That would be the general idea. Say there was 150 instead of 120, add in an extra couple of details. “Charge” for extra services (inside the wash that no one sees, waxing, underbody flush etc) that never occurred etc. No one is really going to notice unless they stay on for all the shifts and count.
:smack: Of course.
Marie is growing on me. I don’t know why I didn’t like her from the start, but I didn’t. I think it was because the character didn’t seem honest, like she wasn’t being herself. When Hank bitched about not being hungry and she said “Then don’t eat it”, I did a fist bump for her. That was honest.
Did you miss the whole part where Skyler was directing the show? The guy is not an actual inspector, which is why she was quoting chapter and verse to him over the phone.
I didn’t particularly care for the direction in this ep, and some of the plot is shaky at this point, but when the crap hits the fan, it will play out okay. I think Hank will go to Walt to have him decipher the notes. Walt will pass this information to Gus, who may take steps to try to eliminate Jessie once again, since he’s the remaining link to Gale’s apartment. How Walt will respond to Hank is anybody’s guess, but lying to him about the contents of the notes is probably not an option.
The two characters kinda flipped. In the first season Marie was a gossipy, prying shoplifter and Hank was very sympathetic, going out of his way to help Walt and Walt Jr. and turning a blind-eye to his shrewish wifes shoplifting. Now Hank spends his days moping and yelling at his super-understanding wife, while Marie manages to keep it togeather for Hank despite his taking every opportunity to be a dick to her (though I guess she’s still stealing).
They’re actually the only character arcs I like. Taking either season seperately, its hard to see why they stay togeather, but over the entire arc its clear they need eachother.
The other characters have kinda spiraled so that its hard to see what motivates them anymore. They seem now to make decisions that maximize the drama for a given episode, rather then any realisitic motivation. Why is Walt even still a meth cooker, his original reasons are long gone, and there’ve been numerous times he could just walk away? Skylar is weirdly fixated on buying a particular car-wash because the propritor was mean to her. Jesse seems to have forgotten that Walt essentially murdered his girlfriend. Gus went from ultra-cool criminal mastermind to psychopathic killer, just because they needed a way to up the ante.
Could he? I’ve seen guys on the TV gang shows who managed to retire, but that was usually after prison. His only out would be to leave the country and get a new identity, but how would they explain that to Walt Jr.? Gus won’t let Walt retire. Too risky.
Jesse doesn’t know that Walt could have saved her.
This I agree with. I prefer the Gus who doesn’t get his hands dirty. We need more back story on him.
The part about Hank taking the notes to Walt is almost a certainty. I’m not sure how Jesse can be linked to Gale’s murder. As far as we can tell, no one saw Jesse at the scene except Victor who now lives in a toxic waste barrel. Jesse did not enter the apartment or touched anything inside. Gus will want Jesse taken care of because Jesse’s personal deterioration (as witnessed by Tyrus) makes him a huge risk to his meth operation.
Regarding the comments about how much slower the plot seems to be this season. Bear in mind that the episodes are almost operating at real-time. Each episode is happening about the day or days after the previous episode. So it’d be natural for some slow down in the action. I’m enjoying how they’re showing the changes that are occurring in each of the main characters. It is, however, very disheartening to see Jesse’s degeneration into his current state, especially after his previous improvements post-therapy. Skyler is being set up as the business brain behind Walt’s meth empire. Let’s see how long before she accepts violence as a way to get “attitude adjustments”. I think this season will have a lot to do about Skyler breaking bad.
No, you didn’t miss anything. There was no real hint of recognition at the end of the episode - just Hank picking it up and reading it.
Walt got hooked on the money and the power of being who he is. Going into the series, he was an emasculated and powerless man who did what he was told, only looking back at his past glory and achievements. Now, he’s a power-player, he’s changed the meth market in New Mexico. He’s brought down huge players and made millions in the process. He doesn’t want to give up that power now that he’s had a taste of it.
Meanwhile, the money and the life that it could bring her and her kids is seducing Skylar. Remember how she was disgusted by everything near the end of Season 3 but then just stared at the money? She saw the opportunities that it could bring. The only reason she’s fixated on the car wash is that she wants to keep the money and it’s the logical business to use for it since they deal in services and Walt used to work there. Once she got it in her head, she couldn’t get it out. The “personal insult” was likely somewhat of a challenge to her but I saw it more as a way to manipulate Walt into getting on board with the plan.
Jesse still doesn’t know that Walt was responsible for Jane’s death, does he? Walt mumbled something about how sorry he was in “Fly” but I don’t remember Jesse ever putting the pieces together. And even if he had, he also remembers Walt going the extra mile to save his life and keep him safe from Gus at the end of S3. He’s looked up to Walt as a father figure for a while now and I think he felt validated by Walt’s protection of him.
Gus I don’t feel we have enough information on to totally get a feel for his motivations. He’s still a bit of a specter so hopefully they’ll flesh that out this season.
And in case anyone is interested, the cool dark song that played while Jesse was going crazy was “If I Had a Heart” by Fever Ray.
I got that, but if he was just making crap up, the owner would have known it. The owner was talking about filtering the water, using green chemicals etc, and from that I was under the impression he was allowed to dump it into the ground water or was aware of a leak in his drainage system (or was permitted a certain amount of runoff). If ALL his water was going directly to the sanitary sewer, he could have told the guy that the city/county needs to inspect their drain lines as they’re they likely cause of the problem. Also, that water probably wouldn’t have made it up to the surface.
But I digress, I wasn’t trying to point out a problem with the show. I was just wondering if the car wash cleans up their water and dumps it into the ground. I wouldn’t be surprised if by doing that they get some kind of credit from the city/county/state because that would be that much more waste water they don’t have to treat. I know in a lot of places if you dump clean water* into a drain you get a credit. This would be slightly different which is why I asked, it would also make sense for an EPA type guy to periodically check up on things.
*Clean water IME is usually water used for things like cooling equipment or driving a pump.
I’m definitely enjoying this season. But one thing is bugging me… how have the cops not been called on Jesse’s party yet?
Also, I thought the whole idea was to get a ‘danny’, someone not related to the money and willing to look the other way while it’s laundered. I have no doubt Skylar can do a good job but wasn’t this entire idea focused on establishing a degree of separation from you and the cash flow?
I know what you mean. But how long is it going to take before Hank brings the Lab Book to Walter? What’ll he do about it?
Who’s going to ask them? They just need something plausible on paper to keep suspicion away, the IRS isn’t going to sit outside and count cars.
That’s bugging my wife, also.
Not recently, but way back in the earlier seasons after each ‘cook’ he could have walked away. Remember all the ‘just one more cook and then I’m out’,‘I just need you for one more cook and then were done’ or ‘No, I don’t need this anymore, I’m out’ speeches. Walt and Jesse both had a few of them.
Skyler is electing herself to be the “danny”. Also, as she points out in one episode, spouses cannot be compelled to testify against each other in court — should it come to that.
I think for cash businesses, the IRS is more concerned with under-reporting of income. So, for example, if someone has a pizza restaurant, they’ll look at the amount of income claimed and compare it to the amount of flour purchased. If the owner claims to only sell ten pizzas a day but is buying enough flour for 500 pizzas a day, there may be under-reporting going on. So it’s plausible that the IRS might sit outside and count cars, much as Skyler did. (Of course if they did that, they will notice that the car wash isn’t nearly busy enough for the amount of income that they’re going to be claiming.)
Me too. I mean, it’s bugging me. I’m not bugging your wife. Or am I? If I am, tell her I’m sorry.
Jesse’s house was a wild party before. Now it’s a seedy filthy meth den, complete with graffiti, couples screwing on the floor, and a paranoid schizophrenic.
I think Marie stealing again may have been a way to bring Hank’s cop friend, with the notebook, into the story. It also created a reason for Hank to feel indebted to him so that he would agree to look at the notebook. It’s also a way to show that’s she’s breaking down under the stress of her home situation.
The first time they showed that pig, it was in a house Marie was viewing. The second time, it was on a stand or table next to Hank’s bed. It was a way of establishing that she was stealing again.
I’ve been wondering the same thing. At first I wondered why no one had complained about the woofers. In fact, I thought that they were going to use cops showing up at his house to add some sort of complication to the story.
Now I’m just wondering why no one has reported the obvious assorted junkies and deranged people coming and going.
Uh, when? You do remember the part where the only reason Walter isn’t dead right now is because Gus needs him to run the lab, right? His life literally depends on continuing to cook. I’d say that’s a damn good reason to keep cooking.
Something that baffled me in this episode was Marie’s comment about Puerto Rico when she was looking at the spoons. The real estate agent says there’s “one for each of the fifty states”, and Marie goes as if to correct her “Puerto Rico is technically a territory”. There are fifty states, so are we to assume that the real estate agent was mistaken and there were more than fifty spoons (because they included U.S. territories)?
Well being a pedantic freak with time to kill, since I have this episode on iTunes I went back and freeze-framed the shot with the spoons and counted. There are 54 spoons in the shot (4 rows of 12 and a row of 6). If indeed the owner had one for every state and territory there would be 55, since the U.S. has 50 states and 5 territories (Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Marianas Islands). There’s also D.C., which could potentially make the total 56 but either way it’s short. She stole one later, but this was before that spoon went missing since in this shot they are all neatly arrayed into rows and when we later learn of the theft there is clearly a gap where there wasn’t before.
What the hell does it mean? Why are there 54 spoons?
This is driving me nuts.