A Breaking Bad Conversation Thread w/ *SPOILERS* Up the Wazoo (Page 1 of 12)

I have adopted this into my everyday vernacular.

So what character are y'all rooting for to make it to the very end credits? The whiny son? The comatose wife? The blowhard cop? The catatonic Jesse? The sleazy lawyer?

I can't pick one. They've all become so unsympathetic. I was rootin' for Pinkman, but he doesn't seem to have any goal he's struggling for. I don't even know why he was cooking. The money meant nothing to him.

I was all for Hank after the garage episode, but then he had that creepy diner encounter with Skyler. If I had to root for someone, it would be him, though, for sure.

If I'm Walt, the people I'd be worried about most—in terms of tying Walt to Heisenberg—is Todd and Lydia. Saul is Walt and Jesse's lawyer, so their conversations probably fall under attorney-client privilege. But I betcha Todd would sing like a canary. The longer Hank waits, the more incriminating he will appear. It's quite cleverly plotted.

Yeah, like Walt, Hank's moved to the dark side in his own way. He's willing to endanger people to get Walt, and Walt's willing to endanger people in order to not be gotten. Now that Hank has looped in Agent Gomez, I wonder just how much he's actually told Gomez.

"Rabid Dog" was another episode of close calls—Hank stopping Jesse just before he torches the place, Hank & Jesse pulling away a second before Walt pulls in. They kind of turned it into the The Conversation during that whole Jesse-wearing-a-wire-and-meeting-Walt sequence.

And once again, Walt is a horrible liar whenever he has to lie to his wife. Even the clueless Junior immediately saw that the faulty-gas-pump story was B.S. Will they ever return to that house, I wonder. Is this already the beginning of the the nomadic Walt seen in the flash forwards?

Next week's episode will be more Lydia-centered, so I'm already excited. (I'd love to pitch a spinoff show in which Lydia runs a crooked corporation while wearing high-end pumps and Saul Goodman is her in-house counsel. Jesse Plemons would reprise his role as Todd.)

Poncho Villa? Salma Hayek. Poncho Villa? Salma Hayek.

Something paulou said which I thought was clever: Jesse is the only one, as of now, who knows what everyone wants.

Was there some clue with the SD card? Hank was out on the balcony with his mate, leaving Pinkman alone with the video camera. Where's the SD card? Hank looks at the camera and says we'll need another SD card. Dunno... might be a red herring.

I'm still amazed that, even with only four episodes to go, that flash forward is still a totally mystery. They're really holding out on that one, and I bet we'll never see it coming.

Final episode: Walt is rotting in jail, everyone he loves is dead, and the lottery ticket that he bought with the coordinates of the money ends up winning him millions of dollars.

That's probably right. I'm most likely reading too much into it. It's just that BB has such sparse dialogue, everything could be significant. Also, during the same scene, Pinkman asked to go to the bathroom. Coincidence? Why mention it if it didn't 'mean' something? If Pinkman did swipe the SD card, that'd be a good time to flush it or 'hide' it. You never saw Hank take out the SD card, only put in another one. Maybe the writers insert little ambiguities here and there so they can use them in future episodes if they need to.

As to Doctor Submarine's ending, I'll venture this alternative: Hank is fired from the DEA for neglecting his managerial duties. His boss already chewed him out about about his one-case obsession. How many other crimes are going unsolved? So Hank is unemployed, Marie is in jail for resuming shoplifting, but Walt offers Saul's services to get her out. Hank joins Walt as his new 'Mike' henchman, and they set up the mother-of-all-meth labs in New York or DC or LA, etc.

Jesse's not under arrest, he's voluntarily spilling his guts to Hank.  There's no reason for him to want to get rid of his video confession five minutes after he gave it.   And yeah, if a video card went suddenly missing Hank would have kicked the bathroom door in rather than blandly mention they need another one.

Jesse went to the bathroom because the writers wanted that private moment between Hank and Gomie, so Hank could say he doesn't actually care if Walt kills Jesse or not.

If anything, that might be the setup - Hank comes across all tough and uncaring, but sometimes he shows just a hint of sentiment.   There may come a moment when Hank has to really choose between his brother in law and the "meth head"... and sides with the meth head.  We shall see...

Vince Gilligan said that a future Blu-Ray release will have both Walt and Jesse's tapes in full.

The whiny son? You mean the teenager with cerebral palsy who's been lied to and manipulated by both his parents while dealing with his parents splitting up then reconciling, all while his father is fighting cancer? Yeah -- clearly an unsympathetic character.

Pinkman started cooking because he was a fuck up who had no legitimate skills and was trapped in a shithole world where drug dealing is seen as one of the only ways to make enough money to get out. He may not care about money now, but he did when it all started. He was never concerned with building an empire, but he always was looking for a payday. Several times he's had "enough" and tried to get out, but was pulled back by Walter or other circumstances...again, Jesse is a bit of a fuck up. The fact that he's been thiiiiiiiiis close to being free and in decent shape several times by now and just hasn't been able to close the deal is probably the most frustrating and heartbreaking things about his character.

Really, despite some of their flaws and some bad moments, really everyone other than Walter and Saul deserve some sympathy. Sklyer's ship is sailing as she gets more and more on board with Walter...maybe she's there now.

Which brings me to this week's episode...

Hank has difficulty handling his anger. This has led to him being an asshole in many ways -- his treatment of Marie when he was injured and his at-all-costs pursuit of Walt. However, is there anyone in their right might who doesn't think his anger is justified? Even a normal person, one who doesn't have a history of being unable to control their anger, would probably react in very similar ways...if slightly less extreme. Yet, because he's willing to let Jesse die or tries to bully Skyler a bit to flip on Walt -- admittedly both uncaring/unsympathetic moves -- he's suddenly as disgusting as Walter or Saul?

The only thing I'm not sure Agent Gomez knows is the DVD Walt made. I'd think that he would have told him about it, especially once Gomez stated that he believed Jesse's story. This operation still seemed pretty much on the down low, so telling Gomez about the dvd wouldn't be a major risk -- and gives Hank cover later if it comes out on it's own. But they don't spell it out, and I could see Hank's pride keeping him from sharing what he might hope would be seen as a desperate move once they have Walt anyways.

Speaking of close calls -- can we acknowledge that everything after this point can be pinpointed to Jesse's decision to not talk to Walt? The bald guy not being a hitter was a bit of a throwaway amusement, but if Jesse had walked up to Walter...this could/would likely be all over for Walt. The second he admits to poisoning Brock, and the reason why, EVERYTHING Jesse said on that tape would have credibility. They might not get Walt for everything, but he'd be in jail for sure until his cancer got him and all the details would have been aired out during a trial...Jesse/Hank would have made sure of that.

I'm all for badass-Jesse, and his call to Walt (calling him "Asshole" instead of "Mr. White") was freaking great...but damn, he was SO FUCKING CLOSE to sinking Walt. I'm really curious what sort of plan he has in store -- because it seems clear that whatever it is, it's the driving force to what we are seeing in the flash forwards.

*quick-side note: As a quick magic-bean moment...when Hank and Gomez are talking about how to go after Walt, they mention the pest control place and the Drew Sharp disappearance. I think both of these are solid leads that could factor in later. However, can I just say that part of me laughs at the idea that no one has thought to simply throw an anonymous tip to the IRS about the White's car wash. Tax evasion is how they got Capone, and they would most assuredly would collapse the Whites. Skyler would get busted for not just the car wash, but it would likely force them to look more closely at her previous job and Ted's "accident". Either way, that's not nearly as good a payoff dramatically, but I found it amusing.

Not even a red herring. He's merely asking for another SD card because Jesse filled up the first one with his confession. He doesn't indicate the first SD card is missing in any way, nor does he behave as if Jesse's massively important confession is suddenly missing.

Nothing to see here.

My guess is that we catch up to the beginning of the flash forwards with 2 episodes left. That means 2 episodes of craziness, ending with Walt going on the run. Then the flash forwards happen. Then we get 2 final episodes setting up the crescendo and giving the payoff/aftermath.

I can't wait to see the full tape that Doc mentioned -- but I'd imagine it has "everything" on it. I mean, Jesse isn't the lying type in that sense. He's hurt and scared and angry. When Jesse is a raw nerve, he has no mind to play a game of chess, it's a straight line.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

I had the great pleasure of -- for the first time since watching BB -- watching it with someone else. I got to catch it with Brian while he was in town, and it was awesome to have someone to chat with during the episode.

He also made one of the best observations I've seen so far regarding the episode -- a musing about whether the Skyler hate will continue now that she's "Let Heisenberg be Heisenberg" as it were.

I commented in the other thread that I thought Skyler would go further in order to protect "her plan", especially if the situation seemed within their control. Killing Jesse definitely falls into that category. The way she did it was particularly cold, though. That moment, along with her willingness to dupe Walt Jr., has me thinking she might be willing to go even further than I initially thought.

Speaking of Walt Jr...I'm really struggling to figure out how he's going to react to all this. I mean, for all the crap we've seen on the show, Jr. has really been put through a lot off camera. He's basically kept in the dark about everything, but also kept at arms length by everyone while trying to deal with his father having cancer. How is he going to react when he finds out the truth, and that not only are his parents terrible human beings, but that they've been lying and in some ways manipulating him for a year. He clearly loves his parents, but is it enough to keep him from disowning them? Will it be enough for him to "buy in" as it were to protect the family? Breaking Bad has done such a great job of keeping character moves believable (even when they aren't, really) but I can't even begin to imagine how a person would handle this sort of revelation, much less how to mold that into a character and plot device. It does seem like at some point he's going to find out -- and I would think that his reaction is going to be a major pivot point of what happens as this show comes to a close.

Either that or he's just super sad and stays on the peripheral as he's done so far. It'd be a little disappointing, but there are so many other major things being tied up I would understand.

This was a lower-key episode in the sense that there wasn't as many "HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT" moments as we've had in this season. However, some of the character decisions -- Jesse confessing to Hank, Skyler's falling to the Dark Side, and Gomez being brought in on the case -- really set the stage in a way that made this yet another amazing episode.

Shit's about to get real.