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

@MediaEasterEggs: The title of Breaking Bad's final episode is "Felina"

Fe-Li-Na

Iron-Lithium-Sodium

Blood-Meth-Tears

(xpost)

How does lithium = meth?

Lithium metal is the most commonly used reactive metal in the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine using the anhydrous ammonia method of production.

Oh cool, didn't know that. I was just curious, as someone who takes lithium.

I liked that Walt was mumbling the lyrics of "El Paso" to himself while he was out in the desert testing his trunk gun.

I think felina was more about the Marty Robbins song than the BMT pun

why can't it be both? (or all three, including the anagram theory)

loved the final shots of him walking through the lab all wistful and nostalgic, when the music kicked in i expected one last cooking montage but i'm glad it didn't go that route.

but i'd like to think that was the desired effect they were shooting for. the cooking montages set to music were always a fan favorite and an important part of the show's rhythm-- just as walt's remembering them but can't do it one last time, so are we

I liked Seitz's line: "In scene after scene, Walt doesn't so much enter significant spaces as materialize within them. "

xxpost sure it can be, but they actually played "El Paso."

also loved how the ep was bookended by two dei ex machina both involving keychains

whoever said upthread that the whole scene with gretchen and elliot felt very haneke otm

yeah otm
it was cool how much fun they had w the character detailing there, too, like fading up the sound mix so you could hear "sun dried tomatoes". didn't the guy say "IS IT RIPE?" ha ha.

good fake out all the talk about how hard it was getting Gretchen to come back and shoot the Charlie Rose scene.

i enjoyed the last episode and felt it was pretty restrained (considering the twins, other cartoonish possibilities, loved the house Grey Matter built & scene) but afterwards -- afterwards there was a show, like a talk show. jimmy kimmel was there for some reason, and aaron paul was wearing a vamonos pest solutions unisuit. vince gilligan (whose face i had never seen before) was wearing a cartoon heisenberg tshirt tucked into jeans.

while i was watching this aftershow show*, i imagined them all being a lot more...respectful? quiet? serious? i don't know what i expected, but costumes and aaron paul delighting in strangling todd and the audience roaring, to me it felt bad. i felt bad on a number of levels. this is...normal? i was just perplexed by the whole thing tbh. it was taking away my enjoyment of the show and as a bonus i felt bad about myself.

anyway i thought it was a good episode and i looooved skylab and flynn and imagined them being my new neighbors. sky was memorably changed inside and out. (i skipped a bunch of posts, sorry if this has been said 100x)

*with two friends for about 10 min before i turned it off because i couldn't take it anymore and it was my tv.

also randomly came across the heisenberg uncertainty principle in a book i was reading before bed
super weird

it was cool how much fun they had w the character detailing there, too, like fading up the sound mix so you could hear "sun dried tomatoes". didn't the guy say "IS IT RIPE?" ha ha.

I didn't catch all of their conversation, but I did lol at the bit about Thomas Keller/Per Se.

Yeah, that was the only ten minutes of "Talking Bad" I watched, and I deeply regretted it.

Anyone else get a "Annie Hall" vibe from that Gretchen/Elliott convo?

The Talking Bad/Dead shows are basically victory lap mugging. hard to sit through for me too, but let the fans have their cake i say

i havent really been following this thread but am i right in assuming that mispelling skylar's name using other words that start with "sky" has become a running joke?

anyway, when they were re-airing "granite state" before the finale aired i noticed that flynn's high school's mascot is the SKYHAWKS lol

re: talking bad -- It made me feel terrible! I am not all that famiiiar with "victory lap mugging" or fans wanting that kind of cake. Or I guess I thought it was reserved for shows/things that are not about that degree of misery and death? Lighter fare? (Walking Dead makes sense, for instance) I dunno. Also I found Vince Gilligan disappointing, esp in that shirt. I mean overall who cares, I thought it was a good show but I wish I hadn't seen any of that other stuff.

also loved how the ep was bookended by two dei ex machina both involving keychains

― ᶓ͠סּᴥ͠סּᶔ ᶓͼ᷆ₓͼ᷇ᶔ (gr8080), Monday, September 30, 2013 8:15 AM (47 minutes ago)

thinking about this some more, i love how the flash-forward at the beginning of this season is where walt exchanges one keychain for the other-- the first his means of running and hiding, the second his means of action and vengence. its the verse in the marty robbins where the cowboy decides to head back (yes he's already decided to head back when he gets in the volvo but you feel me)

decent ending. i guess it felt a little....conventional? but it was definitely in keeping with the spirit of the show. it would have felt off for them to do something more extreme narratively speaking. was always curious if they'd really make Walt the final bad guy but they kinda veered away from that.

this show has never had the same kind re-watch value of something like Mad Men to me, but it seems to be going for something else entirely and that's a worthy thing to go for because, you know, difference!

xps I don't really see it that way - it's very clear that in the actual creation of the show all these guys are consummate professionals and incredibly dedicated to making a serious, artistic, great show. Talking Bad is just a Comic Con-style audience hype thing. (Though it is incredibly weird that they had one at an actual cemetery.) And Walking Dead is probably even more grim than Breaking Bad! There are even less light comedy scenes in that show. In short, you shouldn't let the garishness of Chris Hardwick and company reflect upon BB itself.

I think the biggest formal innovation of the final season of BB is the flash-forward - particularly the idea that they revealed it to the audience before they knew exactly how they would get there. The idea of creating a risky situation for the show itself and forcing the writers to rise to that challenge seems really bold and confident, and in keeping with the show's own internal logic. just a really smart way to keep everyone - audience and writers' room - fully engaged.

also shows how Cranston's hair has sucked for five years, therefore making baldness a crucial aesthetic decision.

feel like 'making' Walt the last bad guy would be cheap somehow

http://i.imgur.com/uTsbDRU.png

his hair in the last two eps is the work of the shows makeup+hair artists

this is him last week irl http://i.imgur.com/N8xMTxz.jpg

xp - Zombie apocalypse = not real (there is no zombie apocalypse in the world atm)
Meth/drug trade landscape = real (the landscape in which they are operating is one that exists in this very world, not an imaginary one)

That's the diff for me in terms of seriousness/degree of shame i would feel at reveling in the death/misery. It's not a very clear line, I realize. But generally yes I am over it! Mostly I guess I just wanted to shake off the gross feeling it gave me.

la lechera he raised $1.8m for charity so... silver linings?

that's good, that helps
i guess in the breaking bad of my dreams it would be more like the wire, we'd have seen some thorough govt corruption on top of heavy personal devastation.

I think the biggest formal innovation of the final season of BB is the flash-forward - particularly the idea that they revealed it to the audience before they knew exactly how they would get there.

http://www.thes4p.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/jack-go-back.jpg

I am not all that familiar with "victory lap mugging" or fans wanting that kind of cake. Or I guess I thought it was reserved for shows/things that are not about that degree of misery and death? Lighter fare?

I'm trying to remember when this victory lap thing migrated from reality shows to scripted dramas. People from Lost showing up on Jimmy Kimmel after the episodes aired?

Also I found Vince Gilligan disappointing, esp in that shirt.

I griped a little bit about that too but I really think it's more fanboy/nerdish that he wears those shirts and not straight promotional. Like if it wasn't the Breaking Bad finale aftershow he'd probably have had on a Star Wars shirt or something.

• I think the Jesse's woodshop was the happy place in his mind he tried to stay in while cooking and cleaning.

• Sunny's first thought on Gretchen and Elliot's place was clockwork orange. Also, per Annie Hall, Elliot does kinda look like Tony Roberts.

• Everything wrapped up nicely, and in character. Even the music.

xp It's because of how badly Lost bungled the flash-forward that I was so anxious about Breaking Bad doing the same. Needn't have worried. I like how they took care of those moments early on in this episode, didn't spend long on them.

some of the criticisms of the ending i've seen in some quarters strike me as fundamental misunderstandings of the show--which is probably why the ridiculous overpraise of it as some kind of shakespearean masterpiece did it no favors.

I think the biggest formal innovation of the final season of BB is the flash-forward - particularly the idea that they revealed it to the audience before they knew exactly how they would get there. The idea of creating a risky situation for the show itself and forcing the writers to rise to that challenge seems really bold and confident, and in keeping with the show's own internal logic. just a really smart way to keep everyone - audience and writers' room - fully engaged.

― brio, Monday, September 30, 2013 10:16 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this isn't an innovation, there's been flashforwards before in millions of movies and tv shows. i think everyone is holding on too hard to the thing they said about writing it in advance and then figuring out how to get to it. cmon thats just process, writers do that alllllll the time.

it comes as no surprise to me that the really powerful stuff was in the third to last and fourth to last episodes. all they needed to do was make an ending that felt appropriate and i think it was a success on that front.

I really think it's more fanboy/nerdish that he wears those shirts and not straight promotional. Like if it wasn't the Breaking Bad finale aftershow he'd probably have had on a Star Wars shirt or something.

I'm afraid this does not make me less disappointed but it's his life and he can wear/do whatever he wants.

the hollywood forever/"talking bad" thing is weird but having a party when you wrap a production is standard practice regardless of how serious the project was, they just decided to invite fans and put it on tv

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/inside-breaking-bads-hollywood-cemetery-638889

they do sell all this stuff at Best Buy now (los pollos hermanos aprons, vamanos pest patches, etc)

xp that is pretty cool that they used it to raise money for Kind Campaign

so had Walt been to the nazi compound/clubhouse before the finale?

i thought he had but couldn't remember the exact circumstance

I like that for all the talk of Chekhov's ricin, no one noticed Chekhov's key fob, which was somewhat conspicuous. (Though maybe they did - I have a vague memory of someone in here saying something about it being odd that the car Walt got would have those kind of electronic locks?)

I think Walt was at Nazi Funtime World when he was arranging to have Jesse killed?

nussbaum's review makes me realize how many orphans (or semi-orphans) are left at the end, even jesse, sorta.