Malcolm's Dad, er, I mean, Breaking Bad

[Reply #120 on:]

The entire point of the show is to chronicle a man's descent from "Mr. Chips" into "Scarface". Frankly, I love the fact that one of the most loveable characters I've seen on TV is becoming a fully fledged villain. And a really very unlikeable one. It's remarkable that they're sort of turning me against him so effectively without it feeling like he's acting out of character or that I'm being emotionally manipulated in any way. It all feels right.

What a wonderful show.

I imagine something big's going to happen next week seeing as it's a mid-season finale. My money's on Hank finding a really good lead that's going to let him figure out that Walt is Heisenberg pretty early on in part 2 of season 5.

[Reply #121 on:]

The protagonist of the show is Jesse.  He is the central character whom the title's reference is directed to.  The title itself is a message in three parts, with the most hopeful one trumpeting across the other two.  Walt seemed to be Breaking into Bad habits (selling meth), or Walt may have seemed to be Breaking into a Bad life (being a heisenberg), but in reality it's Jesse that is Breaking out of a Bad childhood to recover the destiny of man from the future.  This is how and why Walt is Jesse's father figure, by birth, Walt is a man of intelligence relegated to the sideshow of high school chemistry, by chance to teach the young man Jesse tossed aside by society's ills, only to reconnect them both under the stars vis-a-vis a tragedy and a companionship to blossom forth Jesse's new life slated as an adult.  In this avenue, Jesse must experience and learn of all tracts of life, and with humility he follows in the footsteps of the damned to collect the treasures promised to the children of persistence and righteousness.

[Reply #122 on:]

Yeah, but Walt's the protagonist.

[Reply #123 on:]

Yeah, but fuck you.

[Reply #124 on:]

Hahaha, awesome exchange.

But seriously, I agree with winna, and I'm surprised I didn't mention that aspect at all in my post. I love the fact that the show is about turning Walt from family man to insane villain while at the same time leading Jesse closer to a true redemption from his beginnings as a punk kid without major ambition. In fact, Walt's evil influence itself is what seems to be showing Jesse the error of his ways. Killing Gale seemed to be the major turning point for him, and since then he's only seemed to accumulate more and more guilt about his involvement in their criminal activity, especially after seeing Walt's reaction to the kid getting shot which led him to want out.

Since the end of season 4 I've predicted that Walt will die and Jesse will fully redeem himself at the end of the show...in fact my guess would be he's the one who ends up offing Walt in the end. That said, I trust in Gilligan's ability to surprise the shit out of me, so all bets are off.

[Reply #125 on:]

Yeah, Jesse is forced to kill Walt because Walt has lost all self control.

[Reply #126 on:]

[Reply #127 on:]

Just started watching this show. Jessie reminds me of Jay... as in Jay and Silent Bob... which makes it difficult to take seriously. Good though.

[Reply #128 on:]

Goodbye Breaking Bad for nearly a year
Good ending..not fantastic..sets up the conclusion. But what happened was really to be expected at this point.

[Reply #129 on:]

This is going to be a rough year. Darn you, AMC!

Good episode, but

Show spoiler

I didn't quite buy the ending. Walt is thorough about everything, but he conveniently leaves that book lying around right there in the bathroom? I was hoping Hank would find some cool/clever way of figuring it all out.

Still, now that the cat is out of the bag, I am very curious to see what happens. My guess is that Hank will try to play it cool at first. He'll try to act natural and nonchalantly leave the party, so he can go home and process his discovery before putting together the bust proper.

Then Hank and Skyler will be all like "why was Hank acting so weird? What was up with leaving so abruptly?" and then Hank will notice that the WW book was put back in the wrong position, or something -- or maybe the magazines on top of it were stacked in the wrong order. Something giving away that Hank had been looking through it. Then Walter realizes that Hank knows, and then Walt kills Hank before he can do anything.

I'm sure I'm probably wrong about everything, but oh well.

One thing I loved: they are still dangling the ricin in front of us. That thing has been in play for quite a while now, and still no payoff. I hope they finally use it in a really surprising way, by the end.

[Reply #130 on:]

Talk about an oh shit moment

[Reply #131 on:]

OKAY. My predictions.

The "WW" in the book isnt enough evidence to arrest Walt. Not hardly! What I think will happen is Hank will get the handwriting analyzed and matched to Gale's handwriting in his notebook. (Because Gale gave him that Walt Whitman book, right?). But Hank won't do this for a couple days, he will sit on this info he has. When this happens, and its confirmed within 90% that its a match to Gale, Hank will put a tail on Walt. However, Walt got out of the business just in time. The tail just observes him doing his regular shit, he has no need to go to the exterminator building again. In the couple days that Hank sits on the info and could have caught Walt, Walt pays off the guy who killed the kid and perhaps a few other minor things, going to Saul..etc.
Oh and another thing, Hank doesn't steal the book to take back to the DEA station, he takes a cell phone picture of the page.
Walt doesn't go to jail, at least not yet. Remember the very first scene at the beginning of the season, with the gun and car he bought from the Supernatural guy? When he had long hair? That's not for at least 6 months. My guess is the phoenix cookers get pissed he quit making the blue and kidnap his family or something, thus he needs to raid their compound to get them back, thus redeeming himself.

[Reply #132 on:]

Making 'predictions' after we've all seen how the show ends isn't really making predictions.  Now is it?

[Reply #133 on:]

There are so many potential outcomes that it almost seems stupid to assign yourself to one prediction...

I mean, Hank would look like an idiot if he found out Heisenberg was Hank and got him arrested because it'd mean that the culprit had been under his nose the whole time. It might be embarassing and career-damaging to the point that he'd choose not to turn Walt in. It might even drive him to something drastic like suicide.
Or perhaps he can be bribed and bought in to the inside of the deal. Or maybe he goes after Walt and the evidence isn't enough to do anything despite him knowing that it was Walt all along. Maybe he accepts Walt's inevitable sob-story about doing things for his family, given that he's now "out". Maybe he arrests Walt and Walt does time. Maybe Walt kills him. Maybe Walt goes on the run. Maybe the start of season 5 saw Walt on the run from him.

Who knows? I certainly don't. And to be honest, I expect the actual outcome of the story to be something I hadn't even considered.

[Reply #134 on:]

Somebody's gotta die. Somebody put a pole on this thread. I can foresee the following people possibly dying:

Walt
Hank
Jesse
Skylar

[Reply #135 on:]

KILL GUS

[Reply #136 on:]

I think I can see how it'll end. That gun we saw Walt buying at the beginning of Season 5? I reckon he's going to use it for his Last Stand. It'll play out like the ending of Scarface. He's going to lose everything, and make a hell of a mess on his way out.

The whole series will turn out to have been a sermon on the wages of sin.

[Reply #137 on:]

or Walter Jr's dream

[Reply #138 on:]

I would actually love it if there was a huge twist like the whole show took place during Walt's last dying second because he died from the cancer or something

[Reply #139 on:]

I'd prefer it if the final moment was Hal waking up in bed next to Lois and the whole thing had been his bad dream.

[Reply #140 on:]

[Reply #141 on:]

It'd work better as a sequel with Bryan Cranston playing a 50-year-old Malcolm. A gifted genius, but one who wound up under-acheiving. I could see Malcolm turning to cooking meth to make money with help from his slacker, drop-out brother Reese, who has really aged well, bitch.

They all assumed new identities after their neighbourhood decided they'd had enough of them and their antics.

Skyler is a moody cow because Malcolm, in typically Freudian fashion, fell for a girl that reminded him of his mother, subconsciously.

[Reply #142 on:]

heh
uh oh! Better call Sol!

[Reply #143 on:]

Congrats to Aaron Paul on his Emmy win

[Reply #144 on:]

Boardwalk Empire is what Billions with an R could never be.

We see Walt, decrepit in his vision to be a builder of empires, yet he wastes away anyone trying to build a community.  Gus was a man of vision, and this child-man Walt is an individual of contempt and sillitude.  Heh, the show exemplifies everything wrong with a perspective built on ignorance.  And yet, he was never meant to be an ignorant man?  The most poignant scene of the show demonstrating his lack of billions with an R, a girl whom from a chalkboard they contemplate that .0001% that can't be contributed by physical anomalies, the very essence and spirit of the human being unexplained by science, filled with so much vitriol.

[Reply #145 on:]

Breaking Bad Cancelled

[Reply #146 on:]

Just started Season 4, boy, wish I'd gotten into this show much, much earlier.

[Reply #147 on:]

Danny, I swear to god if you start over expressing your obsession through a string of Breaking Bad memes, I will cut off you fingers and feed them to you like soup.

[youtube]bHrTT3cvado[/youtube]

[Reply #148 on:]

I watched breaking bad as it aired, but I watched the wire over the course of a few months late last year

[Reply #149 on:]

Bump...2 more weeks

Also this week I've been rewatching the first 2 seasons

[Reply #150 on:]

I hope Danny posts more Breaking Bad stuff!

* winna rubs his hands together methodically.

[Reply #151 on:]

I've been watching the show since February and I just finished Season 5A on Tuesday. Such a fantastic show and I'm looking forward till August 11th!

[Reply #152 on:]

I hope Danny posts more Breaking Bad stuff!

* winna rubs his hands together methodically.

I never even saw this.

Anyway, I'm super excited for the final 8 episodes, this show is just legendary.

[Reply #153 on:]

Perhaps we should all consider smoking some meth to get ready for the premier of this season?

[Reply #154 on:]

you mean you guys haven't already? And you call yourselves fans 

[Reply #155 on:]

Just a few more hours

[Reply #156 on:]

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[Reply #157 on:]

I hope we see more of carol this season

[Reply #158 on:]

Watching one episode a week is so lame. I wish I had the will power to wait until the end and watch them all at once.

Good episode. Looking forward to seeing more. Also, screw AMC and their whole "see the preview for next week's episode during the commercial break for some other shitty show you don't care about!" policy.

[Reply #159 on:]

That's just good network promotion, especially since breaking bad is wrapping up.  Plus, AMCs programming generally looks to be quality stuff aiming for more sophisticated audiences.