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

yeah, you're right. and that would fit how the show has worked thus far.

hmm - is Jesse a mastermind, or is he about to do something really effing dumb?

magnets bitch

It is amazing at keeping this tension/pace going. Also Hank's "kid wtf are you talking about Gomey fuck that junkie asshole" speech was great. Not going to let anyone be a hero.

Jesse can be bright, although it usually takes him a while: "could you, like, make a battery?" "How bout a magnet? A really big magnet?" And he did learn how to cook the magic meth by himself, at least on occasion. Yeah, seems like Walt would've left the co-ordinates w Saul or Skyler (both?); the money's his legacy, the thing that justifies all this: family values (like not killing Hank or Jesse, so far).Re the recent New Yorker article on seizing property, plus RICO, might could seize the carwash at some point, once Walt is arrested, indicted--but Hank's trying to cover his ass by having slam-dunk evidence gathered before reporting all this (how did he convince Gomie to help him? That's one unsympathetic-looking dude).
Skyler's "What's one more?" seems more depressive than Lady Macbeth: she has this implosive look---trying to make bombshells into dud-ish depth charges---when Hank or Walt deliver bad news and present bad choices, home truths, etc. So far, staying on the bad path is a way of resisting change, being heaved to the surface, the raw air and light. Also, the money is some kind of bait, some kind of treasure she can hoard, and something to guard against the changes that will come even if somehow they get away with it--incl. life after Walt. But she might go the other way again, especially if her children or her relationships w them are threatened. I think she can find Walt repulsive, at least at times--the way she was talking to him last night, before falling into the "What's one more?" bit.

Jesse can definitely have flashes of brilliance - and he's the only one who knows everything about the real Walt and his tactics... other than maybe Saul.

Is there any way Saul turns against Walt? Could he and/or Huell and Bill Burr know where the money is hidden?

I guess they could've tracked Walt's car... Though he's pretty careful about checking.

the other "hurt you where you really live" scenario would be for Jesse to reveal everything to Walt Jr. Hank could even go along with that.

Have Jesse and Walt Jr. ever met? Could make for an epic breakfast.

I parsed the "what's one more" bit as Skyler getting even w/ Walt for the stunt they pulled with her sister and Hank last week. I think she senses he's protecting Jesse which pisses her off and she wants to give Walt a taste of his medicine to some degree. This sort of accounts for the inconsistencies in character imo.

Yeah, that seems likely; ditto he other "hurt you where you really live" scenario would be for Jesse to reveal everything to Walt Jr. Hank could even go along with that.

the more I think about, the more it seems like we're heading toward some 3-way collision between Walt's three "sons": Walt Jr, Jesse and Todd.

Jesse dies at the hand of Todd - but his death is somehow an act of Christ-like self-sacrifice that reveals Walt's true nature to Walt Jr.

Or more likely, Jesse kills Todd in self-defense and Walt is forced to kill Jesse himself, but that act leads to Walt Jr losing his innocence

i hope vince gilligan would catch the potential for a "losing his breakfast" metaphor and have walt jr puke at the sight

I'd love to see the tables turned, with Walt completely panic-stricken & Jesse striding around like a stone cold killer

Saul seems to know more about radio than Walt. I think Saul put a tracker with delayed activation in the money barrels and gets the money in the end.

that's an interesting theory; they've certainly laid the groundwork

one of the funniest episodes in a long time. "old yeller?" had me laughing out loud irl.

also liked seeing bastard asshole Hank back, he was getting too sympathetic tbh. everyone's a dick this episode. poor Walt Jr.

Walt Jr is breaking my heart. he'll be catatonic and wimpering in a corner by the end. and he's the purest of them. clean, other than trying to underage drink once.

Cool episode, but I didn't quite buy Jesse's "Mr. White is the devil" line to Hank. Maybe some random criminal who only knows Walt as Heisenberg would think that way, but Jesse's been with Walt right from the beginning. Jesse, if anyone, should know Walt's just a regular dude who's gradually sank deeper and deeper, he's been there to witness that process. Sure, Walt's resourceful and smart and has survived so far, but Jesse's also seen him fuck up many times, there's no reason he should think Walt is some kind of a superman.

Also, the reveal that the bald guy that Jesse though was Walt's henchman was just some random bloke felt kind obvious and cheap... I think I'd liked the scene more if he actually was some goon hired by Walt. Not hired to whack Jesse, but to make sure Jesse doesn't hurt Walt, despite him having promised to be there alone. (Maybe also hired to follow Jesse to see where he was hiding.) It wouldn't have been out of character for Walt to do something like that.

I don't think he meant "Walt was a superman", I think by "devil", he meant there was nothing Walt wouldn't stoop to in order to get his way...like poisoning a kid. Using friends as pawns. Getting rid of Ermentraut and lying about it. Even potentially...killing his partner. And that's without him knowing that he witnessed his g/f's death.

I think it's perfectly reasonable from Jesse's perspective to think of Walt as being a twisted criminal mastermind at this point. Also I don't know what show you've been watching but Walter White is pretty clearly NOT a regular dude even from the first episode of the first season.

Jesse probably thinks even worse of Walt than is the truth of it - Hank's right that Walt seems to care about him (um, even if he does appear to be taking out a hit on him...) whereas Jesse's thinking it's been one long stream of calculated manipulations.

I was okay with Jesse getting freaked out by the not-actually-a-neo-Nazi guy, since really he was just looking for anything that could have offered an excuse for him to get out of there. (And then I guess he had an epiphany in a time of great danger, as he tends to do.)

hank's casual realization that Walt has done a lot of crazy things to keep Jesse around, and Jesse still totally ignoring it, was sad but inevitable

I don't think he meant "Walt was a superman", I think by "devil", he meant there was nothing Walt wouldn't stoop to in order to get his way...like poisoning a kid. Using friends as pawns. Getting rid of Ermentraut and lying about it. Even potentially...killing his partner.

Well yeah, but Jesse's "he's the devil" line was in response to Hank's comment that Walt can't kill him in the middle of the day on a wide-open public plaza. So Jesse wasn't just saying that Walt is ruthless enough to kill his partner (he knows Walt is capable of doing that), but that he could do that on the plaza and still somehow get away with it.

yeah but even the devil failed to win all his battles iirc

After the cold open I was annoyed at the boring way they got out of last weeks cliffhanger, especially since it was the second week in a row they followed up on a cliffhanger with 'jesse just doesn't do it' Actually, until about half way through I didn't really like this episode at all, thought it removed the foot from the pedal way too much. And then it all changed, and I was kinda in awe at the audacity to structure the fifth to last episode in this way. It was really ballsy, just from a question of craft.

I thought the whole episode ruled

a regular dude would not have treated a pizza the way he did imo

But a thing I've been thinking about this last week: A lot of the ugly, evil stuff Walt has done was because Jesse fucked up to begin with. Especially with Gus/Gale, Jesse really was the one making trouble for a long time, and Walt mainly got in trouble by defending him. Or am I remembering it wrong?

I found it slightly odd that Jesse is pissed off that Walt "keeps getting away with it". What else has Walt done that Jesse would have been better off if he'd been caught?
I think it was more of a "it's not fair" kind of reaction

xp yeah, Walt's shit with Gus only started after he saved Jesse by killing the two dealers, before that he'd been playing the role of respectable level-headed businessman.

Plus Jesse was stealing meth from the cook, right?

Well, if Walt had been caught much earlier, Jesse wouldn't have had to shoot a man in the head, his close friend wouldn't have died, his girlfriend's brother wouldn't have died, her kid wouldn't have been poisoned, another innocent kid wouldn't have been killed, etc. Sure, if they'd been caught early on Jesse would've gone to jail too, but at this point he most likely thinks that would've been a better option.

(xxpost)

Jesse: "all I wanted to do was sell a lil meth, man"

right, but what specific things does Jesse think he shouldn't have 'gotten away with'? all of those are kind of indirect consequences, apart from Brock's poisoning.

both he and walt jr are just fed up with the dude being so obviously full of shit, jesse just also knows there's a body count

and i think brock's poisoning is enough "this time it's personal" to make walt's whole gestalt maddening

do we think Jesse will ever find out about the Walt connection to his late girlfriend? feel like that's an untied end that has a massive wallop, but at this point it doesn't look like Jesse needs any more inspiration, so it feels like they may not.

however slightly untied it is, "REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TWO SEASONS AGO?" is never a good look

between his "funny thing happened at the gas station" story and his trying to shame skylar for being cold-hearted, the degree to which walter buys his own nonsense felt especially hilarious this episode

with the gas can caper and last week's concealer failure we've seen a bit more of the old buffoonish Walt lately. It's never too late for him to put this last year behind him and get back to normal.

another reason not to bring up the dead girlfriend arc is it forces the show that to acknowledge that, despite having waltdrama 24/7, jesse went from hanging out with methwhores to having two soulful relationships with far prettier addicts in a short period of time

"i didn't poison your girlfriend, I poisoned Brock!"

"no the girlfriend BEFORE that!"

last week's two stories at the car wash were better than the gas station naivete imo

except i thought that the idea of the double-reveal, like you confess to one cover-up (hiding fainting from cancer) to get away with another one (dude wants to burn down your house), was pretty well executed, and maybe his plan from the start.

i was wondering that too, but I think Walt didn't even intend to doublesnow his son

Want a vh1 storytellers where Walt just lies about songs he obviously didn't write. Holding an acoustic guitar all like, "well, you see, my buddy maxwell has this silver hammer. He's a geologist and he uses it to break apart samples, you know, of rock and stuff like that. And well one day, it was not max's finest hour, he got distracted and hit one of his students, a poor girl named Joan I believe, on her noggin with his hammer. Ha! Well you just wouldn't believe what followed, and so I wrote this song about it."

he was in a tough spot

not rocks, man. minerals.

Yeah while it was a quick catch by Walt to hop on the fainting thing, the take away is that even Walt jr knows his dad is a lying liar who can't give those around him any credit.