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

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.

it's true that the female characters' cluelessness/powerlessness is routinely played for laughs. like I said, this show has some er problems dealing with women. which is a little odd given how many women work on it but what do I know.

and i know it's weird to jump in at the halfway point, but five episodes seemed like so much televison to absorb, and some friends were watching season three (and were kind enough to rewatch half of season 1 with me). i'll catch up as i go, and i'm not characterizing the show so much as putting my admittedly ignorant initial impressions up for critique.

five episodes five SEASONS

maybe let's not introduce the word 'bitch' into the debate

sorry, my bad. i thought i was quoting old lunch, but switched out "harpy" for, you know...

But I also think a lot of the perception of Skylar just comes from contrast --- we know from the outset that Walt is 'doing all of this for her' so that when he comes home and she's going through her normal household routine, it *seems* to a lot of viewers that she's a pain in the ass. But she's not. And she's mostly pretty smart and in control of a lot more than she's given credit for.

Within the confines of the narrow character type she's been given, I think she's a pretty good version of a suburban wife.

I don't have any problem, personally with her portrayal. I think the problem is in the perception of the role itself. (I dunno if I'm conveying this at all well though so ...)

no, that's a really good point, and something i was thinking about while watching the show last night. "am i noticing the show's contempt for the character, or projecting my own onto the writers?" can't answer that with complete conviction, but i don't think it's all me...

Well, it's like I said: I think there is an intention to let the audience see Skyler within the frame of Walter's skewed perspective. Taken out of context (or within the context of Skyler's skewed perspective of their marriage for the first half of the show), those exchanges are pretty innocuous. But those scenes are tucked within many other scenes wherein we see Walter's life becoming this whole other thing that's no longer compatible with his domestic life and, as such, we're able to see them as Walter sees them: constraining, confining, stifling. But because those scenes are presented relatively objectively (clearly, the show is always centered on Walt), the audience is given the choice to decide whether Skyler's a decent and reasonable spouse or an overbearing obstacle to a more exciting life.

fucking ted and laundering money for him really took away a lot of the audience's potential sympathy.

with good reason, really

that's when the character became a lot stronger imo; she was pretty one-dimensional for the first two seasons

I fail to see how skylær is or ever was a nag. she's never been the most sympathetic character going, but she has always commanded a fair degree of influence and control (even going so far as to help walt launder once she found out what he had become – entirely her decision btw). she's walt's conscience. also tbh I don't think I've ever seen walt even respond to her as a nag – in every disagreement they've ever had, his respect for her has palpably been far greater than her respect for him.

With respect to your last sentence, I feel as if you're maybe confusing this with another show...?

Re: the first part, no, he didn't directly respond to her as if she were a nag, but his body language etc. clearly telegraphed his feelings...which he would then project on some other (self-) destructive endeavor. Re: the second part, Walt hasn't had respect for Skyler for a long time, and his decency finally slipped away this season, as well.

I dispute that he no longer respects her. pushing her out of his life, yes.

(to the extent that she's not pushing him out of hers obv)

I dunno, if my partner did half the shit to me/my life/my family that Walter's done to Skyler, I'd feel a pretty distinct lack of respect. Tomayyyto, tomahhhto, I guess.

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

She's the fucking blacksmith woman in A Knight's Tale! That's where I know her from! Jesus Christ, that's been driving me nuts.

I know I could have looked it up, but, well...

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.

otm. I had this impression completely by the end of the first episode on Netflix. And that those moments were supposed to be the hook for the viewer to totally get where Walt is coming from and root for him, but it just made me think he was a mean-spirited jerk who couldn't be trusted from day 1.

It would actually be really interesting if everyone were to figure out the point where they personally felt that Walt's actions became indefensible. There's probably a pretty decent psychological test somewhere in there.

I think killing mike was the first thing he did that wasn't out of serious self-preservation.

http://www.the-reel-mccoy.com/movies/2001/images/AKnightsTale1.jpg

otm. I had this impression completely by the end of the first episode on Netflix.

yeah, in the first episode he gets bossed around by his obnoxious students, his masculinity is questioned by his obnoxious bro-in-law, he's demeaned at the carwash, finds out he has cancer, comes home after working two jobs and Skylers all "WALT, did you charge $14 on the Master Card? We don't use the Master Card, didn't we talk about this." in this totally condescending voice.

you Laura Fraser fans need to check out Neverwhere, she is at her most magical pixie-ish

Ohhhhhh SHIT that's where I know her from

xpost - He couldn't help the cancer but in most of those other situations I think he could have handled himself differently. I mean, he's the teacher, don't let yourself get bossed around to the point that you resent your students, and Hank is kind of a buffoon - laugh it off. Based off interactions with Jesse I had the impression Walt was def complicit in reinforcing a negative dynamic with a lot of people, Jesse is pretty bright and Walt seems to need him to keep feeling like a loser and to constantly fuck things up.

Speaking of indefensible - some things that really disturbed me: not only letting Jane die but letting Jesse blame himself for it - and for the plane crash - and playing like he's the good guy, there to rescue Jesse and send him off to rehab. Letting Walt Jr blame Skyler for all the problems in their marriage, moving himself right back in the house after she'd tried to get him out.. I mean..

the episode where he hands Jesse a gun and tells him to "take care" of the junkies that robbed their guy.
he basically told Jesse to murder some people. that, for me, was where i realized he was fully unhinged.

he does a bunch of random lashing out in the first couple episodes (the car wash, bank line, etc.) that were clear signs that dude was unhinged.

he got worse obviously

weren't those like right after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer though

haven't seen that xpost very first ep, but looks like Gilligan's setting up those who sympathize, *and* those who don't, but think it's just gonna be the basic helpless daddy/hard mommy, or the latter partly justified, like on the King of Queens: "I wanna see you live to be 40, honey." Like he seems clueless about money, she's Ted's comptroller or something like that. Then we go from Mr. Chips to Scarface, per Gilligan's original pitch to AMC In the first ones I did see, Walt seems so awash in waves of "why meeeeee", it's like The Book of Job as a Roadrunner cartoon, Walt (especially via no-dialogue, body language reaction) having Wile E. Coyote's 19th, 27th, 32nd nervous breakdown. His own control freakiness, which had him walking away from his first wife, friend and their eventually big-money entreprise, gradually surfaces, overcmpensates madly, and overwhelms Skylar's own control freak mode, which is mainly about maintainace. So that's what she does, moneylaundering etc, with occasional leaps, like revenge-fucking Ted, trying to pay him off without telling him why, coming up with the whole "Walt's a gambling addict, that's why we have all this money to pay for Hank's therapy" bit, the thing in the pool, showing Walt the lump sum. She should go to the cops (but which cops, now), but she may always have been implosive, like Walt ( like several women in the women on The Sopranos, the women in the original Get Carter, accelerating up the scale of finding your way through a forest of crazy hairy men's rules)Not that I defend her complicity, the meth biz alone, even if there were no one-on-one homicides, is deadly.

So I never thought he was justified, though he did seem both dangerous and pathetic, initially.

maybe cut back on the coffee

no way, full speed ahead!

The scene where he attacks the guys mocking Walt Jr is so full of rage. You can definitely see his inadequacy in full flight there.

BTW, Slate answer guy calculates Walt and Skyler's pile of cash to be between $17 and $45 million.

lol it's so stupid to even pretend you can guess at that. "Skylar can't figure it out, but i can!"

Doesn't seem that stupid: http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2012/09/06/what_is_a_good_approximation_of_how_much_money_skyler_had_in_the_storage_unit_when_she_showed_walt_how_she_stopped_counting_it_.html

Then again, it's an estimate that varies nearly $30 million. So obviously this guy comes to the same conclusion Skyler did: it's a lot of money, and certainly too much to come to an accurate count by hand.

if they bought 4 or 5 of these I bet they could blow through that pile. 1500 bills per minute!

http://www.quill.com/accubanker-professional-bill-counter-counterfeit-detector/cbs/215260.html

i wouldve split it up between a few diff storage facilities personally