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Snakes said:
Season 4 finale was the best *EVAR*

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spoiler - highlight to read:

Walt's wife was brought into the fold and the cartel neutralized

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spoiler - highlight to read:

the family didn't get terrorized, Hank et al totally left out of the picture?

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40oz said:
if this thread can be about any TV series,

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spoiler - highlight to read:

Gus was OK after the bomb went off.

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Hellbent said:
It was pretty good. Maybe because I was burnt out from watching so many episodes back to back, or maybe because the agonizing tension was finally largely diffused when

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spoiler - highlight to read:

Walt's wife was brought into the fold and the cartel neutralized

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, whatever the reason, I guess I was hoping for a more traditional face off between the trio and more of a showdown overall (

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spoiler - highlight to read:

the family didn't get terrorized, Hank et al totally left out of the picture?

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). The penultimate episode was called End Times, but it didn't really quite feel as desperate and 'end times' as Walt, Jesse and Saul made it out to be... Walt waiting for the end in his house--just didn't have the nailbiting suspense that so many tight spots before did have. The end times obviously have yet to come.

Don't get me wrong, it was very memorable and artfully done, it just wasn't that suspenseful compared to many back to back episodes earlier in the series. I guess there was a turning point somewhere in the series... a before and after of sorts, when hard choices were made, and when they subsequently made the big time. The stakes seem smaller, rather than bigger, after that turning point, because of all that has gone down; so much tension is diffused, and you're on morally shaky ground (if you weren't before) as to how much you can empathize with these protagonists anymore--Walt is no longer a simple high school teacher trying to leave his family something before he dies of cancer.

Finally, I was expecting a little more shit to hit the fan. Ultimately everything went down pretty neatly, not nearly as messy as I was anticipating. Nevertheless, Walt laughing under the house with the camera craning upwards was a pretty sweet scene. I have to wonder how much the creators of this series were influenced or inspired by Lost. (that scene/shot had a Lostian air about it). And of course the namesake of the final episode was a very memorable scene indeed.

But yes, great television. BTW, I haven't seen any of season 5, so please be spoiler sensitive.

EDIT: Anyway, it's interesting how the characters change over time. I really didn't expect Skyler to change so much. For a long time I was waiting with anticipation for the day when Skyler totally is beside herself when she learns the truth about Walt, but that scene never materialized, because the reality of who her husband had become became evident to her in stages.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

Walt and a mob boss. He is just like the mob bosses in all those movies. He says a line at the end of the episode to his wife, who has made it plain to him that she is afraid of him: "so when we do, what we do, for good reasons, then we've nothing to worry about. And there's no better reason than family."

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spoiler - highlight to read:

he has a perfect opportunity to exit the business with a very sizable severance package and perhaps get his marriage back on track. He can tell Skyler he is finished and is exiting the business with $5,000,000. Surely she would come around? I mean, it would at least be worth a try on his part, and even if she wouldn't; at least it's the sensible thing to do given the DEA is hot on the case (even if only onto Mike) and at least they could resume their lives--the kids could move back in, and they could go on as if everything is the honk and the dory. Walt could start a sensible chemical company with his newfound capital and shit... maybe do some good in the world to help make up for all the bad shit that has gone down as a result of his involvement in the meth biz. But clearly the show has a certain momentum and trajectory at this point, and needs to go down the dark road it's headed down for the ultimate resolution (which has to be bad now, it can't have an even quasi-happy ending which I guess I was somehow hoping for before I realized sometime in Season 3 or 4 that this show is headed to an ugly resolution.

Now it has to end in a really bad way. I have some ideas kicking around my head how it should end, but I'll hold off sharing them for now--but there is a lot of potential for this show to go out with some really good, dark fireworks. I hope the creators have the nerve to go dark--not cheesy, but really dark; no need to be cheesy or over the top at all. It can go very dark without jumping the shark or entering B movie territory; let's hope the creators know how to close out the show with the kind of epic calamity that would put this show right up there with the best films of this genre; it's the only way now.

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Nomad said:
I'm in the first couple episodes of the second season. It's really good so far, and they seem to really pull out the stops in the last few episodes of season 1 and the start of season 2. Can't wait to see what happens next.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

the shit going through the proverbial fan.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

HOLY SHIT. You brought up a good point, with him getting out while the getting is good. However, the story could've steered in the same direction with Hank discovering via the book anyway. It's makes for better writing and a better show if they raise the stakes to the highest point and make Walter as irredeemable as humanly possible. I think they accomplished that by the end of five. The stakes keep getting higher and every time he rationalizes it. The over confidence in his own risk mitigation, the blindness of his own greed, and the selfishness of having nothing to lose when his illness can just come back and take him anyway.

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SYS said:
I just watched that episode today.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

HOLY SHIT. You brought up a good point, with him getting out while the getting is good. However, the story could've steered in the same direction with Hank discovering via the book anyway. It's makes for better writing and a better show if they raise the stakes to the highest point and make Walter as irredeemable as humanly possible. I think they accomplished that by the end of five. The stakes keep getting higher and every time he rationalizes it. The over confidence in his own risk mitigation, the blindness of his own greed, and the selfishness of having nothing to lose when his illness can just come back and take him anyway.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

I guess I just struggle to understand how someone can sink to such depths. I don't think the writers did as good a job as they could have of showing Walt's progression from someone willing to deal drugs to someone willing to off people left and right and have so little remorse. How does he live with himself? I spent every moment after he offs Mike trying to figure out how he lives with himself.

BTW, am I an dolt. I didn't realize in the Season four finale that Tio's bell on the wheelchair was the trigger for the bomb. That makes that scene that much sweeter. I think I'm gonna rewatch that scene in fact.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

I was kinda hoping he and Lydia might have an affair, although that seems less likely now that he has told his wife he quit and she seems to be maybe warming up to him again.

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Hellbent said:
Anyone enjoy this show? Jesse and Walt have an ... interesting relationship. Hard to pinpoint what's going on there. Good show, tho.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

there is a very telling scene in Saul Goodman's office with Mike on speakerphone. Mike needs a bag with important stuff in it picked up and Jesse volunteers to do it. Walt looks at him--this look--like "damn it, you're supposed to be loyal to me, not anyone else." That look summed up their entire relationship for the entire show. Walt was only ever using and manipulating Jesse for his purposes. Sometime in the first half of the show I was trying to understand his relationship to Jesse. I had always sort of held out hope that Walt saw something in Jesse more than how he could be an asset to Walt. At one point it seemed like maybe he was a fatherly figure to Jesse. But that look, that look said everything to me. "You're my bitch and only my bitch." It's almost as if he only gives Jesse respect in the end because he realizes he'll have to give it up in order to keep manipulating him (which doesn't work).

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Hellbent said:

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spoiler - highlight to read:

I guess I just struggle to understand how someone can sink to such depths. I don't think the writers did as good a job as they could have of showing Walt's progression from someone willing to deal drugs to someone willing to off people left and right and have so little remorse. How does he live with himself? I spent every moment after he offs Mike trying to figure out how he lives with himself.

BTW, am I an dolt. I didn't realize in the Season four finale that Tio's bell on the wheelchair was the trigger for the bomb. That makes that scene that much sweeter. I think I'm gonna rewatch that scene in fact.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

It's brought about by his gradual evolution into a psychopath. Psychopaths are generally born rather than made. But look to IRL gangsters & career criminal types. They break the law and as long as they can get away with it, they willl keep going. They do it for their morality blurring noble rationales: For family, give to the poor, etc.

They get a taste and they want more. It can even become a physiological addiction from the fruits of their labor, such as the shoplifter shoplifting for the thrill. Walter develops his alter ego by having to maintain the mask for his family and keep up appearances. Eventually he becomes the alter ego (Heisenburg). It's a slow and gradual acclimatization to operating outside of the law and getting away with it. The risks grow, the stakes grow. With every risk mitigated, a little part of his humanity dies as self preservation and simultaneously wearing the mask take its toll.

It's all rationalized by his self noble cause. Which then becomes his own selfish cause as he repeatedly hurts and kills people due to his actions. Most of them are indirectly so it's very easy for him to justify. Eventually Walter comes under the threat of Gus. The only way he can defeat Gus and achieve self preservation: BECOME Gus. That's his biggest turning point and I'm writing a novel so I stops typing now.

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Hellbent said:
Okay, I'm in the middle of Season 5, Episode 6. Geez, Walt's really lost the plot.

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spoiler - highlight to read:

he has a perfect opportunity to exit the business with a very sizable severance package and perhaps get his marriage back on track. He can tell Skyler he is finished and is exiting the business with $5,000,000. Surely she would come around? I mean, it would at least be worth a try on his part, and even if she wouldn't; at least it's the sensible thing to do given the DEA is hot on the case (even if only onto Mike) and at least they could resume their lives--the kids could move back in, and they could go on as if everything is the honk and the dory. Walt could start a sensible chemical company with his newfound capital and shit... maybe do some good in the world to help make up for all the bad shit that has gone down as a result of his involvement in the meth biz. But clearly the show has a certain momentum and trajectory at this point, and needs to go down the dark road it's headed down for the ultimate resolution (which has to be bad now, it can't have an even quasi-happy ending which I guess I was somehow hoping for before I realized sometime in Season 3 or 4 that this show is headed to an ugly resolution.

Now it has to end in a really bad way. I have some ideas kicking around my head how it should end, but I'll hold off sharing them for now--but there is a lot of potential for this show to go out with some really good, dark fireworks. I hope the creators have the nerve to go dark--not cheesy, but really dark; no need to be cheesy or over the top at all. It can go very dark without jumping the shark or entering B movie territory; let's hope the creators know how to close out the show with the kind of epic calamity that would put this show right up there with the best films of this genre; it's the only way now.

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Planky said:
What indication is there that Walt has had the cancer come back?

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spoiler - highlight to read:

megalomaniac

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Hellbent said:
There isn't any. Walt is cancer survivor cum

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spoiler - highlight to read:

megalomaniac

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The question is, what do Lance and Walt have in common?

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Mr. T said:


There are plenty of hints that his cancer is back. Walt's 180 turn on the MRI corresponds with him ostensibly abandoning the "empire business" and spending more time with his family. He sees the tissue dispenser with all the dents in it again; do you remember why he beat it up in the first place?

Also his coughing and pills in the Denny's scene indicate that A) his cancer is back or B) he took ricin before getting his M60 and going on a suicide mission to waste ???

/edit

SO THERE!!!

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Bucket said:
We know EXACTLY how far into the future it is, because he spells "52" with his bacon.

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