Is it really free if you don’t eat any of it and leave a $100 tip? 
I have not observed any such pattern. And even if there were such a tendency, it would be a fallacy to assume it and use it as a basis for other conclusions.
Holly is also another poisonous berry. And also Buddy Holly once had a song called “Peggy Sue” so maybe we’ll see a character in the finale named Peggy Sue.
Free is always good, even if you are rich.
And she’ll be poisoned with ricin! It’s genius!
That Denny’s scene was clearly a reference to the dilemma proposed in the episode title: Eat Free or Diet
I’ll first note that neither of those presents any actual proof that the name “Holly” is correlated with a birthday near Christmastime. And I’ll then note that this doesn’t contradict anything I said.
So just what is Lydia’s motivation?! This is one of the most mysterious things to me, back when she was first introduced there was speculation she was Gus’s daughter or lover but that went nowhere.
It can’t be providing a good life for her daughter, she obviously has a well paid legit career. Is it just to like Walt gather a storage unit full of cash?
Gotta pay for all that stevia somehow.
Anyway, while she has a well-paying job, maybe it’s not well-paying enough to sustain her in the manner to which she has become accustomed. I doubt we’re going to get much more background on her at this point.
Why is that even a question? She wants money. When has “having money” ever stopped anyone from “wanting money”? Not to mention that maybe one of the reasons her daughter is so well cared for is because of the extra drug money. Perhaps her career pays upper middle-class well, but she’s aiming for Scrooge McDuck levels.
Why does it have to be anything other than making money? I think everything is business to Lydia. She was good at her job and she doesn’t really care if what she’s doing is legal and involves shipping or whatever or if it’s illegal and involves drugs and murder. If I had to make up a backstory I would say she had a legitimate job at Madrigal when Herr Schuler made her the point person for Madrigal’s part of the crystal meth operation. We don’t know if she has anything to do with the company anymore since things probably got hot after Schuler died, but she still has her Czech connections, whatever they are.
An article in Slate contends that everything “Breaking Bad” has done “The Shield” did first. They have some good points. But I think Walter has had more development and shading as a character than the lead character in The Shield did.
Just throwing that out there.
Well obviously in criminal enterprise there is a risk balance, we have seen Walt struggle with that. Lydia is a single parent even, if she gets whacked or put away her daughter is in even shittier shape.
Isn’t working at Madrigal part of her smuggling operation to her Czech connection?
Well for one thing how does she hope to use or launder hundreds of millions of USD?
Lydia’s solution to every type of risk involves killing people. She doesn’t do half-measures, I guess, but I know Mike never thought that was an effective way to handle things because it can attract police attention. So I see her as risk-averse in that sense.
That would make sense; you may be right about that. They’ve never really specified how all this stuff works, although I see Lydia’s job at Madrigal involves logistics. So yes, maybe she is still there and she plays a role in getting the meth to the Czech Republic.
I don’t think she’s at hundreds of millions yet. I think it was pointed out in a previous thread that keeping the money overseas would actually be safer than having it in the U.S. The particulars don’t seem that important to me. We’ve seen people approach the meth trade from a bunch of different angles, and I see hers as ‘legal, illegal, it’s all business.’
I seem to remember a scene from a previous episode that made it clear that the meth was getting to Europe hidden in legitimate shipments for Madrigal.
I saw that, it was interesting. However…
(soapbox mode)
Breaking Bad is a very different beast than The Shield, or for that matter The Sopranos or The Wire, although it can be argued that it owes a lot to all of them.
For one thing, those are still basically shows about cops and robbers. Sure, The Shield is about crooked cops, The Sopranos is about sympathetic robbers, and in The Wire everybody inhabits a moral grey zone, but still.
Breaking Bad, while using some of the same elements, is really about us. Well, at least some of us, and maybe a lot of us. Specifically, it’s about the middle-aged, middle-class schmuck with a midlife crisis, a feeling of wasted potential, and a vaguely formulated revenge fantasy. Then it takes that fantasy and plays it out in the most brutal (and simultaneously most entertaining) way possible. That’s why it hits us on much more of a gut level than those other shows do.
Don’t get me wrong, cops-and-robbers stories are great, but Breaking Bad does something more: It takes our demons, our disappointments, our vaguely formulated questions and half-baked ideas about ourselves (if you will, our traumas and neuroses), and articulates them, turns them up to 11, and shows us the deep horror that can be inherent in them. It lets us experience fear and pity in a safe setting, and by doing so, it lets us purge those emotions and provides the audience with catharsis.
It’s a tragedy for our time, and it’s not only great television, but also serves the same kind of psychological and social therapeutic function for its audience as the Greek tragedies did for theirs.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we will always connect more with Walter White than with Vic Mackey.
(/soapbox mode)
(Although I will also argue that a lot of the show’s fans, specifically those who cannot relate to the existential woes of the middle aged middle class, either by a lack of imagination or by simply not being either middle aged or middle class themselves, don’t really get the show at all. That includes those who think Heisenberg is still just “awesome”, as well as the much documented “Skyler-haters”. Also, the show was never really intended to be for everyone, I think, and it’s kind of amazing how big it’s become.)
What, you mean January? That didn’t look look cold enough for Albuquerque in January, and anyway that would mean they only did five chapters in the first half of the school year. Assuming the school year started in late August, getting up to chapter 6 by September 8 is perfectly plausible.
This is fantastic.