Fly

How did I know this would be the response?

You replied to yourself.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

That is my favorite part of the episode. As he is falling asleep he almost says it. Only if it had spit out, can you imagine the rest of the show? Jesse loved her. Wow, love this scene

it doesn't really advance the plot as such

Not directly, but indirectly I think it has enormous impact.

Consider that the ep contains THE breakthrough revelation for Walt: "It's all contaminated." He now knows that corruption pursues him everywhere, that it's permanent -- a new fly appears in the bookended last scene.

Structurally -- the intersection of character and plot -- this ep marks the peak, terminal point of what has been Walt's long and increasingly desperate effort to deny that he is truly past the point of no return. From now on, that changes -- he's increasingly freed of that delusion, eventually descending to the point where Jesse watches in horror as he literally whistles while he works just after rationalizing Drew Sharp's murder.

The events in Fly are so intensely experienced by Walt -- helped by sleep-deprivation and psychotropic drugs, a mix of sleeping pills and caffeine -- that they are able to permanently rupture his fantasy that he's still acting righteously -- that he is still redeemable. He can't get relief from his conscience, he can't tell Jesse he killed Jane. "It's all contaminated" -- he realizes there is no escape. Except, for losing consciousness. Which literally happens in the ep. Consciousness/awareness of conscience. Thereafter, he's much better able to quarantine and pretty much eliminate from his mind this most demanding human quality.

The ep marks the point when Walt realizes he no longer has a soul to lose. Well, that's pretty much everything. Naturally this will have a huge impact on subsequent events, since if he's already doomed he no longer needs to hold back. Fly is about forcing a profound revelation, and that's never neutral. It always has consequences, good or bad.


"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson

Well, one thing's for sure, that's a filler post.

Finally an honest response. The acting feels affected as though the director told them to improv. The question if he tried the product is funny. And it gets a bit better at the end with Walt's apologetic dialogue. But the whole premise of the episode is off. As much as cooking meth is an art or better yet scientific project that Walt takes great pride in, I seriously doubt that the character would care that much about one fly in the lab given how bad the product is in and of itself for the customer, etc.