He used the boxes she opened. The way I remember it, she left the keys in the boxes so he could lock them when he was done. I am not sure if she left the room because he’s entitled to privacy as a customer or because they had an understanding that she did not want to know what he was doing and looked the other way in return for some cake pops.
He was opening the same boxes and the boxes required two keys to open – one from a bank employee and the second from the box owner.
I have no idea why they’d use that procedure. In other movies I’ve seen, the bank employee opens the vault, closes the door to give the customer privacy, and the customer opens the individual box.
What? No. The safe deposit boxes work by needing 2 keys to access. A bank employee uses the bank’s key to turn one lock, then they leave the room so you can privately access the contents of your box after opening it the rest of the way with your key.
And Joey P - Diet Coke? You have a weird sense of the Cola Hierarchy 
No, she used her key to unlock one of the locks on each of the 10 boxes. After she left the room, the lawyer used his keys to unlock the second lock and open the same 10 boxes.
I think that when Mike is dying, Walt says quietly and wonderingly, “I could have just gotten the names from Lydia,” he realizes that for the first time he has killed for no reason, just out of pure anger and not logic. It is a new step down even for him, and he knows it. The writers are trying to squeeze the humanity out of him bit by bit, week by week, and at least until this scene there was still a scant drop of it left.
I’m pretty sure he had something worked out with the cake lady. But she had to get out the keys for each of the boxes he wanted access to. I don’t remember the safe deposit box regulations as opposed to bank’s internal rules, but normally every person who has access to a safe deposit box is recorded, and every access to a box is recorded. Because warrants to search safe deposit boxes are so common, I wouldn’t think it would be the system a career criminal would consider secure. But the use of safe deposit boxes is a common trope so it’s certainly justifiable as a plot point.
So were there nine cake pops? Nine little heads on pikes?
I hope so. Also, best username/post combo I’ve seen in ages.
I’m not sure it matters if the bank lady knew which boxes were accessed by the lawyer and then, later, various families. The lawyer is a lawyer.
Possible off-screen dialogue: “I’ve found that safe deposit boxes are an efficient and secure means to deliver and receive legal and other confidential information to and from my clients and their families. Did you know that the USPS loses X number of legal documents in the mail every year? I could deliver them all by hand, but that’s a lot of work - and between you and me, there are some parts of town I’d prefer not to visit regularly, y’know?”
That’s a little different from the way it works at my parents’ bank. There, we move the safe deposit box to a tiny room, close the door and access the contents. We don’t remain in the vault while we’re accessing our stuff. (If it was done that way, only one bank customer at a time could access their safe deposit box.)
If Gus had survived the explosion, would he be under arrest now? Sure, there was an odd (and lethal) fire in a room under his commercial laundry that looks like it might have been a meth lab, and the German executive who shot himself rather than answer questions looks bad, but how much evidence of anything regarding Gus and Mike is there?
Okay, this makes more sense.
I know how safety deposit boxes work, but I got the impression from watching the episode that he was opening another set of boxes. My mistake.
A lot of people can make rot-gut whiskey or bath tub beer.
Somce can make Jack Daniels-quality whiskey or Guinness in “home brew” quantity.
But can they consistently hit Jack/Guinness level quality in market volume?
That’s what Walt and Jesse do/did.
I can’t speak to how much street demand there is for that level of purity.
I count eight. I get the symbolism, but it’d be weird for the bakery to sell an odd number of these in a package. My attention went to the pig with the sheriff’s hat.
I’ve been wondering if Walt is ever going to try his product himself. As he’s obviously aware he would risk becoming an addict, I can’t imagine he would unless he completely gives up on cooking, which we know he won’t do willingly.
Still, it’s notable that with all the meth he’s cooked, he’s never once tried it. Not even his own product that he holds in such high esteem. I can imagine Walt finally trying it in the final episodes (or the actual finale), if he’s reached the point where he’s totally screwed and is preparing to go out in a blaze of glory.
I don’t consider the safety deposit boxes as a flaw or something that should raise suspicion. Lawyers are routinely used for trusts, and handle multiple trusts for multiple clients. The bank employee doesn’t know if he’s depositing items or withdrawing items from the boxes.
And I don’t think the bank employee was suspicious or “in” on anything. He brought her the cake pops, she knew the DEA was there waiting for him, and that’s why she was giving him the cold shoulder. During the first visit, the lawyer and the bank employee were bantering back and forth like old friends.
Especially since one of Walt’s arguments to Declan was that they could charge more for the quality stuff. They’re not exactly selling to conspicuous-consumption Wall Street types or bling-minded Rappers, are they? People who will pay more for the sake of being able to demonstrate that they can pay more?
I doubt the higher price would be a motivation. But the higher yield would. They’ll know the materials are difficult to come by, and a higher yield will mean more profit. And in this case, there will be less competition since they’re now Heisenberg’s distributors.
Obviously they will pay more for a better or longer lasting high. Additionally, if two types are available, they’ll buy the better one.
As I explained upthread, the bigger factor is that Walt’s process yields more product per gallon of methylamine which is a huge cost savings.
No, but it’s reasonable to believe they can charge more for a product that users like better. They’re not charging 5 or 10 times as much as the competition, they’re just charging more.