Elliott Offers Walt A Job At Gray Matter | Gray Matter | Breaking Bad

Skyler organizes an intervention to persuade Walt into accepting his former research partner’s generous offer to pay for his cancer treatments.

Season One - Episode Five: "Gray Matter"

Episode Description:
Walt and Skyler attend the birthday party of an affluent former colleague. Jesse attempts to go straight. Skyler organizes an intervention to convince Walt to seek treatment, but the financial burden weighs heavily on him.

Episode Overview:
As the frustrating search for a legitimate job lands Jesse in a new drug dealing partnership with his friend, Badger, Walt and Skyler are invited to a birthday party at the estate of his former research partners, Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz. No one feels more out of place at the lavish event than Walt, especially after he sees the trappings of wealth and fame accumulated by his old friends. He’s put at ease, however, when Elliott is genuinely touched by the cheap package of ramen noodles that he gave him in honor of their many years together as struggling young chemists,. But once Elliott offers him a job, Walt immediately realizes that it is charity and that Skyler told him about his cancer. Meanwhile, as Jesse finds that Badger isn’t the kind of business partner that he’s grown accustomed to, when Walt, Jr. is threatened with arrest after soliciting an off-duty cop to buy beer, he turns to Hank, and not his dad, for help.

With her son’s predicament forcing Skyler to reveal that her husband admitted to smoking marijuana, she decides that the only way to get Walt to accept Elliott’s offer to pay for his cancer treatments is by staging an intervention. Surprised to find his family waiting for him, Walt has no choice but to hear them out. While Skyler, Walt, Jr., and Hank make impassioned pleas for getting the treatments, even if it means taking the money from his school classmate, Marie surprises everyone by suggesting that they respect Walt’s decision, no matter what it is.

After listening to everyone, Walt announces that he doesn’t want to go ahead with something that might only keep him alive for a year or two longer. As Jesse’s ill-fated partnership with Badger unravels, Walt has second thoughts about his decision. But in the wake of his first chemotherapy session, he calls Gretchen and claims that he doesn’t need any money to pay for it. And now that he’s facing a huge medical bill, Walt arrives at Jesse’s house offering to renew their business arrangement.

[razbaybee]

In an alternative universe he takes the offer and the credits start rolling

[theWn]

The next time they saw each other, Walt’s the most wanted man in America and threatening Elliot’s life

[Rude_Boi]

Fun Fact. Skyler never told Elliot that Walt had cancer. Elliot _heard_ it the night Walt told his family.

[KennyG]

Just imagine how many lives would've been spared if he just accepted the offer.

[n.kelati]

sorry elliott, i asked my ego and he says no

[trevor]

When Walt said in a future episode he looks at the company price every week, it was honestly kind of sad. All his life he looks at what he could’ve had.

[winterhaydn]

I was waiting for Elliot to flap his ears and fly away...

[riiddisbuk]

"I did it for me."

This is the most evident of scenes.

[MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

From Season 2 Episode 6 _"Peakaboo"_

Gretchen: You left me. Newport, 4th of July weekend. You and my father and my brothers and I go up to our room and you're packing your bags, barely talking. What? Did I dream all of that?
Walt: That's your excuse to build your little empire on my work?
Gretchen: How can you say that to me? You walked away. You abandoned us, me, Elliott.
Walt: Little rich girl just adding to your millions.
Gretchen: I don't even know what to say to you. I don't even know where to begin I feel so sorry for you, Walt.
Walt: Fuck you.

It's laid out clear from that moment. Walt was visiting Gretchen's family at the incredibly wealthy town of Newport, and left. When she brings that up, he refuses to answer why he did that, and instead attacks her as a "rich girl." In their previous meeting at Elliot's birthday from the episode "Gray Matter" we saw Walt's sad smile displaying longing and regret when he lays eyes on Gretchen and how uncomfortable he was at the party seeing the Schwartzs' wealth and being amongst many distinguished scientists, engineers, and businessmen. He was embarrassed when he mentioned he was an educator to the other successful scientists and they asked him what university he taught at.

By Season 2 Episode 3 "Bit by a Dead Bee" as Walt is being questioned about his fugue state he says:

Walter White: My wife is seven months pregnant with a baby we didn't intend. My fifteen-year old son has cerebral palsy. I am an extremely overqualified high school chemistry teacher. When I can work, I make $43, 700 per year. I have watched all of my colleagues and friends surpass me in every way imaginable.

In the following link Gretchen's actress Jessica Hecht gives us the backstory.


"Vince Gilligan told us exactly what went down between the characters off screen: We were very much in love and we were to get married. And he came home and met my family, and I come from this really successful, wealthy family, and that knocks him on his side. He couldn’t deal with this inferiority he felt — this lack of connection to privilege. It made him terrified, and he literally just left me, and I was devastated. Walt is fighting his way out of going back to that emotional place, so he says, “F— you.”

...

In the following link Vince Gilligan himself gives us the word of God.


“It ends with him being so nasty to her saying, ‘Fuck you, ' and then she leaves tearfully, ” said Gilligan. “In my mind, the interesting thing here, and I always kind of hate to nail it down so explicitly — but let’s put it this way, most viewers of ‘Breaking Bad’ assume Gretchen and Elliott are the bad guys, and they assume that Walt got ripped off by them, got ill used by them, and I never actually saw it that way.”

Gilligan explained that the truth is more nuanced. It all stemmed from White’s feeling of inferiority while spending time with Gretchen’s family.

“I think it was kind of situation where he didn’t realize the girl he was about to marry was so very wealthy and came from such a prominent family, and it kind of blew his mind and made him feel inferior and he overreacted. He just kind of checked out. I think there is that whole other side to the story, and it can be gleaned. This isn’t really the CliffsNotes version so much. These facts can be gleaned if you watch some of these scenes really closely enough, and you watch them without too much of an overriding bias toward Walt and against Gretchen and Elliott, ” said Gilligan.

....

From: Season 5 Episode 6 "Buyout"

Walter White: Jesse, have you heard of a company called "Gray Matter?"

Jesse Pinkman: No.

Walter White: Well, I co-founded it in grad school with a couple of friends of mine. Actually, I was the one who named it. And back then, it was just... oh, it was just small-time. We had a couple patents pending, but nothing earth-shattering. Course, we all knew the potential. Yeah, we were gonna take the world by storm. And then... This, uh... Well, something happened between the three of us. And I'm not gonna go into detail, but for personal reasons, I decided to leave the company and I sold my share to my two partners. I took a buyout for $5000. Now at the time, that was a lot of money for me. Care to guess what that company is worth now?

Jesse Pinkman: Millions?

Walter White: Billions. With a "b." Two point one-six billion as of last Friday. I look it up every week. And I sold my share, my potential, for $5000. I sold my kids' birthright for a few months' rent.

Walter White: Jesse, you asked me if I was in the meth business or the money business. Neither. I'm in the empire business.

Walt has both an inferiority and superiority complex. He feels insecure that all his peers have surpassed him, and around other geniuses like Gale. Yet he has a massive ego and believes he deserves more. Hence why he could not work with someone like Gale and needs someone like Jesse to feel smarter and boss around. He never would've said yes because of his fragile ego.

[dylanwang]

Walter's cancer was probably due to the long term exposure of radiation from his radioactive ego.

[MrOccyc]

That was sad to me when Walt realizes he’s being offered a job out of charity and not for his ability. It’s humiliating when you know people are only doing something out of pity.

[mchoppy]

Heisenberg was always there.... the cancer brought him to life

[GodOfVictory]

Can you imagine if Walt accepted this job and the entire series of the show was just him doing mundane things as a consultant at Grey Matter? lolz

[truedp]

Looking back, you can tell Walt was actually talking about his old feelings for Gretchen, the regret that came from selling his shares, and his need to be his own man, when he brings up his personal issues. Him having cancer didn't even occur to him until Elliot brings it up. Such great writing and acting in this scene,

[ross.metcalf]

Everybody hates on Walt for this scene because they know what he later becomes, but you gotta admit it does feel bad when you thought you were offered something because you were deemed valuable, but instead you find out you were offered it from because you were deemed helpless and pity was taken on you. I'm not saying you should refuse help when you need it, just that it stings.

[jhupp]

Plot twist: Walt accepts the job. Then hired Jesse as an intern, together they invent the cure for cancer, patent it, and become billionaires. They save millions of lives. Walt even adopts Jesse, and becomes the father he always wanted. Everyone lives happily ever after.

[rohitkashyap]

elliott could have gotten walt working for him if he gave him the “what does a man do” speech

[TheNari]

It was Walt Who basically built the company and now Elliot offers HIM a job. Along with the Cancer issue, Walt saw it as an insult.

[hannesjakobsson]

2:07 That part is really well-made in my opinion. When Elliott mentions the health insurance, he misinterprets the act of Walt turning his head for excitement, when in reality Walt got offended.

[MistahFluffay]

Elliot was ALL EARS, listening intently. What a good listener.