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

I thought he just put it in after tyrus was in there.

but if i had to say yeah it does seem like he just runs to his car and drives away

Tracer y/n do you think the scene would have been EVEN BETTER! if Gus had looked at the camera and said, maybe, "don't use drugs, kids!" and then winked his remaining good eye?

I think the point I was getting at is that there are a lot of BB scenes that don't seem "real" as much as they follow a magic realism that seems to tie to the latin american roots of some of the characters

I mean, Gus was portrayed as having walked out of the room before straightening his tie and falling dead. Will we ever hear that referenced again? Doubtful. We've never heard any more about the narcocorrido about Heisenberg, or the twins crawling across parts of Mexico.

It had a distinctly comic book graphic sensibility

it's true, this was EXACTLY like this one Harvey Pekar comic!

that narcocorrido was actually a flashback and will be the final scene of the series

haha

I think Mike's mindset will be hilarious. "Man, I'm out of commission for a couple of weeks, and you blow up my boss, burn down the lab and generally guarantee more DEA involvement? I'm getting too old for this shit."

mike will just work for walt instead, it's all the same to him

season 5 will just be mike showing up out of nowhere every episode just to smack walt with the back of his hand

he thinks Walt is an assclown and is only starting to have a respect for Jesse

work for walt?? where at the carwash?

"he thinks Walt is an assclown"

Then he's a fool. Walt may be an arrogant self-absorbed jerk, but he's still ruthlessly and brilliantly disposed of every threat/obstacle in his path.

I don't get the impression that Mike thinks Walt is a clown of any sort though.

Walt may have ruthlessly and brilliantly disposed of every threat/obstacle in his path, but the fact he's had to do that in the first place show's he's not really able to keep control of events. Doubt he's really dream boss material in Mike's book.

he could bring in mike as a partner to run distro/muscle while walt does manufacture/money

walt isn't a clown, hes just can't be trusted and mike knows that

#badgrammer

walt is the ultimate nightmare coworker

Wasn't totally sold on Jesse's moral vacillation at the end of the ep re: killing Gus, btw. Gail I understand. But Gus? Whether or not he poisoned Brock, he was definitely, er, not good for Jesse, who apparently forgot that just the day before he was tased, kidnapped and handcuffed to the lab to work as a slave.

i never once imagined walt would leverage TIO to get to gus, or the brilliant way he pulled it off, with the visit to the DEA. yet as soon as those wheels are set in motion it's like "of course, this is the only play he has"

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 11, 2011 6:49 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

this. watching the whole jigsaw puzzle come together in a way that was unexpected but completely inevitable in retrospect was so satisfying.

Walt's very good at some things and is motivated, but for the most part his professionalism is in the gutter!

Compare how he manipulates Jesse versus Gus: Gus created a scene where Jesse would feel needed and competent, no direct involvement was needed from Gus or even Mike, and Gus is cool throughout the whole thing. Walt, on the other hand, relies on his relationship with Jesse being strained and emotional as a catalyst to turn Jesse against Gus after Walt personally sets up this cigarette heist/poisoning debacle.

xp was it kinda just happenstance that jesse knew abt gus tormenting tio? like did he have a purpose for standing nearby hearing that at the time?

ya but he won so

Gus paraded Jesse in front of Tio -- "HERE is the man who killed your grandson" -- so no, not happenstance.

also i think it bears repeating that the WHOLE REASON walt and gus were at odds was over walt protecting/standing up for jesse, tho that seems to have gotten a little lost in the shuffle.

(and that leaves out the bit where gus was planning on handing walt over to the cartels eventually)

ya but he won so

― the jazz zinger (s1ocki), Tuesday, October 11, 2011 11:57 AM

YOU won so

oh word i forgot that wmc

Even Walt thinking of this as "I won" is kind of showing the scope of his intentions. This is probably the largest situation he's "resolved," but there are still so many loose ends that could come back to bite him.

I keep thinking how well-executed Gus's clearing out of the cartel was.

except for the part where he let the one surviving member blow his ass up

true that

But nature abhors a vacuum etc etc, and there are two huge vacuums to set up S5 -- one Cartel-sized, one Gus-sized. They can go anywhere with this, and it be internally consistent. First meeting back in the writers room might be a bunch of folks giggling and saying "hold me Vince, I'm scared."

in unison? weird image

yeah, scary freedom!

http://images.nymag.com/images/2/daily/2011/10/10_gustavodemise.gif

For the second season in a row they've got Saul to thank for still being alive. Whatever they're paying him isn't enough.

Now I'm going to do something really dumb and start watching seasons 2 and 3 for the first time. But it's also going to be something not-dumb because it's good tv.

wait... what??

part 2 of the avclub thing is up btw

AVC: Are there things from earlier seasons that you’re still waiting or hoping to pay off?

VG: Yeah, definitely. The most coy way I can answer that is that there are several things that I think are still outstanding. I guess one of them that goes without saying is the dramatic engine that started this whole series, which is Walt’s cancer diagnosis. That’s certainly something we have not forgotten about, and that is something we will touch base on in one form or another as we draw to a conclusion in our last 16 episodes. But there are other things as well. Definitely we spend a lot of time looking to the past, and looking to previous episodes in an effort to tell a satisfying story by not leaving many, or any, hopefully, loose ends hanging out.

methinks wmc was sufficiently pilloried for his sins upthread

xp

Yeah, I DL'ed and watched S1 and was very bummed out because of serious addiction probs in my family, so I dropped the show. But when S4 started I watched the first episode and was drawn back in just from the sheer quality of writing and acting. So I have a gap to fill in -- I have a vague sense of what happened, but haven't actually seen the episodes yet.

I guess one of them that goes without saying is the dramatic engine that started this whole series, which is Walt’s cancer diagnosis. That’s certainly something we have not forgotten about, and that is something we will touch base on in one form or another as we draw to a conclusion in our last 16 episodes.

speaking of that, when jesse leaves walt in the parking lot at the end walt seems to have a moment of... something. he puts his hand to head like he's sick or something. could be wave of stress hitting him but i suspect its cancer-related.

stuff like this makes me want to go back and watch the whole series over again

My own personal opinion is that a lot of this dates back to “Box Cutter.” There’s a moment at the end of that episode where Gus cuts Victor’s throat and lets Victor drop dead onto the floor. Walt looks like he’s about to vomit, and he looks completely terrified, as most of us would. Then Gus happens to glance at Jesse, and there’s this long shot of Jesse. We hold on Jesse quite a long time as he slowly leans forward. There’s this moment of, if not connection between the two, there’s this moment of, for my money, Gus seeing a strength, a resilience, and an anger in Jesse, a substance in Jesse that he didn’t see before.

And marrying that realization with the realization that Jesse had the wherewithal to go kill Gale, suddenly Gus Fring realizes that this guy who he’s never given a second thought to may have more substance than he previously would have guessed. So I think primarily, yes, what Gus is doing by having Mike take Jesse out on money pickups is he’s starting to drive a wedge between Jesse and Walt, but I think maybe he does see some worth, some utility in Jesse. And he had probably first noted that in the first episode of this season.

i read that as walt basically having a bowel-emptying moment of "oh christ, what have i become / thank god i didn't kill the kid / has this all actually worked out / oh shit, wtf do i do now"

xpost

"/ oh fuck cancer is back"

well alright

Wasn't totally sold on Jesse's moral vacillation at the end of the ep re: killing Gus, btw. Gail I understand. But Gus? Whether or not he poisoned Brock, he was definitely, er, not good for Jesse, who apparently forgot that just the day before he was tased, kidnapped and handcuffed to the lab to work as a slave.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, October 11, 2011 11:50 AM (52 minutes ago)

I bought it - to be fair, jesse ended up tased + handcuffed because walt's manipulations put him at odds with gus. and although the choice of gus vs walt as mentor isn't very appealing, gus was at least a leader who let jesse demonstrate and enjoy some self-worth, whereas walt's a petty self-involved little toad whose actions are almost always to jesse's psychological detriment.

Yeah, but to say Gus put Jesse at equal risk would be an understatement. I mean, the Mexico gambit that could have left them all dead was a Walt-esque gamble.

well alright

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 11, 2011 12:48 PM

i mean it doesn't have to literally be that so much as a foreshadowing of that (it looked very similar to walt's earlier sickness blackouts). and the bb writers luv foreshadowing.