Shall we anticpate the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

the chunky bits... floating in the barrel...

Another advantage of HD. Look closely and you can see the skeleton, and the look on Walt's face just as the skull detaches from the spine and floats to the bottom. "Next on Dirty Jobs".

holy shit.

The "trust us" in reference to the acid bathtub at the first lab cracked me up

so i have never seen this show

That whole scene was oddly hilarious, all three actors had some great expressions.

xpost

guys i remember combo i was trying to quote walt's amazing line re: combo's death

xp get on it, gbx

yeah evan you should jump on this but it's a narrative so you need to start at the beginning

also stop reading this thread

GBX - DON"T READ THE FOLLOWING!

... lets throw him off the scent here and start talking about stuff that never happened...

like the shootout at the bake sale.
or Charles Barkley's cameo in the amish villiage.

which one was he?
― sonderangerbot, Wednesday, July 20, 2011 10:18 AM (3 hours ago)

I loled

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6763000/bad-decisions

Although reading this whole piece twice would be painful because of Klosterman's meta-self-aggrandizing-I'm-a-smart-guy thing, but I have to admit that the premise of this piece is right on. The show is about making choices, and the most major change in Walter has been from a man who tells himself that he has no choice, into a man who tells Gus that he was given a choice, and he made it, and he'd make the same choice every time. Emphatically.

I re-watched the last two episodes of season 3 as well, and was struck by Gale's last words: "You don't have to do this." Yep, that pretty much sums it up.

so i have never seen this show

― g++ (gbx), Wednesday, July 20, 2011 1:13 PM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dude

you know what? the more machiavellian and diabolical walt gets, the deeper he sinks into just being a straight up criminal mastermind, the more i like him.

This is why the series has to end with Walt's death, and not by cancer. And it may go over about as well as the Seinfeld finale, at least pop-culture-wise if not critic-wise, but Gilligan has already proven that he doesn't give a single flying dick about mollycoddling the audience.

And "Machiavellian" may be too reductive for Walt, both on the complexity scale and on the pure scalding evil scale. Walt's actions started a direct chain of events toward burning metal and body parts raining on Albuquerque, and he knows it. And yet, after the meeting between Gus and Jesse and Gus's child-murdering thugs, Walt says to Jesse in the car, "You have to realize that your actions have consequences." He can pass that off as hard-earned wisdom, but only because he knows that Jesse doesn't know that Walt murdered his girlfriend. All at once that's convenient self-deception, self-interested deception of another person, a statement of truth, and a sick twisting of the truth.

Walt is a sociopath, plainly put. He keeps that eyeball in a drawer not out of guilt, but as a symbol for the empathy that he wishes he had.

walt's not a sociopath.

it would be a completely different show if he was.

No, I think he actually is.

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

i dont think hes a sociopath but he is p deeply disturbed

Well he's damn good at providing himself excuses for behaving exactly as a sociopath would behave.

Which is begging the question a bit.

tbf i dont think he really nails enough of the checklist to be regarded as such

somewhere in between textbook narcissist & whatever constitutes 'sociopath' prob

There's still a lot we don't know about Walt, though. How did this genius end up teaching high school? We still don't know that whole backstory. And we don't know what his ultimate goal is, not anymore. My prediction is that his enemies will continue to eliminated, now that he's proven to himself that he's pretty good at that, and his friends and loved ones will continue to be victimized, and he'll continue to make a big show of being awfully sorry, but he won't change his behavior.

Factor 1: Personality "Aggressive narcissism"

Glibness/superficial charm - eh no walt is not v charming
Grandiose sense of self-worth - its getting there maybe
Pathological lying - his lying isnt pathological its purposeful, pathological liars lie abt everything for no good reason
Cunning/manipulative - yes
Lack of remorse or guilt - he has some major guilt for sure, maybe not enough but its there
Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric) - feel like his emotional depth is within a conventional range
Callousness; lack of empathy - yes
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions - yes

Factor 2: Case history "Socially deviant lifestyle".

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom - not up until recently
Parasitic lifestyle - no
Poor behavioral control - eh borderline
Lack of realistic long-term goals - no
Impulsivity - not really
Irresponsibility - mixed
Juvenile delinquency - no
Early behavior problems - no
Revocation of conditional release - no

Traits not correlated with either factor

Promiscuous sexual behavior - no
Many short-term marital relationships - no
Criminal versatility - hes a p bad criminal tbqh
Acquired behavioural sociopathy/sociological conditioning (Item 21: a newly identified trait i.e. a person relying on sociological strategies and tricks to deceive) - not really sure what this one means

Maybe that sociopaths are more like to read Tony Robbins and shit?

haha

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSydr5sEfK43nFKC5U7HuXd384Ar654ga2cCyWdOtCBBvWRqhwc&t=1

kinda more of a psychopath imo

It's exactly the same thing.

Unless you were kidding, in which case, lol.

Lack of realistic long-term goals - no

Disagree, a MASSIVE yes for this. WTF is he doing, when will he stop, why does he want the money now? He has no long-term plan whatsoever. He hasn't even bought himself a new pair of shoes.

lost count of the number of people i've talked to who gave up on this show midway through the 2nd season... can't seem to change anyone's mind though :/

Garda i think the real reasons lie elsewhere but it's true that Hank's medical bills appear to be gargantuan so that at least is an immediate reason to keep getting paid

but i basically agree with you about his total lack of perspective or goals. he has no idea wtf he's doing beyond just going FURTHER.

that said, the diagnosis of sociopathy is ridiculous (as it usually is). he still has plenty of empathy, even for strangers.

real reason: being a high school teacher was an under-utilization of his nobel-prize winning skillz, the meth thing just popped up at the right time in the right place and seemed like a challenge. plus he needed the money at that point. roller coaster ride of daily defiance of death + intriguing moral minefield cemented the deal

also the whole dealer thing is a sticky web just by it's intrinsic nature

why did he stick out the teaching no matter how frustrating and unfulfilling it was once he was in it?

vs

why does he stick out the meth cooking no matter how frustrating and unfulfilling it is now he's in it?

cause he's a stubborn, bloody-minded son of a bitch

i like the notion that his "other life", the one with the great job and gretchen, was something he rejected and now it's as if this new life as heisenberg is why, it is indeed bloody minded to an extreme level.

Walt's goal is to be the best at what he does. It's all ego, unleashed, with a twisted hubris invoked to justify his actions.

And yes, he is a psycho. There is something wrong with him that mere therapy likely would not clear up.

BTW, still don't know why Gus didn't threaten his family yet. I guess they're saving that for later, so that Walt can bust out some ironic paterfamilias moves.

how different would this story be if the U.S. had free healthcare?!

Sons of Anarchy, I've noted, has a running theme of these constantly injured bikers dealing with health care costs and insurance plans.

Likely Walt would have gone the meth route, regardless. Gretchen and her husband were the deus ex health insurance, but Walt was too proud. Remember, Walt didn't offer to pay for Hank's healthcare. It was Skyler, as a fuck you way to justify/spend his ill-gotten gains.

this amateur diagnosis stuff is silly to the extreme, but I can give you one reason he's not a sociopath - his loyalty to jesse

I think we need a professional diagnosis about this fake show about fake people doing fake things. That would be far more legit.

Actually, his "relationship" to Jesse is one of the least explored aspects of the shows. Is he using him? Feeling paternal? Feeling guilty? Seeing in Jesse a glimmer of redemption he knows is beyond him?

Personally, I think he's holding onto him the same reason he holds on to the eyeball.

no way. they're practically family at this point.

bloodbrothers even

Brothers? Maybe Walt thinks so. But Jesse does nothing but seethe with contempt for Walt. He has no love for Walt, despite Walt's eagerness to keep him around.

it's more of a father/son relationship tbh

jesse's father disowned him and walt's chosen a life his own son can't be a part of

But again, it seems pretty one way, no? Jesse's disposition is that of a dude chained to an asshole, dragged around against his will. Jesse has been out of Walt's life multiple times, but he keeps pulling him back in.

^ perfectly describes the dysfunctional relationship some sons have to their fathers