Well, it would be interesting if there *did *turn out to be a security camera in Hank’s office. He would have to remember that Walt was in his office when they got the word that a witness was going to testify against Mike, and that Mike was somehow always a step ahead of them. If there was a camera, he’d probably want to promptly review the footage to see what Walt was up to.
If he were to see Walt removing the bugs, game over. I can see how he *might *try to go easy on Walt without any indication that Walt directly betrayed him, but if he were to see Walt playing him like that, I don’t think he would take it too well.
I don’t think the individual plot elements are too far fetched, but there does seem to be an unrealistic speed at which those elements got accomplished. Such as: getting all the necessary equipment fabricated and assembled to make meth inside other people’s homes, getting an international distribution operation for the meth, pulling off a perfectly-timed execution of 10 people, etc. But I can live with these suspensions of reality since there aren’t a lot of episodes left to tell the remaining BB story. Besides it’s not completely clear how much time has really elapsed in these last eight episodes. I guessing just a few months.
Well, except all the things I bolded in your post above didn’t actually happen. Our sum total of Walt Whitman exposure: Gale recites a poem to Walt; Walt reads a copy of indeterminate origin of Leaves of Grass; there is a Whitman quote in Gale’s notebooks. That’s it.
If anything, having Gretchen be G.B. (which sadly, I don’t think she is) would be less convoluted than having a whole book exchange and dedication happen off-screen.
ETA: And, her other WW would be the same as Gale’s: Walt Whitman and Walter White.
Yes, I botched several the details and the “other W.W.” thing would mean the same thing for her that it did for Gale. That being said, they’re not pulling a bait and switch with us here. That was Gale’s book.
Is anybody else kind of hoping we see the rest of that poolside party with the Whites and Schraders at the start of next season?
One thing I really liked in this episode was really a small moment. When Walt is present for the planning of the prison murders with Ricky Hitler’s uncle’s crew. He’s staring off at the painting on the wall. His lines were something like “I think I’ve seen this one before. Do you think they have a warehouse of them?” Its seems like a wistful non-sequitor…but really it’s Walt commenting on this crew. They aren’t unique. He even comes right out and calls them on it.
Hank’s pretty good at piecing together clues, so I don’t think he needs the security camera to figure out it *could be *Walt. I don’t think anyone doubts that Hank sees the connections now, it’s just a question of how much he thinks Hank is involved, and what Walt does next. Among other things, Hank is in a bit of a pickle also because he’s been receiving the proceeds of criminal activities himself. Walt has a mountain of money now, what if some of it turns up inside the walls of Hank’s house? There’s a lot of ways this story can still go. I’ve learned over time that the story doesn’t follow along the obvious lines the way one might expect, and when it does it can just be a misdirection. When Gus, Mike, and Jesse went off to kill the gang, there was no clue Walt would end up killing Gus with a bomb using the old guy, and getting Jesse involved by almost killing his friend’s kid. That’s what makes the show great.
Uh, no. I was making an argument with Marley23 that the Gretchen link was at least plausible. We never see Gale with the book. IF YOU DISREGARD THIS LATEST EPISODE, then you could make an argument that Walt had his interest piqued by Gale’s impromptu Whitman recital and dug up his personal copy of Leaves of Grass when he got home from his first cook with Gale. That’s at least as plausible as Gale signing and gifting his copy to Walt off-screen. Again, I DO BELIEVE THAT GALE MUST HAVE GIVEN THIS COPY TO WALT.
As long as the cancer is back, I really don’t see Walt framing Hank. Why would he? He’s dying anyhow… I can definitely see him doing stuff to protect his family… either out of honest familial love, or because he doesn’t want all the effort he put into this whole thing and all the horrible things he did to be for naught.
It’s just that I’m not sure the cancer is back yet. If it is for sure, things will definitely go somewhere else. I doubt he’d want to do anything to Hank if he doesn’t have to in order to save himself. If the cancer is back, maybe he’ll just turn over all the new players and convince Hank to let him and Jesse go. I don’t really know where things are going with Jesse. I feel like Walt has a bond with him now that he can’t break, even at risk to himself. The trope would be either Walt sticking by Jesse to his own detriment, or killing him because he’s a psychopath.
But yeah, if Walter has cancer, and it looks terminal, he’ll try to protect Hank because he’ll want Hank to be around for his kids.
I’m not sure Hank has ever come out and said that, but even though he lacks a lot of the specifics, I’m having trouble imagining what other conclusion he could come to. What he knows is that about a year ago this amazingly pure blue meth showed up and became very popular. The guy behind it, Heisenberg, gained a reputation for brutality and hooked up with the huge Fring network, working in Fring’s superlab. Much meth and a couple of months later, Fring was killed. Now the Pollos 9 and their lawyer were wiped out in a single stroke, which means Heisenberg knows what the DEA is doing. The competition in the ABQ meth trade is gone and even the cartel is out of business locally right now. Hank may know that the blue meth is now showing up in Phoenix, or at least he’s likely to find out about that. All of that suggests somebody very powerful.
The Lydia partnership part lasted for three months. Skyler said something about it, I think at the storage locker because she put the money there instead of laundering it because it was simply too much. We saw a lot of Vamonos Pest tents during the sequence prior to that scene. (Wikipedia agrees with me about this: “For three months, Walter’s meth production runs profitably and uninhibited, raking in millions of dollars.” I have no idea about the timing of the rest of it, but it probably wasn’t long. We’re perhaps eight or nine months before Walt’s 52nd birthday.
I didn’t take the scan as particularly ominous. If you’ve been diagnosed with late-stage cancer and treated successfully, you are going to be screened regularly. In fact that may have been Walt’s one-year checkup following his surgery. But I do think the cancer will be back at some point and you couldn’t miss him coughing during the flash-forward. My expectation is that he’ll get a diagnosis of a terminal metastasis before the end of the series.
You’ve just reminded me that the word is out that Heisenberg killed Gus. If Hank knows that, and he believes Walt is Heisenberg, that’s going to be big.
Are we sure he knows any of that? Off the top of my head, I would have thought that Hank knew the following:
(1) blue meth started showing up, but in small quantities
(2) they found out that the cook was a guy named Heisenberg, got a description of him, arrested the fall guy
(3) the blue stuff stayed on the street, increased in quantity
(4) Gale was found dead, was thought to maybe be Heisenberg
(5) Blue stuff still keeps flowing
We do know that there are some in the criminal underworld (ie, Declan), who know that Heisenberg is serious player himself, but do we have any reason to think Hank knows any of that? As opposed to something like “well, whoever the new crime boss is, he’s still got that Heisenberg guy cooking for him, or at least someone who knows his recipe”.
(I just don’t remember us seeing or hearing Hank learning anything, or mentioning anything, at all…)