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

seems unlikely Saul will die given the spinoff rumors

plus weaselly lawyers pretty much always survive

Here's hoping.

I already started a couple of "who dies?" speculation polls a while ago:

Breaking Bad endgame speculation, part 1: Walt's fate (spoilers, obviously)

Breaking Bad endgame speculation, part 2: the other main characters (spoilers, obviously)

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/exit-strategies/

man the Guinness book really fell off

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/breaking-bad-sets-guinness-world-622475

jeez--Cranston and Norris spill it:
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-09-06/breaking-bad-walter-white-will-find-catharsis-by-the-series-end-says-bryan-cranston

In the second half of series five Walter is engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with his brother in law, drugs cop Hank Schrader (Dean Norris).

Well this was amusing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SEL27xiJGQ

curse this thread/congratulations to this thread for succeeding in drawing me into musing about potential developments in plot, usually as a reader/viewer I'm able to sustain a childish "I have no ideas or guesses about what happens next" and now I'm like "no, somebody has to die this week, it's time for a significant death, this week also has to include Lydia doesn't it feel like she's gonna be on Team Walt in the coming developments somehow"

so yeah that's my prediction for this week is we see Lydia and somebody dies

Yay Lydia! Boo death!

yeah I know it's stupid to muse about plot developments - but Breaking Bad is a fun one to muse on, because you know you'll be wrong - that writers' room is so fucking good you know you'll never catch up with them or see the twists coming.

That said - here's how Lydi amight come back in the picture this week...

Walt wants help from the Nazis.
The Nazis want to be able to make high quality meth, and Todd's been bragging about how awesome Mr. White is.
And Lydia really wants high quality meth - so much she wiped out Declan's crew to install Todd as head chef.
Nazis & Lydia barter with Walt to get their meth operation up to speed in return for getting rid of Jesse (and maybe Hank.)
Or they just snatch him when he meets up to plan the hit and force him into it.
The audience finally gets an awesome meth-making montage with music this season, and we get all misty about how much we love watching Walt make meth.
While Walt's making meth and making Nazis think he's awesome, Jesse and Hank are launching their elaborate counter-offensive which somehow involves Skyler and Walt Jr.
Bad things happen.

yeah I know it's stupid to muse about plot developments - but Breaking Bad is a fun one to muse on, because you know you'll be wrong - that writers' room is so fucking good you know you'll never catch up with them or see the twists coming.

I don't think it's stupid it's just generally not something I do!

Walt wants help from the Nazis.
The Nazis want to be able to make high quality meth, and Todd's been bragging about how awesome Mr. White is.
And Lydia really wants high quality meth - so much she wiped out Declan's crew to install Todd as head chef.
Nazis & Lydia barter with Walt to get their meth operation up to speed in return for getting rid of Jesse (and maybe Hank.)
Or they just snatch him when he meets up to plan the hit and force him into it.
The audience finally gets an awesome meth-making montage with music this season, and we get all misty about how much we love watching Walt make meth.
While Walt's making meth and making Nazis think he's awesome, Jesse and Hank are launching their elaborate counter-offensive which somehow involves Skyler and Walt Jr.
Bad things happen.

this is really good. I counter with "Lydia lands on top of the police van that's taking Jesse away. She is dressed as a superhero but you can't really tell which one. The car crashes. all die. ww feels super-bad and starts getting high on his own supply to numb the pain. by next week he can no longer steady his hands enough to cook and is buying bathtub crank from hopheads in New Hampshire"

actually probably as likely!
fruitless is probably a better word than stupid wrt guessing the bb plot lines, but that's kind of what makes it so fun - have total faith in this show to be prediction-proof

I'm never gonna question BB prognosticators after those Sherlocks figured out the Lily of the Valley thing within 2 hours

ha - yeah, there are people who may be smart enough to figure that shit out, but I have faith I am not one of them

i really do miss watching him make meth

shoulda stole the hat dude
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/breaking-bad-star-charles-baker-608234

I had a dream that tonight's episode was another bottle episode like that one where the fly got into the meth lab.

please no.

ha! Right in the middle of middle of the tense buildup to the end... here's a lighthearted day-in-the-life of Todd & Lydia.

brio your WHIP is ridiculous right now

WHIP?

damn what terrible shots

yah really

WHIP?

yah WHIP

damn what terrible shots

couple of big stretches this week. Saul's own man just crumples when shown a picture and given the hardened-cop routine? Huell has been around, I don't think he just starts to blab because he saw blood second-hand. Still though great stuff imo. Especially Saul at the car wash.

oh also as I keep trying to tell you none of the shots hit because this is all just a dream in the mind of a child

http://076dd0a50e0c1255009e-bd4b8aabaca29897bc751dfaf75b290c.r40.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/files/001/602/522/original/original.jpg

"The triangulation of crossfire. That's the key. That's the key."

the walt speeding out to the desert site seemed not really well done, weird voiceover-sounding orders on jesses end of the call

^^ yes, it was very bush-league stuff. The acting was really bad on Aaron Paul's side of the call as well.

I half expected us to see a mustache he'd glued on his face for the purpose of twirling

Tough to buy a lot of this. Saul was great though.

was walt not clear on the phone call that he wanted them to shoot people and not a SUV

yeah some weak elements for sure, straining credibility - i think they're feeling the pinch of running out of time here... Huell crumbling in 30 seconds felt really weak, and Walt confessing to a bunch of murders on a cell phone - bith felt like real standard TV show cop show shit. but still had some great stuff - the fake money in the barrel was a great move, and walt and gomie strutting around before the nazis arrived was really painful.

not predictions really - but some possibly relevant plot points:
jesse looks like he's about to escape, hank and gomie sure look like they're gonna die die,.
nazis look like they want to grab walt to force him to make meth.
jesse knows where the money is, so he can still hurt walt.
but he has no allies, and the nazis will be out to get him.
no way to get to walt except through skylar and walt jr.
the cops have huell, who tells them jesse's dead.
cops also presumably will have jesse's confession via marie, possibly hank's fake confession too.
walt can escape from the nazis using chemistry - but can't go home, and will be on the run from nazis and cops and jesse.
final showdown is walt vs. jesse as it must be.

speeding to the desert was too over the top, everything feels rushed

i think we're in for more rushed action though - feels like there's still a lot of ground to cover between where we're at now and the flash-forward. is the final episode 2 hours?

best scene was Todd being ultra creepy with Lydia

still hard to believe that dude was Landry. Good actor.

still hard to believe that dude was Landry. Good actor.

Was gonna say that he had a very LANCE moment when the cook was being inspected, all mumbly.

I thought he was great in The Master too

walt gives up jesse to the nazis to cook for them/spare his life. walt escapes to wherever (NH presumably, family remaining in tow?). goes back to new mexico to free him in nazi firefight/ricinfest.

Better yet, Walt saves Hank's like by offering to cook.

That's right, I think he survives. I think we were lead to think he won't, because that goddamn phone call with Marie (when he shoulda been calling back-up) was pretty much the last conversation you have with somebody right before one of them is going to die and that would be pretty typical television, but he didn't die by the end of the episode and I'm thinking next week isn't going to start with "oh yeah, Hank's dead".

Gomez on the other hand...

But yeah, that phone call. Definitely an artistic decision that I didn't love, "let's make it like they're both there", but kinda disconcerting and annoying. They could've had the voice of jesse through the phone but mixed higher to be clearly audible, but they chose not too.

She blinded me with SCIENCE

Hank would presumably be in deep deep shit if Gomie died while on some off-the-books jaunt with him.

I don't know why you guys are hating but I think I may be too viscerally invested in this show to be a stickler for the details any more. (Though I did wonder about Walt casually confessing to everything in a phone call.)

it wasn't that casual, he was pretty amped up realizing he was gonna lose it all if Jesse had actually found the money

well ya. In general we shouldn't really be expecting Walt to be thinking things through.

I bought huell giving it up when seeing Jesse supposedly deado. How many times has he seen Saul break so fast and do or say whatever Walt wanted? They told him the catalyst was the poisoning which only he and Jesse knew about besides Walt and Saul who are, in hanks story, out to get him, having gotten Jesse already. I think it was a decent job. What did you want to see? An hour of huell grilling?

I actually didn't mind Walt speeding through the desert being a little over the top. It needed to be that way, imo. I'm now 99% Gomie and Hank are goners. My guess is Jesse will live because Walt will intervene and tell the nazis he'll only cook for them if them if they don't kill him.

Jesse's brains on the floor was a nice, gross BB touch