# Breaking Bad 5.09 "Blood Money" 8/11/2013 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973 "2013-08-11T22:21:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/201 "2013-08-14T22:23:12Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Was he turning over every stone, trying to find some way he could be wrong? Was he trying to understand how Walt turned out to be this two-faced and evil? Was he trying to figure out how he could have failed to notice before? I think it’s more the second than the first. He’s asking himself, “What did I miss?” ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/202 "2013-08-14T22:25:46Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > The obvious answer is that he’s looking for something that can stand up as proof in court… He’s a boss now. He has people at his disposal and he could have a bunch of them working with him or doing some of these things for him. Instead he’s working by himself in his garage and trying to keep it a secret. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/203 "2013-08-14T22:30:50Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I suspect the shoplifting is something they added for flavour early on, when there were fewer characters, that is mostly going to be left dropped…but who knows. There was a big point in the show at the beginning showing that everyone has a little ‘dark’ in them. You wouldn’t look at Marie and think “shoplifter” and you wouldn’t look at Walt and think “meth lord.” People are trying to make more of that bit of flavor then I think the show writers really have intended. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/204 "2013-08-14T22:38:35Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He could have listed a lot of reasons for punching Walt in the face. He did list a couple: [ol] [li]You drove into traffic to keep me from that laundry.[/li][li]That call I got telling me Marie was in the hospital… that wasn’t Pinkman. You had my cell number.[/li][li]You killed ten witnesses to save your sorry ass.[/li][li]You bombed a nursing home.[/li][/ol] But yeah, he’s trying to figure out if he has a case. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/205 "2013-08-14T22:40:03Z")
> [@Crawlspace](#): > > Interesting, I kind of feel the exact opposite. I’m not saying that I’d view the the show as a failure if it doesn’t answer this, but I’d be disappointed. The fact that they’ve danced around the reasons why Walt left Grey Matter so deftly gives me the impression that it was something monumental enough to be a part of his origins story. I mean, he could have been a Nobel Prize winning chemist, instead he’s a meth czar. Why? > > To put it another way, I think that if it was something mundane they would have explicitly told us already. But instead we get veiled references to an incident on Fourth of July weekend between Walter and Gretchen’s father and brothers that causes Walt to pack his bags and leave her and his research then and there. Even when he’s talking to Jesse about it he stumbles over how to say that something happened and there was a falling out. I still think they are basically just punting on it. They seem to have introduced it originally as something they would delve into later; and then as things went along they found more interesting paths to take and have tried to just drop it. I interpret Walt telling Jesse that he doesn’t want to go into the details as basically the writers not wanting the headache of having to think up the details. Still, my memory of an earlier rendition of the story is that it seemed to imply that it came down to a love triangle. > [@Skammer](#): > > I think Hank’s obsessiveness with the minerals was just a side affect of his PTSD and trying to take his mind of his shooting, his inability to walk, etc. Once he snapped out of the self-pity thanks to the new lead from Gale’s notebook, he started working on his physical therapy and being nicer to Marie and we haven’t really heard anything about minerals since then - except when he used “mineral show” as a cover to go snooping around Gus’s hideout with Walt. In other words I think the mineral storyline has served its purpose. I agree with this, except if you listen carefully they were talking about it in the 5A finale, as part of the half-heard overlapping dialogue that signified everything was mellow and smooth sailing…right before Hank found the book. > [@Marley23](#): > > He’s a boss now. He has people at his disposal and he could have a bunch of them working with him or doing some of these things for him. Instead he’s working by himself in his garage and trying to keep it a secret. My son and I were discussing why he might have done it in his garage instead of having people research it at work. My theory was that he might have cottoned onto the fact that some information had somehow leaked from the office although he did not know how (we know it was because of the bugs planted); so he might have feared that there was a spy there. My son had a different idea which also struck me as a good one: simply that he was afraid people at the office would figure out what he was up to and that he would be in trouble for being so close to Heisenberg as we have talked about. Hank wants to figure it out as much on his own as he can, and then leave his options open as he decides what to do about it. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/206 "2013-08-14T22:41:05Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He’s a boss now. He has people at his disposal and he could have a bunch of them working with him or doing some of these things for him. Instead he’s working by himself in his garage and trying to keep it a secret. The previous ASAC got canned because Gus Fring was right under his nose so Hank is probably trying to figure out a way to put Walt away without losing his job. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/207 "2013-08-14T22:56:34Z")
He also got an ass reaming from his boss because he wouldn’t stop tailing Ermantrout. It’s been my personal experience that people who have Captain Ahab complexes are invariably ridiculed and dismissed. He could justify his actions by pointing out that the blue meth is still out there, but at 68% purity, there’s no guarantee that it still looks the same or is even still in crystalline form. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/208 "2013-08-14T22:58:59Z")
I thought the deal Walt and Jesse made with Lydia was to make the blue meth for export to the Czech Republic so if anything there should be a whole lot less (if any) blue meth available in the Southwest. ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/209 "2013-08-14T23:13:09Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > . . . Was he turning over every stone, trying to find some way he could be wrong? Was he trying to understand how Walt turned out to be this two-faced and evil? Was he trying to figure out how he could have failed to notice before? He could have listed a lot of reasons for punching Walt in the face. I think its mostly the first option. Suddenly everything fell into place on a gut level, but the enormity is so great he needs to run down every detail to see if he could be wrong. We can see from the specifics he mentions that he’s put together a lot, and probably realizes how entangled he looks, so beginning with the first issue and moving to the second, it makes sense that he not investigating at the office. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/210 "2013-08-14T23:33:46Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I thought the deal Walt and Jesse made with Lydia was to make the blue meth for export to the Czech Republic so if anything there should be a whole lot less (if any) blue meth available in the Southwest. INTERPOL and the DEA have each other on speed dial. If a duck were to even fart in the Czech Republic, Hank would know about it. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/211 "2013-08-15T00:03:45Z")
I got distracted by the fact that Hank’s coffee was still steaming hot after he’d gone through one or two full file boxes. Coffee cools pretty fast. ---
**Author:** ![Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8baadc/32.png) [@Nicest\_of\_the\_Damned](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nicest_of_the_Damned)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/212 "2013-08-15T05:22:06Z")
Perhaps Walt will use Hank’s mineral collection to make gunpowder and bullets. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/213 "2013-08-15T06:18:53Z")
Isn’t Walt’s big leverage that Hank took Walt’s money to pay for his rehabilitation? It’ll be up to Hank to convince prosecutors/jury that he had no part in Walt’s business as a LEO facilitator. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/214 "2013-08-15T06:42:02Z")
> [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](#): > > I think its mostly the first option. Suddenly everything fell into place on a gut level, but the enormity is so great he needs to run down every detail to see if he could be wrong. We can see from the specifics he mentions that he’s put together a lot, and probably realizes how entangled he looks, so beginning with the first issue and moving to the second, it makes sense that he not investigating at the office. Not to mention that he’s obviously realized that Skyler must be complicit (he demanded that the kids come stay with them), so busting the Whites may not only put him into hot water at work, he might also catch hell from Marie. He also has to consider the effect that would have on Walt Jr. and the baby. He’s smart enough to have already known to tread lightly without Walt having had to remind him. I am surprised that Walt didn’t mention the source of the funds that paid for Hank’s medical care. Also, that he didn’t try a carrot/stick approach by pointing out that everybody loses if Hank plays cop, but that he’s got plenty of money for everybody if he stays quiet. Instead, he escalates it with threats. But Walt being an idiot and letting his warped sense of pride get in the way isn’t exactly out of character, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/215 "2013-08-15T11:15:52Z")
My guess is that Hank won’t do anything to Walt, the investigation will simply stop. But Hank knows enough people in the drug underworld to begin quietly dropping hints about who Heisenberg is, who he’s killed and where he lives, basically making Walt’s life a living hell from behind the scenes. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/216 "2013-08-15T13:46:54Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > He already knows that Marie will side with Skyler, at least right away, though right now Hank doesn’t know Skyler is in on it. Thing is, I don’t think Hank is going to care. It might bother him a little, but I think he’ll happily sacrifice Marie to take down Heisenberg. I don’t agree with this. We’ve seen signs that show that Hank and Marie are very deeply in love with each other, even if much of the time they are squabbling or irritating each other. So, I don’t believe Hank is going to be too quick to write Marie off. Furthermore, while Marie is loyal to her family, she is also very outspoken when she thinks someone has done something wrong. I don’t think it’s a safe assumption that she’s going to side with Skyler. > [@Washoe](#): > > It’s probably as simple as Skyler insisting on moving back to Albuquerque to be near her family after they got married. There being no call for research chemists in the area, he resorted to teaching high school. Although he could have made twice as much money at the local community college. Do we know whether Walt finished his Ph.D.? If not, he wouldn’t be able to teach chemistry even at a two-year community college. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > She bowed out in S1 saying it was just too depressing. Just a lot of ugly people doing ugly things. > > … > > I really likes Sopranos … What an odd juxtaposition. > [@](#): > > My underlying impression was - not a heck of a lot happened! Seriously, wasn’t the pacing slow? No, not at all. A lot more happened in that episode than I had expected. > [@](#): > > Another weird (admittedly little) thing: who stands on their street - at any hour of the day or night - in their jockeyshorts with their robe wide open? Really little thing, but what aspect of his character did that illustrate? [Hmm … I don’t know … in what outlandish world does a character routinely wander around in his driveway with his robe hanging open to show his underwear?](http://kitschinlogic.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/tony-soprano-in-robe.gif) > [@Dinsdale](#): > > Thanks for the responses, folk. Enjoy the rest of the show. Uhhh … Thanks? (Are you Vince Gilligan?) > [@Chefguy](#): > > Being safe instead of getting yelled at by others. My spoiler box didn’t include any plot giveaway that I could figure out, but you never know what someone else is going to get all pissy about. There should be a drop dead period for spoilers anyway. Say, two days after the ep has aired. If someone still hasn’t watched it, then they shouldn’t read the thread. The “drop dead” for episode threads is when the episode has been shown. As others have said, if you use spoiler boxes for things that aren’t spoilers, then it ruins the utility of spoiler boxes. > [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > If anything, the pacing felt very rushed to me (with the notable exception of the flash-forward opening, which was stellar), especially seen in relation to the show as a whole. Boom, there’s the confrontation between Walt and Hank already. Wait, what the heck just happened? I think everybody had expected that to be a much more drawn-out affair. > > I’m bracing myself for some flak for this, but honestly, it didn’t feel right to me. It felt too much like what happens on lesser shows or movies when the writers realize that they’re running out of time. > > And then later, on “Talking Bad”, when Vince was asked why it happened so soon, he basically said: “Well, we only have seven episodes left”. Um, yeah, Vince, that’s not actually a good reason. > [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Rushing a plot development because you have too much stuff planned isn’t a good reason. Plan less stuff. > > But yeah, I trust that there will a whole lot of outrageous and hopefully brilliant storytelling ahead. Don’t screw it up, Vince. 😉 > [@Marley23](#): > > And they did it again: they took a bunch of stuff that I thought would take maybe four episodes to happen and did it in one episode, and it was great. I’m with Marley. It didn’t seem “rushed” to me at all. In fact, it seemed very refreshing, rather than dragging the whole thing out for several episodes, which is what I expected. > [@SykoSkotty](#): > > In the flash forward, at Walt’s house, it’s surrounded by chain link fence, and if you’ll notice, the landscaping is completely burned out. Trees are bare, dead leaves everywhere, including the roof of the house, bushes are reduced to sticks. > > Meanwhile, the neighboring homes all look normal. Green bushes, trees full of leaves…so… Albuquerque is in a desert. If you don’t water your lawn regularly, it’s going to start reverting quickly. Think about [what the area around Hank and Marie’s house looks like](http://www.malcolminthemiddle.co.uk/gallery/data/1202/medium/1211.jpg). > [@Crawlspace](#): > > Interesting, I kind of feel the exact opposite. I’m not saying that I’d view the the show as a failure if it doesn’t answer this, but I’d be disappointed. The fact that they’ve danced around the reasons why Walt left Grey Matter so deftly gives me the impression that it was something monumental enough to be a part of his origins story. I mean, he could have been a Nobel Prize winning chemist, instead he’s a meth czar. Why? > > To put it another way, I think that if it was something mundane they would have explicitly told us already. But instead we get veiled references to an incident on Fourth of July weekend between Walter and Gretchen’s father and brothers that causes Walt to pack his bags and leave her and his research then and there. Even when he’s talking to Jesse about it he stumbles over how to say that something happened and there was a falling out. > [@DSeid](#): > > Heard some famous song writer interviewed on the radio a few weeks back (sorry, not famous to me and I don’t remember the name) who had an interesting comment pertient to this - part of good story telling is leaving some bits blank enough that the listener (or reader or in this case viewer) gets/has to fill it in for themselves. > > In this case any details would disappoint I think. The point is to know that his ego was there from the beginning and its ability to drive his choices down maladaptive paths is not some new feature within him. It was contained and constrained within his milquetoast but never not there, just simmered resentfully all that time, taking his diagnosis to reawaken it. The actual event is not as important and would even be a distraction; its purpose is to loosely sketch that background aspect and thereby inform the complex detailed portrait center frame. I agree with DSeid. We know that something pissed Walter off and his reaction was to cut all his ties to Gretchen and Grey Matter. That establishes Walter’s anger and insecurity, and propensity for making rash and extreme decisions. The actual details would be too mundane to be of interest, but my guess is that it had something to do with Walter’s feeling threatened by Gretchen’s wealthy family and her presumably hot-shot brothers. Maybe one of them said something that Walter took the wrong way. Who knows. But we can be fairly certain that to anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal, but it drove Walter to extremes. That’s why it’s probably better not to go into it. — Think about how much of a letdown it was when we finally did learn Kramer’s first name. There’s nothing you can fill in that blank with that’s going to be bettter than the blank. > [@Alan\_Smithee](#): > > I assume that there was some sort of love triangle, since he and Gretchen had a relationship and she ended up marrying Elliot. I suspect she may have cheated on Walt with Elliot, > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Still, my memory of an earlier rendition of the story is that it seemed to imply that it came down to a love triangle. I don’t think that this was it; otherwise, Gretchen wouldn’t have been so shocked by Walter’s sudden departure. It would have made much more sense to her if it was just a love triangle. I’m fairly certain that Gretchen didn’t get involved with Elliot until after Walter took off. > [@Sampiro](#): > > I wonder how difficult ricin would be to make for a master chemist. My understanding is that it’s not hard to poison yourself accidentally with beans. It’s probably not that hard to make ricin even if you aren’t a master chemist. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/217 "2013-08-15T13:56:48Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I wonder how difficult ricin would be to make for a master chemist. Walt would still need at least some lab gear to make more ricin. When he made the first batch, he had the RV, and the second time he made it in the Superlab. At the moment he doesn’t even look he has a place to shower, let alone a lab. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/218 "2013-08-15T14:16:56Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Walt would still need at least some lab gear to make more ricin. When he made the first batch, he had the RV, and the second time he made it in the Superlab. At the moment he doesn’t even look he has a place to shower, let alone a lab. Did Walt seriously make the second batch of ricin in the Superlab? With the cameras and everything? Wouldn’t Gus have known something was up? Even a layperson could tell the difference between a bulk cook and a small-order action. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/219 "2013-08-15T14:20:24Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > So one night a $20,000 stack of bills appears on your porch in a run down neighborhood of ABQ. The same night hundreds of thousands, possibly a few million, dollars appears in yards and porches and sidewalks around the city, tossed out like the world’s best Mardi Gras beads from some anonymous benefactor. There’s no proof that any of the money is stolen or that the anonymous benefactor doesn’t have 100% legitimate rights to toss it around. > > So long as you turned it in to the cops and it was never claimed in whatever the time frame was, would you most likely be allowed to keep that money? > I wonder what kind of investigation cops would launch for such an event; no provable crime has been committed after all (yeah, it’s all drug money, but you can’t prove it- could just be an eccentric software or bottled water or cosmetic millionaire who likes to toss out cash). > > I’m guessing most people would be shady (smart?) enough never to admit that they got one of the mystery stacks, especially after word got out that it was happening to others. I wonder what sort of social problems that would cause in a ghetto; I can see people getting killed if news got out they got one of the mystery stacks, even if/especially if it was a false rumor. Certainly if anybody saw the old homeless man flashing a stack of Benjamins to buy his cigarettes he’d likely be a bleeding demised old homeless man. I wonder if things like this will happen and deepen Jesse’s depression. Oh that’s true. It’s not going to be all sunshine and roses for the people who find the cash. Some might be hassled by the cops even though they didn’t do anything. And I can imagine a death happening and being reported on the news and Jesse being further depressed. I am curious to see what the cops do after hearing about the money showing up. I would think that they would guess it was stolen drug money that a do-gooder was throwing out, though I don’t know how they would proceed after that. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > My son and I were discussing why he might have done it in his garage instead of having people research it at work. My theory was that he might have cottoned onto the fact that some information had somehow leaked from the office although he did not know how (we know it was because of the bugs planted); so he might have feared that there was a spy there. My son had a different idea which also struck me as a good one: simply that he was afraid people at the office would figure out what he was up to and that he would be in trouble for being so close to Heisenberg as we have talked about. Hank wants to figure it out as much on his own as he can, and then leave his options open as he decides what to do about it. That’s true that Hank might be suspicious of people at the office. Hank might be thinking that if his nerdy brother-in-law is a drug kingpin, then why couldn’t people in the DEA also be connected to the drug business. Hank’s probably not trusting anyone at the moment. > [@voltaire](#): > > Not to mention that he’s obviously realized that Skyler must be complicit (he demanded that the kids come stay with them), so busting the Whites may not only put him into hot water at work, he might also catch hell from Marie. He also has to consider the effect that would have on Walt Jr. and the baby. He’s smart enough to have already known to tread lightly without Walt having had to remind him. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I thought Hank said to bring Skyler and the kids over. If so, maybe Hank doesn’t realize how much Skyler knows. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973/220 "2013-08-15T14:27:36Z")
> [@oft\_wears\_hats](#): > > Did Walt seriously make the second batch of ricin in the Superlab? With the cameras and everything? Wouldn’t Gus have known something was up? Even a layperson could tell the difference between a bulk cook and a small-order action. Yeah, he had a toaster oven in the little room off to the side, he must have felt comfortable that there wasn’t a camera in there. WRT The White House. On the podcast Bryan Cranston (who directed this episode) said he specifically brought in lots of flowers and greens for Carol’s house to make Walt’s house look really drab by comparison. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-09-blood-money-8-11-2013/665973.md?page=12)