Perhaps at the time that the spoon collection was purchased, there were only four US territories?
By the way, I bet she could have gotten away with the theft if she’d stolen the last spoon in the last row, not one from the middle. (Did she want to get caught?)
I have another angle on it now - what I’ve learned from Wiki is that while those are the five major territories (and I knew the U.S. also had minor territories that do not grant U.S. citizenship to their residents), only 4 of the 5 major territories actually grant U.S. citizenship - American Samoa does not. So perhaps the collector based his or her collection on the states + only those territories which grant U.S. citizenship. Funny distinction (what makes American Samoa a “major” territory if it doesn’t grant citizenship?) but I guess it could work as an explanation.
Look–it’s the real estate agent who talks with Marie about the spoons. I’m not sure the agent is really a good source of information about the collection. She’s just making small talk, being friendly to a potential buyer.
The collection may actually be incomplete, but the agent might not know or care much about that.
By the way–I love that the Google ads are all for things that would be useful to someone running a car wash. Ha!
Here is a set of 53, it says it has the 50 states, plus Puerto Rico, plus one for the whole country and one for the Statue of Liberty.
Here is another set that says it has 54 pieces but it doesn’t specify what the extras are.
A spoon for the Statue of Liberty?! Seriously? That’s equivalent to a whole state? Plus, they’d deign to throw in Puerto Rico but not the other major territories, even the ones that grant U.S. citizenship?
Do these spoon-set makers have any integrity?
Or, ya know, not stolen something she asked about. I was under the impression she hasn’t stolen in a long time. I wonder if part of this was her trying to get Hank’s attention as opposed to all the stress driving her back into old habits.
Part of me really wanted the cops to roll up while the real estate lady was grabbing her purse. To the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing wrong with lying about your name or back story when looking at houses (I didn’t want to get a bunch of calls later) and without proof that she took it, I don’t think the cops could really do anything about it. If anything, I’d imagine the real estate lady would be in more trouble for assaulting or unlawfully detaining her.
Also, do we have any thoughts on why she was looking at houses? Was it just to kill time? New hobby? She certainly wouldn’t be thinking about leaving Hank and moving into one of those houses, they’re far to big.
I guess the question is, did she ask about the spoons and then say “Hey, I should start stealing again?” or did she say “I’m going to steal one of those spoons, but first I’m going to draw some attention to myself” It it’s the latter, then yeah, she wanted to get caught.
If they would have just shown her pocketing something else before the spoons, then we could infer that she was hoping to get caught and get Hank’s attention.
She certainly seemed to get his attention, the way he’s been acting towards her she was probably half expecting her to let her sit there for a few hours and take her lumps. I don’t think anyone would blame her if she left him. I’ve been expecting her to either record him or have Walt and Skylar sneak in and stay in the living room one day just so she had a witness to see/hear how bad he’s been treating her when no ones around.
Also, I think the porno scene helped prove (to us, the viewers) that this really is on the surface. If he had just left the porn on and told her to leave him alone, that would have been one thing, it would have been genuinely mean and insulting to her. I’m sure she’d be happy to do whatever she could to…satisfy him. But he didn’t. He scrambled to turn it off, knowing it would cross a line that couldn’t be repaired as he heals.
It was probably a bonus you got after 51 months of paying $19.95 plus shipping and handling for the Spoon of the Month club. They suck you in with the extras. “Now how much would you pay?!?”
She’s imagining a better/different life. I don’t remember if she was unhappy when she was stealing in S1 but she’s sure unhappy now.
Does she mind not having a child, do we think?
The only other odd behavior I’ve noticed is in S3 when she precisely lined up four packets of Sweet 'n Low on the counter before opening them and putting them in her coffee. And her predilection for purple, which I didn’t even notice until it was mentioned in the commentaries.
Skyler went off about the champagne because on paper, scraping together 800k to buy the carwash should require herculean effort from them; no way could they be blowing money on luxuries.
She wants that car wash in particular because Walt worked there and the guy was a dick to her, but in an earlier season she explicitly explained that no other cover story would be believable; it has to be a car wash to be plausible.
But thats a plot development from the last few episodes. For most of the last two seasons, Gus has been hiring Walt on a more temporary basis, for just one delivery, and then for just a few months. There wasn’t really any reason Walt couldn’t walk away at the end of either period, as his original reasons for cooking meth were pretty much moot by then (he’d made his money, paid for his cancer treatment and his cancer was in remission anyways). Instead, he keeps practically begging Gus to keep him working.
I guess we’re supposed to feel that Walt has just found he really likes cooking meth, but they don’t really give much justification for that. He’d pretty much figured out the technical challenges involved back in Season 1, so its not like there’s much left to the process other then pouring the same chemicals in the same beakers over and over again, and occasionally having people come try to shoot you.
It’s like SopranosLite or as I like to call it, Sons of Anarchy (based on the first few episodes that I’ve seen).
**Interface2x ** has provided you with a good theory about why Walt hasn’t stopped cooking in post 27. I’ll quote it again here:
As for why it has to be that car wash, Vince Gilligan mentioned in this week’s podcast that Skylar was thinking about how to fool Hank more than anyone else.
While no one in the IRS might become suspicious if Walt opens a nail saloon, I bet it would raise Hank’s eyebrow.
This boggles my mind. They’ve given* plenty* of justification for Walt continuing to cook meth. I’m betting I could find at least a dozen examples on Youtube, where Walt finds some kind of satisfaction in cooking.
There’s the end of the very first episode, when Walt comes home after narrowly avoiding death, and exhilarated by the whole experience, takes Skyler by surprise in the bedroom. I mean, the writers are pretty clear that Walt is invigorated by the danger, the power, and the money. Here’s another example. It comes shortly after Walt goes into remission, when he no longer has a reason to cook methamphetamine, and so he spends the entire episode looking for direction. In the end decides that he just can’t give up the thrill of the business.
And, of course, speaking of the first season, there’s Gretchen and Eliot’s offer to pay for his treatment in episode six, which he doesn’t even consider. Walt was given multiple options very early in his diagnosis and he chose to cook methamphetamine, not because he needed to, but because he felt like a man for doing it.
Walt’s motivations are pretty clear. I always go back to the scene where he took Holly into the basement and showed her the money he made. It showed how much pride he took in making all that money with his skills as a chemist, something that has been pretty consistently undervalued in his prior life.
[QUOTE=Ellis Dee]
Skyler went off about the champagne because on paper, scraping together 800k to buy the carwash should require herculean effort from them; no way could they be blowing money on luxuries.
[/quote]
If anyone’s really paying attention like that, they’d know that they saved $80,000 off the initial offer. And really, no one would question someone buying an expensive bottle of champagne right after scoring big whiling gambling. If Walt showed a history of indulging in such things, I could see where Skylar was coming from. But he hasn’t - even his apartment is boring.
I agree she was overreacting, just trying to justify the character’s motivation.
I really like the comparison between Skyler’s obssession with the financials and Walter’s obssession in the Fly episode.
Jesse’s “Do you wanna go do something?” was really sad. Have he and Walt ever done anything together that wasn’t meth related (aside from an occasional meal together when making meth or going from/to make meth)?
At first I thought that was Jesse wanting to talk privately with Walt, outside the lab. I was surprised when he really did go on the go-karts.
And why didn’t Walt take him up on it, or at least suggest something else? He knows Jesse’s in a bad place, psychologically. Plus, Walt should want to keep an eye on him anyway, for business reasons.
Is the new Victor watching Jesse?
Yeah, who was that? I couldn’t tell if he was watching Jesse’s house or Walt’s house, because it just showed him for a brief moment between scenes.
To be fair, the show is largely meth-related. Watching characters shoot the shit in their leisure time wouldn’t be all that interesting.
That being said, it’s probably safe to assume that based on their relationship dynamic, riding go-karts is not the kind of thing they’d usually do together were they real people.