Exactly. It surprises me how often character traits and mindset are overlooked in understanding plot developments. It shouldn’t be surprising when a character makes a strange choice that the clinical, detatched, omniscient viewer wouldn’t.
Still, the scene is there for a reason, and it’s to show that Skyler is paranoid about her new criminal enterprise and to plant the seed that something very minor is destined to trip them up in the coming episodes.
I’ve found that thinking about why a non-plot-development scene is included helps me appreciate the series more. For example, I’ve read posters on other boards who wonder why Hank is devoting so much time to minerals now that he’s laid up. Most chalk it up as a way to underscore how far Hank has fallen away from his job, but IMO if that were the case we wouldn’t see so much of it. The obvious guess is that at some point this knowledge will be useful in breaking the case, but as the science of minerology is a close cousin to chemistry, I wonder if this knowledge will also trip up Walt, e.g. Walt at some point covers his tracks with some chemistry gobblety-gook that Hank will recognize/see through.
A totally unrelated to the show question: is there something wrong with Lavell Crawford’s head? It’s one of the pointiest I’ve ever seen and I was wondering if it’s the result of an accident or some kind of illness. (I felt pity for Walt when Crawford’s character asked to use the bathroom; you can’t say no, but DAMN- a 400 pound guy with an upset stomach, you’re going to be striking matches and spraying Glade for days.)
I was wondering the same thing about Crawford. I think maybe it’s the combination of shaved head and - how do I put it nicely - voluptuous face, that gives the illusion of a pointy head.
Sigh…
The fact that a person who has an upset stomach is obese has no effect whatsoever on on the relative stench of their excrement. NONE.
All human beings with gastric disturbances leading to painful/abnormal bowel movements are equally likely to produce a foul stench in so doing, and the amount of flesh on the person having the gastric distress will not increase that stench or make it linger in the air any longer than with a slender person. Nor are they likely to produce “more” excrement than anyone else in that situation.
And in case my pointing it out doesn’t make it obvious, your assuming this and saying perpetuates very hurtful and unfair stereotypes about obese people.
[QUOTE=Stoid]
And in case my pointing it out doesn’t make it obvious, your assuming this and saying perpetuates very hurtful and unfair stereotypes about obese people.
[/QUOTE]
People not letting morbidly obese strangers use their toilets has become a social problem, has it?
Wow…very impressive way to completely and utterly ignore every single thing I actually said, even though I was extremely specific about exactly what you said that was objectionable and misinformed.
I kinda wonder if it’s foreshadowing the IRS coming down on Jesse - he’s not hiding his money at all and he has just as much as Walt and just bought a house.
I think Gus is going to find a way to get rid of Jesse, which will probably end with Walt finally getting Gus out of the picture. I hope I’m wrong but I have a bad feeling.
That’s a good point. Saul did try to sell Jesse on the Nail Salon idea, but Jesse rejected it. Since then, I don’t recall any mention of laundering Jesse’s income.
Surely Walt and Saul aren’t stupidly overlooking the necessity of laundering Jesse’s income, are they? That’s pretty much as dangerous for Walt as not laundering his own.
If Hank gets back on the trail of Heisenberg, which could happen through that notebook, he’s going to look at Jesse again. If he discovers that Jesse bought that house, he no doubt has some IRS contacts from his old DEA job and will see that as a way of bringing down Jesse without Jesse connecting it to him and reinstating a brutality suit against him.
I don’t really understand why Saul’s so gung ho on the nail place. How much can you realistically launder through a strip mall nail place? Even a successful one can’t believably clear more than the low six figures and Walt makes several times that in a month.
True. Maybe Saul owns it and is trying to unload it? He’s not exactly ethical after all.
That brings up another point. How much could they realistically launder through that car wash?
I think Skyler mentioned some figures about income, but I don’t remember what they were. I do know that she based the offer on the business’ income and the original offer was I think $380,000. The income couldn’t be in the 10s of millions a year for her to come up with a figure like that could it? It would have to be in that range to realistically hide Walt’s million dollars a month income, wouldn’t it? (Wasn’t Gus’s original offer $3 million for 3 months?)
Well they don’t have to launder his entire income as it comes in - just launder enough to live like he’d like to live. If he retired from meth making in a year or two, then they could keep laundering the remaining cash for the next few years.
I’m pretty sure it was $879,000, which I thought at the time and still do think was enormous money for a car wash. What kind of income are we talking about??
She then dropped it to $800,000. Did it say what she wound up paying for it?
A question about that: Suppose you’re the car wash owner. Further suppose that after paying any outstanding debts you have on the business you clear around $800,000, and further suppose that you’ve been taking home around $100,000 (give take a few thousand) from the business.
$800K is a lot of money but it’s not at all inexhaustible. You’d have to make not much less than 10% interest to retire on your current comfort level, while if you live off the principal you’ll be broke in a few years. Would somebody in his situation likely just use whatever he clears as a nest egg while he goes and does something else for money, or is there any type of annuity that you could invest a large-ish sum in that is both safe AND would pay you anywhere near 10% interest in an economy where banks rarely offer even 2% CDs anymore?
Loved that he ate the pudding right after Marie left the room with her “so don’t eat it”.
I believe that Hank was somewhat glad about discovering Marie was back to her old crazy tricks. After being initially so angry, he softened, and I don’t believe for a minute it was just because she cried. I think it was because he felt less weak, small, useless and needy; her soft underbelly was exposed and that meant he had to be strong and rescue her. That’s a role he loves and needs. His rage right now has everything to do with feeling helpless and dependent on her. Marie needing him to step in and fix it is her needing a bedpan.
I’ve said it in previous threads and I’ll say it here again, they need to advance the main plot line more than they have. My wife and I love the show but we both agreed that there have been too many shots of Jesse’s party house now and they go on for too long. I’m ready for them to motivate Hank to get him back into the main storyline again. The carwash arc is boring us.
This is still our favorite TV show but this season is off to an INCREDIBLY slow start IMHO and it’s hurting the show.
… the upcoming episode is going to kick things into high gear, as evidenced by the Hermanos van being shot up. I think Gus’ cartel problems have finally come home to roost.
I know that some people have been grumbling, many of my friends included, about the pace of the show so far. But it’s been my contention that the first three episodes have been Gilligan and the writers moving the characters into place. I think that episode 4 is going to be the last of the real “expository”-ish episode before things really start happening. Hank is going to start investigating Gale’s lab notebook; we’re going to see some movement on the Walt front now that the carwash is (hopefully) a done deal; Jesse is finally going to crack and do something totally unexpected (or have something unexpected happen to him); Mike and Gus will have to face the consequences of Gus’ heavy investment into the superlab, since it seems like he’s really laying it all on Walt producing enough meth to make it worthwhile.