IFT stands for I Fucked Ted, a Skyler quote from the middle of season 3. GID would then of course stand for, very directly, Gale Is Dead. Leaving no doubt as to what’s happened to him.
What was with the heavy Denny’s product placement? It was really annoying and distracting.
I only noticed it once.
Well, not really an hour. What with all the commercials it was more like thirty interrupted minutes of the most intense series television ever. Except that the intensity was interrupted every three minutes or so. Stupid AMC.
It showed Gale’s ‘Lab Notes’ which were shown in his apartment at the end, hinting that they will become part of the police investigation. I’ll bet that will be used to draw Hank back to work.
Would the viewers not have known what the ‘Lab Notes’ were if they hadn’t been seen in the flashback? I don’t think the significance would’ve been lost on anybody tuning in five minutes late.
On another note, the graphic violence warning that appeared post-commercial before Victor’s death sort of telegraphed the whole throat-slitting, which is unfortunate.
Did Gus kill Victor because he was seen at Gail’s apartment by on-lookers? Was it because he failed to remove any and all incriminating evidence? Or did he simply kill Victor as a way of making a point to Walt, that in his way of conducting business, everyone is expendable?
The latter explanation seems a bit arbitrary. This sort of chest-thumping serves no real purpose, and isn’t really in-line with how Gus usually conducts business.
It was a great episode. I just wish the writers would have elaborated more on the exact reason for Victor’s murder.
Kind of puzzled at the dissapointment, except maybe expecting the greatest thing ever. I thought it was really interesting. The whole Gus scene was amazing and brutal and disturbing. They did have some oddly slow time with Skyler moving the car and stuff. The episode comes in at 47 minutes, so it’s actually less commercial heavy than average.
Season 3 started off really slowly too and let the story build, and ended up giving us an amazing second half. This one actually looks to be getting off into a faster gear.
I wonder how Mike feels. He’s probably worked with Victor for a long time, they’ve both been important parts of the operation (which means Mike may be equally dispensible). I assume Victor was dead because he was seen at the crimescene, because just offing him to make a point is too… wasteful for a cold and calculating Gus.
Denny’s is for winners.
Someone on another forum had an interesting idea: Victor is the only other guy we know who could credibly make good enough meth. By killing him, Gus is showing Walt that he plans to keep him around as a cook. Walt only really gets dangerous when he feels like his life is threatened, so maybe this was Gus trying to put him at least, and this can keep him in line. In addition to the seen at the crimescene stuff.
Which didn’t work immediately - Walt was convinced Gus would kill him when he was talking to Jesse, but Jesse said he could’ve easily done it already, and now the situation is clear. I guess this could lead to a viable continued working relationship.
I think Gus may actually be planning on keeping Walt around for the long term, rather than replacing him and killing him. The pre-credits scene, where we see why Gus changed his mind about hiring Walt, shows that Gus recognized Walt as a unique asset, able to propell his business to new heights. So he put aside concerns over Walt’s character and general trustworthiness and hired him anyway. Gus is still making cold, calculated decisions and the quality of his product is a big part of why his empire has been able to grow so rapidly. If he can be sufficiently brutal, he may be able to subjugate Walt and keep him under control. Or so he thinks.
I think the extended scenes with Skyler moving the car and getting into Walt’s apartment were kind of wasted time. But I thought the scene with Hank and Marie is good. It added depth to the world and reminds us of the consequences of Walt’s actions in detail.
Quite possibly the most graphic scene I’ve ever seen on TV. But then, I avoid graphic violence and could only even watch this one filtered through my fingers.
Jesus God.
I love this show.
I loved Jesse’s line in the diner, paraphrased, “We’re all on the same page. If I can’t kill you, I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
Also, please, if you’re going to talk about previews for next week’s episode, use spoiler boxes. Those stupid things are made by the marketing department and not the show’s creators. They either deceive and waste your time or they blow a real spoiler and ruin the show. Either way they’re crap and I recommend avoiding them. If you do talk about them, please do it in spoiler boxes.
Well it helped reinforce just how good Walt’s meth was compared to what Gale was capable of. This serves to establish why Gus is forced to tolerate the numerous problems that our protagonists have subjected him and his operation to. Also, that scene seems to have cemented the notion that Gus planned from the beginning to have Gale learn Walt’s methods, after which he planned to kill Walt.
I think it was intense and entertaining in much the same way as* No Country For Old Men*. The combination of dramatic tension and great acting can sometimes be rewarding, even with little plot development.
I think it was a little of the first and the third. I don’t think he knows about the incriminating evidence. Had he known about it, I doubt he would have even allowed Gale to take his notes home with him.
It serves the purpose of showing that anyone who jeopardizes his organization is expendable. Walt thoroughly demonstrated his position of power over Gus. It was necessary for Gus to somehow reassert his position of power while simultaneously demonstrating what happens to those who are even the slightest bit of a liability to his operation. I think both points were well-taken, though perhaps overly so.
Overall, I liked the slow exacting pace of this episode. I think it helped ease us back into the story after such a long hiatus. If it had been a frantically paced episode, it might have been a bit too much at once. As it was, it felt like the relative calm before the inevitable massive storm.
Assorted observations:
Nice little tease on seeing Gale in the first post-credits scene. I doubt anybody was really “WTF?” at seeing him alive but still was a nice little wink to Gilligan being coy on his survival.
I know he’s a remorseless killer who gets rich off the life destroying family wrecking addictions of others, but you have to admit Gus has style.
My take on his killing Victor:
35% because he was seen at the scene (though he didn’t begin the beguine)
15% because he was fucking with an $8 million lab without permission
50% “If a picture’s worth a thousand words then this should be a fucking 12 volume encyclopedia on things I am capable of doing”
“Kenny Rogers?”
I was surprised at Jesse and Walt having breakfast. I expected them to be ankleted or under surveillance, not roaming free. Of course there is now Mutually Assured Destruction all around- it’s almost a paper scissors rock game: any of the three can send the other two to death row.
If I were Saul I think I’d have kept looking for bodyguards. That guy’s massive but more in a “coronary event looking for a time and place” way than “I will fuck you up” kind of way. A 120 pound karate student could probably make short work of him.
Is it my memory or has Anna Gunn gained a good bit of weight since last season? I liked her “Don’t ask don’t tell” with Walt at the end.
Jesse looked almost touched when Walt said “Kill Jesse and you lose me”. I knew that Jesse wasn’t going to die since he’s one of the Untouchables in the cast, but the main problem I have plotwise is that if this were real he would be totally expendable and Gus would still have Walt’s family to use as leverage.
Refresh my memory please: Has Jesse killed anybody before? I know he was going to kill the drug dealers before Walt interceded, and of course he’s woken up with a dead body and helped Walt dispose of the first distributor and would have killed Tuko if he could, but has he actually killed before?
Wasn’t Victor supposed to protect Gale? He failed at protecting him, while at the same time bragging that he could cook, meaning he was ambitious. And Walt was correct because if anything at all went wrong or got lax, it would have blown up all over the place. I lost my suspension of disbelief over the 96% vs. 99%. Wouldn’t a junkie get the same high by using about 3% more dose?
I’m fairly certain Gale was his first. Not 100%, but close.
I wonder if it would be accurate in looking at it the other way. Going from 96% to 99% cuts the impurity by 75%. Maybe that’s what gives it the potency it has.
I don’t know what the real world case is, but in the show they’ve long established that the stuff Walter makes is so good that they can charge more and absolutely dominate the market for it.
Very “Pulp Fiction” with the cleaning up the body, having to change into cheesy outfits and ending up at the diner. I was half expecting them to get held up.
Other random detail: the potato clock was seen changing to 10:13. Ten-thirteen Productions was Chris Carter’s production company (as in The X-Files, which Vince Gilligan also worked on. I think Mulder’s birthday was also October 13th (10/13)).
I thought it was a decent episode but I had really hoped to be blown away. It was good enough to give me hope for great things later this season.
I was kind of annoyed at Skyler with her mother-in-distress routine to get the locksmith to let her in. She pulled something similar to get out of the jewelry store with the tiara situation. I hope as she gets more involved in Walt’s criminal life the writers find something a little more interesting for her.
I’m no meth expert, and this might even be an invention of the show, but I think the extreme purity of Walt’s meth is what gives it that trademark blue color that sets it apart from all the competition.