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

i objected to this in nussbaum's review. when do you ever see todd taking shooting a kid to be "kick-ass"? when do you see him being "kick-ass" at all?

This was the only episode I watched with someone else, and both our mouths dropped open after the shooting. It reminded me of Tommy killing Spider in Goodfellas..

todd just seems unfeeling and inscrutable

This was the only episode I watched with someone else, and both our mouths dropped open after the shooting. It reminded me of Tommy killing Spider in Goodfellas..

― first I think it's time I kick a little verse! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 13, 2013 10:31 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, it was unbelievably shocking and horrible. but i never got the sense that anyone was feeling all "kick-ass" about it. if anything, todd was blandly "just doing his job"

It kind of seemed like his uncle was this guy with creepy prison connections with gangs, and Todd is a second-generation criminal who's more clean-cut and trying to make good.

You want your kids to do better, you know.

ya prob more accurate to say Todd feels its all in the game

I even enjoyed wily Walt Jr.s request for a curfew extension now that bowling night was cancelled. Gotdam son, scheming away just like your evil papa.

it's a tragedy, so that sort of outcome is in some ways very likely

― Autumn Almanac, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 7:52 AM (2 hours ago)

it is a tragedy so my instinct is to agree, nobody is spared. but gilligan's response when shakespearean tragedy gets brought up indicates he might not hamlet it up.

Slant: Having gone through this transformation from being an upstanding citizen to someone who imagines himself to be outside the law, Walter White is now faced with the consequences of his decisions. So the question I have now is about redemption in general, the question of redemption as a narrative structure. I see Breaking Bad kind of like a Shakespearean tragedy in a lot of ways. This character who has free will, who has the opportunity to make better choices, continues toward his own doom. And so I wonder if redemption isn't actually what's at stake anymore in this story. Is there something bigger than redemption that could be at stake?

VG: I hope so. (Laughs) I should probably start by saying that this show in and of itself is kind of an experiment. To begin with, television as a medium is all about protecting the franchise. When it works well, television invites itself into your home week in and week out, in the guise of a favorite character or favorite series. And you as a viewer visit with a favorite character week in and week out and you know what to expect from that character. And television gives you what you expect, more or less, week in and week out. It's what television does, and I think it actually does it very well. In other words, for 20 years you could visit with Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, and in season 20 he was the same good-natured, fast-drawing, honest marshal as he was way back in season one. Agents Mulder and Scully in The X-Files were basically the same characters throughout the entire series. The folks on The Andy Griffith Show, Archie Bunker on All in the Family—these were all fundamentally the same people throughout, and that's what television does. Historically, that is. It keeps its characters in sort of a stasis that at times can seem sort of artificial because, as we all know in real life, we age and we progress and we very often change in our viewpoints, in our outlook on life. And as much as I love all these great examples in the history of television, I wanted to try to do something different. I wanted to experiment with the medium a little.

And all of that is to say is that what we are about on Breaking Bad is transformation. We are taking our main character, starting him at point A, back in our pilot, and we are taking this decent, good, law-abiding citizen and we are transforming him in little fits and starts into somebody else entirely. And part of the reality of doing that is that, in practice, where that leaves my writers and myself is that even we don't know exactly where he's going to wind up. And that's the exhilaration and the terror of it for us. We don't really know how far we can take Walt, how far we can stretch this conceit before it breaks. And we may indeed break it. We may indeed have Walt turn some corner at some point in his character that makes him so unredeemable in the audience's eyes that people no longer want to watch him. Or we may not. As we proceed along with this experiment of taking Walt from who he was to who he will become, we really are in kind of uncharted territory. And I can't think of any other show to look back at that would help us out in this endeavor. I'm unaware if this is ultimately going to be a story of redemption, or a cautionary tale. Hopefully it'll be a little bit of many things.

todd's affectlessness is what's so scary about him—if he'd been all "YAAAAAAA BITCH" after he killed the kid he would be an entirely different character

yeah. the creepiest thing about him for me is that his rationale for killing the kid actually makes sense

i don't buy Walt killing Skylar at all. I do believe she will be dead by the time Walt's 52nd comes around, but not by Walt's hand. To me it seems more likely that Lydia will freak out about Skylar knowing she is involved and will have her killed. I also think Walt is going to be cooking again due to Lydia's 'moving parts' and will maybe do that at the white house.
Todd is a sociopath and so is Walt. Jesse isn't. I hope Jesse gets to kill Todd. Even better, Walt, which would be close to an eye for an eye considering how badly Walt has fucked up Jesse's life. Of course the dilemma with that is that Jesse doesn't want to kill anyone. Maybe finding out about Brock being poisoned will push him over the edge.

i don't even bother guessing with this show tbh

Well yeah, obviously Todd will show up too, but probably only as an enforcer, or (this is more likely, given how they showed him studying Walt's method in the previous season) as the new replacement meth cook. But what I meant is that Lydia will play the role of "Walt's foe" in the criminal underworld, Todd is too low-level and/or dumb to serve that function.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 3:25 AM (7 hours ago)

lydia's cunning and desperate, but todd's got ambition and he's demonstrated he'll make snap decisions without permission. his dumbness is either an act, or just makes him more dangerous - nothing worse than dumb ambition. he's currently low level but there's a power vacuum, jesse hates his guts, he's got serious criminal contacts, and given how quickly things change he's the show's best wild card imo.

some nicely paired standoffs

walt vs hank
skybar vs lydia
jesse vs todd

I totally guess with this show because its fun even though im never right.

to that end here is the scenario playing out in my head right now:

1. skylar gets whacked (maybe next episode)by todd (orders from lydia because skylar KNOWS and walt needs to pulled back in)
2. lydia/todd/madrigal threaten the white kids lives if walt doesnt start cooking again
3. marie is freaking out and starts asking questions re skylars death
4. walt sends kids to hanks, either to protect them or hank threatens to out him if he doesnt
5. walt starts cooking in the whitehouse
5. saul slips up causing jesse to realize walt is responsible for brocks almost death
6. jesse descends upon the whitehouse
7. hank, in a move to insure walt doesnt get the kids back, goes public with his information
8. walt calls the vacuum repair shop and gets outta town

I can see Walt blaming this entire thing on Hank - "if only you hadn't taken me on that ride-along that day..."

9. Walt Jr and Jessie hook up for one night of meth-induced fun

I appreciate the prognostication but don't wanna do it myself as just beginning to think about what could fill that gap between the now and the beardy future fills me with dread. Nasty abusive TV show.

I totally guess with this show because its fun even though im never right.

Yeah, I think one of the show's most impressive achievements is that I can never, ever imagine the specifics of what will happen between the start and end of any given episode, and I'm almost always amazed by how much ground an episode can cover.

i feel like jesse will end up either killing walt or will bring him down somehow because walt repeating 'i NEED you to believe me' seemed like some foreshadowing for sure

http://www.avclub.com/articles/how-breaking-bad-broke-free-of-the-clockworkuniver,101278/

Unpopular belief I share:

(That plane crash, by the way, disappointed many fans at the time but now feels like one of the show’s greatest moments, a clear demarcating line between the smaller-scale domestic drama that was and the borderline religious morality play that followed.)

Unpopular belief I share:

(That plane crash, by the way, disappointed many fans at the time but now feels like one of the show’s greatest moments, a clear demarcating line between the smaller-scale domestic drama that was and the borderline religious morality play that followed.)

I didn't mind the plane crash used as a signifier of BB transitioning from a realistic show to a more fable-like story (though I guess you could argue realism was already left behind when Walt blew up Tuco's office in season 1), but what I didn't like how it was seemingly used as a symbol of all the damage Walt's and Jesse's little drug business had done to the community... When they could've, you know, just devoted an episode or two to showing what meth had done to people they were selling their stuff to. (Kinda like they did in the ATM episode, but with more seriousness and less black comedy.)

I think one of most peculiar aspects of BB, a show that's all about the meth business, is how little time they've devoted to showing its effects on people who are addicted to it. (Okay, they had Jesse using it for a while, but that felt more like an example of prettified "Hollywood addiction".) I wonder if they've avoided the subject so that Walt and Jesse wouldn't lose audience sympathy?

there have been a few episodes with addicts - the NA scenes, and Jesse stuck in the house with the kid, trying to break open the bank machine with those horrible methhead parents

but maybe it hasn't dwelt on tweakers because they are the first, most obvious victims. the show is much more interested in how far and randomly the tendrils of evil can creep - like the dirt-biking kid shot in the desert

How quickly we forget Wendy.

My theory: Walt flees to Czech R to cook meth for Lydia, Hank puts pressure on by seizing property and arresting Skylar using Jesse's testimony. walt returns to US to kill Jesse with ricin

but what is the gigantic machine gun for

shooting cans

Hunting.

i don't think Walt is the fleeing type.

I wonder if they've avoided the subject so that Walt and Jesse wouldn't lose audience sympathy?

I don't think they're worried about Walt losing audience sympathy!

Oh that's the Buzzfeed theory I was trying to avoid? I liked to imagine it was 'Walt imagined Jesse all along' or something
Maybe Walt laces the meth with ricin

never forget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_50AduGvQAU

When they could've, you know, just devoted an episode or two to showing what meth had done to people they were selling their stuff to. (Kinda like they did in the ATM episode, but with more seriousness and less black comedy.)

That sounds really boring.

Give me a heavy-handed symbolic plane crash any day.

I wonder if they've avoided the subject so that Walt and Jesse wouldn't lose audience sympathy?

I don't think they're worried about Walt losing audience sympathy!

Well, I meant during the earlier seasons, before it'd become obvious he's the villain of the story. Though as crazy as it sounds, I've checked the IMDb Breaking Bad board, and there are still people there who root for Walt, who see him as the hero.

A word of advice: never check the IMDb boards on any TV show, you're just bound to feel depressed.

^ more disturbing than anything on the show but also eh the internet

I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap)
Posted: August 13, 2013, 5:07:08 PM
Give me a heavy-handed symbolic plane crash any day.

otm art etc

Haha that is good advice. I shall heed it. xp to Tuomas

I visited the IMDb board for How I Met Your Mother after the episode where they finally revealed the face of the eponymous Mother, and there where literally dozens of threads where people berated the show for choosing such an "ugly" actor to play her.

http://static.tvfanatic.com/images/gallery/cristin-milioti-as-the-mother.jpg

This is that ugly actor in that show, btw.

what a hag!

I've seen her before.

IN MY NIGHTMARES!!!

ha ha - we might need a mod to change the name of the thread: "Shall we anticipate the FIFTH SEASON of the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may. WARNING: How I met Your Mother spoilers."

Oh yeah, sorry, I realized that was a spoiler immediately after I'd posted it. Though I kinda hope that no one on ILX has watched that show for 8 years just to see the face of the Mother. Because apparently some folks at IMDb had, and boy were they disappointed!

she actually looks a lot like an ex coworkers of mine.

https://twitter.com/xeni/status/367332806419943425/photo/1

uh okay how about this

http://www.headingfortheexits.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ExplodingHead.gif

lol I like that theory