Question: Is there ANY way that the power from a 110 outlet would make any arc at all much less enough to burr through that big, thick zip-tie?
That dinner party scene was fucking hilarious!
I was a little disappointed we didn’t see the immediate aftermath of the shooting, but the opening scene was very powerful.
Walt’s ego is amazing.
BTW, green beans aside, I know it’s physically impossible to strip molded power cords with your teeth, but can you really arc-slice your way through plastic handcuffs with 120v?
Damn youse.
Yes, it would make an arc that, if sustained, could easily burn through a zip-tie, but it would almost certainly trip a breaker/fuse, so keeping it sustained would be the unlikely part.
The other part of that was how Walt positioned his wrist. If he had just turned his arm, he could have used the top of his wrist, instead of the much more tender (and venous) underside of his wrist. Also, that kind of heat for that long would have left some crazy nasty burns that would leave nasty scars for life. Guess he can use his new watch to cover it up!
I don’t think the plan will be to set Walt up with the Pheonix crew, because he wants to be in charge… unless it involves him being an independent contractor of some sort. I also don’t think the plan will just be for him to cook and sell for a while and pay Mike and Jesse $5mil each, because didn’t someone already propose that and it wasn’t accepted?
I definitely want to see some Breaking-Bad themed episodes of Mythbusters. Just from this season we have the magnet and now the impromptu arcing…
For me, this episode is probably the best one I’ve seen in, well, ever. Since the beginning of season 5 we’ve been getting clues as to Walt’s true motivation for cooking meth, and the writers laid everything on the table in describing it.
Money? No, Jesse flat out confronted Walt with his calculations from the beginning of season 2, that he needed ~$750K before he could get out.
Family? No, Walt wanted Jesse to see just how poisoned his relationship with Skyler had become, and to know that his children are gone for good.
As he said, Walt sees the $5 million as a sellout, and after his speech about Gray Matters (yet another old, abandoned thread), I believe what he says about being in the “empire business”. All tolled, the episode effectively brought together the lingering pieces from the first four seasons, and made a compelling case for Walt’s motivation for the remainder of the series.
But as fantastic as the most awkward dinner party in the world was (is this the first time since early season 1 Jesse and Skyler have met?), I don’t want to overlook the first half of the episode, the aftermath of the shooting from last week. What I found interesting was that, ultimately, Mike and Walt were completely agreed as to the best way to handle it, and that Mike (perhaps begrudgingly) demonstrated a bit of respect for Walt (notice how he said “sorry” when he zip-tied Walt to the radiator–and really, if he was only interested in scoring $5 mil, he had a clear shot to kill Walt instead of waiting out the night with him). Now, of course that respect is momentarily reversed when Mike learns Walt stole the methylamine, but the reason he didn’t pull the trigger wasn’t just Jesse hyperventilating, it’s that Mike still has an inkling of respect for Walt, and is still willing to listen despite his better judgement.
Overall, I thought the episode was riveting from start to finish, an episode that used the threads of the plot to explore the characters (particularly Walt) more deeply than we’ve seen this season. I thought last week’s heist episode was daring and taut, but I missed the underlying morality/character study that IMO makes this show the best on television. I was glad to see it back this week, and with such a payoff I can’t wait to see what happens when Heisenberg goes full-throttle in the final 2 ep’s.
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My favorite part was when Jesse and Walt were at the fumigation house. Jesse is feeling guilty, and Walt says he feels terrible too, and how he hasn’t been sleeping, and how Jesse should just go home and Walt will finish up. It makes Walt seem almost decent and empathetic.
But then Jesse goes upstairs (for some reason I didn’t notice) and then comes back down stairs, and he hears Walt starting to work in the tent, and he’s happily whistling. It didn’t sound like the “Always look on the Bright Side of Life” type of whistling, where things are terrible but you are trying to cheer yourself up. He sounded like someone who was pretty happy, without a care in the world. I couldn’t really tell what Jesse thought about that. He definitely noticed it, and he seemed confused, but I’m not sure what else.
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Absolutely…another brilliant scene. Havingf Jesse start to suspect how manipulative Walt is could pay off big in future episodes (probably not this season, but I’m betting it figures into the machine gun future-Walt bought on his 52nd birthday…).
I think “independent contractor” is about right. He would still be the boss and work for himself, he’d just be selling all his product to them at wholesale for them to distribute.
Which, if Jesse is stepping back, might fulfill my theory that Todd is going to become Walt’s new assistant. And with Todd having prison connections, the rest of my theory about Todd learning the process, then somehow cutting Walt out of the equation, now looks even more likely.
Agreed. What was also amazing to me was that not only was this an awesome episode, but for some reason it felt much longer than usual. Usually, it goes by so fast, it feels like a half hour show.At one point, I looked at the clock thinking the episode was going to end soon, but it was delightfully only half way through!
Great episode. I got a really strong Sam Sheppard vibe from the first 30 minutes or so. One of the things that struck me was that Walt has not been this clear about his own motives since… probably ever. In this episode he was trapped by the consequences of everything he’s done in the series - selling meth, killing, lying to everyone and making them accomplices in one way or another - and he had his life in the long view and he knew why he’s doing what he’s doing. And of course instead of being revelatory or reminding Walt what his priorities are supposed to be, he sees the meth business as the only thing he has left because it’s cost him everything else, so he’s sticking with it. Skyler may never love him again, but he could have easily quit, left the better part of $5 million for his family, and not hurt anybody else, and because of everything else he didn’t even consider it. And of all people it’s left to Jesse, the recovering addict who used to call himself Cap’n Cook and sell meth with chili powder in it, to say to Walt “Is a meth business really something to be proud of?” Of course it’s not, but Walt doesn’t care anymore. All he wants is to leave behind something huge that says “WALTER WHITE WAS HERE.” If it has to be a meth empire that doesn’t bother him anymore. That’s just as good as Gray Matter. Of course on some level it sounds like Walt is assuming that everybody will know what he did. How’s that supposed to work?
The scene with the dirt bike being cut up was very sad. Then we found out the aftermath of Drew’s death: Jesse was distraught but not homicidal, and Mike and Walt were businesslike. Mike chewed out Todd for bringing a gun without telling anyone, but watching the scene I thought the comment about the gun was cover for a little bit of actual aggravation over a senseless death. Still, that’s more reaction than Walt had. What song was he whistling? I thought it might be “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” again.
I liked pretty much everything in this one. Jesse was hilarious during that dinner and Saul is back. There were also some great Mike moments. Speaking of which, does Jonathan Banks have a face with character or what? Those big ears, the wide nose, the drooping eyes. And did he actually smile for about a nanosecond when Hank said he was very smooth, or was I just expecting him to smile there? In any case one of the good parts of this one was the fact that Mike and Jesse came to their decision for completely different reasons that both worked for their characters.
I think people here are misreading Todd. He’s a criminal who is trying to make a good impression on his new bosses and move up in the world. He’s not a serial killer. Serial killers don’t murder people in front of witnesses in broad daylight. My guess is that he kept the tarantula because he might be feeling remorse about the shooting. I didn’t get a creepy trophy vibe there, and I don’t really think the writers are going to want to distract us by making Walt deal with a serial killer or something like that.
And in episode six of a 16-episode season, we finally met the guy who I guess is going to be Walt’s main antagonist in the drug business. I am guessing that Walt’s heavy artillery in the first episode has something to do with Declan.
I think you’re really, REALLY misreading Todd. I don’t think that he’s a serial killer in the Hollywood sense, just that he might technically meet the definition by having killed people in the past(whether for fun or profit or whatever).
I do think he’s a textbook psychopath/sociopath with a heaping scoop of sadism and ambition thrown in to the mix. His glib “Aw shucks…” routine is slimy and phony and creepy.
For what possible reason other than a flash of self-satisfaction would he have been smiling while looking at the tarantula in the jar?
“Oh you’re so adorable!”?
“Hey there little fella. You remind me of that time I shot that kid in the head and then stuck his dusty corpse in a barrel of acid…”?
I think if we find out he’s genuinely remorseful down the road it won’t be because he isn’t a psychopath, but rather that the writers are bad at writing psychopathic characters.
Why he might feel self-satisfied about having the tarantula in the jar: Despite the efforts of the rest of the crew to destroy it all, he possesses an object that must be covered in the boy’s fingerprints and therefore has something that can connect them all to the boy and that means leverage (either over the crew or in creating a deal with the police if that becomes necessary).
No, that arc was coming from a neon light transform and probably had 10,000 volts behind it. 120 won’t arc like that. 120 will snap and pop a bit, but those big transformers will arc and buzz and create that little plasma gas bubble around the arc that you could see.
Here’s a little mini Jacob’s Ladder I put together a few years ago. I had to put the wires about a quarter inch apart to get the arc started and that coil is either 9 or 15 thousand volts.
I think it’s natural for anyone in that circumstance to try to minimize it or rationalize it. Remember, Todd is in the hot seat. He brought a gun without being told to. He killed a kid without being told to. His bosses are acting grim and obviously considering what to do with him. I think a lot of non-psychopathic people are going to be concerned about getting through that situation alive and trying to paint it as just being a part of the business, perhaps especially someone who is accustomed to consorting with criminals.
Need answer quick!
Mike was being uncharacteristically generous, I thought. If it me, I’d’ve seriously considered just killing Walt and taking the methylene. At the very least, restraining Walt with a single zip-tie was kinda dumb. Walt could’ve chewed his way free in the time he had. At the very least, use actual handcuffs, or tie Walt’s hands behind his back.
Walt’s being kind of dickish, wot? If he takes the $5 mill and gets out of the business, he has a chance, however slim, of repairing his relationship with Skyler, gradually laundering the money through the car wash and retiring to a life of leisure, free to study chemistry to his heart’s content. Instead he’s in “the empire business”, now? How’s he gonna swing that? Does he picture eventually becoming something like Gus Fring, with a chain of legitimate businesses as cover? Without Mike and Jesse? I liked the show for what I thought would be a MacGuyverish approach to crime, but Walt’s a bitter revenge-minded jerk. Now I’m rooting for him to get destroyed.
I had a creepy vibe of Todd keeping the spider in the jar. It made me wonder at why have a keepsake of someone you murdered? That does remind me of serial killers keeping personal items of those they’ve killed. But. I think it also foreshadows the fact that the fallout from this murder is not so easy to dismiss as the price of doing business.
This murder has already haunted Jesse and Mike to the point of wanting to walk away. They know the authorities are going to be relentless, and the whole process of eliminating the evidence is re-run every time that boy’s name is mentioned in the news.
Of course the DEA is just a pain in the ass for Mike. His real problem is not the authorities, it’s the ruthlessness of Walter White, not as someone who cares about providing, much less show any empathy for the heartache a family goes through losing an innocent child, but one who is genuinely selfish and voraciously feeding his ego and hoarding only for himself.
I’m starting to feel sorry for Mike and even Gus. They’re just professional criminals minding their own business in their professional way, and Walt is fucking their shit up.
I love how Walt complained that the business what all he has left, having lost everything else. The irony, of course, is that it was the business that caused him to lose everything else.
I still think something is up with the watch Jesse gave Walt. The fact that he was clearly shown removing it before zapping his wrist seems to be a deliberate foreshadowing, as if the writers are saying, ‘yep, he’s still wearing it’.
Skyler’s breakdown with Marie was reminiscent of Walt’s with Hank. Walt’s, I knew, was a calculated diversionary tactic; with Skyler, I could not tell if it was genuine or false. Was she seriously on the verge of confessing a little something to Marie? If not, what is her motivation? I dunno, maybe it was just a legitimate overflow of emotion at how fucked up her life has become.
Great moment within a great scene: Jesse between the Whites at the dinner table, taking a drink of water because he didn’t know what else to do. Then, still drinking, looking back and forth between Walt and Skyler. That was the longest, most awkward drink of water in the history of civilization.
As much as I want to see these last two episodes before the break, I am already in mourning for the empty months to come.
mmm
Good point… I didn’t think about the finger prints.
The spider will definitely come back to haunt them somehow. They introduced it by the kid noticing it off to the right while zooming thru the desert… not particularly realistic. Then again they could have written the scene differently so I guess it isn’t like they forced it into the story.
I believe that’s what Vince Gilligan had in mind from Day 1. Have you rooting for the bad guy, but over time have you change your mind. The idea is, you’re not really sure when it happened since it happened so slowly and maybe you doubled back a few times.
As far as Todd is compared, if he kills anyone else, I hope he doesn’t keep anything just because I’d hate to see the show start drawing Dexter comparisons.
Also, Todd mentioned that he had connections in prison. I took that to mean he could use prison connections to get supplies or move product but Mike, Walt and Jesse took that as a threat. Was he threatening them with that comment? (He’s just flexing, I wasn’t worried then, I’m not worried now).