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"Cat's In The Bag..." is the second episode of the first season of Breaking Bad and the second episode overall.

Summary[]

Teaser[]

After having rough sex with Skyler, Walt gets up to wash up in the bathroom. He looks at himself in the mirror. The scene shifts to twelve hours before, as a pants-less Walt and a black-eyed Jesse hire a local backhoe operator to pull the RV out of the ditch. Afterwards, the two agree to end their criminal partnership as soon as they deal with the bodies of Emilio and Krazy-8. However, as Walt finally gets the engine of the RV to start, a rustling sound alerts them to the fact that one of the "dead" men isn't dead.

Act I[]

The following morning, Walt wakes up naked on his bathroom floor. Breakfast with his family is interrupted when Jesse calls his house posing as a telemarketer. Jesse demands that he help out in dealing with Krazy-8 and disposing of Emilio's body. Walt says that he can't come until after school. After he leaves, Skyler does a callback and hears Jesse's profane outgoing answering machine message, revealing to her that Walt was not talking to a telemarketer.

At school, an anxious Walt mishears a student asking about the "murder" instead of the "midterm". After class, he raids the chemistry supply closet for gallon bottles of hydrofluoric acid. Meanwhile, Jesse hears more noise coming from the RV. When he looks out his window, he's stunned to see the vehicle's door wide open and Krazy-8 nowhere to be found.

1x02 - Cat's in the Bag..

Krazy 8 walking down the street

Driving to Jesse's house in his Pontiac Aztek, Walt finds an injured Krazy-8 stumbling down the middle of a suburban street. After turning around, Walt waves him toward the car, but Krazy-8 recognizes his voice and tries to flee, only to knock himself out when he runs directly into a tree. Walt throws the unconscious drug dealer into his car.

Act II[]

1x02 - Cat's in the Bag..

Jesse with the plastic containers

At the White residence, Skyler conducts a web search and finds one of Jesse's social media profiles, full of drug imagery. Meanwhile, Walt brings the unconscious Krazy-8 back to Jesse's house, where they take him into the basement and secure him to a pole with a bicycle lock around his neck. Walt and Jesse then argue about what to do next. Their first priority is to dispose of Emilio's body, with Walt suggesting that they use hydrofluoric acid to perform the task. They also agree that Krazy-8 can't be left alive, tossing a coin to see who will kill him. Jesse wins the toss and chooses to dispose of Emilio, thus it falls upon Walt to kill Krazy-8. Walt instructs Jesse to buy a specific type of plastic bin so that the body can be properly disposed of but refuses to explain why. At a home supply store, Jesse can't find a bin that's big enough to fit a body.

Act III[]

At Jesse's house, Walt, reluctant to kill Krazy-8, ends up serving him a sandwich and providing a bucket and hand sanitizer instead. In order to relieve his stress, after many failed joint-rolling attempts, he smokes some of Jesse's marijuana. Jesse returns home without a bin and asks Walt how the murder went. Walt promises to take care of Krazy-8 tomorrow, then leaves to meet Skyler at a hospital for her sonogram. There, the couple learn that they are expecting a girl. Afterward, Skyler confronts Walt about his association with Jesse. In an attempt to hide the truth, Walt falsely confesses that Jesse is his pot dealer and, frustrated by her complaints, asks her to "climb out of my ass."

Act IV[]

1x02 - Cat's in the Bag..

Jesse is confronted by Skyler.

The next day, Walt struggles to keep his secrets in check at work while Jesse retrieves Emilio's body from the RV. As he is dragging the body across the driveway, Skyler walks through his driveway gate. Jesse quickly positions himself to try to obscure the body. Skyler tells Jesse that her brother-in-law is a DEA agent and warns Jesse to stop selling pot to her husband. After she leaves, Jesse hauls Emilio's body up to his second-floor bathroom and, donning a gas mask, dissolves the body in the bathtub with the hydrofluoric acid.

LiquidEmilio

Jesse learns the hard way.

When Walt returns to the house, Jesse informs him of Skyler's visit and that he dissolved Emilio's body in the bathtub without having to buy the plastic bin. In horror, Walt hurries into the hallway beneath the upstairs bathroom. Sizzling liquid can be seen seeping from the ceiling above and through the floor below. Suddenly, the ceiling collapses followed by a cascade of gore: a mixture of hydrofluoric acid and Emilio's half-dissolved remains. Walt turns to Jesse and states the reason he needed a plastic container: hydrofluoric acid eats through most materials except plastic. Meanwhile, out in the desert, two Native American children find Walt's discarded gas mask.

Official Photos[]

Trivia[]

  • This episode, along with "Pilot", are the only two episodes that have a timeframe card in the beginning of the episode "i.e. "12 hours earlier". Many later episodes also begin in medias res but don't feature this text
  • The title is a reference to the phrase "cat is out of the bag", meaning a secret has been disclosed.
    • It's also a reference to part of a line from the 1957 film Sweet Smell of Success, in which a character reports that he resolved an issue. It means that Walt and Jesse capture Krazy-8 and lock him in the basement.
    • J.J. Hunsecker: That means you've got a plan. Can you deliver?
      Sidney Falco: Tonight, before you go to bed. The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river.
  • Jesse's home address is visible on his web profile: 9809 Margo Street.
  • Jesse is seen watching The Three Stooges on TV while he was smoking a crack pipe. Moe Howard had lung cancer just like Walt and died from it (although Moe was a heavy smoker, Walt isn't).  
  • The chemical decomposition of Emilio's body was tested on a special episode of Mythbusters, which guest-starred Vince Gilligan and Aaron Paul. The Mythbusters team immersed samples of ceramic, wood, plaster, metal, and raw pork (to simulate human flesh) in hydrofluoric acid, and declared the myth "busted"; while the acid quickly broke down the ceramic and the plaster, the other samples showed only mild corrosion, even after eight hours' immersion. The team also concluded that sulfuric acid, in conjunction with another chemical that accelerates the reaction, is the substance that Walt and Jesse should have used.

Errors[]

Continuity[]

Despite Krazy-8 offering Walt his money in sealed plastic bag in "Pilot", it is now in a brown paper bag which caused it to get wet from the spilled chemicals in the RV although the money getting wet explains why Walt removed it from a dryer at the end of "Pilot."

Production[]

Credits[]

Guest Starring

  • Max Arciniega as Krazy-8

  • Co-Starring

  • John Koyama as Emilio
  • Shane Marinson as Ob-Gyn
  • Jason Byrd as Ben
  • Anthony Wamego as Backhoe Operator

  • Filming Locations[]

    • The tree Krazy-8 runs into is 1 block down from the location used as Jesse's home, located at 16th and Silver Ave in Oxnard Park. Krazy-8 is actually running toward Pinkmans house.
    • Jesse's house is located at 322 16th street in real life.

    Featured Music[]

    • "You're Movin' Me" by Clyde McPhatter (playing in Walt's car as he drives to Jesse's)
    • "The Bike Lock" by Dave Porter (as Jesse fetches the bike lock from his garage)
    • "Keep Ballin'" by Trump (playing on Jesse's MyShout page)
    • "Unknown Track #4" by Unknown Artist (in the background while Jesse is at the hardware store)
    • "Nine Years" by Ticklah (while Walter smokes pot)
    • "The Hole" by Glenn Phillips (at the end of the episode when the kids find the gas mask)

    Memorable Quotes[]

    Walter: "Look. You skipped, clowned around or otherwise jerked off through every lecture I ever gave. As far as I'm concerned, your chemistry education is over."
    Jesse: "Oh okay, be a dick about it."
    ―Walter to Jesse.

    "Look, Skyler, I just haven’t quite been myself lately. I haven’t been myself lately, but I love you. Nothing about that has changed, and nothing ever will. So right now, what I need is for you to climb down out of my ass. Can you do that? Will you do that for me, honey? Will you please, just once, get off my ass. You know, I’d appreciate it. I really would."
    ―Walter calmly confronts Skyler to stop meddling in his affairs.

    Skyler: "Excuse me. Excuse me. You. Yes, you. [Skyler opens Jesse's house gate]. May I talk to you?"
    Jesse: "[Runs to Skyler] Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, hey. This is private property."
    Skyler: "Just a minute. I-- I wanna talk to you."
    Jesse: "No, no, not interested. Come on."
    Skyler: "Hey, don't touch me. Do not touch me."
    Jesse: "All right, all right, look, not touchin', okay? Not touchin' here. Look, lady, whatever you're sellin', I ain't buyin', yo."
    Skyler: "[Mimics Jesse's talking maneer] Well, my name is Skyler White, yo. My husband is Walter White, yo. Uh-huh. He told me everything."
    Jesse: "Seriously?"
    Skyler: "That's right. And just so you know, my brother-in-law is a DEA agent (...) and I will not hesitate to call him. Not if I have to. Understood? This is your one and only warning. Do not sell marijuana to my husband."
    Jesse: "Okay."
    ―Skyler confronts Jesse and talks to him about "selling marijuana to her husband".

    "You can dig it. Wonderful. Not that it's any of my business, but you might wanna consider a different line of work."
    ―Skyler's words to Jesse before she leaves his property.

    "I'm sorry, what were you asking me? Oh, yes. That stupid plastic container I asked you to buy. You see, hydrofluoric acid won't eat through plastic. It will, however, dissolve metal, rock, glass, ceramic. So there's that."
    ―Walt's "lesson" after the bathtub and floor are burnt.
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