Breaking Bad 5.15 "Granite State" 9/22/13

[Erdosain]

I just realized that everything bad that happened this episode, Andrea getting killed, Holly being threatened, was a direct result of Walt’s decision in the desert to demand vengeance on Jesse. The Nazis were ready to pack up, split with the money, ride into the sunset. But because Walt couldn’t leave it alone, a bunch more people will die. This seems to happen on this show a lot. A seemingly tiny decision turns out to have disastrous (mostly fatal) consequences.

It would be beyond tragic if Walt’s need for vengeance ended up killing his family.

[Erdosain]

@Dewey_Finn

Also, Saul was stupid to tell Walt, “I’ll probably be managing a Cinnabon in Omaha in a month.” You don’t tell others where you’re going when you’re disappearing.

Walt only has a few months to live and he was trying to arrange a hit on the Aryan Brotherhood. He doesn’t have time to scour the entire state of Nebraska for one man (who doesn’t really concern him at this time). Saul didn’t even know whether he was going to Omaha either, he just knew he was going some place in Nebraska, so it’s not like he narrowed it down for Walt either.

[solost]

@Folacin

Saul was reading the writing on the wall. He’s chin deep in the Heisenberg stuff, Huell has probably been actually taken into custody now that Gomez and Hank are missing and presumed dead - there’s nothing in New Mexico for Saul any more.

I don’t think he considers himself in physical danger of dying - he just has no desire to spend the 10-15 years in prison. And he’s a good enough lawyer to know what his chances are.

Yeah, there’s Huell, but Hank and Gomez interrogated him as part of their personal gig, and the Nazis broke into Hank’s house and took all their evidence (presumably). So my impression is the DEA doesn’t even know about Huell. All they know is that Walt is Heisenberg. Unless they’re going by what Marie also knows.

I was just a little surprised to see Saul disappear-- seemed a little out of character. He’s afraid of getting killed but he seems like a good enough (or weaselly enough) lawyer to not freak at the first sign of legal trouble, even in a DEA investigation. He could always disappear if there was some indication the Feds were coming after him. But maybe it was just a “writing on the wall” thing.

[Mr_Shine]

So Saul wasn’t interested in helping Walt. At the moment, do we have any solid information on how Walt would know where to contact a man with an M60 for sale?

[Joey_P]

@solost

I was just a little surprised to see Saul disappear-- seemed a little out of character.

No it’s not, IIRC he was going to do it once before but Walt convinced him to stay.

[Cognoscant]

I think the Grey Matter scene is motivational for Walt, but not to do something against them. Remember that this whole series started with Walt cut out of the millions that were rightfully his. And remember that a lot of his motivation right from the start wasn’t just to care for his family but to “get what’s mine”, i.e., recoup his losses from Grey Matter. Then throughout the series through his meth-making enterprises he builds an empire and is eventually richer than his former partners (recall that during the Charlie Rose segment the Schwartzes were throwing around figures like $23 million, small potatoes next to Walt’s $80 million+) Having beaten his colleagues at their own game, it looked like Walt was going to semi-retire and be satisfied with what he’d got.

Then Hank had to figure out who he was, and the shit hit the fan. As a consequence, Walt loses almost all of his fortune, and the comfortable life the Schwartzes enjoy. I think in the cabin in New Hampshire, with Walt getting significantly sicker, he was probably thinking, "OK, I’m just going to die here, but I’ll try to at least do one of the things I wanted to do from the start, I’ll send my family a little bit of cash, enough to keep them eating. Then he gets blindsided by Jr.'s tirade against him and he realizes he’s lost his family anyway. Jr. hates him, Skyler would flip on him if she could. If he wants to save his family, all he’s got left to trade is himself. He’ll reinforce their innocence and probably die before the trial. So he calls the DEA, sits down with a double, and waits for them to get him.

But then he sees those smug asshole Schwartzes on TV and remembers, hey, I had other fish to fry here. He’d talked to Vacuum Cleaner Guy about getting his money back from the Nazis. I had an empire, damn it, and those Nazis took it away from me just like the Schwartzes (heh heh, Sgt. Schwartz) did. Walt doesn’t have much time left. You’ve got to think, cripes Walt, even with your machine gun and vial of ricin you have no chance against an armed compound full of Nazi toughs. But Walt’s got nothing to lose. Todd, who I agree seems to be their leader by dint of having two brain cells to rub together and by his recent demonstration of being a cold blooded psychopath, has everything to lose: the recipe, Lydia, and most of all his budding empire. The scene is set for a showdown.

My wild-ass prediction for the final scene: Walt shows up at the Nazi hangout armed for bear and kills the Nazis. He sees a suspcious-looking tarp, thinks the money is under there–it’s Jesse’s cell. Jesse begs Walt to kill him, they’ve already killed Andrea and they’re going to kill Brock any day now, I’ve got nothing left to live for. Walt thanks him for everything, throws in the ricin, and re-covers the cell. One last showdown. Walt breaks into Todd’s lab. Todd tells him, I’ve always respected you, I’m halfway to building the empire you always wanted, let’s go into business together. Walt answers with a bullet. In the corner are several familiar barrels. Walt opens one and it’s full of cash. He’s got what he wanted. The camera focuses on the cash. We hear coughing and blood spilling onto the money. Fade to black.

[BlankSlate]

@Mr_Shine

So Saul wasn’t interested in helping Walt. At the moment, do we have any solid information on how Walt would know where to contact a man with an M60 for sale?

It was the same guy he bought a revolver from in season 4.

[What_the]

@Duke_of_Rat

Forster said “Welcome to New Hampshire” and mentioned it was 4,500 mile round trip. We’re not in Kansas, or New Mexico, Toto.

I sure hope the tanker truck was a short/last leg of the trip…that would have been a helluva a way to travel 2250 miles.

I think Walt has given up on his family (unless there is a way to squirrel away some for Holly) …it’s all about his reputation now.

I can’t see him changing his mind about Jessie and helping him either but it could happen.

[WordMan]

@don_t_ask

No my objection to the scene in the bar is that, because of the flash forwards to start both the whole of the series and the second half of the series, we know that Walt is not arrested even when he leaves the phone off the hook so he can be traced. To then show his motivation for changing his mind to be nothing other than a fluke strikes me as terrible writing. The barman has to change channels or the next episode can’t happen even though we already know it will.

I didn’t like the handling of any of the dramatic events in this episode.

Cool - I see why you look at it that way and is a reasonable issue. From my POV, the trivial nature of the channel-flip makes the point that Walt must come back; he can’t go down limply. The channel-flip, being trivial and still setting him off, shows us how he was hair-triggered to anything and giving up wasn’t his real DNA.

Or, put it another way - we all know he must go back, so get him back efficiently. Sometimes those dramatic twists show their gears too easily, sure. But since going back is totally consistent with Walt’s/Heisenberg’s nature, I can roll with it…

[John_Mace]

@Joey_P

Well, I thought that was a great episode. The only part I could have done without was when Todd & Crew broke into the White House. I want to say it had nothing to do with anything, but I’m guessing it’s going to show back up next week, I doubt that they’re going to leave that alone.

They were making sure that Skyler didn’t say anything about Lydia. Remember when Lydia came to the car wash and Skyler more or less figured out who she was? They only referred to he as the lady with dark hair, but that’s who they meant.

[interface2x]

@coremelt

Almost all the events of series 5a came about because Hank happened to find the account number of Gus Caribbean bank account behind a picture frame from blind luck.

That wasn’t really blind luck - that was Walt thinking he was a genius and just making it worse for himself. Remember, the reason they were going in there was to destroy the hard drive on Gus’ laptop. But after the whole situation was over, Hank says he’d tried to look at the laptop and it was encrypted. So basically, it was no threat to Walt (though he didn’t know that) and he went through this massive scheme to destroy it, which ending up breaking the picture frame, which exposed the previously hidden account numbers.

If Walt had just chilled out and not worried about the laptop, he could have continued cooking without the DEA busting everyone. Once again, he outsmarted himself. It was a coincidence, but it was from the “you can include coincidences that HURT the characters, but not coincidences that HELP the characters” school of thought.

[Marley23]

@Martian Bigfoot

Todd and the Nazis are displaying some awful decision-making all-round.

Isn’t that sort of a Nazi trademark?

Jack had the right idea. They have their millions, time to get out of Dodge. And Todd just sort of… changed their minds? How did he even do that, some Jedi mind trick?

This is not that complicated. Yes, getting out would be smarter. But it’s not like they’re going to go legit and I don’t know if they have a clue how to launder all that money. But lots of people have done dumb things to get even richer. As to why Jack is listening to Todd: he’s family and his involvement with Walt led them to the $70 million.

@Martian Bigfoot

Heisenberg, the monster from the Id, still seems to be around in force, and I think it’s the milquetoast chemistry teacher who kicked the bucket once and for all.

I think they’ve done a really good job these last few episodes of saying it’s all Walt. You can’t just kill a part of him. It’s all him.

@Simplicio

Plus Walt’s whole motivation for getting in the meth business was to avoid accepting help from the Grey Matter couple, so he’s not going to them now for money or help with the DEA.

He’s already making meth at that point. He does decide to keep doing it instead of accepting money from the Schwartzes. I was just rereading the summary of “Gray Matter” (episode five of the first season), and I see that Elliot introduced Walt to the group by saying his work in crystallography was a major contribution to the success of Gray Matter Technologies. Elliot doesn’t really need to go this far in disavowing Walt - it’d be just as convincing if he said Walt cashed out ~20 years ago and has had no involvement with the company since then - but it’s not like Walt is going to realize he brought this on himself.

think the last episode will just be Walt doing what he’s done in basically all of the season finales. He’ll “win”, saving Jesse and getting his wife clear of the DEA and somehow setting her up with enough money for life*.

He would rather kill Jesse than save him. Saving him would be kind of suicidal.

*(given Heisenberg’s apparent celebrity, Skylar could probably just sell a tell-all memoir ("I was married to the Meth King-pin of Arizona) for more cash then is in one of those barrels).

That story wouldn’t be worth nearly that much. More importantly, if she tells the full story she implicates herself and if she sticks to the story she’s giving the DEA she has practically nothing to say.

@thirdname

I though that in the phone call last week, Skyler got the message that Walt didn’t really kill Hank. (Not deliberately and directly, anyway.) But apparently Flynn still hates him and thinks he killed Hank.

Neither of them has the full story. They just know they were in the desert together and Hank wound up dead. Walt said he tried to save him, but that’s about all he said- and it’s not like his word is worth much at this point.

So Skyler apparently hasn’t told Flynn that Walt was acting in that phone call. Does she not trust him to keep that secret?

I’m not sure she can, but the important thing here is that Flynn is not going to listen to anything Skyler has to say. They have destroyed his ability to trust them.

Is she going to let Flynn go on forever thinking that his dad is a total monster?

We don’t know what Skyler told Flynn at the car wash, but I imagine he’s smart enough to recognize that it does not really match what Walt said in that phone call. Whether he’s thinking about it that way (as opposed to just being overwhelmed by hurt) is an open question. But it doesn’t matter very much, really. Either he can believe his dad is a monster and his mom is a liar or he can believe both his parents are monsters. What’s worse? He doesn’t buy Walt’s excuses for a second. That’s as close as this show has come to a heartening development this season.

@Dewey_Finn

Didn’t Walt burn his bridges in New Hampshire by leaving the phone off the hook before he went up to the bar, ordered the drink and saw Gretchen and Elliott being interviewed by Charlie Rose? If so, then he’s not returning to New Mexico because of Gray Matter.

He called the DEA to turn himself in, went to the bar, saw the interview, and had a change of heart.

Also, Saul was stupid to tell Walt, “I’ll probably be managing a Cinnabon in Omaha in a month.” You don’t tell others where you’re going when you’re disappearing.

I guess that wasn’t wise, but he figures he is of no use to Walt and not worth killing. He’s right.

@Folacin

Saul was reading the writing on the wall. He’s chin deep in the Heisenberg stuff, Huell has probably been actually taken into custody now that Gomez and Hank are missing and presumed dead - there’s nothing in New Mexico for Saul any more.

And Saul was mixed up in illegal doings long before Walt showed up.

[Sampiro]

@Bumbershoot

I’m watching the second airing and Forster’s character just said “Welcome to New Hampshire.”

Plus he said the TV only picks up signals from Montreal.

[Sam_Lowry]

@Idle_Thoughts

Not reading anything in here (since I haven’t reached this episode yet and don’t want to be spoiled), but Breaking Bad just won its first (and probably last) Emmy for Most Outstanding Drama Series.*
*First time winning this category. In others it already has a few Emmy’s in.

I hope it wins a lot next year, but I’m worried that it’ll be overlooked, since it’ll have been almost a year from the last episode until the next Emmy voting time. But in a just world, it would sweep basically every category that it’s eligible for next year.

@interface2x

That wasn’t really blind luck - that was Walt thinking he was a genius and just making it worse for himself. Remember, the reason they were going in there was to destroy the hard drive on Gus’ laptop. But after the whole situation was over, Hank says he’d tried to look at the laptop and it was encrypted. So basically, it was no threat to Walt (though he didn’t know that) and he went through this massive scheme to destroy it, which ending up breaking the picture frame, which exposed the previously hidden account numbers.

I don’t really know that much about computers and encryption, but would it have been possible for DEA or other feds to get through the encryption? I assume Gus had really good encryption on his computer, but I assume that DEA has really good resources to get through that sort of stuff if they want to. But I guess we don’t know if they would have wanted to.

But that is a good point, that Walt often outsmarts himself. If he wasn’t so confident that his genius could get him out of trouble, he wouldn’t get himself into a lot of the trouble in the first place.

[drastic_quench]

@Cognoscant

I think the Grey Matter scene is motivational for Walt, but not to do something against them. Remember that this whole series started with Walt cut out of the millions that were rightfully his. And remember that a lot of his motivation right from the start wasn’t just to care for his family but to “get what’s mine”, i.e., recoup his losses from Grey Matter. Then throughout the series through his meth-making enterprises he builds an empire and is eventually richer than his former partners (recall that during the Charlie Rose segment the Schwartzes were throwing around figures like $23 million, small potatoes next to Walt’s $80 million+) Having beaten his colleagues at their own game, it looked like Walt was going to semi-retire and be satisfied with what he’d got.

Billions. With a B. Grey Matter is worth multi billions. Walt would have been a billionaire.

[Dewey_Finn]

The $23 million was only the amount they gave to the drug treatment charities. It’s not their total net worth. And note that their fortune is aboveboard and legal, unlike his $80 million in a storage unit.

[Andiethewestie]

I think a really satisfying ending would be to expose the Schwartz’s as corporate slime balls, since they had Walt by the short and curlys in the first place, a buy out of $5,000.00 was chump change but he needed it, Skyler was pregnant with Flynn. Perhaps there’s something in what they said on Charlie Rose that triggers Walt to go there, since he’s not going to live anyway. He may just find the right nugget that will make them uncomfortable enough to make sure his family is taken care of with a third of their millions. They did offer to pay for Walt’s medical bills initially, which he flatly refused, and at the time I thought it was just Walt’s pride, but now, I’m not so sure. I just don’t believe they’re simply good samaritans, but have an overwhelming desire to separate themselves from Walt. Who knows? Grey Matter Technologies may have an interest in Madrigal, and Lydia would know.

Why do brilliant guys like Walt Break Bad? They are the anti-heros of today, railing at systemic corruption by creating their own empire. This is what is sympathetic about Walt and why anybody still cares about him despite his horrific crimes.

[corkboard]

I thought Uncle Jack was going to take out Todd when he left him standing by himself out by the cage, after Todd talked him out of killing Jesse (again). The way Jack sort of laughed, agreed with Todd and then walked back to the group, leaving Todd standing there alone, looked like he was setting him up. Jack joked that Todd was sweet on Lydia, and I think he was afraid the kid was getting too close and losing his focus. But of course, that didn’t happen.

I don’t think Saul was tipping Walt to where he’d be relocated to with the “Omaha” comment- it’s just typical Saul hyperbole, as if to say, in a month I’ll be in the middle of nowhere working some nondescript fast food clerk job.

It looks like Jesse (or Aaron Paul, more accurately) bulked up since the first half of the season. It used to look like his oversize T-shirts and hoodies hung on his skeletal frame, but now he looks beefy in a muscular way under them. Wonder if it’s for another role.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Skylar was keeping two storage lockers full of cash, only one of which she showed to Walt. She’s smart enough to have speculated on her current situation as a possible outcome. The tricky part will be how to access it, but if she’s been this patient all along, pretty soon the heat will be off of her and she can get her hands on it.

And they’re not Nazis. They’re neo-Nazis, white supremacists.

[Duke_of_Rat]

@The_Second_Stone

Do we know if Jack is a sibling of Todd’s mother or father?

Both Todd’s and Jack’s last name were mentioned last night, and they were different. It’s not definite proof one way or another, just throwing that out there.

[Joey_P]

@corkboard

It looks like Jesse (or Aaron Paul, more accurately) bulked up since the first half of the season. It used to look like his oversize T-shirts and hoodies hung on his skeletal frame, but now he looks beefy in a muscular way under them. Wonder if it’s for another role.

He is in another movie right now, but that could just be a combination of Jesse not being a regular meth user and Aaron Paul being 34 instead of 29. I think a lot of people put on 15 or 20 pounds when they got into their early thirties.