrible environment, with parents whose brains are so destroyed by substance abuse, they only think about taking more or experiencing awful pain. It doesn't shy away from such things. You can clearly see Jesse is traumatized by the experience and really begins to question whether he should be doing what he is... until Walt makes him do it again.

Speaking of Walt, his character develops just as much, but in the way opposite to Jesse. He finally meets his former girlfriend Gretchen Schwartz living with his former partner Elliot with an amazing fortune, who checks on him because of Skyler having told her Walt's lie that she's giving him money to cover his massive cancer treatment bills. With her in a restaurant, Walt finally snaps under the weight of his less-than-favourable life: he Bryan Cranston plays that suppressed fury all too brilliantly. I expected Walt's comeuppance against the displeasures of his life to somehow be satisfying, but I really didn't know who to root for here: on one hand, according to Walt, Elliot and Gretchen have made millions off of Walt's genius work while he was simply degraded to an underpaid chemistry teacher in the Land of Enchantment with nothing to look forward to, while Gretchen implies that he abandoned her and walked away from his future, which doesn't justify anything Walt says now and has been saying. So you can see Walt is now a blueprint for the sociopath he's about to become. Good thing the writers didn't go all "Walt having his sweet revenge" and showed both sides of a coin; where Walt sees his comeuppance, Gretchen sees a horrible person she never would associate with him. The plot ends with them severing their connection definitely, both thinking they're doing the right thing.

And that's another amazing episode of Breaking Bad. While Jesse begins to come back to reality, Walt skews further away from it. What a brilliant series it is. I think I'm gonna make this a series itself.

This was by far my favorite episode of Season 2 which I feel overall was the weakest of the 5 (or 5 1/2) seasons IMO. Not that season 2 was bad...it was just my least favorite.

In watching it a 2nd time (and after already seeing the entire series) I observed an interesting foreshadowing that may or may not have been coincidental.

In the opening scene when Jesse is playing with the bug...allowing it to crawl from one hand to the other while the train horn is blaring in the background...is eerily similar to the opening sequence of season 5.1's "Dead Freight" episode where Drew Sharp does the exact same thing with the spider. It has always been my opinion that Drew Sharp getting killed and the fact that Jesse was the only one who seemed truly bothered by it is what pushed Jesse over the edge to abandoning his drug lord role. It's almost as if Gilligan was showing Jesse in his last glimpse of innocence before he starts becoming responsible (at least indirectly) with ruining/ending so many lives. After this episode it starts happening in droves (Combo, Jane, Jane's dad, plane victims, Gale, Andrea's brother, Brock, Drew, Hank, Gomez, Andrea, and so on). Drew Sharp also had a dirt bike similar to the one Jesse had "stolen from him" in the previous episode. Again...possibly indicating the end of Jesse's innocence.

Considering how much VG uses foreshadowing in so many of these episodes I'm leaning towards thinking it wasn't a coincidence. Someone else pointed out the scene in season 3 when Gus Fring is on the elevator after being interviewed by the DEA and we see him twitchy and nervous as the elevator bell constantly dings sounding exactly like the dinging of Hector's wheelchair bell right before he gets blown to smithereens at the end of season 4. Pretty sure that wasn't a coincidence either.

Just my two cents...

What an episode!

That bug in the opening scene is a call back to the last episode right? Hank's comment about roaches? I like that.

I do agree that Jesse's plot was the highlight of the episode. The sight and feeling of that house was too real. I've never used, but I've grown up around family who have, and the house and attitude of the druggies I'm this brought me back to those days. I felt terrible for that poor kid. That sort of neglect just absolutely enraged me. Of course Jesse would want to sort of handle that situation with care. He's not a great guy, but he does have compassion so it seems!

Walt... is kind of a terrible person, isn't he? Don't get me wrong, I like the character, and his conversation with Gretchen was clearly heartbreaking for both of them, but good grief... what a horrible, dumb way he's handling his personal life issues. That scene was really well acted though. It'll be interesting to what becomes of him this season.

A really good episode of television, with great acting and writing yet again.

Having not been paid for some of the meth, Jesse takes matters into his own hands with two of the customers to assert dominance. He tries to get the two to open a stolen ATM machine and to retrieve the money inside. However, as the husband is working on opening the machine, the mother pushes the machine on top of him, resulting in his immediate death. To Jesse's horror, the two have a neglected child who is now going to have to live without a father.

Meanwhile, Gretchen comes by the White's house where Skyler expresses her gratefulness for what she believes is the Schwarzes who are paying Walt's medical bill, but immediately leaves when she notices that Walt is arriving.

What follows is one of the most memorable scenes of the show. Taking Gretchen out for dinner, Walt shows all his bitterness, all his grudge and poison towards the person that he believes to be the cause for his miserable life.