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

I'm w/ aero, I'll just post this again cuz I'll just end up repeating myself anyway

there's about a gazillion ways they could've killed andrea, answering a nighttime knock on yr door and getting popped out of the blue without provocation is similar enough for a show that obv trades in patterns and mirroring (e.g. walt absorbing his victim's traits).

granted gale was involved in a criminal enterprise but his childlike naivete made him at least appear to be an innocent among the rest of the underworldlings... this convo actually reminding me how disturbing gale's death was at the time, in part because two souls were lost in the transaction - gale physically and jesse morally. that's its own form of doubling, and it just occurred to me that andrea's death also has two victims, herself and brock. I guess we should count jesse as victim there but I kinda feel like the guy died inside a long time ago and is just a shambling shell at this point. or maybe he is we in this context - the helpless watcher(s) left behind to make sense of an irreversible violence. hall of mirrors.

the gale/andrea situations aren't perfect mirror images of each other - if they were it would be facile and not very interesting to contemplate imo - but the echoes call attention to jesse's killing of gale, an event that even at the time felt to me like a pivot point on which this whole sad story would turn, or maybe just the moment which came closest to reaching a dostoevskian level of engagement with the material. the whole series is almost a nonstop exercise in finding out how much innocence its players can lose, no matter where they fall on a moral continuum.

can't believe anyone is doubting an intended parallel with Gale/Andrea. This is the same show that went to great lengths last week to remind us that the place where Hank got killed was the same place Walt and Jesse did their early cooks.

yup. he even dug their graves in advance! this show's blunt referencing (one of my favorites is still "NOTHING stops this train!" one episode before the train robbery) is one of the most fun things about it

Edward I think your conclusions are aeroneous.

Yeah, I think the desert oigins echo was a bit more overt; Walt is nothing if not sentimental, so of course he buried his money where he began. I'm not sure how much to read into Andrea I mean, they had a picture of her posted in the lab, implication being if you fuck up, we will kill her. Jesse tried to escape, so they kill her. Just a further payoff of the "no exit" scenario.

Anyway:

Especially when a father writes a scene like the one where Walt is begging his son to take the money, really tearing himself open. Interesting sideline: Bryan did that scene, knocked it out of the park, and then the film was run over by an airplane. I kid you not. Our post-production producer Diane Mercer still has the crushed film cans. We had pictures of film being brought into our labs in garbage bags. We had to go back and reshoot a portion of that scene. Bryan had to go through all that twice.

apropos nothing, i wonder if Todd still has Drew Sharp's spider-in-a-jar

It's his Holly. He has one o the Nazis feeding it while he's out killing people.

Has Jesse been pooping in the bucket and then Todd somehow hoisting that out of the brig since his capture?

spider-in-a-jar grew up to be the nazi with the crazy moustache.

jesse had the other bucket he was standing on to escape. i'd imagine that's the poop bucket.

I thought it was fairly obvious that Gale knew the score w/ Gus wanting to get rid of Walt.

my o/h disagrees with me btw

I think it was more like he decided it was easier to believe Gus and not think on it too much

gale was super not gangster did not think gangster went around handing out poetry books get real folks

what about tupac

im not talking poetry of the streets here

I figured Gale's reaction to what Gus said was just shock cuz he was a big big fan of Walt.

Poor lad just thought he was doing right by the world by making totally sweet meth for people to enjoy.

apropos nothing, i wonder if Todd still has Drew Sharp's spider-in-a-jar

He does. It likes Ben & Jerry's too.

Taran-Chewy-La

I mean even if Gale had thought patterns of "Whoaaaa, are we talking about what I think we are here?", what would he have been able to do about it? Besides the fact that he seemed like a pacifist, if a notorious drug cartel is basically telling you in veiled terms that your superior is being dealt with, I don't think he could exactly pull some Cassius Clay conscientious objector shit.

Although Gale didn't initially seem to understand the reason for Jesse's visit - didn't he say "take anything you want" as if it was a standard home invasion? Yet he obviously knew who Jesse was as he'd met him when he got replaced.

"hey, the heart wants what the heart wants"

did Woody really coin that phrase...?

dickinson

ah yes. knew I'd heard it somewhere else

http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/24200000/Bruce-bruce-dickinson-24287777-500-646.png

I really dont know what to expect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLaWiUWEX1k

I'd love to read a thorough exploration of the ways in which this show upends narrative convention and viewer expectation. I was just thinking today about how we've slowly been led to accept that anything can happen and that anyone can die...within reason. Hank's death was shocking but somewhat less so than it might've been because he was in the shit and in pursuit of violent criminals so, y'know. Occupational hazard. So they follow up a shocking death with the knife fight scene last week where we think surely someone's gonna get stabbed, but then everyone comes out of it okay. And then this week we see Todd & Co. in Holly's room and it seems like bad shit could still happen (especially since we know what he's capable of) and it doesn't. And then a handful of scenes where Todd displays a lack of willingness to kill someone and shows some compassion towards Jesse. So when Todd shows up at Andrea's, I (and I can only speak for myself here) had been lulled back into a false sense of security based on those scenes and on the narrative convention of most TV shows, thinking Todd was just going to remind Jesse that they have access to Andrea or maybe just kidnap her at worst. It was a masterful set-up that knocked the legs out from under me. I hope someone in that writers room writes a book about their experience.

yeah I agree with that, it's interesting. It somehow didn't even come to mind that Andrea would be a goner at the beginning of Todd's visit, whereas e.g. after Hank got shot I was fully believing that Jesse was gonna go too just a couple of minutes later.

I was pretty sure that Andrea would survive the (inevitable) post-escape warning by Todd, based solely on the Skylar visit. But then she didn't. Plus, I think the ONLY reason Skylar and Holly (and likely Flynn) aren't dead is because of the apparent student-teacher respect from Todd to Walt.

I know this has been said A LOT - but damnit if Todd is one of the scariest characters I've ever seen on television. Totally divorced from any right and wrong, and just focused on what his goals are. God help you if you get in the way of those goals. This includes everyone.

it's one of the best portrayals of a true psychopath we've seen, I think. No silly window dressing, just a dude who is straight up beyond morality.

The Marty Robbins Theory:

http://previously.tv/breaking-bad/breaking-bads-upcoming-felina-finale-explained/

Dude, forreals. I cannot think that this ability to be TOTALLY divorced from any sense of external morality might just lead to Todd turning on his brethren during the final episode.

I think Todd kills those dudes, Jesse kills Todd, and is mortally wounded in the process, Walt dies an ignominious death, and . . . I have no fucking idea what will happen to Skyfall, Flynn or Marie. Holly won't die. Please GOD, Holly won't die.

tbh i'd rather have a disappointingly off 'happy' ending than a full blown scorched earth tragic ending, i have the fear it could get so dark that it would make a rewatch, and even in some sense retrospective enjoyment, very difficult.

Should have said ". . . kills those dudes over a Lydia beef, . . ."

I can't even imagine what a happy ending would possibly be at this point.

Totally - the shit that has been (re) visited upon Jesse alone renders this pretty much incapable of a happy ending, imo.

mrs. aero says she's been running across felina = FeLiNa (iron + lithium + sodium) which is an idea I kinda like but I don't really see how it'd play out. esp. lithium, what's lithium in? batteries? iron and salt you could say "blood and tears" but I can't make the lithium work

i saw that too, and Lithium was for meth.

Walt finds out he's bipolar.

like there's lithium in batteries maybe idk maybe blood and tears and walt blowing shit up remotely

xp lithium for meth seems super-weak to me they don't really compare imo

a bomb made from laptop batteries?

bomb detonated remotely? there's lithium in all manner of batteries idk work with me here wk

We will all be prescribed lithium after this undisputed DOWNER of a finale

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

Feel like this episode could be polarizing. It's kind of set up to where any and all loose ends can't possibly be tied up, and that whatever conclusion they trot out may not please some of the folks that are huge fans of closure.

I do like that it's so open-ended right now though. Like literally, anybody could eat it at any given moment. Huell could choke on a chimichanga.

take it back

the chimichanga?

whatever you must do. To save him.

agree it will be polarizing, but the sheer ballsiness of putting that flash forward in without knowing themselves how they were going to get there - to paint themselves into that corner and, like Neanderthal says, still managing to leave the possibilities wide open for the final episode... it would have to go down in flames pretty hard to undo the goodwill I've got for the people behind this show for me, anyway. Big orange flames.