Breaking Bad - Season 5, Part 2 (starts August 11th)

[QDRPHNC]

I don't get a lot of the love for this show.

[Steven]

In reply to Nehamkin: I just didn't like it. You did, and us both trying to articulate that probably won't ever change our inherent emotional reaction to the events that unfolded. Some decent points re: Hank, but Hank couldn't really tell anybody Heisenberg was sitting right under his nose the whole time and was his brother-in-law, Walt killing him and possibly putting the blame on someone else leaves that area where you can suspect but never actually admit to yourself he could have done something so heinous. Or he could have threatened Marie or whoever else if not kill them too, Gomez could have easily been taken out at the same time as Hank. It was quite obvious his whole lust for power and control as he tries to provide for his family was going to ultimately destroy them too, murder was one ultimate eventuality.

I do understand killing Hank would be opening a can of worms, but that's what Breaking Bad was about, eating those worms. Junior was insufferable by the end, maybe it was the kid's acting but that awful fake Hobo doing BB impressions gets it dead on, awful stuff. Definitely right about Jesse though, I'd forgotten how awful Walt is with him by the end, he's a dead man on Walt's command and it's Todd who saves him by suggesting he cooks for them at least as part of his death sentence.

Again, we just feel differently about it I suppose - I wanted to hate Walt, and myself and a lot of other people still felt sympathetic to him at the end, and the show definitely tried to put that across with that ending, even if there are some bleak repercussions.

[Sexton Brackets Drugbust]

Given that Walt's largely driven by his arrogant belief that he can manipulate any situation and a burning desire for that to be recognised, controlling Hank is far more in keeping with his character - and thematically crueller in that having the dogged, moral Hank trapped in a lie would have been a living hell.

I'm always confounded by the number of real world people I meet who remain on Walt's side - cos they still somehow reckon he did everything for his family - and hate Skyler - cos she was ungrateful or some shit.

[Steven]

Given that Walt's largely driven by his arrogant belief that he can manipulate any situation and a burning desire for that to be recognised, controlling Hank is far more in keeping with his character - and thematically crueller in that having the dogged, moral Hank trapped in a lie would have been a living hell.

Could be right but Hank acted too doggedly stubborn to leave off. I was envisioning the last series was going to lead to either Walt kills Hank or Hank kills Walt.

I'm always confounded by the number of real world people I meet who remain on Walt's side - cos they still somehow reckon he did everything for his family - and hate Skyler - cos she was ungrateful or some shit.

Because Walt's the protagonist and he's a down trodden white guy, which is probably the majority of the shows audience. And Skyler slots very effectively into what I call 'Garrsion's wife in JFK syndrome' in stories, where the protagonist Garrsion is taking on all-comers and trying to solve a giant conspiracy and all his wife can do is bitch at him and that he should fuck all that interesting and important shit off and just look after his family. Thankfully BB later got Skyler sort of complicit in the money laundering so made it less antithetical.

[colacentral]

I was on Walt's side even at the end as opposed to Jesse really, who I saw as the big fuck up ruining everything. Walt stuck his neck out for him all through the show and continually got shit on for him. Most of Walt's worst actions come about following the stupidity of Jesse, even Jane's death.

As a side note, calling the character Jane was awful wasn't it? I cringe every time I think about it.

[Mister Six]

Also, Walt just wouldn't want to kill Hank. Hank's family, and that's what Walt values second-most, after his ridiculous Scarface aspirations.

EDIT: You idiot, there was a whole other page.

It's all well and good for Walt to end his life gently patting some lab equipment and remembering happier times, but he still left a big pile of horrible bleakness behind him that's totally beyond redemption.

Right, and that's what makes the ending really sad - I think he does genuinely die happy, and that shows what a fucking shambles his entire life has been. All that pain, all that death, the ruination of the people who loved him, his own son loathing him - all of that, and all he can think about is what a good run he had making his sordid little house of cards.

[NoSleep]

Couldn't the smile on Walt's face as he slips away be simply the fact that he's heard the approaching sirens and that they're too late. Which means no interrogation, so making things more secure for his family. Skyler is free to bullshit to her heart's content without having to make sure her story fits with Walt's, for instance. It's the perfect time to die. And they never caught Heisenberg alive.

[Steven]

Couldn't the smile on Walt's face as he slips away be simply the fact that he's heard the approaching sirens and that they're too late. Which means no interrogation, so making things more secure for his family. Skyler is free to bullshit to her heart's content without having to make sure her story fits with Walt's, for instance. It's the perfect time to die. And they never caught Heisenberg alive.

It fits, but how does he know he's going to definitely die? One ricochet to his right abdomen, dunno whether that's as serious as dying within a few minutes but he probably could possibly be resuscitated. BTW I would imagine we're getting into massively tediously nitpicky wank, but I have to think the writers would have gone through these motions beforehand?

[mook]

i thought the little smile, accompanied with the tap on the gauge was that he was satisfied (in a teacherly way) that he had actually taught jesse how to do something well. albeit cooking up meth. or it might have been wind.

[Steven]

i thought the little smile, accompanied with the tap on the gauge was that he was satisfied (in a teacherly way) that he had actually taught jesse how to do something well. albeit cooking up meth. or it might have been wind.

Ha ha, yes. Because Jesse never did anything fucking right and cooked up a 93% pure batch. He was his science teacher after all.

[chand]

No no no. I did write that killing Jane/Brock may have been too much too soon and cooler heads may have prevailed, but certainly by the end I found that they made Walter too sympathetic. And there's no arguing it, he tries to save Hank when the whole thing had been cat vs mouse with Walt and he was going to have to kill him, and he saves Jesse when a similar thing was going on with both of them, it was practically It's A Wonderful Life.

Him killing Hank or Jesse would just have been boring to me, I liked that the ending didn't solely revolve around Hank and Walt fighting like some kind of video game boss battle. It's a bit...fan-fiction.

To me, the show isn't about Walt becoming the most evil man in the world. It's about a man who starts out with good intentions but then immerses himself in a world he can't control, which changes him beyond recognition. It's about how he starts out thinking he's doing it for his family, and ends up threatening his own terrified family with a knife before stealing his own baby as part of some desperate gambit. It's about how Walt thinks he can be some kind of gentleman druglord like Gus, only to find out that Gus is something much worse, and eventually he becomes like him.

I know people hated the neo-Nazi subplot, but I quite liked the part they played in Walt's downward spiral. In series 3/4, Walt was making a shitload of money using his science skills and trying to run the meth game like a legit business. But he can't control things like that forever, and by the end he's in business with an amoral gang who screw him over. Mo matter how much he tried to escape the grubby side of the drugs business, it ended up catching up with him.

At the end, you're left with a character who's fucked things up, hurt a lot of people, and become a completely different man, one who did terrible things. But I'm glad there was at least a sliver of humanity left in there and he didn't become a cartoonish supervillain.

[Steven]

At the end, you're left with a character who's fucked things up, hurt a lot of people, and become a completely different man, one who did terrible things. But I'm glad there was at least a sliver of humanity left in there and he didn't become a cartoonish supervillain.

True, the Hank vs Walt thing could have been diabolically tedious in concept, but in effect could have been magnatising I think. But I also think, yes, the thing I had about Walt becoming massively evil was a purely emotional reaction I was having to the series, I just really wanted the thing to build up to me hating Walt's guts and wanting him to die, and it never really happened so I ultimately felt disappointed. You can't always justify or articulate your emotional state to proceedings.

[Mister Six]

It fits, but how does he know he's going to definitely die? One ricochet to his right abdomen, dunno whether that's as serious as dying within a few minutes but he probably could possibly be resuscitated. BTW I would imagine we're getting into massively tediously nitpicky wank, but I have to think the writers would have gone through these motions beforehand?

Mate, you're working really hard to explain why this series is definitely going to come back. But it's all in your head.

[Steven]

Mate, you're working really hard to explain why this series is definitely going to come back. But it's all in your head.

Oh no, I don't think it's going to come back at all. Until the careers of those involved start going starkly awry. That usually gets those creative juices unusually flowing.

[phantom_power]

Walt killing Hank would have completely gone against his character. That is the main reason he shouldn't have done it. As evil or immoral has he got there was always the driving force that he was doing what he was doing because he had no choice. The world had wronged him and he was getting what was due. Circumstances then got in the way so he had to do bad things to protect himself and his family but in his mind it didn't make him bad or define who he was. He had that cognitive dissonance that allowed him to justify every bad thing he did as the lesser of two evils. Killing someone in cold blood, a family member no less, would have shattered that illusion he had created for himself.