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Breaking Bad Final Season Continues August 11th


Elsalvajeloco

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Walter completely lost himself in Heisenberg when he sold his old car for $50. That car was Walt's soul, beat to hell more and more until he had no more use for it. Took the hat out, sold the car, walked away. There is no Walter only Zuel. 

 

​The Stark Trek scene was brilliant, especially for a show with so many Chekhov's Guns, to actually give us some possible foreshadowing involving Chekhov and someone's guys getting exploded.

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After someone offers to pay for Walt's cancer treatment in the first season and he turns it down(I think due to his disdain for the person and his pride), you get a decent snapshot of what type of person you're dealing with for the series.  Joining the drug business was less shameful than taking a loan from someone he didn't like or respect.

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I like the running characteristic with Walt is that he can work with other people, but he has to be in charge. The facial expressions Skyler was making on last night's episode when Walt is talking about themes at the carwash were the best reaction to someone trying to be the boss.

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Yeah, I definitely have the exact opposite take on Walt/Jesse. Walt's feelings for Jesse are genuine. Cranston has said as much, that he saw Jesse as a lost boy that he could save. Of course, it's often difficult to reconcile that with how Walt actually treats Jesse at times, but I think that's a defense mechanism for Walt. He is often cruel and callous to Jesse because he thinks tearing down Jesse's self-esteem will keep Jesse from leaving him. It's an emotionally abusive relationship, for sure, but emotional abusers do care about the people they abuse (mostly), they just have really fucked up ways of showing it.This was plainly played out at the end of last season (either in "Buyouts" or "Say My Name"), in that period when the kids were staying with Hank and Skyler was waiting for him to die, when Jesse showed up at Vamanos demanding his buyout. Walt runs through his Greatest Hits of manipulation to convince Jesse to stay, but to no avail. And the look on Walt's face after the door slams and he realizes Jesse isn't coming back says it all. It's not professional frustration that he's been left alone to run the new enterprise or that he won't get to set up the second cook he was going to put Jesse on. The hurt is clearly much deeper than that. At that point, Jesse represented the last reciprocal, unencumbered caring relationship he had left, and he wanted desperately to keep it.Jesse IS his surrogate son. And despite all the ugliness in Walt that has been exposed over the course of the show, it has never been a lie when he talks about how much he cares about his family. I fully believe that, if put in a situation where he had permanently lost his biological family, whether through death (unlikely) or being placed in some sort of protective custody where he couldn't get find them, he would go to war for his surrogate son.Lest anyone forget (because it seems like ages ago now), Walt screwed up his relationship with Gus irreconcilably FOR Jesse when he killed those street dealers. He could have easily stayed out of it, let Jesse get killed, and kept making money hand over fist at the superlab. But he didn't, because he cares.

 

I agree with this point of view.  In addition, I think that Walt & Jesse are kinda like two soldiers in the same unit that were together for a tour of duty, and saw all the horrors of war together.  No matter how much Walt tells Skylar, Hank, Saul - whomever - Jesse is the only one that can really understand what they have been thru together.

 

They totally have a father/son and teacher/student relationship.  Jesse still calls him Mr. White. 

 

I also think that perhaps Hank vs Walt is a red herring of sorts... but I am not sure how.  Maybe, like someone said, Hank ends up saving Skylar/Walt Jr/Holly and gets to finally be the hero... or maybe he makes the ultimate sacrifice.  I kind of think that Walt killing Hank though would be that final line that Walt crosses where it illustrates how it has become more important for him to be Heisenberg than it to provide for & protect his family.  "I'm doing it for my family" rings hollow when you are killing your family.  Could Hank's death be what pushes Skylar to flip & leave Walt? 

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RE: Walt and Jessie. I think this episode (and the half-season finale) are very telling when it comes to their relationship. When Walt dropped off Jessie's cash the first time, Jessie was strapped and waiting for the shit to hit the fan. The scene between the two of them in this premiere sees Jessie figuring out exactly what happened to Mike, Walt using his usual bullshit to manipulate ("I NEED you to believe this"), and Jessie seeing right through it. To paraphrase, "Okay. Mike's alive." He says that while barely looking at Walt, then turns away and his face says everything. 

 

Would Walt save Jessie again? Probably. But it's even more likely that the second Jessie becomes a threat, Walt would smoke his ass, and Jessie knows it. 

 

As for what actually ends up happening, I don't know. Personally, I hope Jessie teams up with Hank, rolls on him, kicks Walt's ass and leaves him for dead...basically, anything to screw Walt, then walk off into the sunset. 

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Been reading some of the reactions around the net and the one I thing I think people are thinking way too narrowly on is the whole "He's got a big ass machine gun, why does he need the ricin?" train of thought.

 

I'm sure that there's situations where the use of ricin might be much smarter and quieter than using a machine gun, no matter how deep into shit he's gone by the time the end rolls around.  I think it also depends on how many episodes we spend with Future Walt.

And I don't think they're going to go beyond full tilt with Walt as the bad guy.  I think Jesse starts working with Hank, and stuff happens, and as a result someone in his immediate family (Skylar, Walt Jr/Flynn, Holly) gets hurt or killed for it.  That leads to him going on the run until something comes up that's bad enough that he needs to return or some sort of opportunity arises where he can at least redeem himself a little in the eyes of whoever his remaining family members are.  If there actually are any left.  This is all without even considering the possibility that the machine gun is a giant red herring and maybe it doesn't get used.

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I don't think Hank would ever work with Jesse. Not after knowing that Jesse helped Walt conspire the fake Marie accident. Hank probably thinks that Jesse is one of Walt's loyal meth minions. Jesse may be tossing out money, but you got to remember he is still far beyond guilty by association. Jesse is at the point of no return.

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Definitely dug that they went ahead with Hank confronting Walt.  And Walt basically never even denied it.

 

The last line was great, and props to Cranston (the director) for following it with 15 seconds of dead silence.  That really sealed it.

 

It was kind of odd (as previously mentioned) that Walt's tone shifted so suddenly when Hank told him to bring Skyler and the kids over.  I'm torn between Walt shifting because Hank mentioned his family and because Hank was telling him what to do.  Maybe also because Hank betrayed a bit of softness after Walt told him about the cancer.  Hank cursed Walt, but his heart wasn't totally in it -- even having punched him just moments before.  Maybe Walt realized he could go on offense at that point.

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Wait, from the plane crash?

 

Also, don't underestimate how much Jesse hates Hank. 

 

I'm still sold on the idea that someone in Walt's immediate family is going to die.  Skylar is at least going to jail.

 

 

I also think that perhaps Hank vs Walt is a red herring of sorts...

 

I have this feeling, too.  As much as critics like to harp on this idea, I always felt that the idea that this show was ever about Walt vs. Hank were really selling the whole thing short.  Hank never was "the hero" of the story.  Walt's been wanting Hank to find out for ages (he even told him that Heisenberg was still alive after Hank was finished with the case) and it's always felt to me that Hank never had any idea of the magnitude of what he was up against.  I think Hank exposes Walt, but there's not going to be anything tough or heroic or Super Detective about it.  And there was something, to me, about the punch to Walt that said "this is it.  This is all the release Hank is ever going to get, and his vengeance just peaked."

 

That said, I'm talking out of my ass as much as anyone here.  I started watching at the beginning of season 2, and all of these episodes so many times over the years, and Gilligan still throws me for a curve every time. 

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It's been a while since I watched that episode, but I think it's implied that those were just victims of the plane crash, and all the destruction around the house was a result of it. I don't think it's meant as an end-of-series flash forward.

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It's been a while since I watched that episode, but I think it's implied that those were just victims of the plane crash, and all the destruction around the house was a result of it. I don't think it's meant as an end-of-series flash forward.

 

Ok. That episode was part of my binge watching after finally jumping on the bandwagon for this show. Now I know why I haven't seen that scene brought up by anyone else in this thread. 

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I don't think Hank would ever work with Jesse. Not after knowing that Jesse helped Walt conspire the fake Marie accident. Hank probably thinks that Jesse is one of Walt's loyal meth minions. Jesse may be tossing out money, but you got to remember he is still far beyond guilty by association. Jesse is at the point of no return.

 

Also, don't underestimate how much Jesse hates Hank. 

I think Hank might be desperate enough to work with Jesse and Jesse, at this point, probably hates Walt as much as anybody.  And, IIRC, in that final scene he seemed to realize it wasn't Pinkman who did the call, it was Walt.  Things might be tense between them, but I wouldn't shoot down the idea of a Jesse/Hank team-up.  I don't think they're that far gone from working with one another.

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Desperate enough to work with an ex-junkie who manufactured millions of dollars in methamphetamine? I don't see anyway Hank would do it. Even if Jesse turned himself in as part of a plea bargain, I doubt Hank would want to get him involved as they would make Walter more volatile and irrational. 

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I think the only way Hank and Jesse teams up is if they take out Walt and Jesse takes the fall for being Heisenberg, not Walt.  Hank knows if Walt is found out to be Heisenberg, not only is his family screwed, but he'll end up like his superior who was friends was Gustavo, but worse.

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I don't see Hank and Jesse "working together," but I fully expect Hank to scoop up Jesse and try to flip him on Walt pretty soon. Hank is the most moral character on the show, and I doubt he'll waste too much time fretting over what exposing Walt will do to his career. He's never even been that career-minded anyway, having shirked or avoided several opportunities to move up before begrudgingly accepting his current position. He would be perfectly happy going back to working cases on the streets. Only the family issue will give him any pause.

However, Jesse HATES Hank, and I don't think he's really to the point of hating Walt enough to snitch on him yet. He seems more frightened of Walt and depressed than anything. Knowing that Walt killed Mike no doubt breaks his heart, but, as Gilligan said after the show, Jesse understands that Mike was a player and that when you play the game, getting put down for the long goodnight is a likely outcome. I think he'd have to find out about Brock and Jane before he got to the point of flipping.

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As much I'd like to see it go down, I don't think Jesse finds out about Jane. I can't think of a plausible way for it to happen outside of Walt telling Jesse himself, which isn't gonna happen.

 

Brock, on the other hand...Saul knows.

Walt's been known to be quite a nasty prick to people when he feels slighted.  Jesse's gotten a brunt of that shit over the course of the show.  I don't think it'd happen, but if it did come out it would probably be in the form of Walt using it as a means of hurting Jesse if shit went completely sour between them and he felt betrayed.

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Can I just say that I kinda love Lydia?

I wasn't really sure about her while last season was in progress, but after going back and binge viewing it, I really came to appreciate her more. Every other high level player in the meth business we've met has been a cool, calculating customer. Stoic, even. She's the exact opposite - jittery, frazzled, completely conspicuous. And in that context, it makes total sense that she might be the one to destroy Walt's life. She's the type to make an emotional decision that gets...messy.

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