I swear that I’ve read almost every page of this thread as a true BB fan…however, I was wondering if anyone brought up: When Jesse says “I know what you did” that it was a comment re: the fact that Walt gave Jesse the 5 million that he was owed? And that the duffel with the money on the porch was extra?
Thoughts?
Seriously, even though I thought the reveal to Hank was kinda weak…BEST SHOW EVER.
P.S. How long do we actually have to wait for the final 8 episodes? 'Cause seriously, I could be dead by then and then I’d be pissed I didn’t know how this all turned out!!!
No… he’s talking about the prison hits Walt ordered. The money in the duffel bag was the $5 million owed to Jesse that he never got. It was Walt’s way of assuaging his guilt and also possibly making sure Jesse won’t have any incentive to rat him out (he doesn’t have to kill everyone).
But where is the methylamine going to come from? It’s virtually certain that the 1000 gallons is gone. Blue Sky is No Mas. According to Gilligan, there was about $80 million on that tarp. Walt was not only broke in the season opener, he was about 50 k or so in the hole. So all that money piled up in the space of three months. Walt told Declan in the desert that the methylamine was worth $300 million in his hands. Based on the percentages that Walt has been able to keep after each cook, that’s probably about right. Lydia gets 30%, Declan’s crew gets another 35%, Jesse got his $5 million, Todd and his crew have to be paid, probably a dozen people at the Czech end are on the payroll, etc.
The bitch of it is that there’s not a single, solitary shred of physical evidence tying Walt to Fring, the Blue Sky, or anything else, from what we the viewers have been informed of. If Walt were really pressed, he could say he was a paid consultant, nothing more. He met with Gale only; he knows nothing about who Gale was working for. He withheld the fact that he knew Gale from Hank to avoid revealing his association with Gale and his employers. He can even use that to explain away his drunken braggadocio at the dinner party. As I’ve suggested before, the only thing linking Walt to Fring was the confrontation with Cynthia (the manager at Fring’s home store). Right now I’m thinking that it’s something that Jesse inadvertently says or does that starts to unravel the tapestry of Walt’s sordid past.
For whatever reason, I’m not interested in watching eight episodes of this. I agree, they are practical predictions, but I have very little interest in watching ASAC: The Hank Schrader Files.
Well if Hank is having to try to get Walt to turn witness and lead him to bigger partners acting completely unofficially without any DEA resources and without taking Walt into custody thats another matter and that’s what I meant.
This is actually one of the reasons I think Hank has to know the full truth now: with only eight episodes left I don’t think they’re going to put a lot of time into having him investigate Walt. He does have to gather some actual proof, but I don’t think the last half-season of the series is going to be heavily devoted to Hank pursuing Walt the way he did Gus. We’ve already seen that and they have to wrap up the whole thing thematically.
My WAG is because of the popularity of The Walking Dead, which is also on AMC, shares the same time slot and has been on hiatus for awhile now (and will be back next month).
Declans gang has an existing source of methylamine. Thats established in the confrontation when Walt point out they changed to a p2p cook to copy him. They were only getting 70 percent purity, but with Todd’s knowledge I’m sure they can do better. Probably not 99.1 percent but better anyway.
How does Walt pay these percentages. 35% of what? 30% of what? How does he know what they are selling it for?
Could Lydia be selling it for more overseas than what it is selling for locally?
It would make more sense to me that Walt would be a manufacturer/wholesaler and have a price per unit that he sells to these big distributors for. It would be much simpler for him.
I don’t have the links handy, but I found two other Gilligan interviews of interest. Most repeat the same stuff, but at Salon he notes that it was actor Aaron Paul who strongly put forth that Jesse couldn’t go back to meth making after the death of dirt bike boy. Gilligan is described as a unique mixture of auteur & collaborator. A combo that works well, I’d say. Another of his quotes says the writers are going to abandon their previous “timid” storytelling. ?!!
*This is where it all comes to an end. There will be resolution in these final eight. We will know where everybody stands. Gosh, what can I say about it? I’m being very maddeningly vague and general. We are going to swing for the fences in these final eight episodes. It’s terrifying, and yet it’s liberating for me and for the writers to know that these are the final eight hours that we’ll ever have for this series. There’s been talk of a movie and whatnot, but I can tell you that none of that is even remotely on my radar right now. As far as I’m concerned, the end of this story is contained within these final eight episodes. We now have freedom, carte blanche I suppose, to dispense with the timid, pusillanimous storytelling we’ve been doing so far. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/vince-gilligan-on-breaking-bad-and-the-plumbing-of-it-all/ *
From that same interview: uh, gee, I’m getting into territory where I don’t want to give too much away. But basically Walt and Jesse are very much – not necessarily intellectually equals, but speaking in terms of formidability – is that a word? formidableness? – they are very much closer to being equals than they’ve ever been before.
No doubt about it, Chekhov’s M60 from episode 5.01 foretells a showdown with Jesse at the conclusion.
No doubt they’re going to throw down, but a machine gun isn’t for taking out just one guy. Will Jesse have some kind of gang behind him? How will Todd play into it? Declan and the Czechs? Will we get to see Lydia naked?