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

Related: the moralist in me is pretty unhappy with the way Skyler seems skidding toward exoneration

I doubt the moralist in you will be disappointed for too long.

jane's death hit him pretty hard. not that it made a difference.

Maybe not Jane's death itself but he was definitely freaked out by the plane crash.

didn't get a chance to watch until today

Jesus fucking Christ

hi aero!

I still haven't seen it – gotta wait until next Sunday.

No, I don't care about spoilers.

xxxxp I think it was the first death that really got him. It was also maybe the first time that he has tried to manipulate someone into acting a certain way and completely failed with no other recourse?

I've been watching these a day late and having a visceral reaction, then scrolling through the thread to see the reactions others had as it aired, is kind of a jarring view on the linearity of time

Matt Yglesias: why do they still have answering machines?

tbf if I cared about anybody who called on our land line, I would get an answering machine so as not to have to pay for voicemail.

But it's only robocalls and Jesse when I don't answer my work or cell phone or email or text or ILX.

this may be "methodically indexing every conceivable outcome as if... mapping the digits of pi" (nice turn of phrase by the way) but...

Could the final final confrontation end up being Skyler vs. Walt? Not suggesting the big gun or ricin is for her, I think it's clear now that he wouldn't hurt her physically - but after Walt vanquishes the Nazis and/or Jesse or whomever - do the final scenes end up being a confrontation between Walt and Skyler?

one of the dumbest things ever is tv shows and movies that assume everybody is totally up-to-date on all technology, clothing, furniture, etc. no reason a middle-aged couple in 2008 wouldn't have an answering machine

http://cdn0.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1808995/E60ZhXV.gif

http://i.imgur.com/bQXYcNx.jpg

i think it's fine to find the answering machine funny - while it's not unthinkable for a middle-aged couple to have an answering machine for a landline, it's pretty arbitrary who calls it and when (remember the drama over walt having two cellphones?) so it's not above a chuckle

maybe the first one that really changes his life forever because it is so close him

― conrad, Tuesday, September 17, 2013 3:54 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

while watching w/friends, at hank's death & walt's rxn one of them kept repeating 'it's over now. his life is ruined now. it's over.'

this comment makes sense:

They're running a criminal enterprise. Presumably they want their messages to reside on a medium that they control (and that they can destroy immediately if need be), rather than on a telephone company's computer system.

Really, this is sort of like asking why a meth dealer insists on getting paid in cash, when these days there are convenient apps that will let your smartphone be used as a credit card reader.

makes sense if you think he bought the machine AFTER cooking meth

xxp I think it's maybe easy for us to forget that for all the carnage Walt left behind him while getting out of one disaster after another, from his perspective he was essentially doing just fine with his overall plan - he had piles and piles of money and a family that was more or less intact. Hank's death isn't just a really big thing on top of the already huge pile of awful things, it's the point where the runaway train finally derails.

I know a couple of people who still have answering machines. It's cheaper than paying for voice mail.

I could see this being some easy way to save $2 per month for the White household back when they weren't millionaires.

reasons walt would go back (may include some combination of these)

1) save his family
2) saves jesse
3) stops his blue meth recipe from being distributed

combo of those 3 seems quite likely

― Western® with Bacon Flavor, Tuesday, 17 September 2013 03:43 (13 hours ago) Bookmark

Hate to tell you man but.... Combo's dead

Combo's mom gets her revenge

combos always get their revenge

Combo returns from the dead: ZOMBO

why do they still have answering machines?

They're fans of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and are hoping that Carl Kasell might one day record their greeting.

Walt Walt Don't Tell Me

I've been thinking about "Ozymandias", and one thing I don't really get is, why didn't the Nazis just kill Walt after they dug up the money? If they want to cook more meth, they have Jesse, so Walt is a total loose end. They just killed Walt's brother-in-law, and he was clearly quite upset, so can the Nazis really be 100% sure he won't go to the cops and implicate them on the murder of two DEA agents? Uncle Jack says that Todd respects Walt, so I guess it's supposed to be a case of Honour Among Crooks, but on the other hand that honour didn't stop them from killing Hank against Walt's wishes, from not killing Jesse even though Walt asked them to, and from stealing 80 million of Walt's money.

Uncle Jack seems like a smart guy, so would he really risk them loosing the 80 million and going to jail because of Todd's "respect"? Anyway, since they decided let Walt live, giving him the barrel of money was actually a smart move, because now he has a reason to keep quiet about the whole affair. If they left Walt with nothing, he might feel he has nothing to loose, so he could go and talk to the cops.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, September 17, 2013 3:23 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thought this was a really great little moment, showed why jack is the boss and undercut the tv concept of criminality as just killing everyone and taking everything, like it was obvs a mistake in this particular situation to let walt live, but the decision to keep todd happy and give walt the money is generally a successful leadership type habit, respecting relationships and all, especially since todd is family and his crew seems to have a lot of family in it

i too know someone who has an answering machine fwiw, some people are prob just habituated to call screening is how i break it down

xpost

Also, it isn't as if Walt is just some milquetoast civilian who's likely to run off crying to the cops. He's a fellow criminal, and the Nazis have plenty of leverage on him.

If they want to cook more meth, they have Jesse

how could they be sure that Jesse can cook as well as Walt? Sure he was Walt's partner, but so was Todd and he only got 70 some percent purity. Better to keep the master chef alive just in case he's needed.

@rianjohnson 5m
I didn't read the final 2 bb episodes. So now I can relax and go back to NOT RELAXING AT ALL with everyone else.

I hate to be the guy who relates to a murderous neo-nazi, but Jack seems like a pretty believable character.

ZOMBOS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo5eU_07eSI

how could they be sure that Jesse can cook as well as Walt? Sure he was Walt's partner, but so was Todd and he only got 70 some percent purity. Better to keep the master chef alive just in case he's needed.

he's got a good track record. he managed to produce 97% purity in a lab in mexico.

he cooked by himself for gus, too.

i mean how do the nazis know that?

they watch breaking bad

Todd probably knows that. Or at least knows that Jesse knows better than he does. He know's he took Jesse's place. Knows Jesse worked with Walt.

todd knows, but he probably wouldn't tell Jack, "You can kill Walt if you have to because this other guy who punched me can cook just as well."

they he's heisenberg's longtime partner, i guess, and if he's no better than todd... it's not a big deal to get rid of him.

they know, i mean

they might even fear Walt is immortal. the last thing you want is a guy who cannot be killed pissed at you for trying to kill him.

anyone else notice that Jack did the same finger snap in front of Walt after shooting Hank that he did when Walt was spacing out whilst figuring out the prison murders?

not that i think there's anything to it....

I don't know if this theory was advanced upthread (or how much it really matters), but is it possible that the Nazis' plan all along was to kidnap Jesse rather than kill him? It makes sense inasmuch as they want someone who can show Todd the meth ropes and Walt has been pretty adamantly unwilling to go back down that road.

seems like Jesse the Meth Slave is more of a Todd solo project

with Frank Frazetta album cover art

Big Head Todd and the Meth Slaves

Tyra shows up in the next episode and Todd gets distracted

There's upside for the Nazis of letting Walt go - better to have Heisenberg on the run, being hunted by the DEA. Points anyone looking into blue meth away from them.

do the nazis get high on their own supply? Jesse might be able to kill them if so, maybe? more obvious answer is "walt comes back with rocket launcher to kill nazis" but I'm just thinkin