Breaking Bad Final Season Continues August 11th

[Petey]

You mean doesn't hurt the overall stuffing instead of potatoes.

[bink_winkleman]

Despite tonight's revelation being a bit shaky, the Brock storyline never seemed that far fetched to me. I buy that Huell is an accomplished pickpocket, Walt poisoned some juice or something, and it made total sense for Jesse to suspect Walt at that point.

But since we're confessing our lowest mements. The Cousins took me completely out of the show. Was really glad they didn't stick around too long.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Walking away from explosions is cool, bro.

[EVA]

But Gilligan & Co are so awesome, even when they make mistakes, they correct them in fantastic ways. If they don't make the Twins such over-the-top badasses, and realize it, then we don't get the the incredible ending of "One Minute" when Hank unexpectedly takes them out and we also probably don't get Gus's ascension to becoming what he was.

[sydneybrown]

 

 

 

Jesse's realization about the cigarette continues the fine tradition of the entire Brock poisoning storyline being the worst thing the show has ever done.

 

Oh come now.  The worst storyline the show ever did was the Season 2 plane crash.  I could rationalize most everything on this show, but how they got to that finish was pretty ludicrous.

 

 

That finish is only really ludicrous if you consider Walt having that chance meeting with Jane's father as being outside the realm of possibility.  To me there isn't anything else in that story that stood out to me as being implausible. 

 

 

I meant more of the fact that an air traffic controller (one of the most stressful jobs in the country) was allowed to come back to his job so soon after his daughter OD'd and then was blamed for the plane crash, when the fault should have lied with whoever was dumb enough to let him come back to work.  That has really been my one and only "Oh COME ON" moment in Breaking Bad, and the one time I felt the plot was forcing itself on us (we MUST end with a plane crash), rather than things building naturally.

 

And I agree that even when they do slip, they seem to recognize it and move on.

[offspring515]

I didn't mind the scene where Gus walks out and adjusts his tie before the reveal that half his face is blown off.  I know lots of people who absolutely hated it and I've seen it referenced as the show's Jumping The Shark moment.

[Jiji]

Anna Gunn wrote a piece in the New York Times yesterday about the ridiculous hate Skyler gets - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?src=me&ref=general

I enjoyed this, thanks. I'm not a big fan of Gunn (overacting 101 in both this and Deadwood) but she has valid points and we still live in a society that loves a bit of misogyny. Betty White, though, really is a deplorable character. Then again, so is Don Draper.

[bink_winkleman]

That Times article is great.  The way that people excuse the way Hank treats Marie is even worse.  Maybe she's a shrill klepto because her husband treats her like shit and not the other way around?  Although Hank discovering Walt seems to have really fixed up their marriage.  I almost feel like they would have been closer to divorce if Hank had found out that Walt paid for the treatment when they still thought it was gambling money.

 

Walking away from explosions is cool, bro.

 

UGH.  I feel about that like some people did about Gus's ending.  I realize that both come from the same place--this show is meant to bend reality a bit--but the stigma there was a bit too much for me.  

[Elsalvajeloco]

That Times article is great.  The way that people excuse the way Hank treats Marie is even worse.  Maybe she's a shrill klepto because her husband treats her like shit and not the other way around?  Although Hank discovering Walt seems to have really fixed up their marriage.  I almost feel like they would have been closer to divorce if Hank had found out that Walt paid for the treatment when they still thought it was gambling money.

 

Walking away from explosions is cool, bro.

 

UGH.  I feel about that like some people did about Gus's ending.  I realize that both come from the same place--this show is meant to bend reality a bit--but the stigma there was a bit too much for me.  

 

I think the whole Mexican cartel bit of Breaking Bad exhibited more stretching of reality than what happened with Jane and her dad or anything else in the history of the show. You can't help but believe that the cartel was there to be BAMFs so they can in turn make Gus, Hank, Jesse, and Mike look like BAMFs. Fans of the show evidently believe they accomplished that, but it doesn't account for how big of an undertaking it was to write them into the show AND write them out of the show. It had so much potential to upgrade the show to legendary status while also downgrading the show to unbelievable bullshit. The writers kept building them up and then BAM! All of them are taking the big sleep. That was the only problem I had with the whole thing because I was willing to let whole bunch of plotholes slide to believe one thing: you shouldn't fuck with the Mexican cartel. In the end, you can only make it look cartoonish ("Face Off") because the handling of the cartel defies logic.

 

You knew Gus wasn't going to die an ordinary death after Gaff splattered the brain of one of Mike's men all over the side of a truck and Gus came out to walk through a hail of bullets because he knew he wouldn't get killed. Before that, you had the twins get super ominous cold openings to try to get over their characters. They had one great moment ("One Minute"), but the rest probably made fans apathetic outside their introduction. Then, you had Gus showing up to exact revenge on Don Eladio. They never really explained why Gus Fring chose that specific moment to do that other than Hector killed Max. You're telling me that he had to wait several years until the cartel wanted this junkie to help improve their meth production to do that. Get...the...fuck...out. If that was the case, the Mexican cartel would NEVER, EVER let Gus have any clout over the cartel anywhere. Gus would just be a pawn for the cartel, and he would just have to send Jesse or Walt there alone instead of going with Mike to accompany Jesse. They would never compromise with Gus or his stipulations. Then, you had Don Eladio and his cartel get offed. Gus explained to Hector that he managed to kill his ENTIRE family and his name would die with him. Either Gus was lying, doesn't know how families actually work, or the writers just wanted to make Gus seem otherworldly dickish and inhumane. I don't know anyone whose family is confined to just four or five males or just males, period. This goes especially for people in a MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL. Even if it was only females left, those females could have sons out of wedlock who bare the Salamanca name.

 

I think the writers missed a GIANT opportunity to cover up those loose ends and/or make some of the characters from the storyline look less contrived. I understand they wanted Gustavo Fring to have the mystery to him, but why does it have to be his character? Not only that but we could have had so much more involvement from the cartel after Eladio's cartel was gone, Madrigal Electromotive GmbH, and how Mike started working with Gus. They could have squeezed an entire season out of that before those characters were written out.

[Jrag]

The relationship between Gus and the Cartel was falling apart when they made that trip to Mexico.  They used the revenge angle to set up the stuff with Hector, but the poisoning of all the cartel guys felt more like a business move.

[Elsalvajeloco]

I would imagine, realistically, it would have been a very bad business move.

[Jrag]

I don't see how.  The partnership had dried up and Gus couldn't even get the cartel guys to sit down with him until he gave them a cook. Considering Walt and Gus's relationship at the time, he couldn't let them have Jesse.  He also couldn't sit around and let the cartel pick off his guys.

 

Anywho..  Brilliant episode.  The confession and Jesse's revelation were the highlights, but I thought the double date from hell was just as good of a scene.  Did Walt hug Jesse as a play or was is it simply a genuine show of emotion?  It worked either way.  

 

Sepinwall has a cool little recap of everything involving the ricin cig.  I had absolutely no recollection of Jesse blaming Huell for the missing cig when he initially confronted Walt.

[Elsalvajeloco]

I don't see how.  The partnership had dried up and Gus couldn't even get the cartel guys to sit down with him until he gave them a cook. Considering Walt and Gus's relationship at the time, he couldn't let them have Jesse.  He also couldn't sit around and let the cartel pick off his guys.

 

The Mexican drug cartel game is bigger than Don Eladio. If you know the cartel, Gus and co. would have never made it back to Albuquerque by the time Eladio's friends in the drug game got wind of it. 

[Jrag]

OK, but in the Breaking Bad world the show runners are as vague about Gus's connections and size of his empire as they are about the cartel stuff. "Realistically" is sort of relative to the world they are living in, ya know? To me it doesn't seem like an over-simplification, it just seems more confined.  We don't have all the pieces of Gus's story, just the ones related to Walt.

[Elsalvajeloco]

They did oversimplify it though. When people hit bosses in the mafia without permission, they usually end up dead outside a bar or restaurant with a bullet to the back of the cranium and a twenty dollar bill crammed up their ass to symbolize greed two days later. Motherfucking Gus Fring executed AN ENTIRE CARTEL and walked back to Albuquerque like he had took out a crew of your average neighborhood hoodlums.

[Fat Spanish Waiter]

Oh come on, it's a fucking tv show, it's not a real cartel.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Oh come on, it's a fucking tv show, it's not a real cartel.

[PuroresuFan]

http://www.tmz.com/2013/08/26/wwe-cm-punk-breaking-bad-kofi-kingston/

 

 

[Niners Fan in CT]

Gus was somehow tied to the Chilean military it would appear. I don't think it's a stretch to think he has a large following.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Gus was somehow tied to the Chilean military it would appear. I don't think it's a stretch to think he has a large following.

It's a big stretch because they never actually alluded to it. If he did, Max would still be alive and the Eladio cartel is still in one piece.

[offspring515]

I don't see how.  The partnership had dried up and Gus couldn't even get the cartel guys to sit down with him until he gave them a cook. Considering Walt and Gus's relationship at the time, he couldn't let them have Jesse.  He also couldn't sit around and let the cartel pick off his guys.

 

Anywho..  Brilliant episode.  The confession and Jesse's revelation were the highlights, but I thought the double date from hell was just as good of a scene.  Did Walt hug Jesse as a play or was is it simply a genuine show of emotion?  It worked either way.  

 

Sepinwall has a cool little recap of everything involving the ricin cig.  I had absolutely no recollection of Jesse blaming Huell for the missing cig when he initially confronted Walt.

 

Neither did I.  Given that Jesse already had suspicions that it happened I can actually but it a lot more.  I semi retract my earlier complaints.

[Swift]

 

Anna Gunn wrote a piece in the New York Times yesterday about the ridiculous hate Skyler gets - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?src=me&ref=general

I enjoyed this, thanks. I'm not a big fan of Gunn (overacting 101 in both this and Deadwood) but she has valid points and we still live in a society that loves a bit of misogyny. Betty White, though, really is a deplorable character. Then again, so is Don Draper.

 

 

[Jiji]

Hah. Don't post at 2:30 in the morning, maybe.

[The Damn Yeti]

[ultimoDANK]

I'm with FSW. It's a TV show, who cares if its not 100% true in its depiction of the Mexican cartel. If you want to talk unrealistic it's dealers wanting to sell 100% pure meth. It wouldn't make sense to sell it like that. What are you worried a meth head might give your product a negative review on yelp?