Maybe I’m just a cynic at heart, but I think a lot of people would decide to miss the birth of their child if they knew they could score $1.2 million in tax-free cash. It’s not particularly noble or wonderful, but it doesn’t preclude loving that child. In fact, I think it would be terribly easy to justify it as sacrificing on behalf of the child’s future. I believe that’s how Walt’s thinking of it.
I also think Walt is tired of being married to Skyler. Going out for a beer instead of getting diapers was not cool of him. Skyler was his consolation prize after losing Gretchen, and she’s lost her charms for him along with the rest of his life. He’s over his white bread suburban middle class life, though it’s strongly implied that he has always resented it and thought he deserved or was owed better. He suppressed his ambition and swallowed his pride, but once you drop that pretense, it’s not coming back.
He wasn’t going to get recognition from an infant. He was proud of his accomplishment and had to verbalize it to someone, so he told the one person who can’t repeat it.
I thought he wanted some security because of all the money in his house and his risky line of work, and he was using the baby and the pool as a pretext to justify getting one.
Letting Jane die had several beneficial results for Walt, not the least of which is freeing Jesse from her clutches. He is also made safer by her death. I don’t think his motivations have to be one or the other.
Speaking of parallels with the barfing… I was remembering Walt Jr. barfing in the pool after being egged onto drinking tequila by Walt, who sat by and let it happen, smiling grimly. I think he did the same thing to Jane, with similar emotion but a different severity of intended outcome. He’s just not very forgiving of people who threaten his sense of self. Woe is Ted Beneke if he and Skyler have an affair and Walt finds out…
He didn’t, though he knew that giving Jane and Jesse $480,000 was likely to kill one or both of them. He did sit idly by as she barfed, just as he did with Walt Jr., after each had crossed him and made him feel slighted. The parallel seems to be there, though it’s not perfect.
We were actually just studying this in my bar prep class tonight. You do risk criminal liability if you decline to rescue people from peril that you’ve created - and Walt created the perilous condition here. Sure, Jane injected the heroin - but that didn’t create the danger that she would aspirate her vomit, because she took precautions to prevent that contingency. (Sleeping on her side). Walt negligently destroyed that safety mechanism, and refused to restore it even after the peril had become apparent to any reasonable observer.
IANAL but I am fairly sure that any state legal system could come up with SOMETHING to charge you with if you just stood by watching somebody die and didnt even bother to dial 911 as it was happening. I would also not be surprised if witnessing a death (or finding a dead body) without calling 911 could get you in legal trouble that wasnt directly related to the not helping part if you know what I mean (ie, in the distance, you see a guy fall of a tall cliff, go splat like a watermelon, yet call no one.
This all besides the point really though. ANYTHING, even something perfectly legit, that even suggest Walt and Jessie are interacting is bad for both of them, much less anything that is going to get the gubment involved.
You think trying to shake Jesse awake was negligence? Would a reasonable person in Walt’s position know that drug addicts could choke on their own vomit if they are not kept on their side?
Pretty sure that Heisenberg having his face and real name all over the internet and, from the previews, perhaps the local news is not going to work out well for anyone. I know Skyler told Walt that he couldn’t make Jr. take the website down, but I was surprised that Saul wasn’t more concerned.
Interesting sideways glance Walt gave Hank when he brought the chicken over. I wonder if it is going to come out that Hank has been on to Walt for a while?
Back when this show first started I was wondering how seriously(if at all) I’d be to take the dad from Malcom In The Middle, but damn, Bryan Cranston has dove so far into and captured the role so perfectly, it is the sitcom that I don’t think I can ever view the same way again.
So how many of you actually went to the website?
If you go to SaveWalterWhite.com and click on the “donate” button it takes you to the National Cancer Coalition’s website, where you can support a real cause.
I’m surprised that I wasn’t more irritated by the serendipitous “meeting” at the bar between Walt and Jane’s Dad, but I guess that’s what good writing and acting will do for you. Plus, it’s not all that farfetched. Hell, maybe it’s the only bar anywhere near Jesse’s house.
God, I hope Jesse doesn’t find out Walt could’ve saved Jane. Let alone that he led to her death. If Jesse finds that out, it’s over between them, period. I have this feeling that Walt might leave a clue he was there. Or, if Walt was smart, would wake Jesse up right then and there and say he broke in to talk about the money/getting clean, and discovered her already dead. And that they need to mitigate the situation that Jesse put them in. That’s how Walt would spin it, and it’s not entirely untrue. Fuck with heroin, you get what you get.
Also, concerning the money issue, Walt’s trying to raise at least $737k. He’s probably only around 500k right now, and now he’s gotta pay for the surgery. So, he’s only half way there.
I also think Walt still depends on Jesse a lot for a bunch of smaller, but important things. He’s his gopher. He’s the guy with the street knowledge. Jesse is young and knows the how it runs on the dealer level, at least. Plus, to cook meth, you need at least 2 people, perhaps not to cook in and of itself (but perhaps so?), but setting up the location, storing the “lab” and acquiring the ingredients, you need help. Walt can’t do that all by himself. He depends on Jesse, even still. And, he’s growing to care for him. He said it himself, he trusts him. He’s his student.
There was the preview clip that showed One of Saul’s (?) men coming to talk to Jessie. (I maybe didn’t need to hide that… anyway: Could he be a person who is there to help dispose of Jane’s body? I would imagine that time is really important as Jane’s dad will be coming by to get her into detox again.
So, do you
move the body next door, and try to pass it off that she OD’d on her own? (not likely)
Completely dispose of the body like maybe they just got the hell out of there?
Leave the body, and get the hell out of the house?
Since there’s another body bag to fill… and the only non main character on the show right now is Jane’s dad… uh GoodBye! Who else could it be?
There was the preview clip that showed One of Saul’s (?) men coming to talk to Jessie. (I maybe didn’t need to hide that… anyway: Could he be a person who is there to help dispose of Jane’s body? I would imagine that time is really important as Jane’s dad will be coming by to get her into detox again.
So, do you
move the body next door, and try to pass it off that she OD’d on her own? (not likely)
Completely dispose of the body like maybe they just got the hell out of there?
Leave the body, and get the hell out of the house?
Since there’s another body bag to fill… and the only non main character on the show right now is Jane’s dad… uh GoodBye! Who else could it be?
That’s when he thought he was on death’s door, and wouldn’t be around to help with the mortgage, college for the two kids, etc. Now that he’s got more time – and assuming he keeps his teaching job – he wouldn’t need the whole $737K right away.
All that said, I think he’s going to get used to having more disposable income, to buy things like new water heaters and fancy security systems, and that’s what’s going to keep him cooking.
Yes, the previous shot of two body bags were at Walt’s place beside his pool. This body bag was zipped up in Jessie’s apartment. That’s what it looks like to me.
Oh, wow, I couldn’t disagree more. Watching Walt’s face go from disgusted at finding the works to concerned when Jane started puking to horror and despair as he watched her die and knew he had to let it happen and finally to the cold hard grimace of Heisenberg when it was over and he knew what he’d done was some of the finest acting I’ve ever seen on TV. Watching Walt’s descent into evil has been fascinating, and I really hope Bryan Cranston gets another Emmy for his mantle this year.
