ABQ (Breaking Bad)

Plot

Jesse Pinkman wakes from his heroin-induced sleep to find Jane Margolis dead, having choked on her own vomit. He attempts CPR, to no avail, as she had already been dead several hours. Horrified and distraught, Jesse contacts Walter White. Walt calls Saul Goodman, who sends a cleaner, Mike Ehrmantraut, to remove evidence of drugs from Jesse's apartment. Jane's father Donald arrives at the apartment and discovers she has died. Jesse blames himself for Jane's death and runs off to a crack house. Walt locates an anguished Jesse and attempts to comfort him, before taking him to a rehab clinic.

Walt is preparing to undergo surgery to remove his cancer. The website that Walter Jr. made to bring in anonymous donationsin reality being used by Saul to launder Walt's drug moneygarners media attention due to its apparent success; Walt is uncomfortable in the spotlight due to the pity shown him and his dislike of charitable donations. On the day of Walt's operation, as he is put under anesthesia, he groggily reveals the existence of a second cell phone he uses, making Skyler White suspicious of his activities. When Walt is released from the hospital, Skyler reveals that she has investigated his behavior over the past several months and found he has lied to her many times. Her discoveries include Gretchen never sending any money despite their medical bills nearly being paid and Walt not visiting his mother. Skyler then tells Walt he has to move out; Walt offers to tell her everything, but she is too afraid to know and drives away.

Five weeks later, Donald returns to his jobrevealed to be as an air traffic controllerdespite still grieving Jane's death. While on the job, his mind wanders to Jane when a charter plane's callsign reminds him of Jane's initials, and he inadvertently allows the flight path of one plane, revealed to be Wayfarer Airlines Flight 515, a Boeing 737, to cross a charter plane's path. Sitting beside his swimming pool, Walt is startled by an explosion overhead. As he watches the mid-air collision in horror, a teddy bear lands in the pool.

Production

The episode was written by Vince Gilligan, and directed by Adam Bernstein. It aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on May 31, 2009. The plane crash at the end of the episode was inspired by Aeroméxico Flight 498 back in 1986 (as referenced above), in which the air-traffic controller who was directing air traffic at the time of the real-life accident shares the name of the lead character of Breaking Bad, Walter White.

This episode introduced the character of Mike as played by Jonathan Banks. The role of the cleaner to help Jesse prepare to deal with the police was originally meant to be handled by Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk. However, due to commitments to How I Met Your Mother, he was not available for filming of this episode, so Gilligan created Mike for that episode and into the next season as a cleaner.

Critical reception

Donna Bowman, writing for The A.V. Club, commented that the episode "was horrific perfection".

In 2019, The Ringer ranked "ABQ" as the 28th best out of the 62 total Breaking Bad episodes. Vulture ranked it 35th overall.

For her work on this episode, Lynne Willingham won Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series at the 61st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, while Michael Slovis was nominated for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour).

Notes

References

References

1. Herzog, Kenny. (April 21, 2020). "Every Breaking Bad Crossover Character in Better Call Saul".
2. Hiatt, Brian. (March 16, 2015). "Bob Odenkirk on ''Saul'' and ''Mr. Show''{{'s}} Non-Reunion".
3. Makuch, Eddie. (March 9, 2023). "Breaking Bad's Mike Ehrmantraut Was Not Originally Planned For The Series".
4. Bowman, Donna. (May 31, 2009). "''Breaking Bad'': "ABQ"".
5. Siegel, Alan. (September 30, 2019). "The Ringer's Definitive 'Breaking Bad' Episodes Ranking".
6. Potts, Kimberly. (10 October 2019). "Every Episode of Breaking Bad, Ranked".