Season 5, Episode 6 “Buyout”
In the previous episode, Mike, Jesse, and Walt had just orchestrated a train heist in which they stole 1,000 gallons of methylamine. However, the train heist ended with a young boy dead and thus left Jesse in frenzy. Additionally, Mike's under heavy suspicion by the DEA, so Mike and Jesse tell Walt they want out of the business. Mike suggests that they sell the methylamine to his Phoenix contact Declan for $5 million apiece. Jesse agrees, but Walt refuses, claiming the more prudent business move would be to cook and sell the meth themselves, which would yield around $300 million.
In an effort to convince Walt, Jesse makes a rare appearance at the White residence and is invited into Walt’s home. Jesse boldly asks Walt whether he’s in meth business or the money business. Additionally, Jesse reminds Walt that when he started out in the meth business, all he said he needed to make was $737,000. Further, Jesse tells Walt that if he agrees to sell his shares of the methylamine he could be out of the meth game tomorrow, be financially stable, and prevent the risk of any future harm to his family. However, Walt then tells Jesse about Gray Matter. Gray Matter is a pharmaceutical company Walt and his grad school friends started. Walt tells Jesse that due to a disagreement with his partners, he took a buyout of $5,000, which Walt informs Jesse was a lot of money to him at the time. Walt then tells Jesse that the company is worth billions today and that he checks its net worth every week. Walt then declares to Jesse that he’s not in the meth business or the money business, but instead in the “empire business.” However, Jesse gets the last word in, asking Walt if a meth empire is really something to be proud of. At that exact moment, Skylar walks in the door and Jesse stays for dinner.
The dinner scene between Jesse, Skylar, and Walt is one of the funniest and most cringe worthy moments ever on the show. However, I’m picking this scene for Walt’s conversation with Jesse. This scene reminds us how much Jesse has grown since the early days of the show, now acting as the voice of reason of the two. Someone needed to remind Walt that he’s totally lost track of his original ambitions for cooking meth and I’m glad Jesse did it here. As the audience, we already knew Walt was overly prideful and egotistical about his genius. We also already knew that Walt still held a grudge towards his former Gray Matter partners, but we never knew it haunted him to this extent. True, Walt missed out on an opportunity to own a billion dollar company and that would eat away at most of us. However, Walt is willing put himself and his family at further risk just so he won’t make the same buyout mistake he made with Gray Matter. This scene reminds us that part of Walt’s ambitions for the getting into the meth business was always to prove to himself and his former partners that he was twice the chemist they ever were. What's more, when Walt makes that sinister statement that he’s in the “Empire Business”, it becomes clear that Walter White is beyond salvation. Really, the only frustrating part of this scene is that Jesse never gets his final question answered. However, I’m guessing Walt’s honest reply would have been that having full control over a chemistry enterprise worth hundreds of millions would help him forget about Gray Matter.
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