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

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.

Excepting a couple of minor quibbles (plane crash being a little heavy handed, Brock poisoning a little incredible, maybe some of the Hank trap of Walt a bit convenient) I don't think there is much precedent for this show being polarizing and I don't think they've set it up in a way that it could be really.

felina also = finale fwiw

lithium's a reductant and used in a lot of different meth cooks, particularly yr more potentially explosive ones including what is generally known as the 'nazi method' (thx google). I remain skeptical of 'iron lithium sodium' having special significance just as i remain skeptical that bromine and barium are gonna suddenly reveal their significance. the 'el paso' theory otoh i've been thinking over since i first heard it.

that el paso theory seems like some srs

http://www.salespodder.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/saul-completes-carries-nazir-timeline-in-homelands-s01e11.jpg

shit

i mean like what would it even mean to be right about that

walt returns to albuquerque to his love (a waitress he also holds a weird contempt for in addition to love), despite knowing it will bring his doom.

meant to add i'm pretty sure walt's cook doesn't involve lithium (i could be totally wrong on this) but having read about different meth cooks and how they're described (80% was a superhigh number) i can imagine that walt's ninety something percent yield would blow minds and be a big deal indeed. this story (pre-breaking bad) basically describes what crystal blue would be in the marketplace: http://www.westword.com/2003-09-04/news/72-hour-party-people/ .

What's the El Paso theory?

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

the Marty Robbins/Felina/El Paso theory

I loved the theory til the conclusion & then it lost me. I'm a sucker for Marty

But I tip my hat to the dude, he's fuckin nuts

old marty robbins song 'el paso' - megahuge country oldie and something i could totally imagine breaking bad using - has a cowboy get friendzoned by a waitress named felina, he kills another cowboy out of pride and rage and jealous, flees town, decides his life is boring and worthless, heads back to town despite knowing it's his death, shot the fuck up by a bunch of dudes upon arriving in town, dies in felina's arms.

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

this story (pre-breaking bad) basically describes what crystal blue would be in the marketplace: http://www.westword.com/2003-09-04/news/72-hour-party-people/ .

― balls, Tuesday, September 24, 2013 11:27 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

interesting!

lol apparently felina is spelled feeleena - so much for that theory!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch4tc-uyaUc

hah

yeah, that's where the theory goes awry....

There's no Fi or Le in the periodic table so it has to be FeLiNa for the FiNaLe of BrBa.

Really doubt there's anything more to it than that.

I hope it's as simple as Walt hearing Marty Robbins on the radio at an interesting moment.

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

I didn't notice that you mentioned the remote detonation. was just speculating that laptop batteries explode so maybe walt can make some kind of lithium bomb right?

I don't think Marty Robbins's poor spelling necessarily rules out a connection.

naw i think hes just gonna shoot some dudes w his big gun xp

and i feel like maybe it will be pretty epic

last ep felt like a lil cooler where we are meant to think about what weve done before they give us the goods

xpost while shouting chemistry-related one-liners

last ep felt like a lil cooler where we are meant to think about what weve done before they give us the goods

walt is going to do something fucking cool before he dies. He's not going out like a complete chump.

xp balls:

I so desperately looked for a GIS result for the Shabu meth goddess figurine, but came up empty.

I hope the final ten minutes of the finale are shown in 2.5 minute increments following each commercial break during lws

still find the way that last ep wrapped up kind of weird: they really showed us in great detail that walt was at the end of the line, that he was sick and powerless, that he had basically no one even really left to revenge himself on besides the nazis, and even they seem like just something he was fixated on. he hits total bottom, they make that 100% clear. he gives himself in. the great plot engine finally stops whirring.

then... he sees his old partners disavow his help in starting their company and then... then... that's supposed to be the reason he comes back? i don't really get it.

if that was supposed to be some last sucker punch the writers were saving, some huge moment where they've shown all their cards, all except... walt's pride over the founding of gray matter??

I think he just needed SOMETHING.

i didn't look at it like a plot twist, more like... yup. one last thing for Walt to go fuck himself

mmmmmm

the more i think about it the weaker it seems to me, but we'll see where it goes i guess

if you think about like he's wile e coyote it makes more sense

walt's pride in general, think ppl reading too much in it being specifically gretchen and elliot (beyond reminding us that this heisenberg aspect of walt was always there), it could've just as easily (if not as plausibly) been bogdan or those punks that made fun of walt jr or those dudes buying cook supplies at home depot or whatever. as much as it was walt backing out of doing the smart thing for his family and himself tbh and instead letting his ego and rage guide him i still got a thrill at the extended theme and the cops arriving just a little too late, had an actual 'team walt' moment. kinda think breaking bad is overrated (if still pretty great, pantheon show, etc) but of those pantheon shows it might be the best for pure entertainment value, it's neck and neck w/ the sopranos in any case and one weird side effect of this breaking bad end run is it's made me reevaluate the sopranos and realize i may have been underrating a show i already rated pretty fucking highly.

as someone who just completed watching the Sopranos last year... i don't know if people will rewatch in the future and look at that show as fondly. did not hold up for me at all. to be fair it deserves all the credit for being the trailblazer for all these shows that came afterward

xpost no but gretchen and elliot get to the heart of what walt's pride issues *are* -- he wants to be the smartest guy in the room, he wants people to know it. he blew it once with gretchen and elliot however that happened and he had sublimated the regret/anger/whatever, but it all came roaring back once he created that blue meth --- suddenly he wanted everyone to know his name, and he wanted the world to know HE created it. gretchen and elliot are kind of the monkey on his back, not them specifically but what they represent, that first missed opportunity for him to be the name that everyone knew

bogdan would never incite the deep level of prideful emasculation that gretchen and elliot can bring out in walt. because they remind him that HE blew it.

I think the whole Gray Matter TV interview is a red herring, if people think it'll lead to Walt going after Gretchen & Elliott. Like VG says, it's more psychological reminder, bringing forth Walt's pride issues. I think the most important thing in that TV interview, the thing that makes Walt change his mind about turning himself in to the cops, is the mention that the blue meth is still making the rounds. It's been shown before that Walt feels a perverted pride for having created this super-pure brand of metamphetamine, so I think the reason he decides to go after the Nazis is that he feels they have stolen his franchise (just like he feels Elliott & Gretchen stole Gray Matters from him).

It's unclear whether Walt figures out Jesse is cooking for the Nazis (he probably does, since so far Jesse and he have been the only ones able to cook the blue stuff), and whether he realizes Jesse is being forced to do that (this one is more ambiguous, maybe Walt thinks the Nazis somehow managed to turn Jesse to their side). But the point is, since Walt can't do anything with his money, his pride is pretty much the only thing he has left, the only thing driving him.

I think Walt will find some convoluted way to get the money and get it to skyler and walt jr. and that will be his ego victory over Gray Matter

pride comes before a fall

- todd to kill jesse
- lydia to kill todd & nazis
- skylar in jail
- walt dead from cancer
- walt jr, holly & brock in care
- gretchen & elliot ricin'd

felina is spanish for scorched earth

I think the Gretchen and Elliot thing is absolutely the most important motivator in this entire series, the key and initial faultline in Walt's psyche that all the other shit - son with cerebral palsy, crappy jobs, bored wife, cancer, Tuco, meth, Mexican cartels, etc etc etc - has wedged into like a crowbar and prised apart his entire being. It's totally Walter White Male Entitlement. He feels owed. He's arrogant and bitter. And now he's practically dead too. He's made almost entirely out of resentment at this point. In the pilot he had the trappings of a decent life but no way to maintain the mechanism enough to appreciate it, and that's because he was always constantly aware that he could have had a Nobel Prize and a million in the bank and a reputation and a legacy and actually he had... well, a wife, and a son, and a decent house with a pool and a respectable job, but not the emotional maturity to enjoy that. And now he's got nothing but a barrellful of dollars and some ricin and an M60 so he's sure as fuck gonna take what he sees as vengeance on who he sees as having wronged him. And I reckon that's pretty much everyone bar his family. And maybe even them.

wouldn't hate on him too much for being annoyed that he wasn't a millionaire nobel prize winner but instead had the joy of working in a car wash getting abuse from bogdan.