Oh, and one kind-of out-there speculation… Walt takes the M-60 to the junkyard and he and Old Joe use it to build an impromptu armored car, in which Walt cruises into the Nazi compound and blows the shit out of everything. “Say hello to my little friend” ramped up a whole bunch.
We are using the Nazi term pretty liberally here and I think maybe some misunderstand. Uncle Jack and crew are part of the Aryan Brotherhood, or whatever name they’d use for it inside the Breaking Bad universe (they might hesitate to use an actual gang name.)
They don’t have any particular knowledge of or even following of “real” Nazi ideology.
In prison, gangs are 100% racial. Blacks have a few gangs and only blacks are allowed in, whites have the AB, and Hispanics band together with themselves and all other races (pacific islander, Asian American etc) in a third grouping. I’ve read an article before about a Jewish white guy who was in the AB, it has nothing to do with being anti-Semitic, it is 100% a white skin color affiliation inside of prison. They use Nazi symbols because that is something they associate with “whiteness anti-minority” philosophy. These guys are unlikely to be particular admirers of Hitler or anything relating to actual National Socialism from the days in Germany.
There are two key things about the prologue. One of them is the phone calls, the prologue one and the one near the end of the episode, as a contrast for how far Walt has come.
The other one is “the reaction has begun”. It is not by accident that the shootout happens exactly where Walt and Jesse cooked their first batch. The previous episode drew these same connections, but here they make it crystal clear: when Walt cooked that first batch he unleashed an uncontrollable chaotic storm of violence and death which in the modern day manifests itself in the form of the Neo-Nazis. It doesn’t matter that Uncle Jack pulled the trigger or that Jesse was working as an informant, it was Walt who killed Hank.
NITPICK : In looking at the photos from the flash forward, Walt gets the ricin from the outlet in the bedroom. The outlet plate is still perfectly in place.
In the still shot of the living room, when Walt is standing there looking at HEISENBERG spray painted on his wall, there’s an outlet near his feet, and it’s ripped open.
If the DEA is responsible for the ransacking of the home, I’d like to think they would’ve looked in all the outlets.
I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
That’s awesome.
Or producing a little musical called “Springtime for Hitler.”
Looking back at people quoting Walt’s phone rant… at one point he even said “I built this. Me, along.” At the point I thought he the bullshit was just coming out of his ears, but he was saying in no uncertain terms that Skyler was innocent.
There’s no reason to check the outlets. They’d look for money and phones and drugs and guns and things, not little capsules hidden behind the plate covering a power outlet.
Wait, so when a criminal is caught, anyone who has sold them something legally gets their proceeds confiscated? I doubt this.
I think it’s in part true, to prevent pawn shops from buying stolen merchandise without checking first.
FWIW, Gatopescado has stalked the BB threads for several years now just looking for a chance to mention how stupid the show is. Not just the episode threads, but the ones where people ask if they’ll like it, or that sort of thing. Really over the top too, he doesn’t merely say “this show isn’t as great as everyone seems to think”, but instead tries to say it’s one of the dumbest shows on TV. So yeah, pretty textbook threadshitting.
I agree. He was trying to get his family to come with him and they’d all start over. In his mind, he’s done everything for his family. But then he finds out Skyler told Jr. about Walt’s crimes, and Skyler pulls a knife on him. He’s angry and feels betrayed. So he takes Holly because she’s the one person who isn’t horrified by his actions, and taking Holly is the best way to betray Skyler like Skyler did to him. But when he had time to think, he realized it would be best to give Holly back.
Of course, if you asked him later what his motivations were, he might rationalize it and say it was all part of an elaborate plan, but really he was just acting out of anger.
As others have pointed out, they’re not really Nazis, they’re the Aryan Brotherhood. It’s just easier to call them Nazis.
I think they were magnanimous with Walt because Todd looks up to him, and Jack does respect him at least a little. Walt has accomplished an impressive amount as a criminal. I like that in this show even the members of a prison gang are not completely evil. They easily could kill Walt as well and take all the money. But they don’t.
I’m not sure I understand how.
A couple of call-backs I saw mentioned elsewhere. The U-shaped lock on Jessie in the lab calls back to Krazy-8 and the bicycle lock, the very person killed in Walt’s adventure. Also, Walt lying on the desert floor is almost an exact replica of Gus’ lying on the concrete watching his partner get shot in a flashback.
And while I agree Walt was trying to give Skyler an out, I think he was able to do it so effectively is that he actually believes part of it, that she never was fully on board, she never totally trusted him, etc.
Okay, then.
I’m not a lawyer or a cop, but know a little bit …
Proceeds from criminal activity could be subject to seizure. In real life, I suspect it would be pretty clear that the wad of cash Walt gave the guy for the truck could be proven to be just that and seized. The truck was used in a crime (kidnapping for one, probably several others) and would get locked up in some evidence yard somewhere. But there never seems to be any real “police investigation” on this show.
Oh, its not the worst. Just not very good.
Is that okay, Marley?
I’d like to ask any Firefighters on the board: What level of “Suspension of Disbelief” was required for Walt to enter a station (carrying a BABY! During an AMBER ALERT!), tamper with equipment and making an egress undetected?
But again, not the dumbest show on TV.
I think you’re talking about Aryan Brotherhood lieutenant Tyler Bingham. You can see his Star of David tattoo in this picture: Account Suspended You get the occasional weird ethnic crossover like him in gangs. For example, the co founder of the Mexican Mafia was a one legged American dude named Joe “Peg-Leg” Morgan.
The Hitler thing was a joke. The Aryan Brotherhood are a bit like the Taliban in the sense that some of them are true believers in the cause but most of them are far more interested in pushing people around and selling heroin. That doesn’t mean a lot of them don’t think Hitler and the Nazis were cool though.
Regarding Breaking Bad, I found it remarkable that Uncle Jack and Todd let Walt go and gave him 11 million dollars basically just because they thought he was awesome.
I find this behavior very strange. You don’t even refute the claim you like to wander into as many Breaking Bad threads as you can just to bash the show. Why do you feel so strongly about a television show? This is something that is wholly a matter of opinion, if you have a different opinion from all the people that love the show, what do you get out of bashing it?
I’ll take two prominent examples. I don’t like Mad Men or Dr. Who, I won’t go into why. Both are very, very popular. Does it bother you that something you dislike is very popular? It doesn’t me–I recognize some people, even very large numbers of people, will like shows I just don’t care for at all. You should get over it, and probably get over yourself as well.
Have you ever been by a fire station? They aren’t exactly hardened facilities. The one nearest my house always has the doors to the garage wide open, and usually no firemen are in the garage area. I’m assuming the doors are left open so they don’t have to waste time raising the doors during a fire call. At least based on my local fire station, which I’ve definitely entered before for various reasons, you can enter and walk around for awhile without running into anyone. Or there might be someone right in the garage. The point being these aren’t really secured facilities, at least around where I live. I also don’t know anything about Amber Alert procedure that would lead to a “heightened alert” at fire stations such that they’d be more worried about their own security. What would the logic be there? Someone kidnapped a kid so better watch out, they may try to sneak into a fire station!
If this is the kind of complaint you’ve frequently had about the show I can’t really see that you’ve got very logical reasons for disliking the show.
I’m not a firefighter but my ex-BIL is. I 100% guarantee I could have done that at his station (I visited him at work plenty of times and actually still stop by there on a regular basis, but for different reasons). The front overhead doors are often left open and the side door by the trucks is often unlocked. The truck door is not only unlocked (as you would expect) but is often wide open. It would be trivial to walk in, put a baby in the truck, hit the lights and walk away. The garage bay where the trucks are is cut off from the rest of the station and they wouldn’t see me until someone walks into that area or hears the baby crying…or sees the reflection of the lights bouncing off of something outside and coming back into one of the windows where they’re sitting.
Not hard at all, not even a little bit. They only way I’d get caught is if someone just happens to walk in when I was doing it.
FTR, on the times when I’d go to visit him, that’s the way I walked in. Through the overhead door or side door, past the two trucks and then into the main firehouse. No one knew I/we were there until we made our way into the main part of the building.
I think one of the ingenious things about Walt’s rant was that not only does it absolve Skyler to a degree, but the monstrous way he belittled and threatened her is going to get the family police protection while Walt is at large. The feds will think they are protecting the family from Walt, but in reality Walt is thinking it will protect them from the Nazis.
You heard Jessie say to Todd as he was pulling him out of the cage about the tape at Marie’s house and all he had to do was go get it. That tape implicates Lydia and by extension, Todd and the Nazis. So what’s left of Walt’s family is all a loose end now.
There’s only three scenarios I can envision with Walt and the M-60 (other than him not using it at all and the whole flash forward with it was a false flag):
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Walt’s going after the Nazis and/or Todd because they threatened his family or because they have Jessie or both.
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He goes after Jessie for revenge after some kind of attack of conscience.
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It’s for a showdown with federal agents. Let’s be real here, in the flash forward, Walt really doesn’t look much different with hair and a different style of glasses and clean shaven. Walt is going to be hunted by the feds, and by a lot of them. Also, couldn’t Hank’s call to Marie in the desert be GPS traced to where they are buried?
One prediction: when Todd dies, his last words will contain a very polite apology.
Not to be insufferably pedantic on this issue but I’m perfectly comfortable with classifying members of the Aryan Brotherhood (or fictitious facsimiles of that organization) as Neo-Nazis. They use Nazi symbols to identify themselves, they express White Power sentiments, and they recruit from less notorious gangs that have Nazi right in their name. How many members of the party in Nazi Germany were more interested in money and power than in ideology? And how many members didn’t really understand Nazi ideology in any more complex way than “Germans rule, Bolsheviks drool!”? I do get the point people are trying to make though. Just because a member of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club has a Swastika tattoo doesn’t mean he’s actively fomenting a revolution to overthrow the american government and replace it with one similar to that of Germany in the 1930s. The same is true of most Aryan Brotherhood members.
Back to Breaking Bad, I agree with you completely. I liked that they couldn’t bring themselves to completely kill and fuck over Walt because they respected him as a criminal. Killing Walt would be like shooting an evil unicorn.
I had a feeling about this and I’m now seeing it confirmed: the flashback scenes at the start of this episode were the last things ever shot for Breaking Bad.
Few pages back,
Originally Posted by obfusciatrist View Post
I didn’t see him being affected by Walt’s distress over Hank’s death. I just saw him observing and saying the polite thing when it was over.
He has never been shown to have the slightest hesitation in committing criminal acts, in hurting people. He was never shown to be remotely bothered by having murdered a child, just concerned that it got him in trouble with people who could punish him. I’m not trying to make him inhuman, but he does seem very much to be a psychopath.
reply
Are you a psychiatrist or psychologist? Have you had enough contact with Todd to diagnose him? Do you know for sure he feels no remorse? Have we seen him kill or harm for no reason or take pleasure in killing?
not to much is funny on the BB thread but this reply tickled me. 
anybody…and I mean anybody that as a first response to being surprised by an innocent teenager on a dirt bike is to cap him has some serious F’n issues. Psychopath might just be the top layer of that creep.
And show of hands who’d rather have Todd dead then alive at the end of the show,
Remember in season 1 Walt concocted phosphine gas killing Emilio Koyama ? Jesse is no dummy and though he may not kill Todd in a similar fashion ge may concoct a potion to free himself from the chains that bind him, maybe lights out for Todd then.
At first I did not get what Walt was trying to accomplish while on the phone with Skyler. It was not until they showed his face a couple times did I realize the disconnect between how he sounded on the phone and how he looked while talking on the phone. My wife put it together quickly while I was wondering what the end game was. Perfectly played by Cranston!!!