Barrels of cash can be evidence as good as any other physical evidence. It just depends what they find when they get their hands on it. And they already have evidence from Huell tying it to Walter.
Since Huell and Jesse have information that could get Saul disbarred ten times over even if he does make it out of the series alive (there would probably be schools granting him honorary law degrees just so that they could disbar him), the spinoff would almost have to be either a prequel or take place as he’s trying to rebuild his life post disbarment (having cut a deal where he surrenders his license but remains free [probably with some hidden cash]).
I think Walt’s surrender makes perfect sense. He was completely and utterly defeated by Jesse and Hank teaming up: 1) They now have him on tape confessing to multiple murders and child poisoning, 2) They now know the general location of his money, 3) They now have Jesse cooperating with law enforcement. Walt is free to TRY to walk out of the desert (a doubtful prospect for a cancer patient with no water) but his life is over. No money, warrants out for his arrest, public disclosure of his secret life, etc.
Why prolong the inevitable? Walt was betrayed and defeated so he gave up.
You’re right, you’re right, I know you’re right. And it kills me. But are you right? F-ing LOVE this show.
Yep.
I think this is an important point. In any other show, Hank is dead. The super-cheesy phonecall, along with the fact that he didn’t die on-screen tonight means he survives. Somehow. Gilligan likes to subvert TV cliches, and I think he’s messing with our expectations here.
I think Hank, Gomez and Jesse are dead. If the only way Lydia can get better than 70% pure meth is by either Walt or Jesse, there has to be a mechanism for Walt to be the only cook left standing. There weren’t any shots of Jesse in the scenes from next week. There also doesn’t seem to be any mention of Jesse in the little blurbs in the TV listings. I think he’s Out. And I think the heartfelt “I love yous” between Marie and Hank means Hank is also a goner. With Hank and Gomez out, there is nobody to follow up on the Heisenberg case, which is why Walt can get his big gun and go after the Nazis, who may or may not have figured out about the money. Either they make him cook and don’t pay up or they get his money somehow whether he cooks or not.
It’s interesting to me that so many people are focusing on the cliffhanger and ignoring the most interesting dramatic beat of the episode: Walt trying to call off the hit.
I genuinely did not expect that. Walt cowering behind the rocks, the self-serving play for himself definitely seemed to be stay hidden until the neo-nazis show up and gun everyone down. Given how far he has fallen, how monstrous he’s been, I’m not entirely sure I can get behind him drawing the line there and trying to call off the goons. It seems to be a softening of his character inconsistent with the direction he’s been taking.
I don’t know if there’s a name for it, but there was a lot of it in that scene- not just Hank’s call to Marie but Gomez’s congratulations toward Hank and the ‘you cuff him, you deserve it’ thing. And to think Hank had one day left until retirement.
Having thought about it some more, maybe that’s the point. Walt has gotten this far by being very clever and very ruthless and he’s always believed he would come out on top because nobody was half as smart as he is. And maybe now he finally learns he’s wrong. If Hank and Jesse aren’t as intelligent as Walter, they’re plenty clever on their own and even tougher together.
Hank puts his gun to Walts head and threatens to kill their money machine if they don’t let him leave. That’s the only way out I can think of.
He was thoroughly caught. Jesse was working with the DEA. They probably had a confession, probably some sort of official investigation (Walt doesn’t know how much Hank is out on his own). Everyone is against him, they’ve just found his money, they have him outgunned, he has no escape route, he just confessed on the phone to killing a few people and they were probably recording it. So he truly surrenders to Hank.
When the Nazis come into the picture - I don’t think Walt was ever willing to kill Hank to maintain his empire, certainly not in a massacre which may end up having the DEA investigate, find the money anyway, and both end his empire and result in the deaths of both Hank and Jesse.
His actions at this point are pretty plausible. I mean, you could make a case that he’s so cold blooded that he’d simply have the Nazis murder everyone and try to thwart the fallout, but he was only willing to kill Jesse as an absolute last resort when Jesse threatened his family, and he showed no willingness to kill Hank at any point.
Gilligan has suggested that it would be a prequel, but it’s possible he was just trying not to make promises that Saul would survive the series.
Hank’s phone call with Marie reminded me of that scene in Hot Shots! where Dead Meat is walking to the plane with his wife–she drops her mirror, a black cat runs by, he goes to sign the papers for their new life insurance policy but his pen won’t work, etc. But it’s also possibly (likely, even) that they were just playing with the trope.
From a dramatic standpoint the best outcome would be for Gomez to die and Hank to live. Since he was doing this whole operation off-book (and since going after someone this big and dangerous without at least enough backup to deal with a half-dozen neo-Nazis is really hard to justify), Hank would be responsible and have to deal with the fallout, both officially and emotionally. But with only three episodes left, that’s an awful lot of story.
Still, I’m pretty sure that if Hank were going to die he’d have died right there.
Huell told them that they had rented a van for Walt to move the money. Huell didn’t know where the money was, but when Jesse called Walt he said he tracked down where the money was from the rental van’s GPS.
Sure, but coremelt’s point was that for all Jesse knows, Walt’s money is stacked up in the basement of his house. There’s no real reason to think Huell would have any involvement in knowing where the White Hoard was. It is a little too convenient, but honestly it doesn’t bother me too much. This show has earned the occasional convenient coincidence.
OK, first off - awesome episode. My God, people, who cares about bullet angles and recoils?! Just enjoy the ride!
Now then…3 pages of responses, and not ONE comment about BROCK!!!
DID YOU SEE THE WAY HE LOOKED AT WALT?? He knows who Walt is - and now I think we know how he poisoned Brock - FRUIT LOOPS!!!
Then, we have Walt’s confession to Jesse on the phone, telling him about how it was necessary to get Jesse on his side to murder Gus, and how he knew exactly how much to give him. That’s the first time the specifics have been addressed. That blew me away more than the gunfight.
They were tracking Walt’s call with GPS, so there’s no doubt they recorded the call as well. Walt confesses to EVERYTHING on that call. All the murders, poisoning Brock, etc etc. That’s why Walt surrendered. He knew he was done, and he knew it was the only way to get the money to go to his family.
He’s dying of cancer - courts and lawyers will hold this crap up for months. So he’s thinking “I’ll die in jail and my family will be safe.”
How many clips do the writers think a DEA man would carry on his person? Given the number of bullets fired, the description of “cartoony” was apt. It really bugs me when the show goes over the top, but such is tv.
I was a little disappointed in the scene between Hank and Huell, just because that was a huge opportunity for dark humor and great dialogue and they played it a lot straighter than they could have. (It was still good, but it could have been better.)
The next episode is directed by Rian Johnson, who did “Fly” and “Fifty-One” (both great episodes, IMO) and the excellent Looper.
It’s not unreasonable to think that there is one mag in the gun and a mag pouch with two more on his belt. Gomey would have the additional few shotgun rounds to add to that. That would give them somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 rounds each plus the shottie, but in a firefight in the open against automatic weapons, they should have been dead in the opening salvo.
One of the things I really liked about the phone call was that (I think) they didn’t distort Jesse’s voice to make it sound like it was coming through the phone. It was a very effective technique for increasing the impact of what he was saying. I haven’t ever noticed that being done before.
Though I’m assuming that if the recording exists, it’s in the car. Otherwise, how did they get there that fast? I’m also assuming Hank and Gomez are dead. Also, that they brought Jesse’s confession with them so that they’d be able to present it when they brought Walt in. So it’s possible that at least the initial story is that a dirty DEA agent and his underling/partner-in-crime were killed by rivals/disappeared.
I completely forgot about Uncle Jack until they showed up, but the moment the cuffs were on Hank and Jesse had that smile of relief I knew that something was going to go disastrously wrong.
Magazines. And Hank had a Glock, probably 9mm, which means a single standard looking mag can easily hold between 15 and 19 rounds depending on the model. With just one back up mag, that’s a lot of shooting.
I believe poisoning his juice box at school is official canon at this point.