I wondered how he was going to explain to Skyler where all that cash came from (and whether she would even want it, knowing how many lives were ruined because of the meth he produced). But I thought when he talked to Saul, he mentioned wanting to launder the money and hide its origin from his wife. So he is at least aware of the problem.
I like Tim Goodman, who is also following Breaking Bad.
Am I the only one who noticed it when Jesse said “Hal” instead of “Walt”?
I looked at it the other way. He only had a few more weeks to live, one more big cook-a-thon, he dies, and his wife has enough money to cover all the bills. If he lives, he’s going to have to keep cooking to keep paying for the on going medical expenses.
It’s like turning 64 and finding out you’re pension disappeared and you have to keep working.
Actually, I think you may be on to something, but it’s not chemistry he’s learning about. It’s business.
One example was from a couple of episodes ago when he told Walt that they should consider the money that was stolen from one of the street dealers a “cost of doing business” or whatever. He’s definitely right concept-wise. In any sales endeavor, you have to accept that there will be shrinkage. It was Walt’s insistence that he get the money back which led him into the whole mess that ended up with yet another dead body.
Very interesting interpretation! My immediate read was that Walt realized that he will not escape the consequences of all his illegal activities (cooking, peddling meth, murder) and lying to his family (who we saw stood with him through it all) because he’s not going to die right away. Remember that he told Jessie he only had a few weeks to live. He only did all those things, which go against his personal ethics, because he was going to be dead anyway. But now he’s going to live! But your interpretation has a lot of merit.
But were all those things he did really against his personal ethics? Or did he just assume they were? Did he actually have any code of personal ethics in the first place, or was he just living according to the default ethical code followed by most law-abiding Americans? And what can you say about his ethics at this point?
Those are some of the many questions that keep this show so interesting.
Pretty sure murder was against his personal ethics…
Just popped in to say that, and that the cinematography was really beautiful this episode.
He might have believed that about himself before he started this whole meth production business.
But he killed someone within the first couple of episodes.
He didn’t have to kill him. It wasn’t self-defense. He just didn’t want to get busted.
So as it turns out, it wasn’t really against his personal ethics at all. He just had to have what he believed was a sufficiently good reason to do it.
Given his prognosis & financial situation at the time, it works out to almost the same thing. Also, he hesitated many times before the deed.
This episode was like Gilligan’s Island, but there were only Gilligan and the Professor, and the Professor was an asshole who hated Gilligan. I saw Walt beating the towel dispenser as him being unable to look at himself in the mirror, unable to look at his reflection in the towel dispensor.
I think Walt is going to end up killing Saul. Saul knows who he is, where he lives, where he works. You could see how much it pissed Walt off that Saul took nearly half the money to launder it and Saul got off on keeping so much of Walt’s money. The meth they cooked this weekend was worth over $1.6 million. How much of that will Saul keep to launder it?
As for killing Spooge: I think Jesse’s going to Spooge & Skank’s house was a net gain in getting the kid out of there. Spooge was going to end up dead soon anyway, Skank would have ended up dead also if she hadn’t gone to prison. The kid was the one person suffering the most.
I thought Saul’s cut was taken into account when Walt concluded that they would wind up with $600,000 each, since that works out to $1.2 million, with the other $400,000 for “expenses.” But I might be misremembering.