Okay, follow my thinking on this.
[ol]
[li]The ricin is missing. It’s probably unlikely that Jesse misplaced it. As long as he’s carried it around, he’s probably become neurotic about keeping track of it.[/li][li]DHS isn’t all over the hospital and they haven’t grabbed Jesse. Indicating that the doctors, assuming they tested for it, found no trace of ricin.[/li][/ol]
So, where does that leave us? Could it be that Brock is coincidentally ill and Tyrus stole the ricin from the locker, or Huell stole it from his pocket, in order to use it against someone other than Brock?
If we assume that everything the writers do has a purpose, I have to wonder about one particular seemingly purposeless scene.
Remember that Gus explicitly threatened Walt’s family. Remember when Skyler stepped outside and asked the DEA agent for a cigarette? I’m not suggesting the agent was a mole. What are the odds that she would ask him for a smoke? But could that scene have been there to remind us that she does smoke?
Will Skyler get sick next week?
One good argument against this is that the cigarette was not designed as a delivery vehicle. It was simply a place to hide the poison. But still, what was the purpose of the scene?
OK, you know what? I’m going to bite my tongue a little bit here, since I said upthread there was no way that Walt did it. But in light of reading that interview from DoctorJ where Vince Gilligan said Walt would transform from protagonist to antagonist… and some of the other reasoning behind this theory being sound if Walt becoming an evil mastermind is an accepted possibility, it was nagging me as to why they would show Saul’s bodyguard frisking Jesse. Like I said (and maintain), everything is shown for a reason.
Well, I have it on iTunes so I went back and looked at the scene where Jesse got frisked going to meet Saul. The bodyguard’s hands are actually out of the shot most of the time he is frisking him, just below the camera’s field of vision, as seen here:
Look at his left hand. It is very clearly in his jacket pocket. And in the next shot, only a few frames later, he has taken it back out of his pocket. I’ve watched it 20 times now and there is no doubt in my mind that after that (very aggressive) frisking, the bodyguard pocketed something. And that something had to be the cigarettes… he must have switched them out with another pack. Which would mean it was Walt behind it after all.
If this is true, it’s earth-shattering. Walt is way more of an evil genius than any of us have imagined or given him credit for. I’m going to switch camps and say the crackpot theorists are actually right for once, and prepare for my mind to be officially blown next episode (whatever happens, really).
I agree with this. It doesn’t even require us to know whether Gus was responsible for the poisoning (if Brock was indeed poisoned; as others have pointed out, he could be suffering from some sudden and serious illness, like meningitis). The thing is, when Jesse is talking to Gus in the chapel, he believes at that point that Gus is responsible, and he all but says that to Gus, in his tone and inflection.
I went back and re-played the whole chapel scene. It does seem to me that Gus starts out only knowing that Jesse is worried about the boy, and he (Gus) is there to tell Jesse that regardless, he needs to come back and finish the cook. Then Jesse says no way, he can’t leave, because the boy is dying. Just through Gus’s reaction (facial expression, tone of voice, and what he actually says), it does seem to me that he did not realize that the boy was dying until Jesse told him. Once he does realize that, he softens up and tells Jesse to take his time. (That could be a ploy, of course, to deflect Jesse’s suspicion, but playing back the whole scene, I had the impression that Gus was actually being truthful.)
In any case, regardless of whether Gus knows all about the poisoning (because he is responsible) or finds out about it first from Jesse, I do agree with emcee2k that Jesse all but tells Gus that he, Jesse, thinks that Gus is responsible for the poisoning, in this exchange:
Gus: “I’m on the Board of Directors, I can arrange for the best doctors and the best treatment.” [That’s a paraphrase.]
Jesse: “He’s not sick. He was poisoned.”
Gus: “How did that happen?”
Jesse: “The doctors – they don’t know.”
It was all in that last phrase, the “they don’t know.” It’s hard to explain, but Jesse’s inflection and the way he stretched out and emphasized the word “know” indicated, I thought, that he knew, and in his anger and despair, he wanted to let Gus know that he knew.
So as he is walking back to his car, Gus puts all of this together, and realizes that he is in danger. That made sense to me.
A cigarette is highly symbolic at this point. It could mean a number of things, but since we’re associating cigarettes with death here (and I ain’t talking about lung cancer), it may very well mean that Skyler is next.
Just read Rigamarole’s last post, and I have to say, I have come around to thinking that it is a real possibility that Walt is responsible for Brock’s poisoning. Or it was something else altogether that made Brock sick, and Jesse just mixed up his cigarette packs.
But I don’t think it was Gus. I understand the motivation would be to turn Jesse against Walt, but – why would Gus think that would work? Wouldn’t he foresee Walt’s explanation to Jesse of how it couldn’t be Walt? (Because how would Walt have even gotten the cigarettes? Jesse is not likely to put together the frisking and link it to Walt.)
I don’t know – it’s very confusing, and I also think it’s possible we’ll never get an explanation. But this is Breaking Bad, not Lost, so – I actually trust that we will.
Something else regarding the scene with Huell, we’ve been looking at what happened after the search of Jesse, but to do this he would have to have something ready to plant on Jesse, right…well, I just watched that part. Huell very clearly keeps his left hand below the camera from the time Jesse walks in until midway through the search…so there’s that…But at one point he does have an empty left hand. Also, how would they know how many cigarettes to have in the pack? Just wing it and have a pack with 10 or 11 in there? I know Jesse has more money then God, but I still think he’s the kind of guy that would notice if he had a full pack and suddenly only had 8 left.
Also, the other reason I’m ruling out the Saul thing is from what I heard on the Insider that that they originally had Jesse going over to Saul’s to accuse him, but cut the scene out.
Also, regarding Skyler smoking, I thought that was an odd scene as well. I kind of figured she was about to take a sniper shot.
Rig, what do you mean by cigarettes being associated with death? Sure, Jesse’s been carrying the ricin around in one, but that’s it. I don’t think they’ve had any association other then that.
After the scene with the plant we don’t see Walt until it’s night time and Jesse visits him.
I think Walt looked at the plant and got the idea to poison someone. The plant wasn’t the plant you use to make ricin, but it was enough to make Walt think about ricin and then poison.
I rewatched the scene and it looks like Walt gets an idea after he looks at the plant.
Walk poisoning Brock makes no sense in terms of Walt’s reaction when Jesse turns up.
Bryan Cranston is a great actor but as we’ve seen during the ride alongs with Hank, Walter is a terrible actor. Walt’s reaction to Jesses news about Brock was not something walt could have pulled off. Also, if you had poisoned Brock and knew Jesse would turn up in an emotional state, would you leave your gun lying where he could grab it?
My money is on Accidental poisoning, but I think Gus pause and reaction is when he realizes the danger from this. Assuming Gus has always known about the Ricin (from bugging Jesse’s house) his pause outside in the garage is when he decides to go back and use his influence on the board of the hospital to take action to make sure no tests are carried out to confirm Ricin poisoning, or that it’s covered up if it’s already been detected.
Or that the kid is taken care of but the authorities aren’t called. I assume he would assure everyone that he’ll take care of dealing with the authorities considering how many mandatory reporters there are in a hospital setting.
Or is it? That’s just why the revelation that Walt is behind the poisoning is so monumental. It means (if it’s true), that we as the audience have been played this entire time. We think Walt is this weak, paranoid idiot. But consider that Walt has a lot to gain from getting the DEA’s help taking down Gus (something that has proved very hard for him to do on his own) without outright admitting the truth to Hank. He gives him just enough to fuel his suspicion and keep him going (“Oh, no Hank. I think this is a bad idea! We really shouldn’t do this!”). It means Walt has been the master puppeteer all this time and none of us saw it coming.
And his reaction when Jesse shows up at his house ready to kill him? That gave him the chance to drive a hard splint between Jesse and Gus and win him back over to his side. That is the work of a devious and brilliant man who is a much, much better actor than we thought he was.
Also, there is a test for Ricin in the blood according to Wikipedia, but from what I can tell at the end of the episode it’s the morning after Brock was first admitted to hospital. That’s not enough time to get pathology results back, especially if the test in question is unusual and has to be sent to a bigger hospital or specialized lab.
So there is still time for Gus to intervene and swap samples or do whatever else needs to be done to stop this causing an investigation of Jesse. With Gus having “fired” Walt, he can’t afford to let Jesse be detained for questioning.
I really like this interpretation of what’s going on. I had understood that the plan was for Walt to gradually become more and more – well, bad. Instead, he seemed to just get whiney and paranoid and selfish. I just didn’t like him anymore, but I didn’t hate him. It was vaguely depressing that he was no longer one of my favorite characters. I missed the Heisenberg of the “This . . . is not meth” scene. What happened to that bad-ass guy?
Well, maybe he’s back. Or never left in the first place.
I’ll actually be surprised if Skylar survives the next episode. Besides the symbolism mentioned up-thread (I didn’t catch that watching that scene, but I did half expect her to take a sniper shot while standing out there) it seems to fit. Walt is due to pay a price. Especially if he did poison that kid. And it helps that she’s hardly an innocent bystander anymore.
And when Gus finds that bomb, I’m sure he’ll know exactly who’s responsible. Up until the last episode, Gus has never threatened Walt’s family, that was definitely put in there for a reason. And it would set the ground for the next season.
I don’t know, that may be too similar to that other show (name left out to avoid a spoiler). We’ll see.
My first thought was that Jr was going to come out there and say “Moooooom why are you smoooooking don’t you know that’s really bad for you”. Fucking kid really grates at my nerves. If he’s not eating he’s whining about something.
And was there ever any meaning to him being called Flynn for a few episodes or was that just to give his character some screen time?
Now that I think about it if it turns out that Gus was just staring off into the skyline and contemplating stuff that’s probably all it was for Skyler as well. In that case, I’m kind of surprised they didn’t have Walt do the same thing and play some music behind it with a montage of the three of them…“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever know” for the extra cheese factor.
Gus is going back into the hospital to talk to Jesse about something. Walt thinks he didn’t get in the car because of some other suspicion.
If Walt poisoned Brock and expected the exchange with Jesse why would he be putting on the big freak out act BEFORE he was within Jesses field of view? IE before he opened the door.
All I know is if they don’t explain why Gus didn’t get in his car and leave you to believe it was his “intuition” I’ll be really disappointed and that will be a big weak moment in the script for me.
Mike will save Jesse in the final episode of the Season. He will either kill gus or the black thug guy.
I think it was one more reason for Walt (Sr.) to feel rejected and disrespected. It was when the Whites started having marital trouble and Junior blamed his mother that he dumped the Flynn and went back to being Walt Jr.