Skylar must now understand, or should be putting the pieces together of just how close Hank is to “discovering” the “truth” of the Whites’ wealth. And the almost incredulous reason is simply because Walter can’t be the emasculated man. So with a belly full of wine, Walter suggests, as the two families eat dinner, that perhaps Gale is not the evil Heisenberg genius Hank describes him to be. Walter posits that perhaps, just perhaps, it was merely rote memorization, a mere facsimile of the true genius behind the chemical formula in that notebook, the key piece of evidence. Not only does Walter’s hubris refuse to allow Hank’s misapprehension to persist, but also Walter seems to enjoy alluding Hank’s pursuit. Walter likes the idea of his wits outmatching Hank and the law. Though Walter has serious threats to his life, he simply can’t allow. The irony is that the same, to a lesser degree, seems true for Hank.
Hank has been physically emasculated. Hanks physical limitation threatens his sense of worth, much the same way that Walter’s unacknowledged brilliant chemistry work, threatens his. Hank seemed to be recovering his masculinity in last week’s episode, but then it was squashed upon his discovery of what he believes to be Heisenberg death. Although Hank says that realization feels like “closure “and we assume thus a good thing, we don’t really believe Hank. So Hank has the drunken Walter to thank for helping him get his mojo back. Walter likes being pursued in this way by Hank. Walter has issues with Hank, expressed throughout the series in subtle and clear ways. I think part of Walter goading Hank to get back on the hunt, rests in Walter’s pride but also his desire to “outwit” Hank, the manly man’s man.
Further, this notion of masculinity, as I am defining here, plays out with Jesse as well. Jesse desires to be useful and important—like Walter. Gus understands this and so puts a plan into motion to generate some self-importance for Jesse. Jesse, after all, simply wants to be needed, accepted and loved. Propping Jesse up though to help him feel better about his manhood certainly isn’t Gus’s plan. At least, I don’t believe it to be part of the plan. Making Jesse feel important and vital seems likely to represent an affront to Walter and how he sees himself. Walter is no match for Gus.
An interesting aside: I wonder if the show’s writers knew this:
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states precise inequalities that constrain certain pairs of physical properties, such as measuring the present position while determining future momentum of a particle. Both cannot be simultaneously done to arbitrarily high precision. In other words, the more precisely one property is measured, the less precisely the other can be controlled, determined, or known.
I’d say no question about it, as Walter’s chosen “handle” for himself, seems to reveal a facet of Walter’s situation. The more Walter tries to control the events around him, the less influence he has, just like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.
