History Recap / BreakingBadS2E7NegroYAzul

* MeaningfulName: Tortuga invokes this: "I take my time, but I always win." The cartel then invoke this in another way by sending his severed head on top of a tortoise.

* VomitingCop: Hank is visibly trying not to throw up when seeing Tortuga's severed head.

* AnAesop:
** The El Paso DEA agents who mock Hank for being overwhelmed when he sees Tortuga's head on a tortoise demonstrate a SeenItAll jadedness with regards to the horrors of the cartels... which leads them to fatally let their guards down around the tortoise, meaning they were utterly unprepared for it to explode. Hank, meanwhile, was utterly unprepared for this and is overcome, leading him to stagger some distance away, meaning he is spared the worst of the explosion. Don't get too cocky, kids; despite what you might think, you actually ''haven't'' seen it all, and acting like you have may lead to bad results.
** The agents also mock Hank for his overwhelmed reaction to Tortuga's death, displaying a clear lack of empathy both for him and for Tortuga. Of course, Hank's empathy also means that he is well out of range when the trap explodes. Empathy ain't a bad thing to have.

** The agents also mock Hank for his overwhelmed reaction to Tortuga's death, displaying a clear lack of empathy both for him and for Tortuga. Of course, Hank's empathy means that he is well out of range when the trap explodes.

** "Tortuga" translates as "tortoise" (see MeaningfulName); when the Cousins gets done with him, he's a severed head riding on the shell of a real tortoise.

Directed by Felix Alcala

[[Recap/BreakingBad Index]] | '''1''' | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E2Grilled 2]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E3BitByADeadBee 3]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E4Down 4]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E5Breakage 5]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E6Peekaboo 6]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E7NegroYAzul 7]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E8BetterCallSaul 8]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E9FourDaysOut 9]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E10Over 10]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E11Mandala 11]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E12Phoenix 12]] | [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E13ABQ 13]]]]-]]]

[[caption-width-right:350:"''But that homie's dead/He just don't know it yet.''"]]

->''"Hola DEA!"''

!!This episode contains examples of:

* {{Irony}}: Hank likes to pretend that he's much more macho than he really is, pretending that the firefight with Tuco isn't affecting him and often being as loud and obnoxious as possible to cover up his fears and nervousness. It's this very same squeamishness that saves his life when he has to walk away from Tortuga's head before it explodes.

* VomitingCop: Hank is visibly trying not to throw up when seeing Tortuga's severed head.

* FleshAndBombs: The cartel sending a message to Hank by [[DeadGuyOnDisplay strapping the severed head]] of his informant to a tortoise. Hank is so disgusted that he goes to the car to try and calm down, which saves his life when one of the other cops moves the head and sets off the bomb hidden in it.

* {{Jerkass}}: Vanco is so much of a jerk he can't even insult Hank to his face, preferring to say them in Spanish to his colleagues

While Jesse and Jane bond, Hank meets with his colleagues on the Mexican border as they conduct a stakeout. He sees something in the distance: it appears to be Tortuga. When the team investigates, they discover that it's actually Tortuga's severed head attached to the back of a tortoise (Tortuga's Spanish namesake) with "HOLA DEA" ("Hello, D.E.A.!") painted on its shell. Hank begins to feel ill as his colleagues laugh about the poetic justice that had been wrought on Tortuga, but the laughter comes to an end with bombs attached to the tortoise go off, killing one DEA agent and maiming three others.

* {{Jerkass}}: Vanco, who is so much of a jerk he can't even insult Hank to his face, preferring to say them in Spanish to his colleagues

* MeaningfulName: Tortuga invokes this: "I take my time, but I always win."
* SteelEardrums: Averted; when the Tortuga bomb goes off, the audio is dampened to cue to us that Hank has been temporarily deafened by the blast.

* EarlyBirdCameo: Tortuga makes several appearances throughout the ColdOpen music video before he's introduced properly within the episode.

* SteelEardrums: Averted, when the Tortuga bomb goes off, the audio is dampened to cue to us that Hank has been temporarily deafened by the blast.

* DeadStarWalking: Tortuga is murdered by the cartel after a single scene in the hotel.

Meanwhile, Skyler applies for a data-entry job at Beneke Fabrications, using her friendship with the owner Ted Beneke to get her old bookkeeping job back. At the same time, Hank meets with "Tortuga", a cartel informant, in El Paso. He is annoyed with his colleagues acquiescing to his every request and demands Tortuga cooperate, but Tortuga explains that he's a patient man and he will take his time to get what he wants.