Breaking Bad

[diggler]

Except for Ted, man that guys a real downer these days, huh?  Seeing as they could've easily written him off as dead this season and they didn't, I'm guessing he's going to stick around for a while.  Maybe start demanding money, in which case he could become a new problem for Heisenberg to take care of.

Ted looked positively terrified, I don't think he'll be doing anything. I think that scene was meant to show Anna Gunn snapping from her compassionate self into her own little "Heisenberg". 

Also, with the show opening with a breakfast scene, I'm starting to think something happens to Walt Jr., since it's become the meta joke of the show to associate him with breakfast scenes.

[Brando]

Except for Ted, man that guys a real downer these days, huh?  Seeing as they could've easily written him off as dead this season and they didn't, I'm guessing he's going to stick around for a while.  Maybe start demanding money, in which case he could become a new problem for Heisenberg to take care of.

Ted looked positively terrified, I don't think he'll be doing anything. I think that scene was meant to show Anna Gunn snapping from her compassionate self into her own little "Heisenberg". 

I don't think Skyler has a Heisenberg. Walt still sees himself as just trying to protect himself and his family. He's just lies to himself about who he is. Skyler was just naive.  She had no idea what Walt is capable of until only recently. Skyler was devastated when she saw Ted. She can't lie to herself the same way Walt does.  I think that's why they kept him around to force her to see the consequences of her actions.  I think the "good" statement she makes when Ted promises to keep quite wasn't a threat.  She now she knows what Walt is capable of and she's scared for Ted's life.

Also, I think Hank has gained a lot of confidence along with Walt since the ending of season four. He wasn't boastful but rather quite and determined. I think it's a great change.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Ted looked positively terrified, I don't think he'll be doing anything. I think that scene was meant to show Anna Gunn snapping from her compassionate self into her own little "Heisenberg". 

Also, with the show opening with a breakfast scene, I'm starting to think something happens to Walt Jr., since it's become the meta joke of the show to associate him with breakfast scenes.

What she truly felt in that moment was compassion and horror. I think Ted was the focus of that scene, just to show where he's at mentally and physically (which is not a good place).

E: Also, what Brando said.

Walt's breakfast was more about the birthday callback, so I'm not sure I'd make that stretch. Maybe he was reminded of his son (and how into breakfast he is), but I think that's the extent of it. I think they'll keep Junior alive and might have him do something heroic. I also think I should stop making predictions.

- Anna Gunn is the weak link in this cast. I worry about her ability to hang when we get close to the end.

Agreed. She needs to do different things with her face, beyond looking shellshocked. It works for now, but it's going to need to change.

Mike is the real tragic hero of this series.

I guess. But I'm not sure I have a great deal of sympathy for him. And by the end of the series, we might have a new tragic hero. The odds have to be on Hank, but you might have Skylar in the running too.

I think i've said it before, but I'll say it again: I hate that the podcast confirms things like this.  It takes something away from the show when theres not rampant speculation about every single detail every week.  I mean, I'm glad I know now, because it helps us focus our discussion, but it takes some fun out of it.  I guess I'll just deal with it.

I understand what you're saying, but I guess I've grown to trust that Vince & Kelley will leave secret or ambiguous the things they want to be secret or ambiguous. Sometimes a podcast guest will start to reveal something, and Vince will steer them away from it or obfuscate it. I'm not talking about spoilers... they avoid spoilers completely. Anyway, I find it useful to be guided away from a total dead end once in a while. The "52" here is a perfect example. They didn't intend for that to be ambiguous, and ambiguity in this case wouldn't have enhanced anything. It's so weird, I don't know why people keep going after these trivial details looking for ways to misinterpret them, when the show to my knowledge has never placed significant concrete meaning or plot clues in a variably interpretable trivial detail.

[polkablues]

- Anna Gunn is the weak link in this cast. I worry about her ability to hang when we get close to the end.

Agreed. She needs to do different things with her face, beyond looking shellshocked. It works for now, but it's going to need to change.

She's pumped her face so full of Botox and fillers and things, I'm not convinced she's physically capable of doing other facial expressions.

Mike is the real tragic hero of this series.

I guess. But I'm not sure I have a great deal of sympathy for him. And by the end of the series, we might have a new tragic hero. The odds have to be on Hank, but you might have Skylar in the running too.

I was being somewhat facetious with this, and in literal terms, Hank is almost certainly the hero of the story (I don't think Skyler as a character has the DNA for heroism), but I can easily imagine a parallel show in which Mike is the clear protagonist and everyone around him is a villain.  He does bad things, but more than anyone else, he has an incorruptible code of how to be.  Maybe he's more Ron Swanson than Omar.  I don't know.  Analogies are hard.

[Tictacbk]

It's so weird, I don't know why people keep going after these trivial details looking for ways to misinterpret them, when the show to my knowledge has never placed significant concrete meaning or plot clues in a variably interpretable trivial detail.

I think it probably stems from the season 2 cold openings where they showed "clues" that were more or less there just to create wild speculation about where the season would end.  If I remember correctly, it was pretty much impossible to guess where it was going without looking at the episode titles.  So now people can't help but obsess over every detail, and every avenue they may or may not go down, to the point where thats part of the fun. 

[©brad]

I'm so glad the podcast is back! Just listened this morning. I only wish they would spend more time talking about story and what happens in the writer's room and less on production talk. It'd be great to split these topics into two different podcasts actually. It's not that I don't like the production side of it, but listening to a post-production producer go on and on about how rushed they were doing all the effects isn't as interesting as Vince and his writers talking about how and why they crafted each story. 

[MacGuffin]

'Breaking Bad' Creator Vince Gilligan Says He's Thinking About A Saul Goodman Spinoff
Source: Playlist

"The Dark Knight Rises" isn't the only bit of popular entertainment out there that is causing those who have yet to see it -- which is most of us -- to keep their Facebook page closed, and Twitter feed turned off for fear of spoilers. "Breaking Bad" is back with the first eight of the final sixteen episode season airing this summer, with the show off and running this past weekend, and if you're not caught up, you may want to avoid as much chatter about the series as possible. But once the show ends, is that it for Walter White and rest of the characters? Perhaps not. Bryan Cranston has already teased about the possibility of movie followup once the show is done, and it looks like another character might be getting their own vehicle.

IndieWire talked with the show's creator and creative brainchild Vince Gilligan at Comic-Con over the weekend and he revealed that he's been chatting with Bob Odenkirk about maybe getting him his own show. "I would love to see a Saul Goodman spinoff," Gilligan said. "I can't say that it is genuinely in the works at this moment, but certainly Bob Odenkirk and I have talked about it a little bit. I can't promise that it will ever happen, but I think I personally, as fan number one of this world, meaning the first one to partake of these plot moments and whatnot, I personally would love to tune in and see a good Saul Goodman show."

"I like the idea of a lawyer show in which the main lawyer will do anything it takes to stay out of a court of law," Gilligan continued. "He'll settle on the courthouse steps, whatever it takes to stay out of the courtroom. That would be fun -- I would like that."

Honestly? Yeah, we'd be down for that show too. While there have been a ton of shows on TV about lawyers, there haven't really been any about someone who operates quite as sleazily as Saul. For anyone who hasn't seen the show, on the surface he's a personal injury lawyer in a cheap suit and bad hairpiece, but his bread and butter are the jobs he takes on concerning the more unsavory elements of society, and the various deeds he does in legally gray areas that keep him just barely on this side of being a criminal. He's also funny as hell.

But before that can happen, Gilligan needs to wrap up "Breaking Bad" and he reveals that he and the writing team are still putting the touches on the scripts. "My writers and I are sitting down to break the final eight episodes now," he said. "We have quite a bit figured out, but you would be surprised perhaps how little we do have figured out. Because you want to dot all of the i's and cross all of the t's and make sure you're not forgetting anything major, but also because you want to stay as flexible as you can for as long as you can when coming up with these stories. You want to stay open to better ideas as they come down the pike."

He adds: "To that end, I think things about the ending of 'Breaking Bad' are going to hew pretty close to ideas I had from day one. But I most certainly did not have the whole thing figured out from Day One. And there's quite a bit left to figure out, so there's a lot of invention left to us to come up with before it's all done."

With a good break between the production of the first half of season five and the last -- which will air on AMC next year -- we're sure Gilligan is going to get this right and we can't wait to see where Walt's final journey takes him. "Breaking Bad" airs Sunday nights at 10 PM. But are you down for a Saul Goodman spinoff once it's all done?

[Fernando]

also read somewhere that matthew broderick and john cusack were considered for the role of mr. white, apparently they turned it down, bless them for that.


anyway, does anyone knows what are they talking about here? its from the av club recap.

''Before getting to the laptop, the police examine a roofing hammer associated with the Gutierrez case. Callback, or call-forward? Seems unlikely to be random, especially since we get a close-up of it.''

[Jeremy Blackman]

also read somewhere that matthew broderick and john cusack were considered for the role of mr. white, apparently they turned it down, bless them for that.

Here's the source:


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/Breaking-bad-bryan-cranston-walter-white-amc-349840

But the actor previously best known for playing the dad on Fox's Malcolm in the Middle wasn't the first choice of network AMC or production company Sony Pictures Television.

Series creator Vince Gilligan had been impressed with Cranston's 1998 guest-starring turn on The X-Files, on which he played a desperate man suffering from radiation exposure, and pushed for the actor. But the suits had trouble envisioning Fox's suburban dad as their star and wanted to cast a big-name movie star.

Their picks? John Cusack or Matthew Broderick.

"We all still had the image of Bryan shaving his body in Malcolm in the Middle. We were like, 'Really? Isn't there anybody else?' " one former exec recalled in a cover story for The Hollywood Reporter.

But Cusack and Broderick both passed. And after Gilligan showed execs Cranston's X-Files episode, minds began to change.

"That was a tricky part to cast on X-Files," Gilligan said. "We needed somebody who could be dramatic and scary yet have an underlying humanity so when he dies, you felt sorry for him. Bryan nailed it."

[Tictacbk]

anyway, does anyone knows what are they talking about here? its from the av club recap.

''Before getting to the laptop, the police examine a roofing hammer associated with the Gutierrez case. Callback, or call-forward? Seems unlikely to be random, especially since we get a close-up

I was wondering this too. But that recap was invalidated the moment she said:

"He idly arranges his bacon in a mirror-image S pattern [update: sharp-eyed commenters with long memories point out that this is a 52, indicating that it has been two years since Walt's 50th birthday in the pilot]."

Tis a shame since I love the avclub, but come on. Sharp-eyed commenters? The whole scene revolved around a conversation about that bacon.

[Jeremy Blackman]

That was quite an oversight, but her reviews are usually very good. It's probably because they're not giving out screeners this season.

[Jeremy Blackman]

A few days old now, but worth highlighting...


2012 Emmy Nominations

Outstanding Drama Series
Outstanding Directing in a Drama Series - Vince Gilligan for "Face Off"
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series - Bryan Cranston
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series - Aaron Paul
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series - Giancarlo Esposito
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series - Anna Gunn
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series - Mark Margolis

[ono]

The story sync is really something.  Not that it reveals anything too deep about the show, but it's nice how well the synchronization works.

Spoilers.

Mike takes out Lydia's hit man and bam Bam BAM!  A few seconds later, pop, a video replaying the scene is up.  Ditto with other events, reminding us both where Chow and Chris came from previously.

[Jeremy Blackman]

SPOILERS, obviously...

The ending was a bold choice. Last week we had "most threatening hug ever"... this week we have "most threatening kisses ever." There was a grope in there, too. Are we supposed to think something happens after that? And will next week's episode also end with a "Walt creeps out Skylar" scene?

What I find especially interesting is that when this happened in the past, Walt was really bothered by Skylar's fear and tried to comfort her. Now he's just holding her hostage, perhaps even taking some pleasure in it. It's also just inhuman in some way how there's absolutely no awkwardness for him.

So what's Mike's thought process? My guess:

(1) In light of learning that Gus's "pay everyone off if everything falls apart" plan completely failed, Mike realizes that Lydia was right, and those people probably do need to be killed. (Then again, if all of them end up dead except for Mike, that might raise a red flag.)

(2) Since he won't be getting that money, he could use some income. Probably a minor consideration, since he could get a random security job, but maybe a consideration nonetheless.

(3) Mike doesn't want Walt and Jesse screwing up and incriminating him. Since he can't afford any more liabilities, he feels he needs to keep them in line.

Moving on...

Loved that cold open with the German fellow. One of the best cold opens ever. Any other show would have had the guy pull out a gun or hang himself or something, but of course Breaking Bad has to do everything its own way. They are so on top of their game right now.

So it was just that guy and Lydia? I think that was made pretty clear in this episode. Right?

[©brad]

SPOILERS for Breaking Bad and Drive...


That cold open was awesome! Best scene of the episode though was Mike and Lydia negotiating how he should kill her. Good god that was intense. I had no idea what was going to happen.

Did Mike's "are you ready?" before shooting that one guy remind anyone else of that chilling line from Albert Brooks's character in Drive when he slices open Bryan Cranston and said "don't worry, it's over."

I'm starting to agree with you guys about Anna Gunn's performance this season being one note. I don't know what the problem is. She's no Edie Falco but she's definitely held her own throughout most of the series.

More later...