Can someone tell me what happened in the first ten minutes? I came into this week’s episode right when Skyler was asking Walt if he was safe. What happened before that?
We see a commercial for Los Pollos Hermanos, followed by a shot of Gus’s production line – Walt and Jesse packing and weighing plastic bins, other people packing the blue meth into smaller bags, and the bags being placed in plastic buckets of batter. There are racks with names of cities. The buckets are loaded into trucks and heading down the road.
Jesse notices that some of the plastic bins weigh more than they need to. He wants to take out the excess (a pound or so) and Walt says no, leave it. Jesse complains that they’re not being paid enough, says he’s crunching numbers and that he and Walt are being paid $3 million for $96 million worth of product.
Walt says something like “You’re a millionaire! What’s wrong with you?”
Walt walks away. Jesse wants to argue. Jesse yells “What’s more important than money?”. The next shot is Walt, Marie, Walt Jr. in Hank’s hospital room. Walt’s partner comes in. Hank is lying in bed eyes closed, not looking good at all. Hank asks his partner to come closer, and when he does, Hank calls him an asshole. Partner shows Hank a map, with marks where the blue meth is showing up again. Skyler looks at Walt. Partner tells Hank he was right about the blue meth, that Hank “saw it coming”.
Hank said he didn’t see it coming, but that he had a phone call before the shooting warning him that someone was coming for him. He suggests that the DEA check Hank’s phone to see if the call can be traced. Hank and Skyler exchange looks.
Oh, and Doc does some pinprick tests on Hank’s legs. Doc is encouraged. Then there’s a scene with Skyler and Marie with the doctor and someone from Hank’s insurance company. They’re discussing therapy, what it’ll cost, what Hank’s insurance will cover – not the top therapists but “adequate”. That doesn’t satisfy Marie and Skyler and words are exchanged.
That’s about where you came in, I think.
How did Skyler make the leap to assuming the blue meth was Walt’s? She had mentioned her assumption that Walt had something to do with Hank’s shooting. Can someone walk me thru that?
(I can’t put shit together anymore. I blame the allergy meds.)
ETA: Thanks, AuntiePam.
I’m going to assume that there’s more to the distribution we didn’t see. They mark the one with the meth with an ultraviolet mark, so I’m guessing that somebody at Los Pollos franchises is set up to unload the shipment and get the meth the hell out of there as soon as possible and then on to the streets. Or it could just be lazy writing.
No spoiler because this is just my conjecture based on nothing, but I think the season may end with Gus being killed. Sooner or later either somebody’s going to put together that he pulled the hits on the cartel or they may just want in on his territory since he’s almost cornered the market, but while I’m sure he’s got a trick or two up his sleeve for defense he’s ultimately too unguarded- a sniper could take him out or a car could run him off the road no problem. When that happens it might be interesting to see how Walt deals with whoever replaces him, or perhaps Walt can make a bid for head honcho (assuming Jesse’s taken care of somehow).
I can understand why Walt (or any non violent person really) would have problems with putting a hit on Jesse, but if I were him I’d have no problem whatsoever with custom ordering a Hank-style ass whoopin’ on him as a “we have some concerns with your performance” matter. Not only does he deserve it but I think it would ultimately and literally knock some sense into him, and I’m sure Mike knows somebody who’d be glad to do it for not too much.
On the AMC site Giancarlo Esposito gives an interview in which he says he thinks Mike is far scarier than Gus. I can see that being true in a back alley, but I think if you wanted to knock out the president of a small country or make the Golden Gate bridge collapse at rush hour and look like an accident Gus is your guy, not Mike.
I don’t know that anything was said to give her that idea – I think that now when she hears “meth”, she automatically thinks “Walt”. Same with suddenly worrying about safety. She didn’t think about the dangers of drug dealing until it hit close to home, Hank getting shot.
Or she might put two and two together and realize that the blue meth suddenly showing up again could be tied to Walt being on his own, with time to cook and not having to come up with excuses for his time away from home.
Surely indeed – and maybe we just haven’t really seen it yet. I just started watching the ep again and noticed some small print at the beginning of the commercial: “Los Pollos Hermanos Inc is a registered trademark of Madrigal Electromotive Corporation” or something to that effect. I wonder what that means?
I also wonder if the overages are a bad omen. Jesse says “I thought you were all like, precise?” And the thing is, he is. Walt should know (and I’m pretty sure it was correct before) how much goes in and exactly how much comes out. Is there something wrong with these batches?
I would guess that the process introduces some small amount of variability. Maybe the amount of oil or water they soak up or something, so that you cannot precisely predict the weight.
I agree with Beef. On such a large scale, the minute variances stand out more and thus you get one or two pounds more than if you were cooking on a much smaller scale.
Awww. One of the sponsors of Saul’s website is Los Pollos Hermanos.
I found it fantastically telling that when the therapist asked Jesse what he’d do if money were no object, he had no answer. He’s mindlessly pursuing the big bucks, but has not a shred of an idea what to do with it once he has it. He literally cannot imagine what having a bunch of money would mean (amply demonstrated by his retarded rejection of that lovely explanation of money laundering) and would rather end up in prison for the rest of his life in order to have at most a few short months as a “gangsta” with a big roll. He’d rather lose everything rather than lose, or even modify, his ridiculously juvenile self image. Textbook case of knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing. Just wow.
Pay taxes? I’M A CRIMINAL!
lol
He really doesn’t get it, does he? Saul even brings up Al Capone. I wonder if Jesse even knows who that is.
Of course he does- Capone was a friend of Kafkaesque.
I’m starting to get the feeling that Jesse going off on his own to be a street dealer is likely to be the beginning of the end for everyone involved. He’ll acquire some heat from the feds (or they’ll go back to him on the camper van lead) and he’ll keep doing things to make them more and more interested in him until eventually he gets snagged on tax evasion and has to either give everyone up or gets killed before he can do that.
Okay something has been bothering the hell out of me.
When Walt drives off the road after playing chicken, he’s shown opening the door.
But the very next shot is him driving away.
Did I miss something? Why did he open the door?
I didn’t take anything special from that. Lots of people get out of their cars and walk around to calm down after they’ve had a close call.
Why was he driving with his eyes closed, while we’re at it?
Huh? He never opened the door. He flipped his turn signal, look over his shoulder for traffic, and drove off. Watch it again yourself.
He’s probably going to continue making meth after that conversation with Gus. Maybe he feels like he’s trapped now and can never get out, plus he owes Gus his life now. Might be some guilt since he knows how continuing to make meth will harm many others, or how it enabled Gus to become the new SW meth king in the first place. I think it was basically a suicide attempt, but he realized he didn’t want to die when faced with it.
I’m sick of Jesse. I hope Gus finds out about the skimming and forces Walt to kill him since Walt created the problem. Walt could break out the bike lock again. I’m surprised he doesn’t realize what it would take to run a meth business like Gus, since they tried it themselves and failed miserably, plus his friend got killed. Trying to sell meth to the rehab people will probably backfire.
It sucks that Hank is laid out. The show was really benefiting from the development of his character, and the absence of that character leaves a pretty big hole IMHO.
Thing is, I think it’s probably a truer depiction of a street meth-head like Jesse than most in television. Walt is an unusual case - a genuinely talented, capable person driven to a life of crime by illness and idiotic pride. Jesse, though, went into crime because he wanted an easy shortcut to money and success - he’s been slacking through life pretty much his entire life. The whole reason he became a criminal is because he didn’t want to be responsible, he didn’t want to have to think things through.
Sadly, those are the keys to success in crime as well as everything else. Thus Jesse’s inevitable end.