Been rewatching this on and off. I'm at the Season 2 finale now, although I have to steel myself to watch this.
They did such a great job with the creeping descent of Walt, but really it's just a testament to how the writers + the cast created real breathing people even out of a few characters like Hank and Marie who were originally more of comic relief in function. Everything functions very smoothly, all the cogs slowly turning, whether it's how Skylar ends up in bed with Ted, or how Walter keeps kind of moving back and forth on the needle while always moving slowly in a decline. You can see his humanity just trickling away overall like it is slowly dripping from a leak until he is eventually depleted. And then there are just moments like where he tells the other meth dealers to get off his turf in a home depot parking lot (he's an old frail guy, but he looks totally intimidating in his body language) or when he forces his son to drink vodka as a powerplay against Hank, where Walt is just mean and Hank is confused and not sure what to do.
I also want to yell at the screen any time a new character meets him -- "Run away! He kills what he touches! He's poison!" Like when he meets Gus, and Gus is correct in choose initially to stay away, and he will regret ever deciding to do business with Walt.
I think it's just remarkable that all the characters are relatable and capable of good, but they are also so flawed. This whole Jessie, Jane, and Walter triangle.
Jesse does deserve his share of the money and Walt isn't his caretaker and has no right to hold onto his share. Yet Walt is right that Jesse is impulsive and a junkie and not really dependable -- but we also know Jesse has a heart of gold and actually cares about other people. But this is how he can be weak -- drifting, unmotivated, path of easiest resistance, and hurting so bad much of the time that he just keeps drifting back into drugs to by some respite.
Jane is definitely giving Jesse some spine and fighting for him because he just is weak in some ways and especially against Walt -- and she does care about Jesse and is seemingly serious about being together (she throws away her sobriety for him and finds him attractive enough to risk everything for in the first place). I get the feeling she senses he has a good heart and he's also extremely honest, and this makes him vulnerable to people like Walter, and she has no problem being a total bitch in Jesse's defense. I think she feels good standing up for Jesse when he is unable to do so. But you can also see her eagerness on her face regarding all that money. She wouldn't steal it from Jesse, but she's kind of enamored by it -- and it's scary how convincingly she can play the audience and her father, then turn right around when her dad leaves and be completely cold and indifferent again. How much of what Jane shows is real and how much is something she can just turn on and off?
We also are seeing Walt swerving between being a loving father/husband and being a complete dick, and here you can tell he actually does care about Jesse on some level, but it's also infested with wanting to be in control of Jesse, alternating fathering him and otherwise bullying him when he needs a punching bag or when Jesse doesn't do things Walt's ways. It's terrible how he blames Jesse for him missing his daughter's birth, when it was Walt's conscious choice.
I think one thing I really love about Jane and Walt is that Jane is totally impervious to Walt's lying words. Walt always tries to talk his way through until the other side gives in even if just to shut him UP. His words don't affect Jane one iota though. She totally disregards him. She knows exactly what he's terrified of and how to punch his buttons, and when he tries to talk to Jesse because he's targeting him as the vulnerable one (since he got nowhere with Jane), Jane just slams the door in his face, cutting him off. Walt must feel totally humiliated by her disregards and indifference towards him. It's kind of a come-uppance.
I think the flaws in Jesse and Jane is just that they actually still have the same temptations as junkies -- they could have not shot up that night, they could have just disappeared with the money, to get a head start on Jane's dad, but they are flawed and just can't resist. It's just really sad. In fact, I felt really uncomfortable and sad when they switch from light drugs to shoot up heroin because Jesse cannot deal with Combo's death. It's really hard to watch because you know it's a dark step down a path they can't easily come back from -- sad, disturbing, and there's nothing the viewer can do to stop them. So much in this season feels like tragedy slow-approaching, especially if you've already seen the entire show. It's an inevitable spiral to doom.
Which again is where Walt is at with the end of this episode. What happens to Jane happens indirectly because of him, but then directly because he chooses to not intervene. It's ugly and disappointing and sad and horrific -- and the tears in his eyes reveal his conscious knowledge that he's losing his humanity and yet he's only weeping for himself (selfishly); he's not really weeping for Jane because he sees her as an obstacle that gets in his way of controlling Jesse and being in charge. She's an opponent and a threat, and he decides to remove it.... just to turn around and go home and play loving father.
.... but I guess my main point is even more with these secondary characters, who are so good in some ways and so flawed in others... something that continued when this crew did BCS.
John de Lancie also deserves a real callout for his work here. Only in a few episodes, but he's great as the father who is trying to save his daughter and just veering between guilt, recrimination, support, doting love and adoration, rage, you name it. he feels so fully realized with so few episodes that he is in. (If you have only seen him as Q in STTNG, this is eye-opening to his level of talent.) And it's so much worse that he and Walt talk in the bar and don't even realize who each other are or how one of them will change the course of the other one's life forever. I don't think I can watch the finale tonight in part because of Jessie's grief but also the hollow emptiness of de Lancie's eyes, it just kind of haunts you.