Breaking Bad

[Drenk]

I loved it, of course; but I'm wondering what the episode could have been if we had five more episodes. If it were a "real" season of Breaking Bad. It would have been weird. Walter White, alone, talking to his money. "Dollars, please, play cards with me..." and calling his barrel "Jesse" or something.

Anyway. What a great ending, and I don't even know what he wants to do. I see the rage. I guess he'll try to save his image, the Heinseinberg myth is strong and popular but he's only a murderer and a meth-lord, if he becomes the "good" meth-lord who "protects his family"for them...Some viewers still think that Walt is a hero, because they don't pay attention to all the details, so it would be easy for Walt can change the myth of Heinseinberg and fade into a better light for the world.

But what if he doesn't try to look like a hero? What if he just want to be the myth, now? Killing nazis and all. I don't know.

[Mel]

Maybe I'm seeing more than there is. Last scene:
- Charlie start talking about "continuous reports of signature product..."
- It cuts to Walt's face
- "... reaching Europe ..." and expression on his face changes exactly in this moment, almost as he was shocked by it.

Did he connected it somehow and knows Jessie is alive?

I could be wrong and this was just reaction to denial from Gretchen and Elliott.

[Drenk]

You're not seeing more; he's angry that the nazis are taking his "legacy" and that Elliot says that he did nothing for the company. Two empires.

[modage]

- Skyler & Walt die (Skyler tonight, Walt next week)
- Walt/Jesse showdown (final episode)
- Jesse lives (the hero)
- Marie lives (takes the kids)

Still doubling down on these predictions for the finale though man, when Todd & co. were in Holly's room I thought for sure that it was the end for Skyler. (The more I thought about the phone call between Walt/Skyler from the week before, the more it seemed to be a goodbye call without either of them realizing it, mirroring the Hank/Marie call from the week before). Then thought they might go back at the end of the episode instead (especially post-Lydia conversation) but I guess Andrea's sacrifice would suffice. It also seems that Skyler MUST die because up until this point Jesse has suffered far, far worse than Walt and that just doesn't seem right. Even if/when Walt dies alone, I'm not sure if enough has been taken from him in the meantime.

Crazy to see some people suggesting this episode was "slow." Just shows how frantic these final 8 have been that an episode where this much shit happens could be considered slow.

I already said this on Twitter (and maybe on here?) but I can't help but play devil's advocate and wonder if the show would've been better or worse with a few more episodes. Much of the thrill of these last 8 come from the rush of everything coming down so quickly and if they had another 2 eps or so to fill out, that wouldn't be the case. But because we just don't have time to pause, I can't help but feel like we're losing things that might've been interesting along the way. Both Jesse's confession tape and Walt Jr. finding out about Walt happen offscreen. Hank's death was squeezed into the first 10 minutes of an episode where 100 other crazier things seemed to happen (which was a shame for a character so important to the show). And even Walt's banishment and return was compressed into 1 episode. Now I understand that the writers are working within limitations and probably doing the absolute best possible job with the time that they have. BUT I have to wonder each time we skip past something so major to race to the next thing if the ending might've been better somehow if they had say, 10 episodes instead of 8. Might we have gotten an entire "Fly" like episode of Walt in the cabin? More time to see Marie grieve, Skyler and family living elsewhere, the house being boarded up, etc. Now none of these things are crucial to the plot, but in many cases they're things that we've waited 5 seasons to see and it's a shame for the writers not to get the opportunity to wring every last bit of drama out of these situations. Instead, we have a scene with Todd & Lydia, two relatively minor characters in the grand scheme of things who have been shouldering a lot of responsibility in the final stretch. But of course, that scene is crucial to move the plot and the others are just character beats. Not that we'll ever know what the other way would've been like, and I am loving the final episodes, but I do wonder about an alternate history where AMC gave them 10 eps instead of 8. Or maybe just expanded the entire back half to 75 minutes each. (Imagine what might've been lost from this episode had they squeezed it into 60! Impossible right? Weird that the announcement of running time wasn't until last week because it seems like that would've had to have been a decision made a long time ago.)

Going down another no-win what-if scenario, I wonder if it would've been more or less satisfying to not know where things were headed? (Had they not done the 2 flash-forwards, would there have been more or less suspense in seeing the way things have played out?)

[mogwai]

Is Robert Forster possibly reprising his character in Jackie Brown? I know it's not the same "job" but I got a weird case of deja vu.

[©brad]

File that Andrea scene under shit I never want to see again. When I watch the episode again tonight I'm fast-forwarding through that part. As much as I want Jesse to live, maybe dying would be the best thing for him. I don't know how he could go on living at this point with everything he's seen and done.

Mod you make some good points but what I love about these last 8 episodes is the breakneck speed. There's not an ounce of fat on them as there have been in seasons prior. Rewatch the first half of season 4 and you'll be amazed at how slow it is (and not necessarily in a bad way). I feel they're hitting the sweet spot here - not too long, not too short. As much as I love this show, I'm almost relieved it's ending. These episodes are so relentless and agonizing, I can't take much more! 

Going down another no-win what-if scenario, I wonder if it would've been more or less satisfying to not know where things were headed? (Had they not done the 2 flash-forwards, would there have been more or less suspense in seeing the way things have played out?)

I've thought a lot about that and I believe the flash-forwards add suspense and were ultimately a smart move. The holy-fuckness of those cold opens were some of the best moments of the series, and add an underlying suspense as you try and connect the dots as the season progresses. I believe they reaped more dramatic rewards from flash-forwarding vs not teasing us with the future and just letting us get there eventually.

[Pubrick]

ricin for gretchen and elliot? wtf?

this is another case where something that is clearly intended by the writers somehow seems to be hard to understand for some viewers.

- the charlie rose interview was mostly to let walter know that Jesse is still alive and cooking for the nazis. he knows that they needed a pro to cook for them in order to keep the product viable in the overseas market, this was explained to him by lydia and by the nazis already. so seeing that jesse is still alive gives him more reason to come back to "finish the job" once and for all.

- there is NO WAY that the ricin is suddenly for gretchen and elliot, whom we haven't even heard of all season. i don't know how anyone can instantly make that jump. that would be really really dumb. talk about "insignificant" story arcs.. jeez. are you guys stealing this from some spoilerful promo again?? it is just completely bizarre that people would think this. the show would jump the shark if those two featured in the story again.

- lets stick to that scene in the bar since people are having problems with it. note that it follows from a total dissolution of walt's dreams of family reconciliation. the phone call to Flynn was a reiteration of the family breakdown shown in the previous episode where walt jr called the cops on him. this, however, was more focused on walt's legacy... if he was not going to be able to be a parent he still wanted to be a good provider. it is a huge insult to Flynn that his dad would think he'd forgive and forget the killing of his uncle simply because a bit of money was coming his way. all Flynn ever needed was a loving father, not a million bucks. i'll get back to this later.

- his "legacy" for his family, that is, the meaning of his life's work, now amounts to a few million bucks.. the 100 grand being a symbolic gesture to begin with. he deployed a rather tricky plot to get the money to his kids.. but look at how he did it. even in the moment of reaching out to Flynn he manipulated the kids emotions by invoking Marie. for a long time now walt has only been able to see things through the prism of money. and in this episode he shows his commitment to it by providing it as a main motivation for coming back to get the nazis. oh and they killed hank, but they also robbed him!

- all of walt's interactions are just about money, in that bunker scene that Saul saw through the camera it's no joke that he could easily have been talking to his barrel in a hilariously sad Wilson-esque scenario. his friendships are also based on it, where he paid robert forster 10k just to be his friend for an hour.

- so then the charlie rose interview shows his other legacy. the legacy of all that he amounted to BEFORE he embarked on the path to heisenberg. the gretchen and elliot interview were just adding insult to injury, as well as imparting very pertinent information about the current state of his meth legacy. it also recalled the first slight he received to his ego and the reason his career had never taken off the way he intended in the first place. it basically spelled out that the world has not only gone on without him but has warped his image into a worthless ghost of the greatness he always perceived (and proved) himself to be.

as the show approaches its end i have been reflecting on what kind of ending would satisfy me, the ending that would stay true to what the show has been about. which brings me to reflect on just that, what breaking bad means to me:

the image that stuck with me in the last couple of episodes is walt and his barrel. the sisyphean image of him rolling his barrel of money everywhere, all the way from the desert to his bunker, to his remote snow-covered hideaway, it really solidified the idea in my mind that he has had his eye on the wrong prize for far too long.

he claims repeatedly to have done it all for his family, but as we have conclusively observed a lot of his actions have been driven by greed and ego. that he can warp these underlying motivations to fit in with his ostensible reasoning has been one of the major flaws in his character (and i will soon argue the entire breaking bad world) from the beginning.

it seems to me that from the very beginning of the show the deeply embedded question that we all should keep asking ourselves was is it ok for a hard-on-his-luck teacher to sell a bit of meth to make some money for his family. how much is enough? remember that his goal was 700 thousand dollars or whatever, and that he kept going because why not. this is not so long ago in the story that it doesn't have repercussions even now. look at the scene with uncle jack and todd in tonight's episode, it's like the nazi had finally decided to stop when the murderous fiend basically whispered the insidious words that changed his heart completely.

i love the idea that walter white/heisenberg are dead in the eyes of his friends, family and enemies. gretchen in the interview expressing a rather pointed analysis of the arc most people are happy to accept. the transition has gone beyond those dualities and into something mythical. what we'll see in the last episode is not the return of heisenberg, but as polky has said a purely satisfying revenge plot driven by the walking husk of Mr Lambert. he's out to destroy heisenberg, who as the brand name behind the meth and the evildoer behind the crimes being attributed wholly to walt is now a completely separate external figure to himself. Lambert's function is to clean up the mess like a vengeful angel of death.

is it still driven by ego and greed? possibly. but i don't think there is a walt/heisenberg on which we can attach the ego or the goal of attaining more riches. the dude we see in the flash forward, the dude of the last episode, is a dude who has lived through greatness and seen it all burn away, it's a dude who has rebuilt himself from whatever vestige of humanity remains in him. that bit of humanity is unfortunately the ugly side, the side he gave into when he decided to "break bad".

the flaw in the character and in the world that i referred to earlier is simply the inherent corruption of good intentions through the pursuit of excessive wealth. his wife did not need to be a millionaire, she just wanted a husband who would be happy with what he had. flynn wanted a father he could eat breakfast with on a regular basis. look at the last glimpse of familial happiness we were given this season, in the flashback at the start of ozymandias where all of walt's dreams disappear with the wind in the desert. but what was he to do given his initial situation? he had to make a buck, for his own self respect and to bestow some of that prestige to his family.

we are given reason to sympathize with his desire for what is owed to him when we see the way that Gray Matter Technologies did a number on him. they took his work and ran with it, in a way similar to what the nazis/jesse are doing now at the end of the story. the fact is both of these situations are fair play "in the game", as anyone familiar with The Wire would know it's all in the game.. you get hustled well that's just a natural consequence.

it's this natural consequence that i am interested in. the path walt took was obviously guided by his own intellect, a LOT of luck, and also quite fundamentally through an increasingly tantalizing lure of opportunity that opened up to him merely by following the american dream. that is the backdrop of the story which i think is not just incidental. the basic assumption that wealth is an ends unto itself, a way to measure self worth, success and even love for his own family, that is the real cancer that ultimately spread and devoured our beloved walt and his world.

how will it end. well, chasing the nazis for his money is fine on one dimension, but that barrel will simply roll back down over him and leave him worse than when he started. i think the plan he had in mind before he went into the bar was different to the one he left with after the two legacy-ego deaths he experienced there. i am not concerned with conventional justice. if they wipe out his entire family i would be more than satisfied that he has received the worst punishment imaginable, one worse than the torture jesse has been through. then and only then can he leave the scene, and i think he knows this.

[03]

Excellent thoughts p. Unintentional prediction award goes to me for the max cherry thing. Weird.

[polkablues]

And the main dude just bends over backwards and listens to everything his 22 year old nephew says?

This one's easy. Uncle Jack is TERRIFIED of Todd. Todd is the single scariest character this show has ever featured, more than Tuco, the cousins, and Gus Fring combined. Todd is the kid from the Twilight Zone who blinks people into the cornfield. He is casual evil incarnate.

I'm honestly really worried about what he's going to do to Lydia when he makes his move and she rebuffs him.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I'm sure the podcast will be up on iTunes soon, but in the mean time I did some converting and created a podcast MP3:

[modage]

Is Robert Forster possibly reprising his character in Jackie Brown? I know it's not the same "job" but I got a weird case of deja vu.

Gilligan mentions on the podcast that he's a huuuge Jackie Brown fan and loved having him for that reason. Weird fact (according to a recap I can't remember which): Forster was an actual vacuum cleaner repairman.

P, I understand the bar scene being there to provide Walt's motivation but also think that the ricin could still be for them. It'd be super dark and twisted (darker than anything we've seen Walt do to date) but it would also make a little bit of sense. Walt's life trajectory spun in one direction due to two big decisions he made involving them: leaving the company and turning down their money. For them to minimize his contribution, it doesn't seem like he's just going to let that stand, will he? Maybe he won't kill them. But perhaps something face to face? Or sending a message? It might be a little too clean but big guns for Todd & crew, Ricin for the Gretchen & Elliott, then Walt out. He gets revenge on all those who slighted and doubted him and can go out in a blaze of glory.

Side thought: I might be a little disappointed if we don't see any other non-Lydia ties to Madrigal who seemed that they may play a greater role (giant sinister organization) before the big finale.

This is great, too. (Damon Lindelof on Breaking Bad: How Heisenberg Is Like Batman)

[bigperm]

I feel Lydia and her need for Stevia puts her to the front of the line as a Ricin candidate.

[©brad]

It might be a little too clean but big guns for Todd & crew, Ricin for the Gretchen & Elliott, then Walt out. He gets revenge on all those who slighted and doubted him and can go out in a blaze of glory.

I feel the ricin is too big of a Checkov's gun to use on Gretchen and Elliot, characters with such little presence and screen-time.

[modage]

I feel Lydia and her need for Stevia puts her to the front of the line as a Ricin candidate.

Yeah, I think we have a winner. 

[©brad]

I feel Lydia and her need for Stevia puts her to the front of the line as a Ricin candidate.

Yeah, I think we have a winner. 

Oh man that actually makes a lot of sense. They made such a moment of her wanting Stevia in Gliding Over It All, and Walt had planned to use the ricin in that scene, and now this episode with Todd and her Stevia demands...