Walt’s inability to even get it up is meant to signify his damaged manhood. The main reason Walt gets into the drug game is because he cares so much about “being a man” and providing for his family. That’s why he is much more aggressive in the bedroom in the final scene of this episode after finally making some money that can help the family out.

“Nostrovia” is a mistranslation of “Hа здоровье!” or “Na zdrowie” – Russian and Polish for “to good health”. It’s essentially just the Russian and Polish version of “cheers”.

While this is intended as a simple joke by Hank, it’s important in shaping the Hank/Walt relationship. Everyone, including Walt’s son and wife, views Hank as a macho hero DEA agent while Walt is just a “nice guy”. We learn throughout the series that few things are as important to Walt as his manhood, so it is lines like this that cause cause Walt to secretly resent/envy Hank despite the fact there is a lot of love between the two.

This bit also eludes back to the teaser of this episode, in which Walt is standing almost naked, holding a gun. It shows that he has almost no experience carrying firearms.

Like the veggie bacon, this scene actually does a good job of showing where Walt is at as a person. For his 50th birthday party, Walt walks through the front door of his house to a room brimming with people happy to see him despite the fact he isn’t very wealthy or successful.

On his 51st birthday, Walt has made his money, but the only people to greet him when he walks through the door is his wife and son.

And on his 52nd birthday, Walt walks into an empty house that has been condemned as a result of his evil deeds.

It’s veggie bacon all over again – Walt clearly disapproves of Bogdan’s insistence that he wash down cars, but is too afraid to challenge any of the “power figures” in his life.

“Growth, then decay, then transformation” could very well be describing the character arc of Walter Hartwell White.

SPOILER

While Walt originally grows as a person after deciding to cook, becoming more confident while still maintaining relationships with his friends and family, he later decays into the villainous Heisenberg that would rather associate with drug dealers than family and has no moral compass.

He eventually transforms into someone entirely different, a mix of the meek Walter White and badass Heisenberg, towards the very end of the series – particularly after he sees his family is now terrified of him. Walt is too far gone by that point to transform to the kind and well-mannered chemistry teacher we used to know and love, but he is also acting with someone besides himself in mind for once, which differentiates him from Heisenberg.

Unfortunately, we don’t get to see that many classroom scenes with Walt throughout this series, but the few that we do see are important and relevant to the series as a whole. It’s no coincidence that Walt sees chemistry of the study of change when the series is centered upon his rapidly changing character arc.

It’s pretty clear that Walt does not approve of the veggie bacon, but he’s powerless to say anything about it and overrule Skyler. This is because while she loves Walt, she – like many characters in the early stages of the show – tends to be overbearing towards Walt in order to keep him under her control. The power struggle between Walt and Skyler grows important as Walt tries to escape his old life and become more free.

Echinacea is a herb intended to treat the symptoms of colds and flus. At the time Skyler assumed Walt’s cough wasn’t very severe and was going to pass in a few days.