Sorta off-topic, but:
That was just… bizarre.
Isn’t he in remission at the moment? Otherwise I could see that being the reason for her to stay married to him, to make sure that she got his “gambling winnings” after he died. Even if she doesn’t like it, there’s no reason to let the state keep his money (though I’m sure he has a will) especially now that she knows it all gets laundered.
My understanding is that Walt is expected to die from cancer, only now that it’s in remission it will take years instead of months. I think I remember his doctor saying something to that effect, but I could be wrong.
So, how soon before Walter Jr. is exposed to blue meth, maybe from a friend at school?
My prediction is that they keep him (and the baby I suppose) the clean ones of the show, as a sort of message that adults that should know better can be ruined by drugs just as easily as stupid kids. Or something.
I have to agree with Skyler that the car wash is a helluva better laundering cover than a laser tag place. Since laser tage peaked more than a decade ago most places I think it would arouse suspicion to see a hugely successful one that rarely had any customers outside of it, while a car wash is a pretty good business whose numbers are pretty easily fibbed about.
Of course strip clubs or singles bars are hard to beat with those wonderful cover charges and that easily disposed of liquor, but I would imagine there’s more scrutiny of those. A chain of chicken places is also great since tons of people pay for their meals with cash on any given day.
I wonder if anybody’s ever tried laundering money through an arthouse movie theater.
That was hilarious, although less so near the end. It should be added to the Season 3 DVDs.
If only! Then they wouldn’t all go out of business.
Well done. It shows the power of audio conventions.
It would almost have to be art house, old movies or a dollar theater type thing though. For new movies the ticket money mostly goes to the studios or distributors and the cost of startup would be far more than you could ever claim you took in at the concession stand. A video store might work also since who’s to say what did and didn’t rent.
It would have to me a mom and pop type store that didn’t use computers, but those business aren’t really thriving right now. Also, I don’t like the car wash idea. Again it seems to easy to track, even if they didn’t use computers, a quick talk with employees would show that they haven’t had a huge increase in cars. On top of that, when a business uses consumables (like car wash chemicals) you’d have to buy more (and then dump or sell them under the table) to help show that you had more traffic.
Someone else mentioned a strip club or other place with a cover charge. I could see that working. Throwing a festival once a year would probably do the trick also. Yeah, it’ll cost a lot, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to bury a lot of income in that.
…and the branding of the ABC logo. 
Wow. So much to say about this episode.
–I was reading some review that said that it didn’t make sense for Skyler to break bad because she’s the “moral compass” of the show. She’s not. Hank is. We never saw her as being particularly moral or ethical. I think she’s always been an ordinary person who mostly follows the law and does the right thing for the same reasons any of the rest of us do. We’ve seen her be “bad” lots of times. She just has to have what she thinks is a good enough reason.
–I think it makes perfect sense for Skyler to want to join the business. She’s a control freak and she knows Walt. No doubt she’s figured out that he’s floundering around and thinks she could do a lot better managing the cash flow. We know she’s a good manager-type. I think she sees this as a legitimate business opportunity and as long as she’s already involved, she might as well take it. We see her naivete, but if she’s willing to accept that and allow herself to be mentored, she’d probably be excellent at it. Altogether, Skylar, Saul, Gus, and Walt would make a great team. And with her management, Walt can be left to just do what he does best.
–The car wash was a great idea, but Saul made some excellent points with regard to the laser tag thing. I suppose the answer lies somewhere in between. The scene between them was hilarious, and somehow I find myself kind of wishing that Skyler and Saul run off together.
–Again, we see the simple strength of Hank and Marie’s marriage. Loved the scene when he was in the harness and got angry and said something about putting his foot in her ass and she retorted “Well, if you can get it up there, go right ahead.”
–While it was unrealistic, IMHO, for Skyler and Walt Jr. to be in the therapy room with Hank, it does set up the possibility for Walt Jr. to take a bigger role in the show. In the early days of the show, Hank was trying to show Walt Jr. how to “be a man.” Maybe we’ll see Walt Jr. teaching Hank how to be a man–a man with a disability.
–I always like to see Badger and Skinny Pete. I hope they continue to play a bigger role. One thing we definitely learned about them this episode–they’re followers. They’re easily influenced. As far as we know, they had no thoughts about getting clean until they started sitting in on NA meetings. There’s nothing that we’ve seen before from them to suggest that they have a lot of initiative of their own. If they DO get clean, they might pose a threat to the enterprise. They know too much.
–Jesse remains a fascinating character. He accidentally keeps breaking good! We all know he poses a threat to Walt’s operation because he’s so volatile, but he might in fact pose a threat because of his essential morality. He could easily just turn informant and go into witness protection. (but not in Albuquerque, sparing us an embarrassing In Plain Sight crossover. :p)
–Gus’s house was so incredibly Gus! Or rather, it fit right in to the image that Gus is trying to project. It was totally respectable, and totally unimaginative. It looked like it came out of an Ethan Allen catalogue. At the same time, it would have been weird if he didn’t acknowledge his South American roots in any way. We didn’t see it in the decor, but he cooked a Chilean dish. No doubt he has a few tasteful South American objects de art around the place.
Also–
I wonder why Walt was letting the overweight meth shipments go out. The product isn’t perishable, so why wouldn’t he take off the extra pound or so himself and keep it to make up for any potential future shortfalls? That only makes sense.
He could let each tote go out with a small safety margin over 200 lbs and keep the rest, locking it up in the lab and keeping a record of what’s there. Surely Gus wouldn’t object to that.
The laser tag thing wouldn’t have been THAT oddball for a guy like Walt to be interested in. Not the whole “lasers are science” bs Saul was going on about, but you could always just say it’s because Walt likes kids, and since he’s not teaching currently he still wants a way to provide something for kids, if it can’t be education, then let it be entertainment. Not the best reason, but it would probably would be less odd a cover story than “I used to slave away at this stupid car wash for peanuts after teaching all day so I bought it with my gambling windfall”.
I think he’s doing it because he wants Gus to trust him.
I think Saul’s suggestion was intentionally absurd. How much money can you launder through a failed laser tag business before people start to get suspicious? Especially since the demand for a good game of laser tag imploded years ago. It’s not a thriving market. On the other hand, who hasn’t fantasized about having enough money to buy a place of former employment, especially when said place had made you miserable? Of course, most of those fantasies end with the business being burned to the ground, but still.
I liked the casino idea the best. Casinos would love more of a loss so it would work out pretty well. I guess you can’t constantly win when gambling though.
A used book store might be good for some of it as well and perfect cover for a former teacher. You couldn’t launder it ALL through there- no used book store ever took in $1 million per month- but in conjunction with other businesses perhaps.