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

You can also tell because his hair is greasy and he's pale. He's not taking care of himself. At all.

that could just be the PTSD tho... jesse reminds me of a war vet now, he's back in normal life after seeing + doing shit his friends couldn't imagine, this eps def rammed home how alone and adrift he is

keep thinking of his line to walt about gus at the diner: "I can't kill you but I can make you wish you were dead"

or something like that

they should've called the last eps "maybe partying will help"

I don't really see how anyone could watch the last four eps of the show and think "Jesse is not doing drugs".

who does the music? i appreciated how tangerine dreamy/not hammy the music was in the boxcutter scene.

The only time I can recall them explicitly showing him doing drugs was when he was building up the courage to kill Gale. He may very well be on drugs, but I just couldn't help but notice that he was, again, apparently fully functioning at his big blow out. And then there's the hardcore giving that girl the money/warning bit of "you can spend it all on glass, for all I care, but I know you're not going to do that." Clearly between lines like this, the Jane incident and his obvious disdain for Badger and Skinny Pete, Jesse's stance on drugs is complicated at least. Certainly he is not behaving like he his strung out, because this last ep was packed with people who *were* strung out, and Jesse was not acting like them.

They were partying, he was coping. Just a different stage of the same disease, no? I dunno, maybe you're right, but he doesn't look or seem well regardless of his current state of using.

Also I want to go on record as being a fan of whoever costumed Skyler in that hilarious robe. So in character.

OK, yeah, they show him doing it around 10 minutes in, but then a minute later you see him cut a line, get ready to snort it, then check himself and push it away. All that other stuff is accurate, too, but it almost plays like he has a party to keep himself from sniffing all the drugs. Plus, of course, in the middle of the party Jesse leaves and goes to work!!!

Lots of people on meth work though.

Has anyone else read Methland? Grueling book. Not all that artfully written, but packed with information. There's a long section about how meth is a working man's drug.

Sure, but once again, at his party he is the only one apparently fully functioning. All the other guests are literally all passed out on the floor. Clearly he's doing drugs to escape but finding they can't help him. That's different, I think, from the actual acute addicts he surrounds himself with. That is, his drug use does not dictate or drive his behavior. He's aware of the world beyond his immediate environment, which is what's freaking him out so bad. He knows what's waiting for him, and even meth (and subwoofers) can't make him forget.

In fairness, Badger and Skinny Pete are not a great yardstick of functionality.

feel like the party scene's getting overanalyzed here, pretty sure there are plenty of shots of jesse dancing in a tripped out manner, everybody crashes because that's what you do after mething out, jesse getting up and going to work just means he's a high-functioning druggie of which there are plenty in the world

The party is half the episode!!! And Jesse is definitely smoking and having a good time. It's the meth use that's proven a problem for him in the past, which is what makes it a plot point.

love how badger and co are total AV nerds. they had that discussion in an earlier season about plasma TVs and their deeper blacks

I'm finding Hank and Marie genuinely painful to watch at the moment, like being in the middle of the most awkward domestic ever. Obviously both actors are playing it brilliantly.

i find this part to be incredible well-done. very authentic.

idk i think josh is assuming that everyone at the party was only doing meth - realistically, they were probably doing all kinds of shit + drink hard liquor = passing out.

it's entirely possible that he was intoxicated but pre-occupied/not feeling it and thus didn't act like the rest of the meth heads.

First couple of episodes have really shown up how amazingly cast every main character in this show is. Even Marie is just the right level of irritating. I want more scenes with Skylar and Saul.

Marie is much more likable since the hospital handjob.

i feel really bad for marie. she doesn't even irritate me. she is trying so hard to be supportive and positive while having to clean out bed pans and all she's getting for it is grief. which i get, dude is unhappy. but damn, dude. she's literally cleaning up your shit.

I just hope Marie doesn't relapse and fall back into to her old shoplifting ways. I've been really worried for her.

Finally got to see these episodes!

The Gus scene nearly induced a panic attack

Holy shit, me too. I couldn't sit still and watched a lot of it from behind the safety of a pillow. I think it is totally in character for Gus to kill Victor (RIP). As tehresa (I think) said upthread, Gus didn't get to be the king of the meth supply by being a neat and polite man.

I can barely watch Hank and Marie. Every time Marie's eyes well up, mine do, too. tehresa OTM again. Marie really needs to get Skyler and Walt to pay for a home healthcare aid as well as a physical therapist.

I am so glad the meth party scene wasn't a realistic meth party scene. This is a dark fucking show and realistic meth parties are terrible, terrible places and I feel like a realistic houseful of people on meth for three days would be too much to watch. Also in my experience with people who do meth (or drugs in general) there can be situations where even people on three-day binges can tap into a vein of functionality, kind of like the superhuman strength people are capable of in times of danger or the way megalong distance runners can push past their limitations. This means Jesse is in for an awful crash.

I am so glad the meth party scene wasn't a realistic meth party scene.

After tonight's episode I gotta say "heh."

i really liked this episode but marie's open house thing felt like the sorta thing ppl would only do on a tv show

Tho obv heavily stylized, I felt like the open-house sequences were totally in keeping w what one could anticipate from weird bird Marie in an instance of extreme duress. If you've not dealt w such a person irl, the combination of savant-smarts, total unself-consciousness, narcissism & compulsive lying can be a wonder to behold!

Also: thievery of hummels!

Saul's "don't everybody speak at once" --> toilet flush was absolute genius imo

- Hank and Marie and their Cheetos/Fritos, more cold hard domestic reality than I ever bargain for

- Jesse's face at the go-kart track ;_;

- Something interesting needs to happen with Skyler or Walt soon. Remember Walt Jr? Their baby? I just barely remember that they exist.

- MONEY

this was my fave ep so far this season, had more balance than the others and kept all the plots ticking along nicely.

interesting quick flick to the new bodyguard dude watching walt's house. i'm guessing gus won't be over the moon about him buying car wash and stuff.

or was that just to show us walt is basically being watched and followed at all times?

loved the stuff at jesse's, i like this episode cos it just had that feeling of the evil caused by the meth dealing and the money just infecting everyone's lives...kind of a running theme i guess but was particularly strong in this ep.

Two questions:

Why is Walt being such a baby about the cameras? Does he really not expect to be watched?
Why is Saul suddenly so paranoid? It kinda seems to have come from out of nowhere, unless it has just been a while since I saw S3?

assuming cos of him putting gus in touch with walt and walt turning out to kill loads of people and fuck things up?

I guess I thought stuff like that didn't ruffle his feathers, being such a sleazebag and all. I guess it's tough to remember that he built his business by representing the fallout and cleaning the money, but had it never been this violent before? Maybe not.

he does seem kind of lily livered imo...

How is there any expensive stuff still left in Jesse's house?

my magic backstory on saul is since walt's star has risen he's making more money than ever before but he's tightly tied into the machine now, knows how precarious its operations are, and has seen how it could spin out and damage him (e.g. mike coming into his office and threatening him at the end of last season)

xp - Money showers creating loyalty? Who knows. The people on the floor reminded me of a rat king.

really liked this episode but marie's open house thing felt like the sorta thing ppl would only do on a tv show

― Magic (Lamp), Monday, August 1, 2011 2:59 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

compulsive liars & stealers aren't some TV invention tho, and agree w/ pillbox she's under some extreme duress which is putting her sickness in overdrive. plus my wife made me watch an episode of my strange addiction after breaking bad and marie looks practically quaint next to rock eaters and pillow worshippers. marie's reaction to being caught was so real and right. I liked how they used the altered frame rate reserved for big action scenes on her attempted getaway.

the way the writers put the notebook in hank's hands cane off pretty graceful for how elaborate a chain of events it was. previews from next week make it sound like the notebook puts hank on walt's tail.

Remember Walt Jr? Their baby? I just barely remember that they exist.

^this

Well they aren't going to do anything interesting with the baby, because it's TV and they never do. But it seems inevitable that at some point Walter Jr is going to either find out or get dragged into it in some horrible way and that's going to be some properly devastating shit given how much he clearly looks up to Hank.

i dunno, i thought a baby abduction or a walt jr abduction could happen. is a baby abduction too dark for tv?

certainly for the lighthearted breaking bad

Maybe Jesse will manage to come out of his waking coma by abducting the baby and caring for it obsessively in an upstairs room of his flophouse.

Lost had what four or five baby abductions? All useless obviously. But it might happen... Walter Jr abduction would be better given he can actually do something on camera. Once he finds out what's going on it's kinda game over though so I wouldn't be surprised if they held that over until S5.

i guess i'm just thinking a baby abduction would be a lot more horrible in breaking bad.

but yeah walt jr at least is a character i agree.

btw how the fuck does skyler complain about walt buying 320 dollar champagne when she has just ensured they spent 800k on a carwash.

i mean...isn't that going to be just a tiny bit more conspicuous?

Baby abduction might work better from an overall plot point because assuming they get the baby back it won't actually remember anything of what happened. Problem with all of these is that it basically destroys any remaining edifice that Walt is doing this for the good of his family so I can see why the writers would want to hold off that for a while.

i dunno if that's a problem really is it? i mean can't he just plough on regardless. i'd say that notion is largely destroyed by now anyway.

the champagne stuff was kinda wacky after they've paid x hundreds of thousands of dollars of hank's medical bills

Yeah, I liked the scene but it didn't really make sense.