Later that night. It's about that time. Walt sneaks out the front door and is almost to the Aztek in the driveway when Victor pulls up. "We got a problem," he says. "Some kind of chemical leaking in your lab." Imagine it's your birthday. You return home from running some errands you weren't sure you really needed to run, but your significant other insisted. There's a din coming from behind the house and you're met in the driveway by your s.o. "Honey?" s/he says, "there's a fully grown African elephant in the backyard, can you come with me and check it out?" THAT is how not surprised Walt is going to be when he shows up at America's Meth Kitchen and gets killed. (Moral of the story: do NOT have Victor plan your next surprise party.) Walt offers to drive himself. "They tell me to bring you, I bring you," Victor says. He's blocking the end of the driveway, so even if Walt wanted to bolt into the Aztek and speed away, he couldn't. He waits for perhaps a bolt of lightning to come and save him (or perhaps another Aztek-driving maniac to plow into Victor) before getting into the car. The dread is palpable.

The soundtrack is full of cranked-up ambient rumblings; we're a few clanging flat chords from being an Angelo Badalamenti score. I love it. Victor walks Walt into the laundromat, past the empty work stations, until they come upon Mike, opening the hatch to the lab. Mike tries to sell the prospect of a leak down in the lab with a little more effort than Victor, but not much. Walt looks down the hatch, perhaps mentally mapping out a strategy where he could use the chemicals in the lab to his advantage; likely concluding that stepping down that ladder would seal his fate. "Please don't do this," Walt begs. "Mike," he says, smartly personalizing things, "you don't have to do this." "Yeah, unfortunately I do," says Mike. His regret seems honest, don't you think? He's come to like Walt, improbable as it seems. Walt stammers that he'll cook for free. No dice. He wants to talk to Gus. No. "Just let me please, please, PLEEEEEASE talk to him!" Mike finally tells him to shut up. "I can't do it," Mike says. "I'm sorry." One more shot for Walt, and he takes it: "I'll give you Jesse Pinkman."