BREAKING BAD: The Complete Series Discussion Thread (with OPEN SPOILERS)

Cafe Society
21

So I just finished this last week… more like “completed” it as there were gaps of episodes I missed during the original run. I also read some of the threads, etc, and instead of starting a new thread, thought just to add my comments to this old one.

My thoughts:

  1. My favorite storyline: Skyler’s. My least favorite: Jesse.

I would have watched “Accounting Deficit”, the story of a one-time CPA who gave up her dreams of building an accounting empire for child-rearing her special needs son. Finding herself pregnant just when she was about to join the workaday world full-time in an effort to make something more of their lives than her (surprisingly) milquetoast husband could, she decides to help her employer cover up some small minor accounting “irregularities”, beginning a chain of events eventually involving 3 govt agencies, 5 international conglomerates, and the Russian mob, resulting in the death of her meek husband (to the delight of many in the audience, who couldn’t stand his whiny moralizing).

Question: Skyler’s finding of Ted’s faked invoices happens independent of Walt’s actions. Assuming that Walt doesn’t become a secretive meth kingpin with the resulting marital stresses, do you think Skyler still helps Ted fix his books?

As for Jesse, the 2nd shot of Jesse looking off at a distance while loud music was playing was enough. The 22nd shot… too much. Gotta tell you, to me the funniest line in the entire series was spoken by one of the Nazis watching Jesses video – “Does this bitch cry through the whole thing?” Yeah… yeah, he does.

  1. Where are they now:

Marie is being “comforted” by random men around ABQ. She has Holly a lot, Skyler understanding that she has to sacrifice time with her child as to help Marie heal. Marie eventually becomes legal guardian of Holly because…

Skyler and Walt Jr are flat-assed broke (well, we actually saw this, right? Flynn was taking the bus (all their cars were gone), cheap apt, and I think Skyler was wearing the same clothes as when Holly was taken by Walt). Walt Jr gets a job as an assistant manager of IHoP, and moves out of his mom’s place as soon as he gets a roomie. He never breaks off contact with Skyler, but there will always be a great gulf between them. Until…

Skyler eventually gets caught up in Teds shit. Ted is no longer capable of fending off the wolves, and while the IRS is quiet… for now… the New Mexico tax authorities have the same issues and THEY sure as hell didn’t receive a check. With no ability to earn an income, restart his business, etc, Ted calls a lawyer and starts talking, assuming his best chance of survival is as a ward of the state… in prison (Ted has had a hard few months, OK? He’s not thinking clearly).

Sky eventually ends up in jail for 7 years, learning that Orange is the new Black.

Jesse gets off. Going to Alaska helps, Hanks death (and the fact his work with Jesse was off the books) means the DEA is thrown off the scent as Walt’s involvement is all the answer they need. As the bullets in the newly-recovered bodies will match those in the guns found with all those dead neo-nazis (where Walt was also found), the need to tie Jesse to Hank and Steve’s death decreases as well, and DEA assumes he escaped but died in the desert, likely wounded. But, no: Jesse is living near Juneau, Alaska.

Holly is raised by Marie, who eventually married the first man to buy her, without asking, something purple. Holly wonders about her father, a man she learns more about from news accounts than she does her own family, who speak of him as a man who was lead down the path of darkness by a mysterious “Jesse Pinkman”. Being raised on stories of her brave uncle Hank, Holly dedicates herself at the age of 12 to law enforcement, eventually joining the DEA at the age of 24.

After a few years of exemplary service and some wins under her belt, Holly decided it was time she called up the old files on Hank… and her father.
Devastated by the information she found regarding her father’s role in her uncle’s death, Holly falls into a deep depression and almost quits the DEA.
Holly’s supervisor, Nikki Bell, knowing the story behind Heisenberg (I mean, who doesn’t?), took Holly aside and in a meeting which would change their lives, result in the deaths of 319 people and lead to the destruction of two criminal empires, told her two facts:

  1. Using information found in Hank and Steve’s old cell phones, Nikki is convinced that Jesse Pinkman is alive… and she convinces Holly of this, easily.

  2. Nikki, too, has her own revenge story.
    Thus begins the new series “Breaking Beatrix Pinkman”.

  3. Really, “Ozymandias” might be the most suspenseful hour of episodic TV ever. The only way it could have been better is to have the episode end when Skyler drops to her knees in shock and distress. – had Gilligan done that, much of the nation would have spent the next week catatonic.

  4. I loved the use of color and sound in this series, some of the best ever. I don’t watch a lot of TV (obviously), but this stood out to me more than anything else – just how good it looked.

  5. Hank was a little slow on the uptake, if you ask me.

22

I would watch the living hell out of that. Get me an Uma guest star.

23

I remember watching that. He walked out, apparently uninjured, and straightened his tie, before the camera panned from his left side to a frontal view, showing the extent of his wounds. And then he collapsed. For a second there, I thought he was invulnerable.

24

I do not. The whole reason she got so close to Ted was because she suspected Walt of cheating and caught him in numerous lies because of his meth business. If he doesn’t get into the meth business, he doesn’t lie to her so I think things between them remain pretty solid as he battles his cancer and continues teaching.

25

We are watching it on a box set and the final season is going to arrive in the mail today! Husband loves it.

I kind of miss Gus. I would have bet the farm that Gus would have been dispatched through some gruesome forced encounter with a vat of boiling oil in his chicken restaurant.

26

It seems as though I worked my whole life and didn’t watch TV. I retired recently and started catching up on some series.

  1. Sons of Anarchy
  2. The Wire I’m partial to The Wire due to my work.
  3. Breaking Bad
  4. Better Call Saul
  5. Ozark
  6. Orange is the new Black
  7. House of Cards
  8. And shorter series like Making a murderer, The Confession Tapes, The Thin Blue Line, The Seven Five, The Keepers

Breaking Bad is absolutely in my top 3, maybe 2.
I’ve read on other sites that people really hate Jesse or Skyler and it just means that the actor did such a great job of making the viewer hate that character. People love Walt and at the end of the day he was a mass murderer but people can relate when the ends justify the means for a greater good. Very very well written story with awesome characters.

27

I thought Gus Fring blew all of them away. Every scene he was in was mesmerizing. What a great actor. I read a theory his character was a muckity muck military type in Chile, the kind who routinely kicked people out of helicopters. Then I like Walt, Jr. and the sister and b-i-l. Walt and Jesse, six of one, half a dozen of another - I like Jesse a tad more.

28

I have difficulty with the show because the grandparents I knew were Walter and Jessie.

29

Such a great show. I watched it through twice while it was airing, and just finished it a third time with my girlfriend (her first viewing). We still have the last episode, but she stalls finishing…

This sticks with me as the biggest flaw. They liked to tease the audience with little bits of “Oh Hank could almost tell!” and took it a bit too far IMO. The most glaring error of the whole show is the witness sketch of Heisenberg. All the little tidbits could almost be overlooked and accepted if he never had in his possession a very accurate sketch of his brother in law (and I think Hank had seen him wear the hat at some point). But that sketch:dubious: (why don’t we have a Heisenberg emoji here?). It’s too accurate, and it was introduced very early. There is a scene in the last season where Hank is working the case info after he has been put off of it by his bosses. He has an evidence board with all the details, pictures of all the players he knows… and NOT that sketch. I think that was because the writers knew it was too much and regretted it. found it Now that I look at it again, he didn’t include Jesse either. I can’t think why not. He knew Jesse and Heisenberg were related to the blue meth. A picture of Jesse would have made the lack of The Sketch even more strange.

30

S’all good, man.

31

I still can’t figure out why they descended into the lab via the tilt-up drier and the circular staircase when they could have just ridden the service elevator down.

32

This was the very first exposure I had to the show. For whatever reason I was never interested in watching it. Giancarlo Esposito was on Leno’s show (obviously after the episode aired) and I wasn’t really paying attention until they played the clip. To say I was not expecting that is a huge understatement. It freaked me out and intrigued me at the same time and I was pretty much hooked.

33

I read a comment on that scene somewhere, “Now he’s Batman’s problem” :stuck_out_tongue:

34

I assume that the above-ground door to the elevator was similarly camouflaged, otherwise it’s a dead giveaway that there’s something underground.

35

Gus Fring and Michael Ehrmantraut - two of the best characters of all time. RIP, you glorious bastards.

36

Because it looked cool.

On the commentary on the DVD Gilligan said there were no actual stairs beneath the drier. When people were shown going down they were actually just miming it.

I loved the show, but they often did show things just because they looked cool rather than because they made any sense.

(For example, when we first meet Tio why did Tuco have him stashed in a deserted house in the middle of nowhere with no one to care for him? As far as we know, there was no reason for him to be in hiding at that point. Neither Gus (apparently) nor the FBI were after him. When Tuco’s place in town was raided, his minions were all scooped up and he would have no time to take Tio there.)

37

I don’t have any questions about Breaking Bad. But, my favorite scene of the series is the opening of “Say My Name.” That’s one bad-ass scene!

Favorite episode: Ozymandias. I don’t think I’m alone in believing *Ozymandias * may be the greatest, most horrible, most profound, most gut-wrenching episode of any television series ever produced. It’s faultless and brilliant.

This scene, in particular, hits me with an emotional sledge-hammer every time I view it. I don’t view it too often because I don’t like my family seeing me cry like a baby. But, damn, that episode has stellar writing, directing and acting.

38

After shows like Breaking Bad, it’s impossible for me to watch anything with loose sloppy writing, lots of loose ends, and filler scenes. Breaking Bad basically set the bar of tight writing for me. While I will take in an atmospheric drama with a slower pace and fewer cliffhangers - I loved Top Of The Lake and Dark, for instance - I cannot, cannot, abide “suspenseful” shows that don’t meet the standard that Breaking Bad set for me.

39

Reviving this thread because it’s been confirmed that a movie sequel to Breaking Bad is starting production. Supposedly this picks up where and when Breaking Bad ends, and focuses on Jesse Pinkman.

40

With the most recent season of Better Call Saul, a reason has become apparent for why Hector would be in hiding. After he had his stroke, and while Tuco was in prison, he was basically under Gus’s control. Gus was intent on tormenting Hector in revenge for killing his partner. It’s possible that after Tuco got out that he rescued his uncle from Gus’s clutches and hid him out in the desert. Perhaps he did have someone checking on him periodically.