Breaking Bread: A Recipe for the Cook

Gus Frings, the Mexican chicken magnate and the southwest's top crystal meth kingpin just invited his most valuable employee, Walter White, over to the house for dinner. But as always, Walt knew the subtext and tried to blind him with science.

Gus:

"It always amazes me the way the senses work in connection to my brain...Taken separately, these ingredients alone don't remind me of anything...But in this precise combination, the smell of this meal instantly brings me back to my childhood. How is that possible?"

Walt:

"Basically it all takes place in the hippocampus. Neural connections are formed. The senses make the neurons express signals that go right back to the same part of the brain as before...Where memory is stored. It's something called relational memory."

But what Gus really smells is a rat, not in the mafioso sense, just one who is nibbling from his cheese. Simply put, Jesse Pinkman, Walt's resourceful but foolish partner may have just become an endangered species.

While that one scene dictates exactly where Breaking Bad is headed next, two amazing sub-plots have emerged that nobody ever could have seen coming:

When Skyler Met Saul

Saul Goodman:

"Clearly Walt's taste in women is the same as his taste in lawyers. Only the very best, with just the right amount of dirty."

Since Walt's extensive bankroll is going to fund the recovery of their brother-in-law (enforcement), Skyler needs to know that the laundered money is "unimpeachable."

As events unfold, Skyler injects herself as a point person in the process. Oh, and by the way we're not divorced after all - so we can't be compelled to testify against each other.

Avenging Combo

Jesse has always come across as a wannabe gangster. Yes, he's the self-admitted "bad guy," but he's clearly loyal and has a good heart when it comes to things, and people, that matter.

But through a random turn of events, another door has opened to his painful past. Jesse has tracked down the pre-teen gunman, and the soulless crew responsible for the assassination of his best friend.

Now Jesse's yin and yang are in unison. In one look you know he wants to wipe out Combo's killers, the ones who would use a 10-year old boy to sling and slay. And he can do it with a clear conscience in the name of righteousness.

Things Breaking Very Badly For Hank Schrader

The thing with the new modern drama is that the bad guys are often the good guys, and the good guys are lesser good guys.

I think about the dogged Agent Harris, always coming up short against Tony Soprano. Tony was the show's hero, but the Keystone cop feds were one step behind and hard to dislike.

Or master criminal Stringer Bell toying with the squad from The Wire for the better part of 3 seasons, until getting caught in the crosshairs of two more vicious criminals.

***CAUTION-SPOLIERS***

In the case of the new best-show-on-TV, Breaking Bad, DEA Agent Hank Schrader isn't a perfect character, but he is a top-notch investigator. Unfortunately, he can't close on the elusive "Heisenberg," the local meth kingpin - who just happens to be Walter White, his brother-in-law.

While Walt is the perfect anti-hero, Hank's personal drama has won us over as well.

Hank is the ultimate bad-ass fed, but is dealing with some post-traumatic stress after a Mexican drug cartel blew up his border task force. So now he's having panic attacks, general anxiety, and behaving very erratically. His professional life is in limbo, and he can't talk to anyone - including his wife - about it.

But he still has his instincts and is right on top of the mysterious RV, the Blue Sky meth, and ultimately Walt. But Walt has the jump on him, since he knows his enemy.

When Walt and Jesse are cornered in the rolling meth lab, Walt pulls a fast one (with a major assist from "Better Call" Saul Goodman), arranging a fake car accident involving Hank's wife, knowing it would pull Hank from the scene.

When Hank finds out its a ruse, he gets dragged down one step further toward his emotional basement.

Now not only is he aware of the problems in front of him. He doesn't even know about the relentless evil "Twin Reaper" who now have made it their mission to chop him into half-a-dozen pieces.