Breathe
In a dark hospital room, Gus's physician Barry Goodman secretly examines Hector, while Victor guards the door and tips him off whenever nurses come by on their rounds. When Barry is finished with his analysis, he and Victor go down to meet Gus in his car outside, and report that while Hector is no longer comatose, there is no telling when he will wake up or whether he will understand what's going on around him when he does. The hospital is doing the best it can, but only an institution such as Johns Hopkins could give Hector better treatment. Barry questions whether a man like Hector doesn't deserve to be in this condition, but Gus insists that he alone gets to decide Hector's fate.
Kim is woken up early in the morning by the sound of Jimmy making orange juice in a blender. He has scheduled a series of job interviews around Albuquerque all day and is eager to get started, despite having a meeting scheduled with Howard to discuss Chuck's will. Although Kim notes that Jimmy doesn't have to start his job hunt so soon, he hurriedly leaves after fixing her breakfast. Kim is uneasy with Jimmy's behavior.
When Manuel Varga opens his upholstery shop, he finds Nacho inside waiting for him. Nacho tells his father that Hector's harassment is over, but Manuel gives his son the cold shoulder. Manuel silently removes Hector's drug money from a lockbox. Nacho collects it and turns to leave, but Manuel asks his son when he will be able to get out of his life of crime. Nacho tells him that he's "working on it."
Jimmy goes to an interview for a sales position at Neff Copiers. In Mr. Neff's office, he notices a Hummel figurine that reminds him of Geraldine Strauss. When Mr. Neff asks why he isn't a lawyer anymore, Jimmy deflects by telling a couple of lawyer jokes. The interview ends with Mr. Neff promising to contact Jimmy by the end of the week. However, Jimmy impulsively walks back into the office and makes a theatrical pitch about copiers. Impressed, Mr. Neff and his assistant, Henry, agree to hire him on the spot, but Jimmy expresses anger that they would be so naïve that they would hire him based on the pitch without properly vetting him. Jimmy turns down the job and leaves the store.
Mike is at the park with Kaylee when he gets a phone call summoning him to a meeting. He finds himself in a hotel conference room with Lydia, who questions him about his trip to the Madrigal warehouse in Las Cruces. She is worried that Mike's actions raise the risk of exposure, while Mike reasons that publicly performing his duties as Madrigal's security consultant reinforces his cover story. Mike further tells her that he plans to visit Madrigal's other seven terminals in the Southwest and do the same thing again. Finding herself at an impasse with Mike, Lydia warns him that he better not fall out of favor with Gus while doing so.
At the hospital, Hector's doctor nervously examines him while the Cousins stand silently by and watch. The visit is interrupted by the sudden arrival of the hospital director, accompanied by Dr. Maureen Bruckner, a specialist from Johns Hopkins who has flown to Albuquerque to treat Hector after a "generous grant" that has been given to the hospital just today by a big donor. Dr. Bruckner speaks Spanish to the Cousins and explains she is starting a new form of treatment which involves stimulating Hector's brain. After Nacho and Arturo arrive, Dr. Bruckner encourages the four men present to talk to Hector. The Cousins silently egg on the other two to do the talking. Arturo updates Hector on a turf dispute, while Nacho feigns support and tells him that he will "get past this and be stronger than ever."
Gus in the midst of sweeping trash in the parking lot of his restaurant, waiting for Tyrus to come in with an update. As he wonders why Tyrus is running late, he gets a phone call on his burner from Lydia, who is calling from the outdoor patio of the hotel. She continues complaining about Mike, but Gus curtly ends the call when Tyrus finally shows up in his Cadillac. In Gus's office, Tyrus tells him about Hector's current treatment and prognosis, and hands him a manila envelope containing Hector's medical charts. Gus, apparently realizing a discrepancy, tells Tyrus to not return to the hospital and instead arrange a meeting with Victor.
Kim arrives at HHM, where Howard is finishing his meeting with Rebecca and Julie. Kim learns that Jimmy will be allowed to search the remains of Chuck's house for keepsakes before the property is liquidated, and will be left with an unopened personal letter from Chuck, a check for $5,000 (the minimum amount necessary to prevent Jimmy from contesting the will), and a seat on the board of a scholarship committee in Chuck's name. Kim is incensed and, after Rebecca leaves, angrily lashes out at Howard for forcing Jimmy to suffer through these indignities. She further accuses him of being hurtful and self-serving in telling Jimmy about his theory that Chuck killed himself, pointing out that he never said the same thing to Rebecca. Kim tells Howard to stay away, leaving him chastened and alone in his office.
Jimmy arrives home with Thai dinner, telling Kim that he has found a couple of promising job leads over the course of the day. Kim opts not to hand Jimmy the unopened letter from Chuck, while Jimmy doesn't go into detail about the job he rejected at Neff Copiers. After the two sit down to watch the film White Heat, they spontaneously make love on the couch. Later, Jimmy wakes up and browses through an online store, finding a Hummel figurine similar to Mr. Neff's that fetches for almost $9,000. Jimmy goes to the patio and phones Mike, leaving a voicemail telling him about the potential score.
Nacho and Arturo arrive at the Los Pollos Hermanos chicken farm to collect their next pickup of drugs. Arturo resolves to pick up six packets, reasoning that it's what Hector normally gets. However, when they go inside, Victor and Tyrus have only laid out five packets on the table, instead of six. Arturo insists on taking six, to which Victor counters that the boss he represents is on life support, so they can either take the five or walk away with nothing. A standoff ensues. Nacho brandishes his gun, at which point, Victor relents and give them the sixth packet.
With the drugs in hand, Nacho and Arturo walk back to their car outside. Arturo boasts about making Victor and Tyrus "piss in their pants." No sooner does he say this when Nacho sees a figure emerging from between two of the refrigerator trucks. It's Gus, who slips a plastic bag over Arturo's head, wrestles him to the ground, and zipties his hands and feet behind him, while his men draw their guns on Nacho and force him to watch as Arturo suffocate to death. As Arturo takes his last breaths, Gus turns to Nacho and tells him he knows what he did to Hector, but the Salamancas are not aware yet. He coldly asserts, "From now on, you. Are. MINE." He then walks away, leaving Nacho to contemplate his dilemma.
Tropes
- Blofeld Ploy: After learning Nacho's complicity in Hector's stroke, Gus suffocates Arturo in front of him.
- Bullying a Dragon: Arturo makes the six key grab against Gus' crew a second time. What he did not consider is that with Hector out of commission, Gus and his men would feel far less hesitation in dealing with Arturo.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Howard. Just a couple of weeks earlier he was screwed over by his friend and mentor Chuck, who effectively forced Howard to buy him out of the firm. A few days after that, Chuck dies, and Howard becomes overwhelmed with guilt. The same day of the funeral, he confesses this to Jimmy, who rather than offer sympathy merely reinforces Howard's guilt by telling him "Well, I guess that's your cross to bear." Now, he's being screamed at by Kim and being accused of trying to maliciously unload his guilt onto Jimmy. Holy shit.
- Call-Back:
- The way in which Nacho is Forced to Watch as Arturo is slowly killed by Gus's men is very much similar to how Gus himself was forced to stare into the eyes of his former partner, Max, moments after Hector had blown his brains out.
- When Mr. Neff mentions his Hummel figurines, Jimmy says he knows a woman who also collects them.
- Call-Forward:
- Much like what will happen to Victor, Gus kills Arturo to intimidate Nacho.
- Jimmy gives Kim some of his leftover bacon for breakfast. Bacon is Walt Jr's signature food on Breaking Bad, to the point of
Memetic Mutation. - The opening shot of the second act lingers on Kaylee when she is on the swing at the park, foreshadowing her last encounter with her grandfather Mike before his death.
- Jimmy browses an online store to get the price on Mr. Neff's Hummel figurine. Skyler sold figurines through eBay before being caught up in Walt's drug business.
- In her meeting with Mike and her phone call to Gus, Lydia shows hints of the extreme anxiety that later leads to her Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- Jimmy finds his hair is starting to fall out, which will expand to Bob Odenkirk's real bald spot by the time of Breaking Bad.
- The camera lingers on Gus's hand with a twitching pointer finger as Tyrus updates him on Hector's condition, kinda like he's got an invisible variant of Hector's bell.
- Gus says to Nacho, "You ... are ... mine" in an almost identical cadence to how he tells Walt, "You ... are ... done" when hogtying him in the desert.
- Chekhov's Gun: Before his job interview at the copier store, Jimmy spots a Hummel figurine in Mr. Neff's office. Later, he browses online and finds a similar figurine fetches for almost $9,000, and immediately phones Mike. The trailer for the next episode implies that his proposed scheme involves stealing Mr. Neff's figurine.
- Converse with the Unconscious: The doctor suggests talking to Hector so that his brain will rewire and he will recover faster. So, after she leaves, the twins order Nacho and Arturo to talk to him while they themselves stay quiet. Nacho and Arturo awkwardly comply.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Gus ties a plastic bag onto Arturo's head, then subsequently keeping his arms and legs hogtied, resulting in the man slowly suffocating with a look of fear and pain in his eye.
- Did Not Think This Through: Arturo convinces himself that he can just as easily bully Gus' crew into giving him six keys, just like last time. But he hasn't considered that Gus and his crew are far less reluctant to deal with him now that Hector is out of commission, a fact which even Victor lampshades for him. He leaves with Nacho, convinced that he had Gus' crew peeing in their pants. But then Gus closes in for the kill.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Downplayed. Dr. Maureen Bruckner finds herself in the same room as Nacho, Arturo and the Cousins, making that four Cartel gangsters who could kill her without a sweat if they wished to do so. Whether or not she knows what they are, she converses with them in Spanish to explain to them the details of Hector's condition and her plan for his recovery, all without a hint of fear. The Downplayed comes from the gangsters knowing they can't kill a respected doctor in the middle of a very public space like a hospital without severe repercussions for themselves and the Cartel. And besides, all of them besides Nacho want all the help they can get to bring Hector back. Perhaps Maureen knew that as well even if she suspected what they were.
- Double-Meaning Title: Everyone is having to take a deep breath and process following Chuck's funeral. Jimmy's fighting to keep his head above water financially with his job search. Hector is fighting for every breath he can in a hospital bed. Arturo loses his breath permanently.
- Dramatic Irony: Kim accuses Howard of trying to unload his guilt over Chuck's death onto Jimmy, with neither aware of how big of a role Jimmy had in it.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: The Cousins pay Hector a visit in the hospital.
- Hiding in Plain Sight: Mike reasons that publicly performing his duties as Madrigal's security consultant will lend credence to his cover story and lower the risk of his getting caught.
- History Repeats: Variation: Jimmy managing to talk the copy place people into hiring him that same day is what convinces him to not take the job, as they are just as overly trusting as his dad was.
- Hypocrite: Kim accuses Howard of informing Jimmy that Chuck committed suicide just to offload his own guilt for what happened, when that's very clearly what both her and Jimmy have been doing to him this entire time by omitting the fact that they also played a part in the series of events that led to it.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lydia takes issue with Mike's security audit and ends the meeting warning him that he doesn't want to lose Gus's respect. Yet at the same time, she doesn't exactly have Gus's respect either, given she brings stuff to Gus that he wants her to handle without bothering him. Lydia's warning about keeping Gus's respect is more about herself really, or a miscalculated assumption that Gus would side with her.
- Irony:
- Gus insists that he alone gets to decide Hector's fate. As we know already, things won't quite turn out that way.
- Lydia warns Mike against losing Gus's respect. Then we see in her next scene, from Gus's expression as he answers her call, that she is the one who has already lost his respect.
- Nacho promises his father that he is looking for a way to get out of the drug business. Any chance of that happening completely evaporates when Gus kills Arturo in front of Nacho and tells Nacho he knows what really happened to Hector.
- Kick the Dog:
- Kim accuses Howard of doing this to Jimmy, by not only telling Jimmy that Chuck's death was a suicide (something Howard didn't tell Rebecca), but by also glossing over the fact that Chuck cut Jimmy out of his will.
- It could be quid pro quo dog-kicking, because Howard seems genuinely at a loss for words at Kim's accusation, like he didn't realize he was doing anything wrong.
- Chuck delivers a posthumous one to Jimmy by only leaving him $5000 in his will, which Kim recognizes as the amount you give when you want to cut someone out of your will without it being legally contested. She also accuses Chuck's final letter to Jimmy of being one from beyond the grave, even though we never hear what it actually says.
- Kim accuses Howard of doing this to Jimmy, by not only telling Jimmy that Chuck's death was a suicide (something Howard didn't tell Rebecca), but by also glossing over the fact that Chuck cut Jimmy out of his will.
- Loophole Abuse: Chuck would probably have left Jimmy absolutely nothing in his will if he could have. But he gives $5,000 to Jimmy, just $1,000 more than the minimum amount needed to deny Jimmy any legal rights to contest the will.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Instead of having one of his men attack Arturo, Gus personally gets his hands dirty, physically subduing and restraining the man easily with fast efficiency, letting Arturo suffocate to death.
- Not So Stoic: A funny example. Gus keeps his true feelings close to his chest most of the time, but even he struggles to contain his disdain when Lydia calls him to complain about Mike, ultimately (sarcastically) asking if she's supposed to give Mike a badge for his cover job:Gus Fring: Then I suggest you give the man a badge.
- On the flip side, however, the end of the episode sees Gus ambush Nacho and Auturo, subjecting the latter to a slow, agonizing death, while informing the former that he knows about Hector's stroke.
- Oh, Crap!: Nacho lets one off when Gus tells him he knows what Nacho did to Hector, and furthermore, that he is now in Gus's debt.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Gus insists that he is the only person who gets to decide Hector's fate, and he won't tolerate anyone getting in the way of his revenge. He is not really pleased to know that Nacho pulled off an attempt under his nose.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "You. Are. Mine."
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After over three seasons of frequently being in Howard's doghouse, Kim completely unloads on him when she learns about what Jimmy got from Chuck's will, and accuses him of saying what he said to them after the memorial service just to unload his own guilt about Chuck's death onto Jimmy.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Upon being given an update from Dr. Goodman on Hector's condition, Gus arranges for a "generous grant" to be made to the hospital and for a specialist from Johns Hopkins to be flown in to oversee Hector's care.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Jimmy rejects the Neffs' job offer with "The Reason You Suck" Speech, which chastises them for making an offer without any proper vetting or competition after falling for his theatrical sales pitch.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Arturo is convinced he's a big enough man in the underworld that he can throw his weight around, even though he's still a soldado without a Don to stand behind him. Gus' crew can barely conceal their disgust at his disrespectful behavior, and Gus sees to his Cruel and Unusual Death personally.
- Stepford Smiler: Jimmy behaves like one as he goes off to his job interviews, as he continues to be in denial over his guilt about Chuck's suicide.
- Stupid Crooks: Sure Lydia, having your highly paid "security consultant" do some actual security work is an awful idea, with Mike correctly pointing out that being a known face and the resulting paper trail backs the story up and makes it much less suspicious. Mike in fact does such a good job in finding holes in Madrigal's security that it would genuinely be worth the money Madrigal are paying. note
- Suddenly Shouting:Howard: I don't think that's fair-
Kim: "FAIR"?! LET'S TALK ABOUT "FAIR"! Hey, let's have Jimmy dig around in the fire-damaged wreck where HIS BROTHER DIED SCREAMING! And let's let him grab a keepsake or two. Yeah, that is SO FAIR! - Tempting Fate: Arturo boasts to Hector in the hospital how "No one wants to mess with the Salamancas". By the end of the episode, Gus proves otherwise.
- Wham Episode: Gus murders Arturo in front of Nacho, and then blackmails Nacho into working for him.
- Wham Line:
- "I know what you've done. The Salamancas, they do not. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
- Downplayed: after Jimmy successfully convinces the bosses of Neff Copiers to hire him on the spot, Jimmy's reaction is a little... less than ecstatic:Jimmy: Are you out of your mind?
