# Breaking Bad 5.11 "Confessions" 8/25/13 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 23, 2013, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959 "2013-08-23T13:02:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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 26, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/101 "2013-08-26T04:54:21Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > Yes, I remember that now. I’m not sure how that would come into play. I think that was just the writers showing us that he was kind of a gungho jerk. “Look at me with the dead bad guy!” I don’t think it would either, but instead of “look at me with the dead bad guy” it could be “look at me with one of the cartel guys (a rival)”. I doubt it but I could see it just getting tossed in a folder somewhere, it’s just so unprofessional. ---
**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 26, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/102 "2013-08-26T04:59:46Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > I don’t think it would either, but instead of “look at me with the dead bad guy” it could be “look at me with one of the cartel guys (a rival)”. > I doubt it but I could see it just getting tossed in a folder somewhere, it’s just so unprofessional. I think the DEA gung-ho’s on the show probably pull stunts like that all the time. They didn’t act like it was anything out of the ordinary. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/103 "2013-08-26T05:00:55Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Jesse is a complete loose cannon, always was, always will be. In fact, even if Walt had managed to convince him to disappear, and he hadn’t found out about the ricin, that might not even have been enough. He was in enough of a funk to throw all his millions away. Say he did disappear, went on one more drug-fuelled soul-searching binge in the wilderness of Alaska, somehow avoided being eaten by bears, and his inner demons just got the better of him? He could still come back and decide to turn Walt in. > > Really, the only way that Walt can be sure, ever, that Jesse stays out of his hair, is to send him on a one-way trip to Belize. > > Which is the one thing Walt still can’t do. Maybe that would be the final step to 100% full-blown Heisenberg. > > What was Walt’s plan B, anyway, if Jesse hadn’t agreed to the disappearing act? I was waiting for them to show us one of those plastic barrels in the trunk of Walt’s car after the meeting with Saul and Jesse in the desert. But it might have been too similar to Walt re-pocketing the ricin vial after his tea with Lydia. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/104 "2013-08-26T05:29:49Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > Maybe Junior is home as Jesse douses the place with gasoline. I was hoping Jesse would suddenly stop and the camera would pan to show us Walt Jr. sitting at the table, cereal bowl in front of him, eyes wide and mouth agape while his half-raised spoon slowly dripped milk. Credits. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/105 "2013-08-26T05:30:49Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Which is the one thing Walt still can’t do. Maybe that would be the final step to 100% full-blown Heisenberg. Couldn’t kill Hank either. I don’t think he’s really passed the moral event-horizon. The only people he’s killed have been active in the drug ring (though he did watch Jane die without helping her). ---
**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 26, 2013, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/106 "2013-08-26T05:31:08Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > **Jesse Jesse Jesse Jesse Jesse Jesse Jesse** > > Why does this “Jessie” thing seem to come up in every Breaking Bad thread? And Skyler Skyler Skyler. It’s with an “e”, people, stop writing “Skylar”. It gets on my nerves. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/107 "2013-08-26T05:34:11Z")
This chess match with Hank is another nice illustration of what Walt has done to his family, by the way. Walt and Skyler lied to Marie, and now they’re caught up in it as well. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/108 "2013-08-26T05:35:05Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > That’s sounds right, but Brock got sick a few episodes earlier. In our time, that was 7 or 8 months probably, but in their time, he still left it there for far longer then he should have. A week or so probably. > > But the problem is Hank has _nothing_ and Walt has _everything_. Walt has Lydia/Madrigal, he can give inside knowledge of Gale (even more then the DEA knows), he can point them to a train car with a Methlamine shipment that was screwed up and a buried tank (if it’s still there) as well as the dead boy that Todd killed and probably quite a bit more…and he’s proven to Hank that he could make it seem like Hank forced him to do all this. > I wonder if that picture that Hank took with that guy in the junk yard will come into play? I thought that they were driving off with the tank at the end of the opener. ---
**Author:** ![obfusciatrist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/4af34b/32.png) [@obfusciatrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/obfusciatrist)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/109 "2013-08-26T05:43:57Z")
I’m wondering if Todd is the way out. He starts cooking the good stuff again and suddenly you have a Heisenberg fall guy. Don’t know how that could work with the flash forwards but obviously he’ll come into it somehow. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/110 "2013-08-26T05:45:27Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > I’m wondering if Todd is the way out. He starts cooking the good stuff again and suddenly you have a Heisenberg fall guy. Don’t know how that could work with the flash forwards but obviously he’ll come into it somehow. Todd won’t be making good stuff. His shit was barely better than Declan’s and he got fired for starting a fire. ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/111 "2013-08-26T05:49:41Z")
Wow. That was the best thing I have ever seen at least three times in one episode. That said, I need some wild mass guessing. Gus Fring was alive (unlike his partner) because the Mexican cartel boss knew who he was. Gus Fring was able to stop a full on assault by walking into it looking quite cross with the shooters. Gus Fring has been dead for a while. Is he going to be the interior decorator from The Sopranos who killed 16 Czechoslovakians and wandered off into the woods, or are we going to see one hell of a callback? ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/112 "2013-08-26T05:50:03Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > Completely disagree. Hank’s problem is that the version of the story Walt tells on the tape is way more plausible than reality. > > Out of the two of them, which one is the hothead and which one is the beta male? (To the outside observer, not to us.) Who is more likely to have connections to the underworld? Specifically, which one was more likely to have had a connection with Gus Fring, a vocal DEA supporter? > > I had forgotten that Hank didn’t know about Walt giving them money for his medical bills. Who’s going to believe that? > > Up until about six months ago Walt was content to let the rest of the world push him around, and that was obvious to anyone who knew him even a little bit. It would be way easier to believe that he continued to let himself be pushed around than to believe he became a badass meth kingpin on his own accord. > > Sure, the story might fall apart under sufficient scrutiny, but Hank didn’t have the goods to nail Walt in the first place, much less to definitively refute Walt’s competing explanation. The key is Jesse, who might finally be mad enough to look past his history with Hank and work with him to end Walt. Except there is absolutely nothing tying Hank to anything, there is no money trail, there is no forensics evidence, there are no witnesses other than Walt. Hank takes this to Ramey, says “I found out mi bil was Heisenberg a few days ago, I confronted him. He made this to scare me, it’s not true of course and I will cooperate in any way I can. Yes, we took money, they said its was gambling winnings. How was I supposed to know otherwise? I should have come earlier but frankly I was embarrassed.” What evidence do they have that anything Walt says is true? Nothing. Meanwhile, here is a video of Walt confessing. Buys a Car wash, able to pay for expensive cancer treatment, new cars, shady lawyer, disappearing for days, video of him stealing chemicals. I guess I am alone, but I really think it wouldn’t take much investigating to realize Walt’s confession was full of shit. ---
**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 26, 2013, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/113 "2013-08-26T05:50:38Z")
> [@obfusciatrist](#): > > I’m wondering if Todd is the way out. He starts cooking the good stuff again and suddenly you have a Heisenberg fall guy. Don’t know how that could work with the flash forwards but obviously he’ll come into it somehow. Who needs a fall guy? Hank knows Walt is his guy, Walt knows that he knows, and the time of either of them convincing the other of anything else is way, way past. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/114 "2013-08-26T05:52:48Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Couldn’t kill Hank either. > > I don’t think he’s really passed the . The only people he’s killed have been active in the drug ring (though he did watch Jane die without helping her). He’s as guilty (in the eyes of the law) as Todd for the murder of dirt bike kid. Remember him nonchalantly whistling as Jesse looks on in disbelief? He’s looking at the moral event-horizon in the rear view mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/115 "2013-08-26T05:54:53Z")
> [@3trew](#): > > Gus Fring was alive (unlike his partner) because the Mexican cartel boss knew who he was. Gus Fring was able to stop a full on assault by walking into it looking quite cross with the shooters. > > Gus Fring has been dead for a while. > > Is he going to be the interior decorator from The Sopranos who killed 16 Czechoslovakians and wandered off into the woods, or are we going to see one hell of a callback? Are you asking if we’re going to find out what Gus was doing in Chile before he got into the drug business? I doubt it- it’s implied he was connected to the Pinochet government, but beyond that I think it’s more compelling as a mystery. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/116 "2013-08-26T05:56:02Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I think the DEA gung-ho’s on the show probably pull stunts like that all the time. They didn’t act like it was anything out of the ordinary. It’ll look different to a jury in a kingpin trial of a respected DEA agent. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/117 "2013-08-26T06:03:17Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Couldn’t kill Hank either. > > I don’t think he’s really passed the moral event-horizon. The only people he’s killed have been active in the drug ring (though he did watch Jane die without helping her). Are you kidding? He is well down the rabbit hole. Brock isn’t active in the drug ring, and the relief on Hanks face when he finds out Brock is going to be ok speaks of the uncertainty he had in him living. That kid on the bike, tragic but I didn’t do it so let’s carry on anyway. Killing people is much easier if you rationalize it, he’s gotten really good at doing that which makes lying so much easier. He can certainly lie to himself now, he’s gotten so good at it. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/118 "2013-08-26T06:03:19Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > He’s as guilty (in the eyes of the law) as Todd for the murder of dirt bike kid. Remember him nonchalantly whistling as Jesse looks on in disbelief? He’s looking at the moral event-horizon in the rear view mirror. He didn’t shoot the kid, or want him to get shot. He might be legally responsible if New Mexico is a felony murder state, but that’s hardly the same as shooting him. > [@Sitnam](#): > > Brock isn’t active in the drug ring, and the relief on Hanks face when he finds out Brock is going to be ok speaks of the uncertainty he had in him living. Eh, part of the conceit of the show is that Walt’s some sort of super-scientist. I think if he’d meant for Brock to die, Brock would’ve died. Hank isn’t a doctor, and even the doctors didn’t know what he’d been poisoned with till he pulled through. ---
**Author:** ![Stephe96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stephe96](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stephe96)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/119 "2013-08-26T06:06:55Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > I was hoping Jesse would suddenly stop and the camera would pan to show us Walt Jr. sitting at the table, cereal bowl in front of him, eyes wide and mouth agape while his half-raised spoon slowly dripped milk. Credits. “What do you think, Junior? You think you’re just gonna all of a sudden break fast while I’m trying to burn your house down?” ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2013, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959/120 "2013-08-26T06:10:16Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Are you asking if we’re going to find out what Gus was doing in Chile before he got into the drug business? I doubt it- it’s implied he was connected to the Pinochet government, but beyond that I think it’s more compelling as a mystery. It could well be, but with the Mexicans out of the game, Declan dead, and the Aryans making a move I think there is plenty of room for a sudden appearance of a previously unknown player that finds the intersection of a power vacuum and some revenge too tasty to ignore. Mostly I just don’t want to give up on the promise of the “You are still alive because I know who you are” line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions-8-25-13/666959.md?page=7)