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

yeah the IRS is paid, that plot line is probably not an issue now.

no, the total amount was not paid. it's minus the mercedes lease. just saying.

yeah, but who would they go after for that money?

the amt he was gonna "return" 2 skylar was minus the mercedes lease. i think the amt the a-team made him write was xactly what the irs was owed. even if it wasnt, if hes dead, irs will get w/e he owes from w/e assets he does still have probably

no, the total amount was not paid. it's minus the mercedes lease. just saying.

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 11:03 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

So? The difference can just be peeled off Walt's stash under the... wait.

xp yeah, I thought they got him to pay the whole amount. Not sure how that would work if he didn't have any money.

ted's death was hilar & one of the best parts of the season. the foreshadowing where he trips over the rug earlier was so good -- i was like, haha what a funny detail to include to show how inept he is, then it turned out it was even ~more~

and yeah he was obv blackmailing skyler! how do u miss that

Ted, being stupid and sleazy, was trying his best to couch it as anything but blackmail. And totes, when he tripped over the rug the first time, my thought was, hmm, what an odd detail.

But if you're a tax scofflaw and you suddenly come up with $600K cash to pay of you debt, won't the IRS look into the source of that money?

Great episode. How will they keep this up? This is like the last third of "GoodFellas," except they have to stretch it out the rest of the season and the final season, too. Unless this is secretly the final season.

i will admit im in the minority who could see them killing walter before jesse at this point

i dont think they'll do either, though

are we maybe witnessing a swing of sympathy TOWARDS Walter and away from Gus -- obv at some level the past several episodes have you cheering for the disciplined underdog w/ Gus vs. cartel .... mike & jesse on his team ... while walter flails embarrassingly. but now ... if gus is going to kill hank and walt is really concerned about this our sympathies could easily & radically swing back towards walt imo

the foreshadowing where he trips over the rug earlier was so good -- i was like, haha what a funny detail to include to show how inept he is, then it turned out it was even ~more~

Ted tripping over the rug was obviously a setup for a later incident, how do u miss that

Also I never said it definitely wasn't blackmail, I'm asking the question because a couple of circumstances surrounding it don't fit neatly imo, and this series in particular has been so tightly controlled that nothing ever doesn't fit neatly.

its easy to think that him tripping over the rug was just a show-dont-tell way of underlining that hes an inept bumbling idiot

Also I never said it definitely wasn't blackmail, I'm asking the question because a couple of circumstances surrounding it don't fit neatly imo, and this series in particular has been so tightly controlled that nothing ever doesn't fit neatly.

― Autumn Almanac (Schlafsack), Monday, September 26, 2011 9:04 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it totally does, skyler calls him out on it & hes too much of a weasel to admit that its what hes doing

That would make sense and wrap up the plot reasonably neatly, but (a) he could have just said "yes I'm blackmailing you" but didn't, (b) why would he try running from the thugs after signing the cheque and (c) with Ted dead without consequence that's a hell of a lot of subplot to indulge in just to leave Walt in the lurch in episode 11.

― Autumn Almanac (Schlafsack), Tuesday, 27 September 2011 08:37 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hes running because he wants to retain the ability to blackmail her, if he can stop the check & call the police then ... he would succeed?

ah yes that makes sense

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.aoltv.com/media/2011/09/bad1.jpg

^ scene is still giving me chills. I am completely in awe of how subtly they've cranked up Gus in the last 3–4 episodes.

goosebumps at the end with Walt laughing and Marie on the machine

Yeah, and the person upthread who said Walt now resembles a meth head is otm. Skyler's house was the one place in the show that was predictably a safe haven (even with Gus's hard men hanging round out the front).

Pretty convinced that the season will end w/ Walt saving Hank's ass and "allying himself" (but not really) w/ the DEA for protection. At least, that's the most plausible way out for him I can come up with.

That would be a mad setup for the final series. Wow.

holding out hope for "everybody dies"

Probably been mentioned itt but I did wonder whether the DEA's very solidly in cahoots with Fring, and that that's the reason Hank can't get his case up.

Just wanted to point out that it was totally an allusion to a coffin there at the end. What walt felt or forshadowing.

no way, there's no money in coffins and you don't put them underneath a house

good point

hes running because he wants to retain the ability to blackmail her, if he can stop the check & call the police then ... he would succeed?

― sorry for party blogging (D-40), Monday, September 26, 2011 10:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the heavies reaction to ted bolting and his subsequent death was lolz all around

haha the explanation to saul was extra lol

Man that ending was so Lynch that I expected Skyler to start clawing at her face with her right hand.

I think I was watching a different episode from many people on this thread. I thought that episode was a complete tease and tremendously frustrating, the ending in particular. And I do love this show but it has started to annoy me. That said, I enjoyed last week a lot so hopefully there will be good things to come.

The biggest wtf was Walt's panicked visit to Saul being played for (admittedly dark) laughs when it could have actually been genuinely tense. I did not understand that at all.

btw totally glad ted is dead, found his scenes nearly unbearable even by the uncomfortable standards of this show

I thought that episode was a complete tease and tremendously frustrating, the ending in particular.

whaaaaaat, this whole year has been a tease from start to finish

lol'd so hard at dead ted

trying to blackmail skylar while simultaneously woundedly denying that hes trying to blackmail skylar is so completely w/in ted's character that it seems hard to read any other way idk

i dont really care who dies or w/e i just want to know what happens next

as if jesse's life isn't hard enough he has to play sonic 2006 as well

Can I just say that the scene with Gus telling a tied-up Walt what the fuck was going on was a piece of directoral and cinematographic brilliance? But in the most beautiful, simple, craftsmanlike way.

When you shoot in the west/southwest desert on a day like that, where, if you get the polarizer just right, the sky is a deep blue and the clouds are these gorgeous, imaginary-looking things, the one problem is that there's no real way to predict when a cloud will pass over your main action. You just hope that you get everything in the same light, because the difference between cloud and full sun is so stark that it's impossible to cut between one and the other. To have spent at least 30 minutes in a situation where a minute costs thousands of dollars, just so you have a master shot where the cloud comes in and leaves again...

The level of planning, forethought, and expertise that goes into assuring that that scene is not only saved from being reshot or jury-rigged in editing, but that it actually adds something to the vocabulary of cinematography on TV, is something that I aspire to, at my very best, every day I get my hands on a camera.

better yet

...

holy shit

Thing is, Ted was being blundering and fucking moronically stupid and self-destructive in EXACTLY the same way as Walt in this episode. Like, you KNOW it's game over. You are completely fucked. You are going to jail, or you are being driven out into the desert by a psychopathic drug dealer with a bag over your head. And then at the very last minute, you're offered a precious lifeline you'd previously have given everything for. And you throw it back in their face, you're stupid enough to believe that against all logic, you can take everything back. Then you realise you're really really fucked, and you try to run away. And you fuck it up. And then you're REALLY fucked.

Nice touch on the writers' part, I thought.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrGc9-UwCXg

thankfully ted's death is now on youtube lmao

WHERE IS THE GIF?

i dunno, but:

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrua8glh2k1qhtqtjo1_250.gif

http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrua8glh2k1qhtqtjo2_250.gif

the godfather oranges mean that he's dead

Seriously if they can't tell a dead man when they see one then Saul has hired the most inept heavies in the world.

Man that ending was so Lynch that I expected Skyler to start clawing at her face with her right hand.

Yes! Totally!

Was there music at the end? Because it read as so Lynch to me that I've superimposed creepy Lynch music over my memory of the last scene.

There was creepy Lynch air vent drone, I thought. Or buzzing ants.

I did appreciate that even under duress Walt was completely shifty around Saul. "They're going to kill my family!" Well, no, Walt, only if you don't take the generous lifeline and leave Jesse and the operation alone. But of course he can't do that, because Walt thinks the "operation" is his.

Odds on Marie, not Hank, getting killed this season are high. Which would further motivate Walt to help Hank and/or the DEA, though I don't want them to twist Walt into something remotely sympathetic, because he's not. Walt is one of the all-time biggest assholes.

The death of Marie would also bring the babysitting crisis into the foreground. LOL at Hank telling Walt he has his hands full these days "with the car wash." But of course not with THE NEWBORN BABY, or the CANCER, or the special needs son who one of these days is going to have to start shopping for COLLEGE. But yeah, that car wash.

It sounded like a jacked up thx sound.

There was a weird sorta hearbeat noise that turned into a drone

I did appreciate that even under duress Walt was completely shifty around Saul. "They're going to kill my family!" Well, no, Walt, only if you don't take the generous lifeline and leave Jesse and the operation alone. But of course he can't do that, because Walt thinks the "operation" is his.

It's more because they're going to kill his brother in law. No matter how debased his morality his, Walt isn't going to allow that to happen if he can prevent it.

I can definitely see Marie dying, good call. Gus too maybe, or at least a nice long coma that gives them a bit of breathing space.

I think Gus has definitely underestimated Jesse, or overvalued his loyalty. Look how happy his homelife suddenly seemed. No way is he going to agree to cook for the dude who ordered the murder or Walt's entire family, including a baby. His main loyalty is to Mike, not Gus, we saw that in the scene with the doctors, and he's still carrying that ricin around him...

I did appreciate that even under duress Walt was completely shifty around Saul. "They're going to kill my family!" Well, no, Walt, only if you don't take the generous lifeline and leave Jesse and the operation alone.

TBF, he has to leave Jesse and the operation alone and let Gus kill Hank. Gus explicitly threatened to murder the family if Walt interfered with Gus's plans for Hank.

I was thinking about the people I would hate to see die on this show, and kind of surprisingly, Marie was high on that list. I will be really bummed out if Marie dies. I'm fond of her neuroses and her purple.

I would be least sad if Skylar died. I hate to say it, but I could do without having to look at Anna Gunn's weird mask of a face anymore.

"I thought that episode was a complete tease and tremendously frustrating, the ending in particular."

Uh Gus tells what he is going to do, Ted dies, Walt realizes he's fucked, I'd say there is a fair amount of reveal in this EP.

yup, and an amazing setup for the final two episodes