Grey Matter

In this episode of Breaking Bad  called “Grey Matter” Walter and Skylar go to a party for Walters old friend. Skylar tells Walters friend (Elliot) that Walter has cancer, and in turn Elliot offers Walt a job and the money for the treatment. Walter refuses both along with the treatment even though it would be paid for in full. Skylar facilitates an interventions for Walter so that he will get the treatment “Walter you need this treatment, and nothing can stop you from getting it except you.” Skylar. The intervention becomes a fiasco when her sister agrees with Walter to not do treatment.  Walter ends the session with the statement that he needs to make his own choice. He gives his reasoning and says, “I choose not to do it”  Then he changes his mind. He goes in for treatment But does not except the money.  He lies about the insurance.  But really he went back to Jessie.

Jessie has changed. He first tried to get a job and then diced to go back into making meth, but he has become a perfectionist. And gets a new partner.  The partner doesn’t work out because he does not have the same standards of “good crystal meth”  The episode ends with Walter asking Jessie, “you wanna cook?”

Two themes that I saw in this episode were,  family and choices.

Family is a theme because Skylar gets her family to back her up. Really what happened and what showed was that they all wanted the best for Walter, but the best for him looks different in everyone’s eyes.  Walter changes his mind because of his wife. Interesting how much the love of our family affects our choices.

Choices is a theme because Walter wants to have a choice of how he approaches the cancer situation. He wants to finish his life happy in his own home living his own life. He does not want to just survive. He want’s to life to the end of his life and not survive as a dead man. He ends up choosing to do the treatment and also go back to cooking meth.

I think that they way Skylar told Walter that the only thing that can stop him from the treatment iss himself. It’s the same with Christ.  Christ has freely given us our salvation (our life), and the only thing that can stop us from receiving it is ourselves. I think Elliot plays a savior role in this episode. He is offering his money as a choice for Walter. No strings attached nothing.  But in this case Walter does not except it. We will see how it turns out.