After the police let Jesse go, I spent the rest of the episode wondering where the ricin cigarette disappeared to. I’m still waiting for the answer. If I don’t get an answer next season, I will be very disappointed.
Next season has to be Hank vs. Heisenberg. I definitely want to see the return of Mike, but with no more Gus, there is no reason.
Whew. I was expecting something really bad, like someone in Walt’s family dying or something. I did not look at the spoilers from last week, so I had no idea what would happen. It was not as intense as some past episodes and not as intense as what I was expecting. But satisfying, none the less.
I was totally expecting Jesse to punch Walt at the end after realizing that Walt poisoned the kid with the berries- he can’t be that stupid not to put it together. Does he think he just lost the ricin? Does he realize that Walt set him up and he’s letting it go because Gus did, in fact, have to die?
I’m glad they got the cops on Jesse about the ricin. That was something that I just wasn’t willing to suspend disbelief on- that they wouldn’t call the authorities about that.
I suppose you can see poisoning the kid as an act of evil, but if Walt knew the poison wasn’t nearly as toxic as ricin, he probably calculated as much he was capable to give the kid just enough of a dose as to bring about illness, but have it be entirely treatable. Of course there’s no guarantees, but everything Walt’s been doing has seemed to arise out of abject desperation.
So very satisfied with this season.
Couple of points:
It makes sense for Walt to want to cook again if the cancer comes back or if the car wash isn’t as profitable as he thought it would be. He spent most of his earnings anyway. But what about Jesse? He has a ton of money and a quasi-family to look after.
Walt hasn’t really replaced Gus; he’s destroyed the biggest American SW meth distribution network and left a void that won’t be replaced. He’s on his own now like before. Remember, Gus had an entire logistics chain to get this stuff to every state but New Mexico. If Walt makes blue meth again it’ll show up right in his backyard.
It’s been so long I can’t remember, does Walt still have that chemical drum? Or the other supplies? Or did it all go down the tubes with the RV? What happened to the RV anyway? Anyway, if not, he’s going to have to make a new lab, get new equipment, and figure out where to get chemicals. I love the idea of Saul finding investors to help him out which I suppose could solve point 2 as well. It’s not clear to me how embedded Saul is in Gus’s network, other than knowing Mike.
Saul either disposed of it or gave it to Walt.
Well, that’d certainly be one plot element for next season. But there has to be more to last 16 episodes! Somehow, Walter has to continue his descent to total evil. Maybe he’ll get hooked up to another meth operation. After all, he still has to make a lot of money quickly. I don’t think he’ll go back to cooking in an RV.
I do see one plot hole in tonight’s episode. Before Gus went into Hector’s room he sent Tyrus in to check it out. Why didn’t Tyrus see or otherwise detect the bomb attached to Hector’s chair? It was not exactly concealed. It was visible if you take a quick look around the chair. It’d make more sense had Walter concealed the bomb better. He was taking a big risk of failing by having the bomb so visible. Of course, then it 'd make it harder for us (the TV viewers) to see it. If not a plot hole, it’s a plot element that could’ve been handled better.
One part of the final scene with Gus and Hector was particularly well done. Up until tonight Hector would not give Gus the respect of looking him in the eye. But in tonight’s finale Hector did give Gus the eye and that tipped Gus off that something was wrong, but oh too late.
I think if you just go back and watch last week’s episode carefully you will see how Jesse’s cigarette pack was switched. Saul has to be involved in Walt’s plot. He knew the insides of Andrea’s house (just go back to eps 408) and from tonight’s episode it seemed that he knew that Brock didn’t get ricin when he visited Jesse. To me, after Walter and Jesse, the most essential character on BB is Saul. He’s good for all kinds of plot devices.
RE: the RV.
In the episode where Hank tracked down the RV at the junk yard, Jesse and Walt were inside, but Hank assumed only Jesse was in there. That’s when Walt staged that phone call that Marie was hurt, so Hank had to bolt, and in the mean time, they had the RV crushed in a compactor.
I can’t remember what happened to the drum of blue stuff.
He was looking for bugs, not bombs. They assumed Tio had narced to the DEA and they were searching for planted listening devices. As far as Gus knew, Walt didn’t know Tio’s where abouts nor their connection.
I was expecting something … more unexpected. I’m guessing the average viewer didn’t suspect Walt did the poisoning, so that last reveal was a big shocking moment, but the people in this thread were expecting it I think, so the last moment didn’t have that mind blowing quality.
Still, good episode. It could easily have been a series finale - it makes me wonder if they wrote it before they knew if they’d get a fifth season, so it was written to be a series finale if need be. If not, you’d think they’d spend more time setting up the next season - like showing Hank getting suspicious of Walt or something.
I’m dissapointed that Walt never put on the Heisenberg hat. It could’ve made for a crowning moment of awesome.
Next season will feature Hank vs Walt I’m sure, but it’d also be interesting if Walt decides to go full out bad, hire Mike and some of Gus’ old crew, and become the new Gus. Not sure what else you’d fill 16 episodes with.
On tvtropes it’s called a Xanatos Roulette.
No, this was the resurgence of Walt as the master manipulator. The last half of the season has had us believing that Walt was becoming the weak guy who gets taken advantage of. This was proof that Heisenberg still lives, even without the hat.
The whole reason that Walt knew he could poison the kid and blame it on Gus is that he also knows that Jesse still thinks of Walt as Mr. White, nerdy chemistry teacher. In Jesse’s mind Mr. White is not capable of poisoning a child - and Walt literally gambled his life on that fact. Jesse had a gun pressed against his forehead and did not pull the trigger. Once that line is crossed, Jesse is no longer looking at Walt for the poisoning (which is now just an “accident”).
Jesse, despite his flaws, is still a “better” person at heart than Walt at this point. After finding out that the kid wasn’t really poisoned (as far as he knows) he seeks reassurance that the actions he helped happen that resulted in Gus’ death were actually worth it.
Thinking about it, I think it would’ve been more satisfying if Brock had died. That Walt had intended to give him a non-lethal dose but overdid it a bit. It would be a logical continuation of the descent of his character - killing in immediate self defense, killing in indirect self defense, eventually to manipulative manslaughter.
The impact of Walt being willing to poison a child as part of his plan doesn’t fully hit home because the kid ends up getting off alright. If he was dead, and there were a real weight to his choices, it would’ve been more dramatically interesting. It also could’ve given more plot lines in the future - the cops with Jesse, and Jesse perhaps figuring out what Walt did.
Walt was still hiding just outside the door when Tyrus inspected the room, right? Couldn’t he have run in for a quick second, connected the bomb, and hit the road between Tyrus waiting outside and Gus’s entrance?
They showed it last episode - as I pointed out in last week’s thread, I watched the frisking scene with Huell many times and it is abundantly clear that Huell pocketed the cigarettes during that scene (it’s safe to assume he switched them out with another pack).
Walt’s body count:
1.) Gassed two drug dealers in the RV.
2.) Strangled another dealer in Jesse’s basement.
3.) Hit two dealers with his car(finishing off the wounded survivor with a bullet to the head).
4.) Shot two of Fring’s henchmen(he held one at gun point in the elevator on the way down to see the other henchman and then executed them both with his revolver).
5.) Ordered the murder of Gale.
6.) Arranged the murder of Gus and Tyrus with Hector Salamanca sacrificing himself in the process.
Plus he poisoned a kid!
I forgot that the dealer he strangled was one of the two that he gassed in the RV. So strike one from that list.
I’d say it’s pretty far from being perfect. It’s in a commercial/retail area that has lots of traffic and employees, and it is directly traceable to the Whites. Also, it’s not clear that there is sufficient extra space to put a lab there clandestinely, even if it didn’t have the other issues.
Plus, I just don’t see Skyler embracing the prospect of being THAT implicated in the whole operation.
I have to wonder if anyone was killed when he pulled the trick with the mercury in Tuco’s office. That was a pretty good-sized explosion; if he didn’t it was by pure luck.
I think the path for next year is clear–Walt becomes Gus, taking advantage of the huge vacuum of product now that Gus and the cartel are both out of business. I bet Mike comes back and helps him make the necessary connections.
I liked it. I could kinda see it coming but I wasn’t SURE how it was going to go down. I did think Old man Hector spelling out DEA was funny. I guess he had to eventually spell out Drug Enforcement Agency. Also, him spelling out SUCK MY… was funny too. In real life if I was one of those dozens of people there (even HANK) I wouldnt be pissed at my time wasted. I’d think of it as funny ass story I could tell for the rest of my life.
The facial expressions of Hector when he looked Gus in the eyes was great. It was anger. It was fear. It was a look of satisfied revenge. It was a kind of giddy joy. And the look on Gus’s face when he realized something was up (but before he figured out the bomb part) was pretty good too.
When the bomb went off and Chicken Man then stepped out the door (hell, his suit hardly looked messed up) I was all like “oh COME on! He’s escaped death again?! Is he the terminator of fried chicken and meth?”
Then we got the big reveal. I could buy him walking out and straightening his tie (he generally seemed obsessed with that sorta thing). When people are dazed and shocked and severely injured its my impression its not uncommon for them to go into “automatic mode” so to speak.
Oh, and did anybody think that Gus’s partner from years ago in Mexico that got shot at the pool was maybe a partner in a sleep in the same bed sense? And that whole back story adds another notch to one of the “morals” of this show. The people that start this drug stuff don’t seem to be really bad people at heart. But the nature of the business seems to be pretty good at makeing them “break bad”.
I was wondering if Gus was really dead until I got a good look at that picture. He’s gone, all right.
I came to give my mea culpa for assuming that Walt was not duplicitous in the poisoning of Brock…I totally did not think the writers would hide that from us…but apparently Walt is bad, bad man!