Gliding Over All

Plot

With Mike's (Jonathan Banks) dead body stuffed in the trunk of Walt's (Bryan Cranston) car, Walt and Todd (Jesse Plemons) prepare a barrel of hydrofluoric acid. When Jesse (Aaron Paul) arrives, Walt informs him that Mike is "gone." When asked by Jesse how they will deal with Mike's nine henchmen now that they will not be receiving their hazard payments, Walt tells Jesse that he will address the issue by himself now that Mike and Jesse have left the business.

Walt meets with Lydia (Laura Fraser) at a coffee shop to obtain the names of Mike's henchmen. Suspecting that Walter will see her as a liability and kill her, Lydia proposes a partnership in which Walt expands his distribution overseas to the Czech Republic, which has a high percentage of meth users. When asked why she didn't pitch her idea to Gus, she claims that he had approved her idea before he was killed. When Walt agrees with her proposal, Lydia provides him with a list of nine names. After Lydia leaves, Walt removes his hat from the table, revealing the vial of ricin from his and Jesse's plot to kill Gus, which he then re-hides in his house.

Walt calls Todd and asks him to meet with his uncle, Jack Welker (Michael Bowen), who has ties with white supremacist gangs operating in various prisons. Meeting in a motel room, Walt enlists Jack and his men to kill Mike's nine henchmen and their now-imprisoned lawyer Dan (Chris Freihofer), insisting that they be killed simultaneously. In a period of less than two minutes and across three different prisons, the ten are killed. When Hank (Dean Norris) learns of the deaths, he is crushed and tells Walter that he yearns for a simpler job that does not involve "chasing monsters".

For the next few months, Walter's meth production runs profitably and uninhibited, raking in millions of dollars. Elsewhere, Marie (Betsy Brandt) encourages Skyler to start repairing the family. Later, Skyler brings Walter to an enormous pile of money she has been collecting in a storage unit. After explaining to a stunned Walter that there is simply too much money to launder, Skyler pleads with him: "I want my kids back. I want my life back. Please tell me. How much is enough? How big does this pile have to be?" Later, Walter relents and informs her that he is "out".

In the meantime, Walter visits Jesse. Although Jesse is fearful of Walter, the two reminisce about the simpler days of cooking meth in the RV. When his visit is over, Walter leaves behind two bags. Fearing for his safety, Jesse unzips the bags slowly, only to find them filled with cash. Relieved, Jesse tosses a gun he had been concealing earlier.

Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) and Holly move back in with Walter and Skyler, and the family seems to be in repair. During a lunch by the pool with Hank and Marie, Hank leaves to use the bathroom. Rummaging for reading material, he finds Walter's copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass under some magazines in the bathroom, the same copy given to Walter by Gale Boetticher. As he thumbs through the pages of the book, Hank finds a handwritten dedication: "To my other favorite W.W. It's an honour working with you. Fondly, G.B." Hank then recalls an earlier conversation, in which Walter jokingly admitted to being the "W.W." found in a handwritten dedication in Gale's lab notebook. Hank becomes visibly shocked, implying that he has at last come to the realization that Walter is Heisenberg.

Production

This episode features several nods to earlier episodes, such as the fly at the beginning of the episode, the painting Walt stares at during the planning of the prison murders (the same painting from Season 2, Episode 3), the damaged paper towel dispenser (caused by Walt punching it in Season 2, Episode 9) in the restroom of Walt's cancer clinic, and Lydia's telling Walt "We're gonna make a lot of money together," reiterating Tuco's quote from the first season finale. Walt tells Lydia "Learn to take yes for an answer," which is exactly the same advice Mike gave him in the bar (Season 4, Episode 2). Series creator Vince Gilligan saw the ending somewhat as Gale's "poetic justice from beyond the grave."

It was estimated that the pile of money measured 6 ft × 3 ft × 2 ft and that Skyler would have not needed a storage unit until she had upwards of $10 million. In "Ozymandias," Walt tells Jack Welker that the buried pile equals $80 million; however, Gilligan expressed his doubts during an earlier podcast:

"I asked prop master Mark Hansen, and he and his guys had tried, just for their own edification, to figure out how much that would be if it was roughly a half-and-half mix of twenties and fifties, and he guessed somewhere in the vicinity of eighty million dollars—eighty, eighty-five, ninety—that's a lotta dough. I don't know, we may have erred on the side of showmanship there instead of reality, I don't know if [Walt] could've made that much that quickly."

According to Peter Gould, the episode originally featured a scene where Walt is told by his doctor that his cancer is still in remission. However, the scene was cut so that Walt's current state would be left ambiguous.

Ratings

"Gliding Over All" was watched by 2.78 million viewers and received a 1.3 rating among viewers aged 18–49.

Critical reception

The episode received highly positive reviews from critics. TV Fanatic's Matt Richenthal gave it a 4.8 out of 5 star rating, stating: "'Gliding Over All' still managed to shock, taking Walt to a place I never imagined he'd be prior to the big reveal: contentment. Happiness. A sense of satisfaction over a job well done, an emperor who no longer needed an empire." Richenthal particularly liked the two "gorgeous" montages showing the prison hits and the time lapse. Alan Sepinwall of HitFix called the episode "an absolutely gorgeous piece of work, in both the visual sense and the way it brought us to the next, final phase of Walter White's story."

Michelle MacLaren was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for directing this episode.