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

"no more mexicans (for now)"

It's only two episodes in. I suspect they'll work on reintegrating mexicans into the story shortly.

skinny pete is mexican iirc

sry, no more mexicans (for now)

btw, Mike does not have cancer; I am extrapolating a potential character arc

Apparently the guy that called Walt outside Gus' house was neither Mike nor Gus, but the new guy at the lab.

Did think it was kind of weird that Gus would call him

That wasn't Mike? It sounded like Mike's voice.

i thought it was gus

sry, no more mexicans (for now)

you've had enough mexicans for one night young man!

I thought it was Gus too

From Alan Sepinwall's blog:

UPDATE: There's been so much debate in the comments about who called Walt - Gus or Mike - that I went and asked Vince Gilligan. I don't view his answer as any kind of spoiler (as it's info from an episode that's already aired), but in case you do, don't read the next short paragraph:

So as it turns out, it wasn't Mike. And it wasn't Gus. It was, instead, the new third man in the operation, Tyrus (played by Ray Campbell), whom we saw earlier weighing the batch. And that explains why no one could agree on whether it was Esposito's voice or Banks's voice, I suppose.

According to Breaking Bad summary it's Mike:

http://www.amctv.com/shows/breaking-bad/episodes/season-4/thirty-eight-snub

"Late that night, Walt approaches Gus's house, gun in hand, but loses his nerve when Mike calls telling him to "Go home, Walter." His every move is being watched."

i assumed caller was the new guy. Did not sound like Mike & certainly not Gus.

I assumed it was Gus. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

It sounded like Gus to me.

it was Tuco

i thought it was gus too

definitely thought it was mike, they have a certain rapport after all. new guy makes no sense to me.

it makes sense for new guy to be watching gus' house in a protective manner. it's kind of his job, no?

I don't know...it seems off to me in character terms. The assured tone, the stealthy tailing chops — these are Mike's hallmarks, I don't get it.

That said, it would have been really weird if it was Gus...he'd be left with no choice but to have Walt killed in the lab the next morning.

That whole thing is kind of atypically "really?" for me in terms of this show. I mean, I get that Walt is feeling his oats now, but making that pitch to Mike in the bar seemed ill-considered and kind of rash even by his standards. Unless he, too, thought it was Mike who called him, and decided he had no choice but to make a big play in order to preempt Mike ratting him out to Gus?

it couldve been hanks physical therapist

I don't know...it seems off to me in character terms.

We don't know anything about his character yet! Except that he's careful about the weight.

Well, we know he's the new guy, and that he can't know Walt very well yet. But he spoke like they were intimates.

So you guys think Gilligan is lying?

Yes.

Ha, no, I just think it was kinda sloppy, which is obv. unusual....

i don't rly get what all the fuss is about re: new guy. Clearly he knows very well just who Walter is & what is at stake. Given the gravity of the assertion of power dynamics recently, it makes perfect sense that the new guy would be hired to stand watch over Gus's most vulnerable spot & why wouldn't he just call Walter and tell him to go home? Gus can't kill Walter right now, even if he knows Walt might make a move for him.

Agree that the attempted alliance w. Mike was clumsy and ill-advised, tho not necessarily out of character.

clumsy and ill-advised is v much in character

yep

Hm. I guess it just seems like the mutually assured destruction that was meantto preserve the peace in Ep. 1 has been tilted off-balance by Walt's behavior. Is there no point at which Walt is such a risk to the business (not to mention Gus's own welfare) that he would just have to go? Shit, he box-cut whoozit for having been seen at Gale's place, but it's okay that Walt is stalking his sudivision? Not entirely buying it. If I'm Gus I'm putting a bullet in Walt and enslaving Jesse in the lab w/ a mentor/assistant, a big raise and a new house/car/hookers etc.

Gus needs Walt's skills, tho, or he would certainly already be dead. Jesse is no substitute for Walt in terms of cooking, and would himself be totally expendable if Walt weren't such a stick-in-the-mud about keeping him around. Being that he originally dialed up W & J getting whacked, and then having to reverse that decision out of necessity, Gus had to have known that Walter might make a play for him, even if just out of pride. Gus is a VERY shrewd judge of character & has proven repeatedly that he is thinking and playing several steps ahead of others.

1) Badger should get his own show, called "Badger"
2) It's totally plausible that something it wrong with Mike
3) As per the above, somewhere, I hope Hank's crystal obsession does not get literally connected to his pursuit of meth
4) This episode was great
5) I'm pretty sure they went through great pains never to show Jesse doing drugs in this ep, and I'm not sure he ever did. After all, he's the only one functioning throughout the party and after.
6) Don't get how new guy, let alone Mike, can be on Gus's overnight guard duty and oversee Walt's Sartre-hell lab at the same time. That's a lot of watching for one person!
7) It's still totally plausible for Mike, the pragmatist, to switch sides, or at least ultimately help Walt. Eventually.
8) No, it doesn't make sense that Gus would keep Walt around, regardless of the product, unless I missed the ep where it's revealed that Walt's perfect product brings in more money than less than perfect product.

It's been sorta explained - basically the blue meth syndicate has gotten so enormous (remember, it replaced the Gus' Mexican supply entirely!) that even shutting it down for a day would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, let alone the weeks/months it would take to get a real replacement cook. Walt even used this argument in the premiere, as did Jesse

I think it's possible that Gus has other senior dudes kept well out of sight, he's exceptionally careful about showing his hand, which is good in terms of bringing new characters in I suppose.

5) I'm pretty sure they went through great pains never to show Jesse doing drugs in this ep, and I'm not sure he ever did. After all, he's the only one functioning throughout the party and after.

Idk about this. I feel like I totally noticed him railing before the party started

Yeah, they definitely showed him doing a line when the other guys were talking about zombies

yeah and surely that whole totally wacked out of it montage was meant to show he was completely off his tits? plus the clawing at his own neck at the end.

Great thing about this show is that just when you think you've got a handle on it then Jesse will go something ridiculously stupid and turn the whole thing upside-down. I reckon he's going to take out his frustration at not being able to get to Gus by going after Hank. And Hank will take him out by throwing rocks at him from his wheelchair.

MINERALS

I thought they just showed Jesse hovering over the meth, but never showed him ... hoovering it. They made a point of him offering it to Skinny Pete and Badger first, but I thought it was more ambivalent whether or not Jesse partook. I guess I could just watch the scene again.

Then again, maybe they showed him doing drugs as a means of showing how nothing (not even loud hip-hop!) can dull the pressure.

All the music at Jesse's party was really bad

That is totally true. I can't imagine a song I want to hear a second time less than the "money, money, money ..." track. And when I heard the "Angel of Death" riff I was psyched to hear "She Watch Channel Zero," but no, it's some other butt-rap.

i feel like jessie's occasionally had decent music, maybe some 3-6 at one point but yeah, this was a rough one for songs. Flava Flav?

Can't believe he's getting into dubstep what with everything else.

that really is his 1st unforgivable move imo

It's a metaphor for his poor choices in life.

ha

8) No, it doesn't make sense that Gus would keep Walt around, regardless of the product, unless I missed the ep where it's revealed that Walt's perfect product brings in more money than less than perfect product.

that was my thinking but they did have that bit in the first scene of e1 where gale stresses to gus that the 4%? 6%? diff in purity between walt's stuff and his stuff has a huge impact on the value, it was his main argument to gus that he should hire walt

it's gone unspoken for a while, but gus is probably not only concerned about cash flow - if production stops, an opportunity opens up for the mexican cartels to muscle back into his territory, he used the lab + walt to cut them out of the picture and he doesn't mind playing hardball to defend his turf - like that scene last season where mike took out all those guys at the warehouse

the scene in the bar was intense as fuck. the closeup on mike as he's taking in the import of walt's stupidity was just amazing. i've never seen him get that worked up and upset. i almost felt like he was more angry at walt for being so stupid as out of any sense of loyalty to gus.

i can't remember where mike stands in relation to saul these days?

"i almost felt like he was more angry at walt for being so stupid as out of any sense of loyalty to gus."

Absolutely OTM and why you can't help but feel that he might snap and kill a bunch of gus' guys at some point