Your missing the point. We know that Flynn and Skyler won’t accept the boxes of money Walter wants to send to them, direct blood money. However, if Walt can somehow retrieve what he believes is his rightful share of GM by whatever means necessary, including blackmail, it doesn’t matter, the family will be the benefactors of GM stock which is a legitimate company. Skyler was more than willing to take the avails of any help from GM for Walt’s medical bills, so it would be more than reasonable for the children to accept an inheritance through GM and not Walt directly.
Walt was obviously interested in Gretchen back in college when she was his chemistry assistant, and Elliot was one of Walt’s closest friends. In season one, when she and Walt are talking about the chemical make up of a human body, Gretchen posits that the missing 1% could be “the soul.” Walt leans in as if to kiss her and says, “the soul? There’s nothing but chemistry here.”
The scene never shows a kiss, but it’s implied that there’s a mutual attraction. My bet is next week’s episode is going to flash back to that and reinforce talk about “the soul,” and Gretchen is going to spurn Walt because of her interest in Elliot. Walt’s going to apologize and back down, but in his mind Gretchen denied him. She chose Elliot over Walt, which may be an underlying reason for leaving Gray Matter. It also lends some credence to the comment mentioned up thread where he says to Gretchen in a later episode, “You are always the picture of innocence.” In Walt’s mind, he’s the victim and she’s the cause of his pain.
Or maybe not.
I think this is all true in the backstory, the “picture of innocence” I think maybe a step further, in that she uses her feminine ways to talk Walt into revealing intricate details of his chemistry, he thinking it’s all an innocent way to get to know Walt better, but then she “innocently” takes the formula to Elliot, who knows how to market it without the anal Walt, they run with it and leave Walt out in the cold, as friends, and in a romantic sense and a business one. It would explain his abrupt leaving, his distain for Gretchen, the complete sense of a duped guy at a Birthday Party who tried to re-kindle what the trio used to have, only to be thrown crumbs. This would be the highest betrayal, particularily since the naming of the company was supposed to signify black and white melding together as a unit.
Blackmail isn’t legitimate, though, and the family would know this was still more criminal activity from Walt. If anything it would only get them in more trouble.
Also: the government is investigating Skyler and all of a sudden a company with links to Walt just gives the family a few million dollars? That wouldn’t work for a second.
This sounds like a bad techno thriller. Gretchen was Walt’s lab assistant, so she already knew what he was working on.
None of this makes sense or fits with what we’ve already heard in past episodes. They didn’t leave Walt out; he quit and cashed in his stake in the company. There was no “formula.”
That’s not what happened at the birthday party. He didn’t try to re-kindle anything. He went to torment himself just like he does when the checks the company’s stock price, and they didn’t give him “crumbs.” They offered him a lot of help with no strings attached, and he said no.
No it wouldn’t. Shareholders are the most important thing to Grey Matter. Perception is reality. Walt can easily say that he was more involved in the company than what was said on tv and provide details. Eliot and Gretchen effectively lied to Charlie Rose, so Walt can make a lot of hay out it. Then the shareholders will have to do what is necessary to keep the company afloat.
This is still blackmail, but what do you think the shareholders will do? (Not that this series is going to come down to a stock market transaction.)
There’s supposed to be a three minute long alternate ending on the season 5 DVDs. I’m now rooting for that to just be the end of either Mr. Deeds or Trading Places.
No, that’s not really right, at all.
He went because Skyler wanted him to go. He did try to re-kindle the relationship he’d had with Elliot - though not with Gretchen - and he succeeded, at least for a little while.
Elliot ultimately offered a job, which Walt was about to accept, until he realized that Skyler had put him up to it.
I’m been wondering a bit about the amount of time elapsing in the Walt storyline vs. the Jesse storyline in this episode. If Walt does indeed return to ABQ on his birthday, he’ll have spent about three or four months in New Hampshire (which seems about right watching the episode).
If Jesse is still enslaved by the Nazis when Walt returns, that means the poor guy has spent the same amount of time in that hole. That’s a pretty depressing thought. (And would Todd really need to keep him alive that long to learn how to cook the blue by himself?)
Can someone explain exactly why Walt is being hunted by the feds? Something - well, a lot - seems to have been glossed over in the rush to finish the story. When the police were called in because Walt took Holly no one was accusing him of anything bigger. Who told the police he had been making & selling meth? Where did they get enough evidence for a case much less a nation-wide manhunt? Except for the phone call to Skylar how is Walt tied to Hank & Gomie’s disappearance?
This all doesn’t really bother me (I’m more bothered that Walt didn’t call in and give the police leads on the Nazis since he knows the names! or somehow give the DEA the coordinates for the bodies). I know it was just to advance the plot. But sloppy.
I don’t know about real-world meth, but in the show, the real high-quality stuff is supposed to be hard to make. Impossible, except for people with special talents.
You’re acting as if Hank and Gomez disappeared in a vacuum. They’re not starting from scratch here… As soon as Hank and Gomez went missing (and Walt disappeared) the Feds would be all over this case looking for any clues as to what happened. With the information that Marie and Skyler would have provided, they’d know exactly who to be looking for. Hank’s garage is filled with all kinds of evidence, but even if it wasn’t they would have plenty to go on. They have missing agents, presumed dead, and a guy that the dead agent’s wife says did it, and her story seems pretty solid - especially when coupled with any evidence they find on their own.
Part of being disappeared is to have zero contact with the outside world. No phone, no internet, nothing at all that could lead the authorities to Walt. And if you’re rushing to get the fuck out of Dodge, you’re not going to say “Hang on, let me give the police more evidence against me, thanks.”
The police were already being dispatched when he picked Holly up out of her playpen, because Junior called 911 and said Walt had attacked them with a knife and was still in the house. And when the police come to your house to check out such a claim, they’re going to want to know what set all that off. “Oh, he gets that way sometimes” ain’t gonna wash, ya know? Between Marie and Junior, I’d expect the police got quite an earful about what had been going on even before Walt called the house and explicitly said they’d never see Hank again.
well he’s back, Flynn (Walt Jr.) called the police on his father. He said that his father had attacked his mother and had probably killed people. They could have gotten information on Walt’s probable activities from Marie. They could easily confirm that Hank is currently unreachable and that nobody seems to know where he is. They know Walt stormed off with Holly. Then Walt calls and basically confesses. The agent watching Huell would not be able to provide details, but could confirm that Hank and Gomez were up to something unusual. Skylar may have admitted some of what she suspected Walt of doing.
Wouldn’t investigators be able to see what towers transmitted Hank’s final phone call and see that the same ones were used when Walt made a call shortly before that? Even if Walt was using a throwaway phone, it wouldn’t require too many leaps to guess that Walt was the owner of that phone.
So I don’t wonder how they would have connected Walt to anything. I wonder why they don’t seem to have any idea where Hank is buried or tracked down the Nazis based on Walt calling them from the same location as Hank’s last phone call.
It’s possible that Breaking Bad takes place in a world where cellphone companies don’t track which tower calls are made from, but they do in real life, right?
I wonder if Flynn will ever figure out that at one point early on, he was unwittingly helping Walt launder money through the donations website.
Between Hank and Gomez going missing, the evidence in Hank’s garage, Marie and Skyler’s knowledge, the fight at the White home and Walt’s phone call, the DEA knows basically everything at this point. It’s implied that this was a national news story, and if the whole tale wasn’t out it would not be getting that kind of attention. The one thing the government probably doesn’t know is who is handling the Blue Sky meth now. And I don’t think they would know about Madrigal or there would have been an effort to shut down the Czech pipeline.
Todd was a competent cook, if not on Walt and Jesse’s level. But it probably does make his life easier if there’s someone else in the lab, and he probably thinks Jesse appreciates the company or something.
That must be some tense cooking sessions, though. And I can’t imagine the Andrea incident makes the water cooler chit chat any less awkward.