I’m open to the possibility that Carol Burnett advances from kitty videos to internet sleuth, discovers who it is who’s leading her troubled boy astray, and shoots him dead.
The dog is incredibly well trained and loyal. Wouldn’t utter a peep unless his/her master was having someone being aggressive towards him or needed a heads up. A perfect excuse to walk the neighborhood and a great lookout.
I confess I found the last two episodes rather boring and confusing. I can no longer track when stuff is supposed to be happening nor what the viewer is supposed to remember, nor what it is supposed to be significant.
I’ve never had that problem so far so I’m quite disappointed.
The black and white helps, no?
What things did you you think was a stretch for the viewer to remember.
I think figuring out what was significant has been a big part of BCS and BB from the beginning. Lots of small scenes or details that eventually get paid off.
Yeah - the color is being told chronologically, the black and white is fast-forwarded past the Breaking Bad timeline.
I watched all of BCS (to series 5) before I ever watched BB so the timelines are all now jumbled in my head. Until series 6 of BCS and this current section in particular it has never been a problem but now it is.
I’d consider the black & white as the current story line with Breaking Bad flashbacks.
That would be pretty inconsistent with the entire rest of the series.
Omaha is monochromatic, just like Mexico is sepia. . Something to do with the tilt of the earth, I suppose.
This puts the series into context which I hadn’t had before recently. He’s only been Gene a year before he’s effectively blown his cover and is bored, and its 18 months in and he’s slipping again through boredom. All that is left is the inevitable arrest or death.
From the beginning I was thinking he’d been Gene for years now, settled in a life of boredom.
There’s been black and white Gene scenes since the beginning of the show. What did you think of those seventies originally?
seventies?
In all previous series they were pretty much confined to a little intro snippet, not a major part of the episode.
You have to admit that they have been much longer and much more in-depth over the last two episodes.
I watched BCS after having seen BB at least twice the whole way through, so the Gene scenes made perfect sense to me, but I can imagine if someone hadn’t seen BB they would be rather confusing at least initially.
The Breaking Bad Wiki says the main part of Breaking Bad season 5B is March 2010, the BB finale is September 2010, and “Nippy” is October. Saul’s call with Francesca was scheduled for November 12. So the Gene scenes are only about 6 months after Saul left ABQ.
He is certainly made up to look as though he has aged more than a year or two. But perhaps that’s explained as him altering his appearance as part of his cover.
The first explicit indication I’ve seen that not long has passed (for anyone not doing a detailed academic study of the matter) was the phone call in this episode giving an update on developments in ABQ.
Plus his hair is considerably thinner—the character, not the actor. Bob himself is thinner and arguably in better shape in BCS, heart attack notwithstanding.
*scenes, not seventies.
I mean, you said the timelines are all jumbled. Did you understand when those B&W scenes were taking place?
Sure, originally it was clear that the small B&W scenes at the beginning of the episode were from a future where Jimmy had fled the scene and taken on a new identity.
Those small scenes have been expanded to take up most of the last two episodes to the extent where it is harming the flow of the story for me. It doesn’t feel in keeping with the way it has been told for five and half series, it feels clunky and disjointed where previously it was deft and opaque.
The appearance of Walter and Jesse particularly felt somewhat tacked on.
I can’t see us going back in time now, other than for brief flashbacks like we got with Walt and Jesse. Mostly B&W from now on.
A prediction ahead of tomorrow’s episode:
After a certain amount of tense shenanigans, Gene will come out on top and celebrate doing so by slipping into a sharp suit as the monochrome fades up into colour. Saul triumphant, as he returns to who he really is.
Hopefully, after that, he gets his comeuppance, ideally at the hands of Jeffy’s mum. Because let’s not forget that while Jimmy, early on, was potentially a good person (cared about Chuck being eased out of HHM, was genuinely outraged as well as professionally excited about the Sandpiper abuses), Saul was a horrible human being. In BB he happily conspired with other criminals to deal drugs and do violent murder. Any shred of compassion or guilt had gone when Kim did and while that’s very sad for him and I do sympathise, it doesn’t make him any less of a vile criminal.
So if the upshot of the show that traced Jimmy’s fall into the tarnished depths of Saul is for Saul to emerge triumphant then that will be a shame. I would like to see a redemption arc but it feels like the time for that (given that Gene is currently breaking into the home of a cancer patient with a view to stealing his identity) has come and gone. So a righteous comeuppance is all that’s left, morally speaking.