Who cares when he ‘first appeared’ - in those 10 episodes since Todd showed up, Todd’s only actually been in what, 7 or 8? And in some of them he barely shows up at all - in last week’s show don’t we only hear Todd’s voice when Walt calls him to say he has a job for Todd’s uncle?)
Ditto the Nazis. Who cares when they ‘first appeared’ - they’ve been relatively insignificant for the entire show, save for a few scenes here and there in a couple of episodes, mainly as a plot device to help Walt kill the guys in prison, something he had basically no chance of pulling off on his own. Are they nasty, evil guys? Sure - they killed 10 guys in two minutes in a coordinated attack in multiple prisons. But the show has positioned Walt out to be the even more evil dude since he gave the order.
Like **Red Barchetta **said: The Nazi guys are simply not interesting as characters, and definitely not even remotely interesting as antagonists. I’ll be disappointed if that’s how the show goes, unless the writers do something pretty amazing yet plausible.
People might complain about BB threads cluttering up CS, but it would be interesting to have a separate thread predicting how it’s all going to shake out, with everybody posting new predictions after each episode. That way, it would be easier to track who was right and wrong (and who was most right and most wrong.)
If anybody seconds the idea, go ahead and start the thread. If not, this is the only time I’ll mention this.
Well, you said “having the Nazis show up as a sudden ‘arch nemesis’ the last four shows would be too cruel.” They really didn’t show up in this episode.
No, they’re not as interesting as people. But in terms of the story they make sense as antagonists.
The way I see it, they aren’t that interesting on their own but they work with the story I think the writers are telling. Actually it reminds me of The Wire: as far as I can tell everybody hated Marlo, but he represented a progression from what had come before. He was inevitable. Walt has always considered himself the smartest guy in the drug world and warped everything in his particular way, and now it looks like it’s led to this.
I don’t disagree with you here. Most everything–short of few stretches here and there–make sense. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t have come up with something better that also worked with the story.
As is, I’m afraid I’m going to be let down when all of this comes to a head, assuming they’re heading in the direction I think they are.
The good guys ending in mortal peril and then magically being fine the next week is a cliche that dates back to serials from the 50s or earlier…so them just mystically A-Team style surviving against unrealistic odds to me would be a much bigger cliche than having Hank die shortly after speaking with his wife.
To be honest, I’m completely prepared to be disappointed by the ending. How the heck do you end something like this in a way that isn’t disappointing? Especially with everybody getting their hopes cranked sky high, thinking the ending will be the most amazing, twisty, mindblowing thing ever! Um, I dunno, there are only so many ways this can go, and good endings are really, really hard to pull off anyway.
In a way, I almost wish the show had ended with Hank’s “oh shit” moment on the can. Throw in a definite confirmation that Walt’s cancer is back (which we didn’t have yet then) and that he’ll drop dead before long, and maybe the second flash-forward showing the trashed White house, and that’s a pretty great ending right there. Then we could imagine the rest.
Season 5B has really been very different from what came before. It’s like the show exploded outwards for four and a half seasons, and these final episodes is that momentum completely reversing, and everything imploding inwards. I would have been kind of nice to end it just on the final point of the explosion.
It’s got some similarities to Scarface though. The Colombian cartel guys that rush his mansion at the end of the movie really weren’t major villains. Most of Scarface is Tony’s dealings with his boss Frank and his friend Manny. The Colombian drug lord has an important role in the story but not a lot of screen time, and the guys that come for him in the end are just throw away henchmen, it isn’t like there is ever a show down. If anything Tony’s dealing with Frank and Manny are much more the “big show down” scenes in that movie. Gilligan has already said he’s drawing heavily from Scarface, and Gus is a much better done version of Frank–Tony’s first boss whose empire Tony takes over once displacing him. The Nazis could be pretty easy stand-ins for the Colombian henchmen that come for Tony in the end, in that they were not well developed characters or etc like Frank (or Gus in Breaking Bad) were.
The idea that just because the Nazis are new characters means it’s bad to have them be the final villains doesn’t necessarily make sense. It makes more sense even for Gus to be the bigger villain. As a Scarface style “tragedy”, the more interesting villain has to die earlier, because it is he who Walt seizes his empire from–the final villains aren’t necessarily even supposed to be interesting in and of themselves. Because what’s really doing Walt in is his continued ego and etc taking him down the path to ultimate failure and collapse, so it’s not really important who the final people to com after Walt end up being–because the real issue for Walt is Walt himself.
Yep, also put me down for disappointment if the Nazi’s end up being the final antagonists.
They’re not real characters like Gus or even Tuco was. They’re conveniences that can magically kill 11 people in 3 prisons within 2 minutes, magically kill all of Declan’s guards without losing anyone, but then can’t shoot for shit as soon as it’s against a real character.
Hoping they pull a twist out, final confrontation needs to be Walt against Hank or Walt against Jesse, not Walt against the Nazi’s to rescue someone.
Well, you have to take into account Hank’s triple-layered, teflon-coated character shield, which has already saved his ass from an M16-wielding Tuco, an exploding head on a turtle and one set of cartel cousins.
Same thing with Gus, only more so. His story is about how he builds up his meth empire carefully and methodically over many years, all along carefully planning his just revenge against Don Eladio, Hector and the cartel… and just as everything is set for the final, perfect conclusion, the whole thing is blown to smithereens thanks to this one crazy dude that he made the mistake of getting into business with just a few months before.
It’s not simply a matter of the characters only be unable to be reasoned with. Thee ones they chose to go with–and the manner in which they’ve been portrayed–is just not interesting to me at all.
