Well, he’s still got a bandaid box filled with diamonds. I don’t think it’s a question of “running low” on money because he’s been living the comfortable-enough life of a Cinnabon manager. (I mean, unless he was living the highlife somehow all this time as Gene that we’ve never seen?) It’s boring and black and white, but it’s a living. The thing is, Gene needs more than a living.
This also explains why he took the risk of going back to Stuart’s house—he doesn’t need the money from this one particular con, but he does need the action. Just look at the shot of Gene being zombified watching the Cinnabon dough mixer.
And in case anyone is wondering how Stuart made enough money in the stock market so that he’s now a juicy enough mark for Gene, it’s because he finally learned to push Webistics.
(skip forward to 1:22 if the link doesn’t start there)
Yeah, he’s off the wagon and feeding his addiction big time. That first mark was a loathsome dickhead who deserved to be fleeced. The last guy didn’t do anything to deserve getting ripped off. Gene probably wouldn’t have chosen him for the first con but he didn’t want to wait to find someone deserving.
And we see Jimmy/Saul/Gene lying baldly and without finesse to his confederates to motivate them to rip off strangers. That’s something that didn’t really feature in his cons before; he may have over-emphasized to Kim that Howard deserved to be targeted, but she had her own reasons for going along with that.
Everything we saw in “Breaking Bad” (the BCS episode) emphasized how far downhill J/S/G has gone. Conning is now a joyless exercise for him; he has no patience for manipulating his co-criminals, instead barking orders and threats at them. That’s another thing we never saw from him before.
It also emphasized Saul’s arrogance, and lack of judgment. His line about being able to “mold” Walt rings very much of hubris. He completely underestimated Walt.
^ This.
He’s lost all judgment, thinking that he can impose his will on the world by virtue of yelling and threatening and acting in defiance of common sense.
Whatever happens at the cancer-victim’s house is likely to prove a rude awakening for him.
A nice ironic line from the BB flashback: Saul commenting about Walt that a “guy with that mustache probably doesn’t make a lot of good life choices”-----
-----and then growing practically the same mustache as Gene.
That was followed by the overhead shot of the grave with Gene in it as the transition to the next scene. That was fantastic, and I think it tells us all we need to know about his fate.
Didn’t the scheme that Gene and Buddy were pulling with the drunks depend on their victims living alone? Had anyone of them had a wife, children, a roommate or even a dog, the scheme might have fallen apart.
I thought the Walt & Jesse cameo was justified and added to the show, but damn. They did a good enough job on Bob Odenkirk and the other characters’ makeup for me to buy into the timelines, but Aaron Paul… it’s mostly his voice. He’s clearly much older here than he was in BB. It took me out of the scene.
They also kept the scene mostly in shadow. Last I saw Aaron Paul, he had put on some weight and it really showed in his face. He’s also a smoker (or was) which can affect your voice. Or he may just be showing some aging that doesn’t jibe with his youthful appearance in BB.
I also worked on the assumption that they never fully took the ski masks off so Bryan wouldn’t have to screw around with shaving his head or putting on a bald cap for a few minutes of screen time. It wouldn’t surprise me if he had a bald cap hastily put on in case the ski mask rides up above his hairline, but I doubt he was in makeup for an hour making sure it was just right.
Someone mentioned that they’ll each have a 1 on 1 with Saul. I assume he’ll be wearing the bald cap for that. IIRC, at some point in BB he switched from the bald cap to shaving his head. I don’t think he’d be able to shave for this since it would have spoiled the reunion as soon as he was spotted in the wild without any hair.
Yeah, and there are other parallels between Gene and Walt going on. Those terrible Gene glasses are extremely Walt-ish, aren’t they? This is emphasized in a number of close-ups. And the manipulative, ruthless way he’s treating petty criminals is Walt-like. At this point I won’t be surprised if Gene gets cancer, shaves his head, and dies.
Or maybe that scene will be when Walt is wearing the Heisenberg Hat.
Saul: “I made you, even though Mike told me not to waste my time.”
Walt: “Say my name.”
