Just to be clear, although they’ve never been perfectly explicit about this, it’s been heavily implied that Walt and Gretchen were a couple, and Walt broke up with Gretchen (or, rather, ran out on Gretchen’s family’s get-together without explanation) and then later she got together with an married Elliot (they’re both named “Schwartz,” so it’s a safe assumption that they’re married now).
I have to admit, when I saw Walt looking at the coffee stuff, I thought he was gong to mix saccharine and non-dairy creamer with aluminum powder and improvise some kind of crude explosive device - y’know, chemistry and shit.
I also don’t get why Todd having a gun was such a big deal - I mean, there was always going to be the possibility that the crew was going to have to kill the train guys, right? All it would take is for one of them to turn away from the “disabled” truck and see Todd on top of the train (it seemed to me he wasn’t trying very hard to hide, either) to blow the deal.
Primarily because Todd brought the gun without telling anybody and Mike wants to know what’s happening on a job. I assume Mike had a weapon, but he and Walt and Jesse had agreed nobody was going to get killed on this job. So (from Mike’s point of view) imagine something had gone wrong. Todd came to a different conclusion on his own. Mike and Walt and Jesse have agreed to run and Todd thinks he’s supposed to start blasting away. And having a gun is something of a big deal to cops. Say there’d been no shooting and they’d been pulled over on the way to or from the job.
Ok, so I was remembering wrong. That relationship has got to figure in some big way why he accepted the buyout from GM, though.
In any case, it’s amazing how well the writers are weaving together all these plot threads from all seasons. The writers from a certain former show i won’t mention about a mysterious island could learn a lot from them.
That sounds kinda post-hoc to me, something to justify Mike’s display of anger. Why wouldn’t Mike want Todd to have a gun?
He probably told him not to bring one and Todd disobeyed. Why wouldn’t he want Todd to have one in the first place? Probably because he guessed that Todd might do something epically stupid if he had one.
I said in my first post here that I thought Mike was also angry about the kid. The important part of the order was that Todd brought a gun and didn’t tell Mike. Mike wants Todd to be armed when Mike tells Todd to be armed, not when Todd decides he should be armed.
You completely ignored the content of his post - it’s not so much that he had a firearm that was a big deal, it was the fact that he was carrying and didn’t tell Mike about it.
It’s just that there’s nothing to foreshadow this. It strikes me as odd that during the planning of this operation, something like whether or not they should bring guns wouldn’t be discussed. If Mike had said “I’m the only one who will be armed for this,” and Todd disobeyed, fine, but it looks like they just didn’t discuss it at all, which strikes me as quite the oversight.
Of course, had there been such a discussion, it would have greatly diminished the dramatic impact of Todd blowing the kid away, I admit. My misgivings are about Mike’s display of anger about a relatively minor detail. It’s almost as if (and I could totally buy this) Mike doesn’t really care about the dead kid - it’s unfortunate and all, but there can’t be any witnesses - but he feels he should be angry (or at least look like he’s angry, to throw a scare into Todd) so he chastises Todd on the trivial issue of bringing a gun without explicit instructions to do so, even though he thinks Todd did the right thing.
And even if he had told Mike, Mike most likely would have said “Just leave your gun at home kid, the only one that carries a gun is me, and I intend to keep it that way. If and when I want you to carry a gun, I’ll tell you” and Walt would have nodded at Todd to tell him that he trusts Mike with his life and so should you [Todd] and Jesse may or may not have told him about that time when Mike had him carry a gun for a day (and he would have been all animated and started off with “yo this one time dude”, sitting up in his chair really abruptly as he began).
It’s a pistol, not a gun. 
Mike ain’t pedantic.
This is my rifle, this is my gun.
It’s been too long now since the first two seasons, but I remember this being explained in what I believe was the final time we saw Gretchen on screen, when she meets with Walt for lunch or whatever and Walt ends up telling her to “go fuck herself.” I want to say Walt makes some accusation at that lunch, and then Gretchen immediately turns it around and says, “Is that really what you think happened Walt? You left me there without saying a word, and I had to explain it to my family…” basically it was heavily implied Walter basically got pissed at Gretchen for being wealthy so he left her after visiting her at her rich parent’s house and then somehow in his convoluted mind he views that as her leaving him for Elliott. Then out of anger/shame he sold out of Grey Matter (I’m a little surprised he was so candid about his exit from GM, I expected he would be somewhat deluded about that and blame Gretchen and Elliot for that one as well.)
I actually have the first few seasons on DVD, I’ll have to rewatch them at some point…the whole Gretchen and Elliott sub story was a little more important early on but has been so off the radar for like 3 seasons now that it’s hard to remember the details.
If I recall correctly, Walt accused Gretchen and Elliott of stealing his work/ideas/whatever, and she said something like “Is that really what happened in your mind?” Given what he said in this episode, it seems clear that Walt has a selective memory of what happened depending on what he’s trying to justify at the moment.
Yeah, that’s kind of how I took it.
Frankly, I don’t think Walt cares that Gretchen ended up marrying Elliott. I think he’s more angry that they made Grey Matter successful after buying him out.
Inside Episode 506 Breaking Bad: Buyout - call me Linkmaster…seems to be my contribution in this thread.
Sneak Peek into 507 - “Say My Name”:
Mike, Jesse and Walt drive back into the desert to meet up with Declan, where Walt will get his chance to explain his “plan” prompted by Mike. Walt’s watch is on his right wrist, while he has a bandage on his left.
I know in my youth that I have stripped power cords like those with my teeth…I wouldn’t do it now though cause I like to keep my teeth.
12,000 volts.
Making of Episode 506, Buyout: Inside Breaking Bad
“Fuck You!..And Your Eyebrows!!!”
“I f*cked Ted.” Ok, that one got edited out…but I believe it’s unedited on the DVD.
Walt told Gretchen “Fuck You” in the restaurant.
Jessie told Walt to “Get the fuck out of here”, when he went to Jessie’s/Andrea’s house.
IIRC, they (the writers) get one verbal “Fuck” per season; I had seen Vince talk about it in some video…it was stated that it came from Sony or AMC…don’t remember. But they save the precious word for very powerful scenes. If I find that video again…I will link it.
But since I had to catch up with you guys from Seasons 1-4, I may very well be seeing unedited versions on DVD. So there’s that.
Yep. He probably walking away smugly knowing that they would fail without him.
I’m sure Mike does have a set of cuffs somewhere. But if I remember correctly, I think he was at least a little bit surprised to find Walt there.
Zip tie cuffs would be much easier/lighter to carry (and you could carry more than one easily). Plus, even if he had them, he could be thinking Walt might pick them.
Hey, here’s an even crazier idea: zap the plastic zip tie where it rests against the radiator rather than against your flesh.
mmm
What do you mean he’s not pedantic? That was a direct quote from Mike… just last episode. He tells Lydia “If you deviate from the script in any way, I’m going to take out my pistol and shoot you in the head.”
Then when he forces her to reiterate what he’s going to do to her, she says “You’re gonna take out your gun…” and he interrupts with “It’s a pistol, not a gun”.