S5E4
Fifty-One
⚠ Spoiler alert This recap gives away what happens in this episode.
Episode Summary & Review
Summary
Walt celebrates another birthday. Skyler considers her options. An associate complicates Walt and Jesse’s plan.
Our Take
Walt’s 51st birthday: a party nobody wants, a car he buys his son as an apology for a life he can’t explain, and Skyler’s admission that she’s waiting for his cancer to come back. The hour measures the empire’s cost in birthday breakfasts, and in the fight that ends it: Walt Jr. forced to choose between parents, Marie threatening to take the kids, and the family, as a unit, functionally dead. The empire’s only remaining stakeholders are criminals.