Shall we anticipate the FIFTH SEASON of the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

oddly neurotically sexy, i cant quite figure it out

ha, i thought i was the only one.

i think her speaking style could almost be an attempt at a clipped american accent by the actress, who is scottish i believe.

but even if its that it's a brilliant accident.

I didn't feel like it was the money that freaked Jesse out so much as the compounded trauma of having a 'normal' conversation with Walt, standing there like a coiled spring waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did, loaded gun in his pants ready to draw. Like the money was almost an anticlimax, like JESUS CHRIST THAT'S WHAT YOU CAME HERE FOR YO?

I do think the money has a subtext of "now I could afford a REALLY bad drug habit" ... not just in the audience's mind but in Jesse's. and they showed he had fallen off the wagon a bit, had the bong out on the coffee table.

Jesse was on the wagon for what, a few weeks?

but yeah I think it was mainly relief that he didn't have to shoot Walt

he's been getting high since killing Gale iirc

xp

Yeah, on and off.

but even if its that it's a brilliant accident.

― ryan, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:36 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a super sexy accident

i wish i knew enough about idk the twilight zone or twin peaks or some crazy w/ intense fans to make a ilx thread/avclubdiscussion parody like the 'omg i just heard kennedy got shot' one.

oddly neurotically sexy, i cant quite figure it out

I don't find her especially hot or anything, but I am loving the character more and more. I love the bags under her eyes. I love the way she's twitchier than the actual meth addicts we've seen on the show. I love how she's always wearing WAY too much makeup. This isn't just a nervous woman, this is a woman with things to be nervous about.

that diner scene where she tried to order tea told us so much about her

she's a great type A caricature

one thing that i really love about this show, as compared to something like lost, or fringe, is that it doesnt dwell on flaky ~mysteries~. it's pure plot.

Amen. I mean, I understand that network dramas have to fill 22 episodes per season with something, which may inform a lot of that wheel spinning, but still. Procedurals and straight dramatic shows with an overriding narrative throughline are different television formats with different strengths/structures, and it's usually an awkward fit when you try to mash the two together.

I love the scene with Jesse unzipping the bag. The music and the tension makes you think that there's a body in the bag, or something gory and awful, and then it's much worse --

http://i.imgur.com/fr4NJ.jpg

HAHA Damnit now I want to eat junk food.

That would have at least put a smile on ole Jesse's dial

I am gald David Lynch did not get a hold of this show

― Sweet Yin Yang ☯ (Latham Green), Wednesday, 5 September 2012 19:19 (1 hour ago) Permalink

Gilligan should do a show with Lynch tho

i remember some talk about them getting Werner Herzog to direct an episode

I do think the money has a subtext of "now I could afford a REALLY bad drug habit" ... not just in the audience's mind but in Jesse's. and they showed he had fallen off the wagon a bit, had the bong out on the coffee table.

― dmr, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:42 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jesse was on the wagon for what, a few weeks?

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:43 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he's been getting high since killing Gale iirc

xp

― chicago rap twitter luminary (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:44 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, on and off.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:45 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

guys be srs weed is not a drug

"i think her speaking style could almost be an attempt at a clipped american accent by the actress, who is scottish i believe.

― ryan, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 3:35 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

Yeah she definitely has a Scottish accent IRL. The american accent was made all the more difficult in the nsc ene ion her office where she was a scottish actress playing an american woman speaking fluent german on a conference call

have started watching the third season of this show, and some of the first for context (though it wasn't really necessary). i like it in the compulsive sense inspired by any good soap opera, but i don't know how i feel about it. there's a strong and rather distasteful, fight-club-like "rogue masculinity vs domestic castration" theme to the first few episodes that also seems to crop up later on. the introductory fake bacon and "did you take your echinacea?" breakfast full caps this so hard that i almost bailed at that point, and walt unbound staring down the taunting thug in the clothes shop only underlines the point. characterization of skyler and especially marie seems to support this (for ex the super condescending third season ep where skyler calls the cops on walt), but only sometimes. they're humanized and treated with respect elsewhere.

i'm sure all this has been discussed to death in this and other threads, but i'm new to the show and don't have time to play 10,000-post catch-up, so i'm dumping it here. at the very least, i wanna know what happens next.

loved Jess bashfully hiding the bong!

I think the show is pretty explicitly working with some archetypical Western themes (there's a shot I swear is a quote of the end of The Searchers in season 4) but at the same time i think it's about how Walt has internalized those archetypes as a kind of death wish (literally a cancer!) that fails to found the Home it claims to be founding but instead poisons it.

xp Whatever happens, W.W. is always the grown-up in the room, in Jesse's mind.

It makes me a bit sad when I think about happy go lucky Jesse of Season 1, and now he constantly has THE PHEAR in his eyes now.

rip capn cook

The chili pepper was taken out of his recipe a long time ago.

ha ha

I don't know why you wouldn't want to watch every episode of this show that you could?

^^ xps to contenderizer

I don't know why you wouldn't want to watch every episode of this show that you could?

Especially given that the show is about a man's transformation, and by season 3 he is pretty transformed already.

xxp Jesse has always been the Sancho to Walt's Don.

omg chili pepper ;_;

yeah I sorta don't get the "I skipped some seasons!" approach. the first couple seasons are a much more interesting show imho

I don't know why you wouldn't want to watch every episode of this show that you could?

Yeah, this is a bizarre choice, imo. Especially since you have a year to catch up before the real-time discussion picks back up. It's akin to starting a novel a third of the way in before showing up near the tail-end of a book group discussion. You don't have any real context on what's happening or what point the show is at in exploring certain themes. I mean, to each his own, but I guess don't expect your underinformed viewpoints to be particularly sympathetic?

That came off as more severe than I intended it to. Do whatcha feel, brah.

yeah I don't think there's a "domestic castration" theme really. though the show does have a problem with women, most of whom are incidental or not terribly well written.

I mean, to each his own, but I guess don't expect your underinformed viewpoints to be particularly sympathetic?

posts that effortlessly summarize etc

We had this discussion at the time but I never really understood the problem people had with Skylar. I thought stuff like 'have you taken your echinacea' was p much meant to portray humdrum life not nagging harpy. I can hardly remember those eps now though, looking forward to re-watching it all before the final stretch.

lol @ "i'm sure my total misreading of the show based on a bizarre scattershot viewing of a couple random episodes has been discussed to death in this and other threads"

Skyler's never really been a nag imho. she's been a victim, for the most part.

prior to watching Season 5 eps and hopping on this thread these were my conclusions (posted to a different thread originally):

finished season 4.

Feel like this show is about one thing and one thing only, really: being addicted to the tension that comes from high risk behavior. This applies to the major characters, who all engage in dangerous behavior against their better judgment under pretexts of varying degrees of flimsiness, but also to the viewers, who are jerked through one long intense standoff after another. It's fun and it's interesting but it feels very self-contained and almost RPG-ish in it's construction and the way the characters are constantly being played against each other - it doesn't seem especially concerned with versimilitude or finely developed characters or anything really beyond OMG WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT/WHICH SUPPORTING CHARACTER IS GOING TO DIE

― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, August 16, 2012 3:44 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

liked it best when Jesse and Walt were low-level losers and there was some tension between Walt's extracurricular activities and his "normal life", before the question of whether or not he was doing this because he was going to die/had cancer had been so clearly resolved - by the time we get to season 3 it's essentially an OTT crime dramedy and while it's fun I find it sort of less engaging

― Shameful Dead Half Choogle (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, August 16, 2012 3:47 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Somebody really likes their own posts. Now we know who.

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming Shakey Mo Almanac

The Molemanac

I think the 'nagging harpy' scenes may have been carefully selected as part of Giligan's master plan to make the viewer complicit in Walter's transformation. Like, we're presented with those exchanges and then are allowed to choose for ourselves the extent to which Walter's reactionary behavior is justifiable or not. Some people discuss with their spouse the extent to which they're feeling nagged at, some people buy a car and torch it out of spite.

Right, but I didn't really see any nagging myself. I thought she was quite trusting and reasonable considering on telly people fly off the handle at nothing. Anyway, need to watch again.

the show is pretty explicitly working with some archetypical Western themes (there's a shot I swear is a quote of the end of The Searchers in season 4) but at the same time i think it's about how Walt has internalized those archetypes as a kind of death wish (literally a cancer!) that fails to found the Home it claims to be founding but instead poisons it.

― ryan, Wednesday, September 5, 2012 2:35 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah, this is the sense i'm starting to get. esp as it becomes clear that whatever his goals may have been, walt's choices have put his entire family in terrible danger. most interesting aspect for me at this point is skyler's complicity.

She nags sometimes, but she is also pregnant and has a disabled child so it's not surprising that she is a bit of a control freak.

don't see skyler as a nagging bitch, but maybe i just haven't seen enough. see her as a character whose domesticity and incomprehension are often played for laughs. e.g., her confrontation w walt's "marijuana dealer". there's at least a whiff of contempt for the "female type" she seems intended to embody. goes double for her sister.