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

i bet she feels kind of embarrassed about all that fuss she put up over the stolen baby tiara now.

If the video takes down Hank, it destroys her sister's marriage, and also her relationship with her sister, which already probably can't be mended.

The show elided over her most obvious option: get away from Walt and get a lawyer! There's a lot of convenient secret-keeping going on here. Hank didn't tell his bosses, Skyler doesn't get a lawyer. I mean, it doesn't have to be depicted that Walt talked her out of it - "this is the only way" - but a lawyer could, to take down someone of Walt's stature/criminality, plea her down to not much, I bet, to put him away. But she was bullied/manipulated away from Walt to take a different road, the dick-route.

Like, if all Walt had to do was at out a weepy video to blackmail his bro in law, then the wife/mother of two has ten times that power on the stand, especially because she was actually emotionally battered and manipulated by her asshole husband.

"Act out", not "at out."

I can't imagine standing at a register for hours during chemo much less spending the night digging a gigantic hole in the desert. But hey, effects may vary.

― pplains,

Chemo didn't really affect my mum at all, she didn't even lose any hair.

Neither did she try and dig any vast money pits though.

Far as I know.

But hey, effects may vary.

i bet she feels kind of embarrassed about all that fuss she put up over the stolen baby tiara now.

i also like the running theme of how nobody cares about the crimes Marie was committing as a klepto, just that it was massively embarassing to the family...

it was! but other than that, everything we know about the situation comes from the mouth of walter white. it's possible he's telling the truth, and the writers decided there was no need for the kind of "walter gets news" doctor scenes we used to see all the time. but all we really KNOW is that he was on IV recently.

― da croupier, Wednesday, August 28, 2013 4:25 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

well hes taking pills too

I think the reason they've downplayed the effects of the cancer + chemo this season is probably because the script requires him to do superhuman feats (like digging the hole for the money barrels) despite being sick, and they don't want the viewers to pay too much attention to this contradiction.

Walt's argument for why Skylar should just roll his master plan was presented very clearly last season. She can try to turn Walt in, but that destroys all their lives, their children's lives, Hank's life, etc. Better to just try to "get out", live comfortably and just roll it out until Walt dies. Viewers know that will not work thematically because its a TV show, but for someone living this the argument seems persuasive. One side definite ruin, other side wait and hope of getting away with it. Even with Hank/Marie in the know, Skylar seems to be betting that odds are still better on the latter.

This is a lot of shit to have to go through just to work in fucking car washes for the rest of your life.

Even with Hank/Marie in the know, Skylar seems to be betting that odds are still better on the latter.

This is quite clearly bonkers obv. Oh yeah, my bro-in-law who is head of the ABQ DEA knows that my husband is a meth kingpin but, like, we can probably figure out a way around it. Probably? Just have to find some other people to invite over for dinner. Have an A-1 day.

Can't remember if I said this upthread but there's echoes of this denialism in Walt's advice for Junior: hey, we just carry on!

At this point Saul is the only guy who gets the gravity of the sitch

Pretty sure Jesse gets it, he's just past caring.

Caring whether he gets caught or not, I mean.

Went back and watched the pilot episode last night, and it stands up really well. REALLY well. So much stuff set-up in that first 55 minutes that's being echoed in this latest episode, Walt's relationships with everyone. He was always a fucking dick.

― they all are afflicted with a sickness of existence (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, August 28, 2013 9:30 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i attempted to rewatch the first season and what struck me is how dark the whole thing is and i couldnt do it, but the first time through i was so pulled along by the plot that it didnt really bother me

well hes taking pills too

a middle-aged man taking pills is even weaker proof that he's being totally honest about his cancer diagnosis than the IV drip

Speaking of superhuman feats, could he have a little stash of his own meth? Or some of the pills are his own compound?
After Hank tried to get her to co-operate, she was the one who told Walt to hold fast, not the other way around, because they don't really know anything, don't have evidence (she doesn't know about Gale's handwriting in Walt's Leaves of Grass, and even if she did, might point out that Hank hasn't showed it to a graphologist [and maybe wouldn't dare, so far]). So as long as the money's not around, hey.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/sonic_meth_sonic_youth_meets_breaking_bad_tee-shirt

a middle-aged man taking pills is even weaker proof that he's being totally honest about his cancer diagnosis than the IV drip

I think the bout of nausea was intended to show us that he is in fact undergoing treatment for a recurrence of his cancer.

yeah i find this whole theory a lil left field

this is like when people thought jesse didnt really kill gale because it cut away before he pulled the trigger

it's not even a "theory," it's an observation.

i'm not placing bets on How It Will End, i'm noting that no one has confirmed Walter's story

has the show ever used that type of slight of hand before, seems like when they show you something theyre just showing it to you

has the show ever had walter tell the audience how his cancer is going rather than a doctor?

no but it shows you all sorts of things all the time it doesnt have to just be cancer

The moment at which the show's central character finds out he's probably going to die is a pretty fucking important moment. The writers have clearly intentionally withheld that scene for a reason. This doesn't mean that Walt is lying about his cancer but they definitely want us to entertain that as a possibility.

exactly. but if some people don't want to consider that this change in info presentation might be intentional, that's fine with me.

disagree

I think the bout of nausea was intended to show us that he is in fact undergoing treatment for a recurrence of his cancer.

this kind of thing rears its head now and again, like, it's tv! of course he actually has cancer if they have him on an iv drip. they could prob do something more subtle than that and it'd still mean he definitely had cancer. it's not a "twist" if they just shamelessly mislead you, it just is dumb storytelling.

xpost

This doesn't mean that Walt is lying about his cancer but they definitely want us to entertain that as a possibility.

so why is he on an iv drip then? he lied to the doctors too?

tho i guess the stuffed animal/plane crash intros were misleading but they were kinda their own thing outside the normal presentation of the show

there's also the fact that early on those scenes were designed to make us feel sympathetic to walter, see the odds he was up against. Now he's the one giving information, and scaring people in flash-forwards. he's the aggressor not the victim.

yeah maybe idk just seems like it would be a major shift in the way the show works and also pretty cheap

definitely in on the guess that by the time we get to the end the cancer is full blown and he's just stopped giving a damn

it would take a wild explanation of him being on the drip.

surely it's more likely he recovers from cancer or beats this latest bout and yay he gets to live a life where everyone he knows is dead.

i'm not even playing the "i think this will happen/that will happen" thing, just noting the angles, what doors are being left open

he dies of cancer while saving his family... by destroying them, my guess

the truth all along was that his family had cancer, and not him.

You never actually see them NOT having cancer, with any certainty

The only reason Walt would cross the country to buy heavy firepower from Jim Beaver and then drive back to NM and make Carol drop her groceries is
1. save his family
2. avenge his family

So they're either dead (all or some) or being held hostage by Lydia/Madrigal/Nazis as leverage to get him to cook again.

That's HIBIDTAE.

i would so rather learn walt's been less that straight about his cancer lately than find out the end is Walter saving a tied-up Walt Jr from evil nazis

he bought the big gun in NM, drove down from NH, presumably where he was hiding out

yeah i dont mean necessarily saving his family from being kidnaped or w/e, it could be more abstract than that

he creates a super strain of cancer to destroy both the nazis and his family, having previously invented a cure for regular cancer to save himself.

he is v smart

that's why he went back for the cig of death