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Manichean perspective, Walt faces an eternity of “wander[ing] about in
torment and anguish, surrounded by demons, and condemned by the
angels, till the end of the world, when they are, body and soul, thrown
into heir’(Arendzen). In fact, Walt’s proclamation that "Hellfire rained
down on my house” — early in season three as a police officer is
ticketing him for a broken headlight — suggests his brief awareness that
he may have already come under judgment for the key role he played in
the mid-air airplane crash caused by air controller Dan Margolis’ failure
to ward off a collision (“Caballo Sin Nombre” 3.02).
The episode that most forcibly calls into question Walt’s belief
in a universe without order, meaning, or God, occurs in season three and
is titled, “The Fly” (3.10.15:15). It is toward the end of this episode, after
drinking a cup of coffee that Jesse has filled with a sleeping medication,
that Walt confesses to his partner that the randomness theory — the
belief that the universe is purely chaotic, made of randomly colliding
subatomic particles — may have no validity, particularly considering the
series of events that seems to have culminated in the mid-air collision:
going to the store to get diapers, stopping off at a bar to get a drink
(something Walt never doesX meeting and sitting with Jane’s father,
being told by Jane’s father to never give up on family, allowing Jane to
choke on her own vomit, sitting outside by his pool as the airplane
disaster occurs right over his house, and watching as the debris from the
wreckage rains down on his house just as manna from God rained down
on the Jews wandering in the wilderness. What are the odds of this
happening — and in this particular order? Walt asks himself as Jessie
listens. What does it mean that Jane’s father told him that family is
everything? This is perhaps one of the most significant moments of the
entire series, for Walt realizes that if he had stayed at home and not gone
over to Jesse’ apartment, then the events leading up to the midair crash as
well as the crash itself would never have happened. And if this
remarkable string of events had no