'Breaking Bad' Season 4, Episode 12 Recap - 'End Times'

After almost four full seasons of bad decisions (or at least bad karma), it all finally came back to bite Walt in the ass last week. When we last saw him, he was laughing hysterically in the crawl space at the horrible irony of it all... and it was quite possibly one of those most haunting images of the series (in a completely different way from the bathtub through the ceiling).

Now, he finally admits to Skyler that he's made a series of choices that he has to own up to. "I alone should suffer the consequences of those choices," he says. And just like that, we're not quite as angry with Walt as we have been.

Of course, after an episode that ends as frenzied as that one did you're bound to get one that's a bit more slowly paced. There were some terrifically tense moments in "End Times" to be sure, but nothing that quite matched the ending moments of "Crawl Space."

The family is all herded into Hank and Marie's house, which is being guarded by DEA agents with some serious firepower. That's supposed to keep them safe, but mostly it just keeps them from getting in the way of the main story of the episode: Walt and Jesse and Gus.

Of course, we had to send Gomez over to the laundry first to tie up that loose end, but he comes back empty-handed (boy, Dennis almost screwed up royally there, didn't he?).

But the real moments of tension came later. First, when Andrea comes to Jesse and tells him that Brock is in the hospital with a mysterious illness, Jesse comes to the realization that the ricin in his cigarette is gone and it must have been given to Brock. That leads the distraught Jesse to confront Walt, accusing him of slipping Brock the ricin to get back at him... but after talking him down, Walt gets Jesse to see that Gus was behind it.

So, the crime-causing/crime-fighting team of Jesse and Walt is back together as they agree to take Gus down. We get to see a little intimidation from Tyrus (aka Victor II), eventually leading to a scene in the hospital's chapel (nice) in which Gus feigns ignorance about the poisoning and grants Jesse all the time he needs to stay.

It's all a ruse, though, designed to get Gus here so that Walt can put one of his chemistry bombs on Gus' car (yay, chemistry!). Unfortunately, Gus has some kind of "someone's trying to kill me" sixth sense and steers clear of the car after peering out of the parking garage. Walt, talking to himself across the way like a peeping tom and watching hungrily through his binoculars, is distraught at losing what might have been his best--and only--opportunity to save himself and his family.

A few interesting/awesome things about this episode:

- How many takes do you suppose it took for the russian roulette spin of the revolver to land on Walt twice in a row? Do you suppose it was like the pizza on the roof and it just happened magically on the first take?

- So cool to see Walt doing his guerilla chemistry again, like the good ol' days where he solved all of his problems by doing something awesome with his chemistry superpowers.

- Did you see the indent from the gun on Bryan Cranston's forehead? That was pretty intense. Just goes to show you how deep he and Aaron Paul get into those scenes. Bravo.

- Some really wonderful shots in this episode, especially the symmetry of the power lines when Jesse gets in his car and the mise-en-scene in the chapel. Gorgeous. And all without putting the camera somewhere really weird, like on the tip of a shovel.