Yeah, he has an accent, but the “thickest accent ever” award goes to Tio Hector in the flashback by the pool where Gus’s partner gets killed. It’s pretty obvious to me from that scene why the Tio character has no speaking lines (other than that flashback), and instead communicates via bell - his Spanish was horrendous! He made Gus’s Spanish sound perfect by comparison.
I am thinking that Walt has not gone bad. Here’s my thinking:
Each of his acts of violence was in self-defense. The thugs on the RV tried to kill him. Walt got one with phosphene gas. The survivor was going to kill him in his basement; Walt got him with a bike lock. Jane was going to blackmail Walt. Walt didn’t kill her; he just refrained from saving her. Walt didn’t make the airplanes crash. Walt had Jesse kill Gale because otherwise, Gus (via Mike) was going to kill Walt. Walt killed Gus and assorted goons because Gus was going to kill Walt’s family. Walt poisoned Brock, but with a non-lethal dose. The risk of killing Brock was necessary, because his only hope was to have a conversation with Jesse, who had been seduced to Gus’s side. Walt risked his neighbor’s life; again, necessary in self-defense, necessitated by Gus’s goons.
Where Walt did go wrong was going into the meth business. By leaving law-abiding society, he put himself in a position where brutal acts of self-defense are necessary. You meet some awful people in crime. Walt’s loyalty to Jesse never wavered, but certainly he was a bad influence on Jesse, leading him into horrible, emotionally scarring experiences. Walt was also a weak, cowardly man when he started. Even after developing some strength and courage, he backslid a few times. The further he got into the meth business, the harder it was to get out. But he wanted out. And he did what it took to get out. He found the courage to do what needed to be done to end the whole insane affair.
Walt has made a journey into the criminal underworld, and returned. Not only that, he has returned a better person! He is more courageous, less dependent on other people’s approval, and better able to appreciate the law-abiding life.
“It’s over.” The only crime now would be writing a fifth season.
Both the actors who play Gus and Tio don’t speak a word of Spanish. They had to learn it on the set. It sounds good to anyone who doesn’t speak Spanish, which is as much as anyone should expect.
I don’t speak a word of Spanish other then what I learned in a few years of college level Spanish. Even I could tell it was pretty awful. They were speaking soooo slowly it was like being back in class. It’s not that you had to be fluent in Spanish to know something was up, but just having heard enough Spanish in TV and movies was enough to know they seemed to be struggling through it. I almost wonder if it would have helped if they would have had another day or so to practice their lines with a coach.
Walt getting into the meth business is sort of the definition of “Breaking Bad” as defined by Jesse in the first episode.
I’m convinced now about Huell snatching the smokes – the YouTube videos are more clear than the picture on my TV (lousy non-digital cable).
But I’m not convinced about the breathing. The sound I heard could have been the whisking noise that tires make when heard from a distance, but the sound was too obtrusive to be accidental. I didn’t hear tires “screeching” – it was a quiet sound.
No big deal though. I’ve never been a step ahead on this show. 
Like I said, I thought the same thing at first. The composition of the shot really plays a trick on your brain because you hear what you expect to hear. And the tires are off in the distance, so they are quiet and there’s some echo/muffling of the sound. But try listening to the sound mixdown by itself without an image and I guarantee you won’t hear any breathing.
Vince and the rest are usually pretty clear about when there is something they are NOT telling that they DO know, and so far the podcast and interviews make it pretty clear that Gilligan and Co. don’t really have anything specific put together for next year.
All to say: those of you thinking you hear breathing are almost certainly imagining things. They havent’ thought far enough ahead to set that up, and if they had it would be a little clearer to everyone.
I haven’t listened to the Insider yet, but I understand Vince said Huell took the cigarettes, no ifs ands or buts. The details aren’t important, what’s important is that he took them. Someone suggested that perhaps he grabbed them and later while Jesse was talking to Saul he (or someone else) tossed the pack (without the ricin) in his car under the assumption that he wouldn’t think anything of it.
Either way, I’m willing to accept it as fact at this point.
I just wish they would put the latest podcast up for download so that I could throw it on my thumbdrive and listen to it in my car instead of trying to do it from my computer in between people walking in and out of my office. Last time I did that it took me two days to get through it.
I listened to the podcast recorded at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club with Dean Norris (Hank), Aaron Paul (Jesse) and RJ Mitte (Walt Jr.) in attendance. It was hilarious when they asked Mitte how he prepares for his character and he said “I eat a lot of breakfast”- the fact he’s usually shown at mealtime isn’t lost on him. (The kid also comes across as a horndog [not surprising since he’s 19, good looking and currently making a lot of money] whose grown-ups need to reign in his spending- he’s bought and crashed several expensive cars already.)
Mitte said that one thing he’s going to lobby for in the coming season is a scene where Jr. meets Jesse as he and Aaron Paul have never been in a scene together. He also said playing Walt Jr. hurts him physically because he worked for years in therapy to not have to use crutches or leg braces and having to use them hurts his already bad back.
The actors stated that they don’t know most of the plot developments until shooting, though Aaron Paul said he did know that there was no question Jesse shot and killed Gale in the final episode of Season 3. Norris said that Gilligan has assured him that Hank is in the show til at least the final few episodes, which is the only and same assurance he gave Aaron Paul. Of course for Paul this is all gravy since Jesse died- quite horribly I understand- in a scene written for the end of season 1; one reason for his reprieve was that the season was supposed to be 9 episodes and he was to die in the final three, but only 6 were shot due to the writer’s strike and the character Jesse was the most popular on the show.
I heard an interview with Cranston, Norris and Mitte some while ago and they said the first thing they get, weeks before filming, are the episode titles and thoughts run wild. Face Off of course is the masterpiece of that- not sure if they got it. Cranston said during that interview that “The most recent title I’ve been given is called Junior Drowns”, which seemed to actually make Mitte go “What?”- may have been joking but he sounded like it was actually a shock at first. He did say on the podcast I just listened to that he’s always afraid of opening a new script to find a death scene.
That was also the interview where Cranston was asked if he thought they’d bring any of the major players from Malcolm in the Middle on and he said “Oh God I hope not!” He then backpedalled to explain it’s not because he hates the idea of working with them again, but just because “Reunions only work in sitcoms” and that seeing him with Lois or Rhys or Malcolm would take people out of the episode (which is completely true). He also said he’s still very close with the kid who played Dewey and wrote him a recommendation letter for university. (There have been a few minor characters played by actors who were on Malcolm but none big enough to make you think “Oh, that’s the crazy schoolteacher” or whatever.)
Some trivia: Walt’s condo is Gilligan’s on-location apartment, and the old lady who checks on the house is his real life mother.
All the actors said that Gilligan writes explicit directions for their actions and reactions. I’d love to read the script for the Hector:Gus scene to see how he described Hector’s Final S-U-C-K-M-Y- glance and Gus’s realization.
They also all said that Esposito is one of the nicest and coolest people on Earth and that it’s a bit jarring to see this guy who just calmly threatened to kill Walt’s infant daughter or just taunted an old paraphlegic sitting on the side of the stage in a lotus position meditating between takes or rolling around on the floor with his kids.
You guys were right! I can’t believe how many of you called Walt poisoning Brock. Even when it was laid out for me, I didn’t buy it. Well done to all the prognosticators.
I was irritated before and during the finale because I thought Walt’s plotting was over the top and cartoonishly complicated. I’m slowly coming around though. I can buy that Walt, who was holed up in his house waiting to die, concocted a desperate plan to get Jesse’s attention.
Walt has spent the season trying to get Jesse’s attention, the poisoning was drastic and a bit round about but Walt had worn out conventional avenues. I think it was fair for Walt to assume that Jesse would seek him out no matter what conclusions Jesse drew about the poisoning.
After that Walt was just reacting and planning as the situation developed. The longer I think about/fanwank it, the more I like it. I thought Brock getting into the ricin himself was better writing but if it had gone down that way I might be crowing about dumb luck.
Again, great job to everyone who called it!
I was looking for something somewhat unrelated and ran across this picture which caught me oddly off guard. In most contexts, it’s a perfectly normal picture, but here, after 3 years of knowing these people, this picture shouldn’t ever happen and it really caught me by surprise.
The link for which is where, exactly? HELLO!
I think Walt using the poisoning to make Gus the bad guy made perfect sense, but I don’t think that logically Walt would assume that Jesse would seek him out and blame him for it, because I think Jesse doing so was bizarre and strained in itself, and the only way it does make sense is because Jesse needed to blame someone, and he was angry with Walt and warming to Gus.
The “Walt’s Thinking” that makes more sense to me is simply that poisoning Brock would make Jesse feel desperate and vulnerable, allowing Walt to communicate with him somehow or another, at which point Walt would blame Gus.
But as Vince says, there is no absolutely definitive answer, since they like to leave as much as possible up to the audience to decide for themselves. Which is yet one more thing that makes this show so outstanding and why we love it.
As for the person a few posts back who thinks Walt is still a good guy and Season 5 is the crime: better not watch, because another thing Vince has never wavered about is the fact that this is the story of how Mr. Chips becomes Scarface.
Sounds like we’re saying the same thing. Jesse accusing Walt is what irritated me about the second to the last episode, it was convoluted and idiotic (despite being correct), and I couldn’t swallow it.
Post-finale we have to accept the while Walt may not have intended Jesse’s exact reaction, he did plan for it. Setting the gun on the ottoman and turning his back was specifically designed to force the conversation and reforge trust.
My lingering issue with this season is Walt’s acting ability. As was mentioned in the other thread, Walt has one hell of a time when he lies to Hank, he can’t seem to improvise very well. Actually, that in itself may be the answer, Walt isn’t a nimble liar but he’s pretty good when he has some time to think. Planning and desperation gave Walt all he needed to woo Jesse.
The AV Club has interviews with Giancarlo Esposito and Dean Norris, both good reading.
This is is why I don’t read cast interviews. I don’t know why I started reading this. There goes any suspense there.
I barely recognized Esposito–had it not been clear from your post, I might not have. We rarely, if ever, saw Gus with anything more than the ghost of a smile, and we definitely never saw him having a big ol’ belly laugh.
Not sure if it’s online, but it was on iTunes when you search for Breaking Bad podcasts.