This week's episode was very heavy on the deus ex machina ... in a reasonably literal sense.
How events panned out force Jesse's internalisation of the pressures on him to grow which means that the impact of what's happening here are really hitting home.
This said, it's a bit of an empty feeling I got from the episode overall. Perhaps my least favourite (yet still beautiful) of the season thus far. I think it starts out fantastically, and I don't mean the action, either. Some of the little bits from W. Earl Brown are so perfect that everyone else blends in to the background apart from Haley, who basically owns the episode.
Haley's performances throughout have been perhaps the most embodying (alon.... ) ... actually, no ... I can't pick him out. The actors all ... to a tee ... have embodied the characters they've been written so strongly it's ridiculous. That's no different here, the focus is just on Haley. From watching the first 'talking preacher' I see that they had a lot of rehearsal before hand, this has clearly really helped them hone character ... and in some instances change it a little to suit how they're feeling it.
As I say, though, for whatever reason I'm a little numb to this particular episode, and I don't know why. Perhaps it was the meat in the sandwich, because it begins and ends fantastically. Also that end ... I'm really hoping that has something to do with Arseface, however it's so unclear, and so joyfully abstract that who even knows.