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

Note to self: this is a TV show. These people are not your real life friends.

yeah the first time i saw marie with the bed pan i'm like fuckin a, use some of that "gambling money" for an in-home carer!

I actually never bought Hank (an amiable bully and blowhard) and meek psycho Marie as a couple any more than I've bought asshole Walt (who has really never been depicted in his show as anything less than a bitter asshole) and (aspiring novelist?) Skylar as a couple, so I just figure it's in their character's genetic make-up to marry wrong.

The car wash is to clean all of Walt's presumed cash, which is being laundered through Saul. Who, no doubt, at some point will be caught stealing.

Also inevitable future developments: Gus will claim the car wash as his own; Hank will enlist Walt to figure out Gus's notebook; Walt Jr. (who, sorry, has shit to do with this show, but whom Walt once taught to drive, for an episode) will graduate from high school and start looking at colleges (more costs!),

jenny you are otm about the reverse time compression. i'm actually a little adrift about how much time hank's been out of commission. his squalor does make it seem like months. is it actually only like... three weeks?

xpost Hank will enlist Walt to figure out Gus's noteboo

oh god - that is brilliant

It's just not cool to use your loved ones as emotional punching bags.

Agreed, because there no way to disagree with that flat statement. But we all do it from time to time. It's a function of emotional proximity. And also remember that Hank is feeling totally humiliated, emasculated, and suddenly without purpose in life. He's not telling Marie to stay away from her because he doesn't like her. It's because her efforts to cheer him up only make him feel more powerless, which is something Marie can't understand.

Hank will enlist Walt to figure out Gus's noteboo

oh god - that is brilliant

a) It's Gale's notebook.
b) I said that a few posts ago, and feel that my brilliance has been overlooked. Though I don't think it's brilliant, I think it's kind of what's going to happen, obviously.

Note to self: this is a TV show. These people are not your real life friends.

But fiction is a path into your most real life. That may be a whole other thread.

the premise of the show really relies on Walt having some, no matter how flimsy, moral justification for what he's doing

how so? as far as I can see and based on what Vince G says it's about Walt having a total lack of morals and utterly debasing himself and us continuing to cheerlead for him anyway...I don't see that him having a moral justification is necessary and I think increasingly he just doesn't have one. I mean if they wanted to push that angle why has his cancer barely been mentioned for so long?

think the hank/marie thing was really well sketched when the cop came around and hank was showing genuine concern for her. it's a really grim way of showing he's just feeling so bad he takes it out on her and is too proud to do otherwise. it was interesting how he reverted to old hank the instant the cop came in too...cracking jokes and so on.

xp - I thought that too, and considered posting it, but figured it was inevitable! And Walt arrogantly corrects something Gail wrote in the notebook, giving Hank pause, and then Hank brings down the whole operation from his sick bed. The end.

it was interesting how he reverted to old hank the instant the cop came in too...cracking jokes and so on.
totally HUH HUH HUH his laugh was totally different. he used to do that at work too, and then break down in the elevator.

even the dickhead brothher-in-law is kind of Good People underneath it all - am i just a huge softie??

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 16 April 2009 00:56 (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it is amazing how far the characters have travelled on this show but they do retain versions of their former selves too - hank STILL IS (partly) the dickhead who grabbed walt's beer out of his hand and started drinking it

(marie's "relapse" points that up as well)

I love how VG really did call back to her shoplifting.

i don't remember that beer scene but i do remember hank telling walt to stop shoving tequila down his son's throat. think i've always thought of him as sort of the good guy?

I like how Marie's shoplifting fits nicely with the the scene where she's betting Hank he won't get a hard-on. "What if someone walks in?" "I don't care." She has (often unchecked) thrill-seeking behavior, and Hank likes it in deep, horny ways. It explains a lot about the relationship.

I like how Marie is a character, and not a sidebar. I like that most of all.

kenan otm

marie is a real character, for sure
this is part of why i watch this show, not for walt (although the big drama is the other part)

how so? as far as I can see and based on what Vince G says it's about Walt having a total lack of morals and utterly debasing himself and us continuing to cheerlead for him anyway...I don't see that him having a moral justification is necessary and I think increasingly he just doesn't have one. I mean if they wanted to push that angle why has his cancer barely been mentioned for so long?

No he doesn't have a moral justification for what he's doing and he never has really, but I still think he's fooling himself about having a moral justification. So when it's really pride, ego, selfishness and possibly greed driving him (although short of paying medical bills and buying a car wash he hasn't actually done much with that money) I genuinely think Walt still believes he's doing the right thing, despite driving himself to worse and worse extremes. Once Walt admits to himself that he's only really doing it for himself then a lot of the interest in the character is lost. Also the cancer angle for S1 and S2 is now Hanks medical bills.

the look on walt's face when he's enjoying the coffee from gale's rube goldberg machine: as it changes to a grim realization of what's happened to its creator, and then gets battened down into a hard mask of self-justification and determination to get to work - in an instant he moves towards the meth machines, flipping on the switches - is a perfect encapsulation of how walt has changed over these three.x seasons. and all told with no lines at all, just in his face and body! fuck

(it also shows that while walt's changed, he's still walt - those former selves are all still in there)

Walt also has literally no way out now unless he kills Gus. If he walks away he's dead. The last time he had a real moral choice was when Gus offered him a job, he could have walked away and his ego got the better of him.* When he's talking to Jesse in the fly episode and says the one great moment was when he had the money and his kid was about to be born, and since then he's dragging himself through further and further debasements trying to get back to that point - hah, he is actually like an addict now.

*Obviously he didn't really have a choice, without Gus the twins would've killed him, but he doesn't know that.

Tracer YES. When he poured the coffee I wondered aloud whether he felt guilty drinking from the man he murdered's coffee set up and bam. That was great. Brian Cranston is amazing.

cranston knows the inside of this character very well and it's why stuff like RUN works

Yeah, if you see him interviewed the amount of thought he gives Walt's motivations and inner workings is extraordinary.

on The Internet people are saying how this is a huge plot inconsistency - i.e. how can skyler give walt a lecture about expensive champagne when she's ready to drop 800K in her own name on a car wash? but to my mind it just shows how skyler's greed is making her become as wilfully blind as walt is

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, August 2, 2011 7:36 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i read it as yet another example of what horrible criminals in over their heads those two are

the look on walt's face when he's enjoying the coffee from gale's rube goldberg machine: as it changes to a grim realization of what's happened to its creator, and then gets battened down into a hard mask of self-justification and determination to get to work - in an instant he moves towards the meth machines, flipping on the switches - is a perfect encapsulation of how walt has changed over these three.x seasons. and all told with no lines at all, just in his face and body! fuck

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, August 2, 2011 11:07 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha that was amazing tho i admit my first reaction was for a second pffft too obvious but then i was all omg im in too deep

"how can skyler give walt a lecture about expensive champagne when she's ready to drop 800K in her own name on a car wash?"

Uh how about cuz she's still an enormous know-it-all nag?

Think this was my least favourite episode ever.

Some days on and people are really running with the notion that this is either going to get a 6-8 episode fifth and final season or at least a few more seasons on another network.

I highly doubt that'll happen. AMC seems like dicks tho

what's the hold up? gilligan wants weiner money?

http://www.nerve.com/news/tv/amc-might-lose-embreaking-bad-em

rip amc

it was sad, that the logo on my torrent changed

I hope it doesn't go to HBO. Maybe lifetime would be good.

Why is Walt being such a baby about the cameras? Does he really not expect to be watched?

well when they nail the formula hes a dead dude prob, so now he knows that he is constantly watched - camera makes it easy to dig in for details/rewatch the tape/etc

re: marie and purple - yeah they've painstakingly established that shes always wearing purple, which i took as sort of a obsessive signifier for her. imo the reason she isnt wearing purple at the open house is because shes "not marie". i think the depth of maries heavily controlled minor neuroses is only starting to get plumbed here.

they've already nailed the formula, haven't they? victor had it down cold. i figured walt was indispensable because he'd know what to do in case of any variation in material, humidity, whatever. i think he said something to this effect in e01.

But what if the infidilator percolates at 2 degrees below sub-optimal tinkering point? Meth making is all about improv.

I hope it doesn't go to HBO. Maybe lifetime would be good.

Cue the game changing North American Cable TV Riots of 2011.

If it goes to HBO I mean. Lifetime offers their programming on iTunes so that would be great.

I hope it doesn't go to HBO. Maybe lifetime would be good.

― Jeff, Wednesday, August 3, 2011 4:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

At least they could say 'fuck' if it went HBO. Wouldn't affect me whatever, I'm stealing this stuff.

would mean more than just a fifth season, and i don't know if the show can creatively last longer than that.

yeah, that wouldn't be good

Yeah that's a fair point.

IDK though, I do pretty much trust Gilligan to wrap it up at an appropriate time; he cares deeply about good storytelling, which is one of the main reasons the show is so good.

can't AMC just shitcan the killing?

but then we'd never know Who Killed Rose Larsen

lol

IDK though, I do pretty much trust Gilligan to wrap it up at an app

Another network's not going to pick it up if they only get one season though, is the thing

Meth making is all about improv.

― Jeff, Wednesday, August 3, 2011 12:32 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lmao