Board 8 > So this Breaking Bad show, it's pretty good.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Selling a car for $50...I guess considering the 'deer' it hit a few months back and all the other things it's gone through, it's for the best...although suspiciously he makes this call when he puts the hat on. Is that hat some kind of parasite taking over Walt's body?

The show then proceeds to drop some funky beats as Walt and Jr. try out some rides. Breaks my immersion some, as it didn't really seem to jive with the tone the show usually aspires to.

Oh snap, lemon and stevia water lady works at Madrigal.

Oh no...they're offering Hank a promotion. He has so much to live for though :(

And then Skyler goes and turns Walt's birthday bash into a pool party for...reasons? I just don't know about this show sometimes.

"What are you waiting for?" "For the cancer to come back" Now THAT's a prime drama bombshell right there. Would have been happy if the episode ended right there, but there's still a surprising amount of time remaining.

Mike has reservations about working with a lunatic. Mike is blissfully unaware of what show he is a part of.

Walt apparently has some plan to deal with Lydia, but since we are given no details, it will probably function as intended next episode.

Walt gets a watch. I remember once eons ago I owned a watch. Then I got a cell phone.


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Bikeriding kid stops to pick up a bigass spider in a jar before riding off. The opening then plays afterward, as if to assure me 'no, you are still watching the right show, this will all make sense later, maybe'.

Walt's turned into quite the master spy, hasn't he. Fools Hank and then bugs the heck out of Hank's new office in record time.

And it all ties into the plan to deal with Lydia. Which the plot conveniently saves so that she can turn our protagonists into train robbers. I am surprisingly down for this turn of events.

Granted, this also means I am forced to acknowledge that Jesse has morphed into some kind of ideas man. Does doing meth make you smarter?

And now that they're talking about their ambitious 'replace macguffin with equal weight in water' plan, my mind is already spinning with potential complications.

"Out burying bodies?" "Robbing a train" The blunt delivery is exceptional!

Front cam of the train approaching reminds me of some relaxing youtube vids I've seen that are like 10 hours long and nothing but the front end footage of a train going about its business. Think they were mostly nordic trains. Good stuff.

There is an impressive amount of gadget porn going on right now, and I could not be more happier about it <3

aaaaaand there's the rub...a Good Samaritan out of the blue. Don't you just hate it when nice people appear in your bad people show?

And then the secondary rub...the robbery goes off, but a nosy kid saw too much and got some lead in return. I was kinda feeling that'd be up this show's sleeve, but the industrial machinery porn and random nice guy threw me off the scent. I imagine Jesse's not gonna be a happy camper since part of his larger motivation in this is that he sided with the people that didn't try to do murders on kids.

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tv board exploded when todd, this minor (and polite!) character, suddenly executed a kid out of nowhere. it was hilarious.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

tv board exploded when todd, this minor (and polite!) character, suddenly executed a kid out of nowhere. it was hilarious.

****ing Landry, man. There's a good reason why most of Season 2 of Friday Night Lights doesn't really exist.

I mean, Landry is awesome. But not Season 2 Landry.

Also, Jesse's, "nnNNOOO!!" still haunts me.

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Todd creeps me out

Todd's Black Mirror episode is peak creepy, he's good at that.

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Just so you know, this isn't personal.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Todd's Black Mirror episode is peak creepy, he's good at that.

Loved it!

Ah! Thought I had seen him in something before. Definitely a solid Black Mirror ep that one was, but then I'm also a fan of pretty much anything star trek or star trek adjacent.

But that's all sci-fi stuff, time to get back to our realistic show about ordinary everyday people who forge drug empires and sometimes rob trains when they're bored. They're also really really skilled at getting things to fit into white barrels to make them disappear, they're basically magicians.

So the issue this time around is that Jesse and Mike wanna make an exit from the meth business, but Walt is being a whiny baby about it, dollar signs in his eyes. Please...if I could make 5 million to not work, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it solves too many problems and we can't have that in our high stakes drug show.

Jesse tries to talk sense into Walt, but Walt's boldly proclaiming he's in the empire business. He's a lost cause at this point, I think Mike's the only one I'm rooting for now XD

Super awkward dinner with Jesse, Walt, and Skyler, but what else could one expect? Although, once Skyler excuses herself, Walt does offer at least one half-sensible reason for wanting to continue the meth trade, it being all he has left of his shell of a life. It's still a pretty piss poor excuse as $5 million could buy a heck of a lot of new life potential, but it's what he's sticking to, and he's still technically the protagonist of this show so his opinion carries a lot of weight.

Mike you fool...you're better than this! Leaving Walt alone and conscious in a room full of atoms! Don't you know he's a chemistry wizard! I'm a little suspicious as to the plausibility of Walt's escape method, but that's the lesser offense here really...

Saul works the system for Mike, buys him 24 hours which would normally be enough, but Walt has other ideas. It's ok though because Walt's got a Plan. Pretty ominous way to end the episode, it better be a really good plan!


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the dinner is fucking great

two more good ones on the way!
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then you nuke it and the cheese gets all scabby and its like youre eating a scab

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Good to hear they're good, but then I'd expect them to be given they're the what...mid-season finale?

Pitch perfect opening scene right here. "You're Heisenberg" "You're goddamn right!"

Some kooky camera angles with these safety deposit boxes. Scene's nice though. List is no longer much of an issue, and the show is free now to work on other loose ends.

Mike really does seem to be cutting himself out of the picture though...quite the bittersweet moment as he tosses his guns away and parks his car. Though, I admire his balls to be watching some old movie/show on his tv that seems to have involved some kind of cop on cop murder...as a room full of cops scour his abode for contraband.

Jesse and Walt have what seems to be one last quarrel, and against all odds, not that it was hard to see coming, but Jesse is out. Even as far as to let the money go. Walt really isn't much of a people person, so it was only a matter of time before people stopped buying into his reasoning.

Hank gets a slap on the wrist and a warning that if he continues to do the right thing there will be consequences. Naturally, he continues to follow his instincts, which have been solid thus far.

Walt, meanwhile, has found a rebound lov....assistant... and is now training Todd in the ways of meth.

Hah, Gomey's smile looking in the door of that bank room. "Hey"

And pretty much none of that matters once Walt confronts Mike about the 9 names. His own ineptitude bites him as he's forced to grapple with the fact that Lydia had the names as well. Some standout scenery for the final bit at the end too.

RIP Mike, you were too good for this show. :'(

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walt withholding jesse's money is so awful, ugh

hype
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So hype for the next episode

If only to joke about needing to wait almost a year for the next one.

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So Walt's teaming up with Lydia...it does make a kind of sense, although the web of characters is starting to run mighty thin at this point. There's only so much stretching one can do, and Lydia's surely it.

"Wackin Bin Laden wasn't this complicated" says a guy commenting about how difficult it is to kill all the people within two minutes across three prisons. Of note, the year this episode is supposed to take place in is late 2009/early 2010 wherein Osama was still alive, and would be until May 2011. Admittedly, if I didn't go into the show knowing there were small temporal inconsistencies like this, it would have glided over my head. Also helps that wikis exist to detail what dates all the episodes would roughly take place in. That said, Walt did have a birthday recently and he was 50 in 2008, so even a casual viewer could have reasonably caught it. I'd rather stop rambling about this minor detail and get back to the action though, so I shall.

...and quite a bit of action it is. The stabs-per-episode metric is gonna look like something you could stab someone with after this is all said and done. Classy music choice to boot!

So I'm sitting here watching Hank pour out some drinks, shook up by the recent prison killings no doubt, and it just hits me that the actor is really flippin' amazing at being Hank, as he limps his way over to being in a chair. Even now he's still demonstrating that he is ever so slowly recovering. It boggles my mind how this show can manage to be both real and unreal at the same time.

I feel like part of this conversation between Walt and Jesse about their old RV life is to answer questions uberfans had about why they didn't just buy a better RV since they had money. 'Inertia' apparently. It is a property of matter, and Jesse and Walt are both made of matter, so it checks out.

Oh no...nonono....what are you doing to your audience show. THAT is what you're gonna leave people hanging on?! It is the most absurd of chance happenstance, but the deed has been done. Hank's brain is now spinning and thinking about W.W. as our main guy Walter White. This is where this half of the season ends, and I would have been blissfully unaware of such were it not for people suggesting otherwise XD

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SovietOmega posted...

Hah, Gomey's smile looking in the door of that bank room. "Hey"

lmao yes

And yes that was an extremely cruel cliffhanger to leave the audience on.

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SovietOmega posted...

Of note, the year this episode is supposed to take place in is late 2009/early 2010 wherein Osama was still alive, and would be until May 2011.

this bothered the hell out of me

also no comment on crystal blue persuasion, without a doubt my fav montage on the show ever :(

(insert million comments about hank's longest dump of his life)
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Coming up: The best final stretch of episodes in television history

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Crystal blue persuasion was neat, but I can't say I'm much of a montage guy.

Mmm...I see we're in futureland again with this new half season's opening scene. It...feels like Walt's been teleported to some kind of post-apocalyptic future version of his house. I find it hard to believe the place would be trashed like that in, what, a year's time?

Back in the past in a very important bathroom....Hank is definitely stunned, and thankfully decides to stow away the book and cut away asap rather than do any kind of confrontation. I imagine once he's got time to collect more dots and build a stronger case the confrontation will happen. I'm gonna hazard a guess that it takes about 40 minutes :p

Absolutely fun little touch with the 'hello carol' at the end of this scene, a nice counterpoint to the opening's greeting.

Lydia at the car wash...she's not having a very A1 day it seems.

Hank's doing well it seems. Quite an interesting loophole he's jumping through here. He's not allowed to work on blue meth cases at work, so instead he's not working and working on blue cases at home. I doubt his superiors would see it this way, but Hank knows he's onto something, just needs to make the right connections to make his stance irrefutable.

That's some Shraderbrau logo he's got going on too. Interestingly enough, apparently last year Dean Norris turned this thing into a legit real thing people can buy. Or could, seems to be out of stock at the place I looked. Still, crazy that it even was made at all.

Huh...I did not expect to see some of the philosophical ramifications of Star Trek style transporters on this, let alone any other, show. Usually this is the kind of things you see on nerdy blogs and forum discussions. I guess these druggie friends of Jesse are good for something after all.

Fuck...I am absolutely loving this stupid pie eating episode discussion. Beaming the food out from Chekov's stomach <3

...and then he has to go a step to far and mess it all up :(

Walt and Jesse sure do love having these moments together where they talk about people dying and how much of a gosh darn shame that is. Walt's doing an inspiring job of pretending he didn't kill Mike. He really needs Jesse to believe him.

This show's not afraid to force the most absurd of circumstances to progress the plot. It was bad enough that Hank juuuust happened upon the book which juuuust happened to have some words in it that set his mind spinning, but here we have Walt juuuust so happening to be sick enough to face the toilet and notice the book being missing. Naturally, now Walt is zeroing in on Hank's zeroing in.

And finds a tracker on his car. The battle has already begun without us even knowing it. I feel like this would have been a perfect episode end, yet this thing keeps trucking along, still got 10 minutes.

Wherein Jesse goes full Santa Claus with his money.

Reeeeally bizarre scene with Walt and Hank in the garage...both of them carrying on a normal conversation, but both of them are also pretty sure that the other person's got secrets they're hiding, so every look they give and action they take has to be taken with this in mind.

...and then Walt walks up to Hank asking about the GPS tracker. Hank closes the garage door. If this were a game, I imagine boss music would start to play.

And then the scene gets a little punchy, but a lot talky, far more talky than I imagined. Different than I imagined it would go down, but no less satisfying. Hank can surely stop Walt, but Walt is out of the game and is not long for this world regardless, so what justice can really be done under these circumstances?

And there are still 7 episodes remaining.

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SovietOmega posted...

...and then Walt walks up to Hank asking about the GPS tracker. Hank closes the garage door. If this were a game, I imagine boss music would start to play.

And then the scene gets a little punchy, but a lot talky, far more talky than I imagined.

SO GOOD.
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Yeah...now that the show's biggest secret is starting to see the light of day, I bet things are gonna be moving at a frantic pace from here on out.

Walt tries to get to Skyler, but Hank gets to her first, meeting her at a diner. She knows what she's done so is a little reluctant to immediately throw Walt under the bus. I like how Hank's so laser focused on Walt's crimes that the possibility that Skyler might have something to hide is completely outside his considerations.

I was enjoying Marie's little game of 'when did you know' with Skyler as she progressively was moving back through the timeline. Then she went and slapped Skyler and tried to abduct the baby. That Marie, always trying to steal things, am I right?

34, 59, 20, 106, 36, 52 lookie here, numbers! Lat and Long, I'm guessing? Or maybe a smoke monster's gonna appear soon. Walt was dead the whole time!

Thankfully Walt fell down unconscious, or else we might have been forced to see his ding dong. Did he overexert himself, or is this merely the ol' cancer striking out?

Lydia seems to be making some friends too, filling us in on the meth world now that everyone we care about has left it. So these chumps tried Todd for a bit before casting him aside, not caring about quality of product. It seems the golden age of meth is truly at an end...

Hank goes back to work, and idk if this guy's been in a shot before or not but in the scene strolling around his workplace, there's this guy in the foreground with a mustache that looks like it has two mustaches glued to either end as if he were some kind of walrus. What is this guy's story?

I like the rapport these two police goofballs have with each other as they poke at Jesse's actions. Naturally, Hank finds wind of the money situation and finds his way there too, roping them into letting him spend a few minutes alone with Jesse in the interrogation room. The episode comes to an end, but I doubt this will be ending well.

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Six episodes to go...hard to stop here at the end, the plot's done got me suckered in. Like, we know Walt survives at least to 52, but so many hows and whys are blank. Jesse's fate is still anyone's guess, and everyone else is some mixture of unimportant, dead, or Hank. I hope Saul makes it through all of this ok too, because it would sure be a bummer if the spinoff show starred two people fated to die in the near future. It's bad enough that I now know that Mike's a big deal on that show. I was all pleased with that knowledge, but then Walt and the list had to go and happen. I'm sure he's still fantastic on Saul's show, but knowing his future is probably gonna be a sore spot when I get around to viewing that show. Frankly, I find it amusing that it is both still on the air and by a number of accounts has exceeded Breaking Bad in goodness.

You know, I like Todd. He's like some kind of mirror universe Jesse. He's also kind of an idiot, but in a lovable way. Here he is dropping the names of his associates to some nobodies in this diner, and it's just so gosh darn precious I almost want him to live.

Interesting...Walt decides to make a confession video.

More importantly, the show has impeccable comedic timing, for as this serious meeting between Walt/Skyler and Hank/Marie starts to kick off, the waiter pops by to do everything you'd expect a waiter to do.

Frankly, I never tire of hearing Walt give his speeches. It doesn't matter if he's wrong or right in what he's saying, I just love how he says it. I almost want to believe in him, but it's far too late for that.

Quite the tense little chat this is too, with Marie suggesting Walt kills himself. Heck, that's probably what ends up happening too, him 'dying' and running off to some new life with a new identity.

Oh wow...that's not a confession video, but a 'confession' video. The difference is subtle, but I feel bad for Hank now. It is such a glorious mixture of truth and lie, I love it.

I'm growing tired of these dad talks Walt has with Jesse, but thankfully Jesse's tired of them too. Not long after, he seems like he's giving the matter consideration regardless. I guess he's getting a new ID too? Or maybe he'll be sneaky and make it for Walt.

Or maybe the show will pull some batshit crazy logic out of nowhere and Jesse will be pointing a gun at Saul because something something cigarette.

Oh. Jesse is the apocalypse. Alright, future house checks out now. And Walt is presumably gonna try and do a murder on Jesse too...loved the hurried pullup into casual strolling into the store and chatting like nothing is wrong bit he did there. Such a frozen gun too, hope it still works right XD

Well, things are certainly going to be heating up soon, har har.


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I absolutely love the confession tape

One of my favourite bits of the show. It is so gross.

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SovietOmega posted...

Hank goes back to work, and idk if this guy's been in a shot before or not but in the scene strolling around his workplace, there's this guy in the foreground with a mustache that looks like it has two mustaches glued to either end as if he were some kind of walrus. What is this guy's story?

Mustache-y!

also jesse figuring out the ricin cigarette is fucking amazing. i love how this show does NOT fuck around with characters' intelligence. from hank figuring out walt with handwriting, to walt checking for a bug on his own car, to gus not going into his car because he suspected foul play, to jesse realizing huell is an amazing pickpocket...
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Jesse figuring out the ricin thing was always a bit too silly for me. It's such a ridiculous logical leap.
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i don't think it was at all. he knew gus didn't take it and he was suspicious if walt to begin with. walt was the only one who profited off the cigarette being missing.

in 4x12 walt tells jesse "think who we know, who would hurt a child" - walt proved in 5x05-06 he didn't particularly care about hurting a child
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Walt whistling is really the only moment of the show that I dislike. I feel like they could have shown that Walt doesn't really care in a better way instead of cartoonish villain whistling after pretending to be sad to Jesse.

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everything about S5a walt is cartoonishly evil though! he informs mike it'll work "because i say so." the whole "say my name" scene is hilarious too

i thought the whistling was brilliant
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Maybe it bothered me just because Walt is generally pretty cunning and it felt out of character to make such a silly mistake? I get that he was feeling untouchable but you can't wait 30 seconds for Jesse to leave before you start whistling?

I'd be more okay with it if Jesse left the house and then came back to grab something and heard Walt whistling. But the actual scene is like "yeah I'm really sad Jesse" and then he turns around and immediately starts whistling.

Edit: watching the scene again on Youtube maybe there is more of a gap between their conversation than I remember. In my head it always felt like it was an immediate thing

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walt is cunning, but also incredibly arrogant, and he does make mistakes. he hires gus's laundromat ladies to do labwork! he blows up a guy's car at a gas station!

he also is convinced he has jesse entirely under his thumb at this point. he's lied to and manipulated jesse so many times at this point it's become a casual thing. plus walt is on an enormous emotional high

and yeah, jesse does kind of "come back" to see walt whistling
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Yeah 100% of my issues were just with how quick Walt started whistling but it seems like I just remembered the scene wrong

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walts whistling cracks me up every time
and jesse realizing saul had huell lift the cigarette after having his weed stolen was definitely not something i considered a logical leap

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Quite a lively discussion y'all are happening about Walt whistling, lol.

Although here's a little hilarious tidbit the internet has provided me: The tune Walt is whistling in that scene is "Lily of the Valley" by Johnny Cash. I went and looked it up, and I don't quite hear it myself, but boy a lot of people seem to think this is the case.

Anyway, this episode opens with Walt sneaking into his own place, something he's surprisingly well practiced at given how many times he's done so over the course of this show. His gun seems to have thawed on the ride over.

Ah...guess we're spared a house in flames for now. It's pretty impressive how Walt can spin a plausible-ish story from nothing but a gas soaked rug. He's had quite some practice to be fair. Although not enough that his family can't tell he's covering something up, though Jr. completely misreads the situation.

"For 3 hours straight all he talked about was something called Babylon 5" I'm pretty sure with all the stoner sci-fi talk that's happened, there's gotta be at least one geek on the show's writing staff, or else are otherwise in tune with nerd culture...either way that makes me quite happy. But yeah, Babylon 5...definitely an underrated classic.

They actually go ahead and do the hotel thing, looks like a classier room than I've had the pleasure of staying in. It's weird how because there's 5 seasons of drama that have happened to mold every character's view, and our views of them, that every conversation is now like a little puzzle as you have to think of not only the surface discussion, but also how much each party knows about events, what their stances on the matter are, what they'd like things to be, and all manner of things that add layers and layers of nuance to just about every word said.

Like, just something as simple as Skyler asking Walt if Jesse has ever hurt anyone, to which Walt simply replies 'no', even though we the viewer know good and well what Jesse did to Major Tom Wannabe. Is this merely what Walt thinks Skyler wants to hear or perhaps what he needs her to hear as part of his machinations, or maybe he is so far gone as to genuinely believe Jesse is legitimately innocent and merely a victim of circumstance and not truly responsible for their actions.

...huh. Even knowing not to trust interpretations of events that happen when the camera isn't rolling, I gotta say I wasn't expecting the rewind to Jesse's gasoline adventures to suddenly have a wild Hank appear.

I love that Hank is so far outside the system with his actions, and Jesse is so far removed from Walt's sphere with his actions, that the two can somehow manage to form some kind of unholy alliance. There's probably some kind of perfect chemistry analogy to be made here, but Walt hasn't been a chemistry teacher for a few seasons now.

Jesse's word vs Walt's word...but presumably he's told the whole story to Hank and Gomey. No actual evidence sadly, but Hank's never without a new course of action. "Your plan is to do his plan?" I'm kinda with Jesse here, a good plan this is not, but it is all they really have at the moment.

I'm not sure what Jesse is playing at with skipping this meeting, but he seems to have thought of a new plan. Walt seems to be stirred into action too. Stuff is surely about to go down.


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The whole point of S5 is that Walt massively let his guard down, since "he won" in S4. If Hank didn't figure out the WW on the toilet, it would've been something else. If Jesse didn't figure it out from Huell, it would've been something else.

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SovietOmega posted...

there's gotta be at least one geek on the show's writing staff

you ever heard of this guy called Vince Gilligan?

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foolm0r0n posted...

you ever heard of this guy called Vince Gilligan?

I see the name on the theme, but I have 0 knowledge of him as a person. This show is the only place I've ever seen that name.

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5x13 hype
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5x14 hype

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there was a... pump malfunction

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SovietOmega posted...

I love that Hank is so far outside the system with his actions, and Jesse is so far removed from Walt's sphere with his actions, that the two can somehow manage to form some kind of unholy alliance.

Love this teamup lol.

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Good ol' Todd keeping the meth business afloat. Batch isn't blue enough for Lydia, but it's amusing to watch them all look down and profess the levels of blueness they think they see in this not-blue meth. This does kinda throw some shade on the whole blue thing though, as that was more of an accident than anything, the purity was always Walt being a good chemist and the show never really told us why the blue happened, just that it did.

Oh the power a real fake image can have...Hank pitches the scenario perfectly too. Poor Huell's suckered in.

Hah, killers don't want money, they just need Walt to tutor Todd some more, work on that purity and color. This would almost be a normal high school chemistry teacher scenario if you took away the killing and the meth making.

And Walt agrees...one cook, after Jesse dies. Just one more cook until retirement...something tells me events will conspire to foil Walt's plans. Jesse is too much of a main character to just die unceremoniously.

"You see, the thing is, is that Jesse and I had this argument recently. And I won't bore you with the details..." Friggin lost it right here for a few minutes laughing. Walt, who poisoned Brock, the central point of Jesse's argument with Walt, is here talking to Andrea while Brock casually sits nearby eating Fruit Loops. The sheer calmness with which Walt speaks in this scenario...my poor sides!

Quite a nice little ambush by Walt, and quite a nice ambush noticing by Hank.

Oh that's lovely...Jesse sending a photo of a barrel full of money. They really seem to be on a real fake picture kick tricking badguys. Good thing Hank's not on the clock because this sure doesn't sound like official police procedures. Amusingly, this is only made possible because Huell was highly descriptive of the money and barrel situation.

Everything about Walt's frantic race to his cash is gold.

Inevitably, Walt figures it out, but it very well might be too late. As he calls his hit squad, finally the name of this damn episode makes sense...it is the name of the Indian reservation where Walt hid his money, the thing which he cares more about than life itself it would seem.

Really, quite a beautiful little area this is too. Love the little mesa with its bands of rock layers. I bet Hank would love it too if he wasn't busy trying to catch Walt.

Walt strolls on out...how the devil is he gonna squeeze his way out if this one? We know he makes it to 52 and isn't locked away, so something's gotta happen here, plus there are episodes left to go.

Woah...according to Jesse, this was the place they first cooked. It all comes full circle, hah.

"It may be a while before I get home" Fuck, this situation is sounding too perfect for Hank, why do I get the feeling something bad's about to happen to him?

...and the cavalry seems to be arriving. welp.

Oh come on....that is NOT a proper way to end the episode! There is no way I can wait to see the result of this shootout! Although...it hilariously seemed like nobody was injured here at the episode's end. So many bullets, so much car damage, but no screams of death.


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Honestly that might be my favorite episode in the series.

SovietOmega posted...

and the show never really told us why the blue happened, just that it did.

It did though, IIRC. Way back in Season 1 when they first started. It was a side-effect of the method Walt was using. I forget the details.


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xp1337 posted...

Honestly that might be my favorite episode in the series.

It did though, IIRC. Way back in Season 1 when they first started. It was a side-effect of the method Walt was using. I forget the details.

His first batch was clear. It was using the stolen barrel stuff that made it blue, but his secret power was never the blue, it was always the purity he could bring to the meth. There was absolutely nothing special about it being blue other than as a result of adjustments he had to make to make use of the stuff he stole. There was never a satisfying explanation why it was blue, and you would think Walt being a chemistry guy could have explained the interactions that would cause it to be so. The only reason he couldn't is because blue meth doesn't actually exist.

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In Breaking Bad, methylamine is used by Walter White and Jesse Pinkman as they use reductive amination of phenylacetone (P2P) to yield methamphetamine - a process they devised to circumvent the need to buy pseudoephedrine. This P2P and methylamine-based cook produces what became infamously known as "Blue Sky" in the American southwest.

So it was apparently a side effect of using the liquid that they stole from that one place when they used the explosive on the door combined with the purity of his perfect execution of chemistry.

So when he was doing the pseudoephedrine cooks he got it ridiculously pure, but not blue, but then they couldn't get a supply of enough of the cold medicine or w/e so they switched to the other method which only yielded blue in the ridiculous purity that only Walt could pull off. Because science?

I'm sure there is no basis for this in actual science, but that's the answer the show offers us for their version of science.

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No, I know the purity is what made Walt special I just could have sworn that Walt gives a throwaway explanation about what FD just posted when they make the first "blue" batch.

If you mean why does Lydia, etc. care about the color I think that's more a branding thing. The people they sell to have no idea about chemistry and all that but they know the "blue" stuff was better than the pre-Walt stuff and just made that association. And if they tried to explain to them "well actually" they'd think they were lying to them/ripping them off. Walt inadvertently created a brand.

Edit: Also wasn't there some "real life imitates art" thing going on when Breaking Bad got popular and law enforcement really did actually see people trying to sell blue-colored meth in real life? IIRC, Gilligan got asked about it once and the answer was like, "There wasn't anything like that when we started the show... but there apparently is now."

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Lydia made it clear she wanted it blue for branding reasons, no worries there. I just wish there had been a firmer basis for the blue happening beyond the incidental nature of the process Walt used. It's as good an answer as I'm gonna get though, and frankly not gonna matter going forward as everything's currently going to heck.

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Huh...I've gotten so very used to seeing Walt bald that this flashback to the first cook with him having hair is unsettling. Early Walt was such a Ned Flanders it boggles my mind how much he's changed and yet there is no singular moment where I could pinpoint a transition, it was all so gradual.

But come on show...you left us hanging. Let's get back to that. Ok, cool, a fading out of Walt and the RV. I get it We're in a different era now. Let's get back to the important shooty bits please.

Gomey seems to be dead, a fatal case of offscreenitis. Hank's about to be dead, but Walt's brand of insanity really does put family first, and he offers his $80 million in barrel bux.

No dice. Hank's looking particularly well framed these last few shots of his, then he gets shot and it is done. Not quite the way I thought his death would go, but it goes about as well as I could have hoped given these circumstances. Walt's predictably beaten up about it.

I guess these goons are gonna be the final hurdle for Walt to overcome? Or are they really gonna make out with his dough unimpeded?

What a joke of a last minute save by Todd. Not that he's truly saving Jesse, he thinks he's being all rational about what Jesse might know. Unless he's secretly working to aid Jesse here, I never paid too close attention to his allegiances really. Regardless, Jesse gets a stay of execution while Todd and his band of merry men get a lot richer and Walt a lot poorer.

Jesus Christ Walt..."I watched her die" "I could have saved her, but I didn't" There's no low this sociopath could sink to that wouldn't be higher than what he deserves. Although, we're watching things sink before our eyes here with the money mostly taken, Hank dying, and Jesse now forever beyond reconciliation. Ozymandias...shaping up to be a pretty apt title name.

Even now the show's got a sense of humor as a cheerful old tune starts playing and Walt rolls his money barrel to the abode of one of the reservations' residents. Offers money for their truck, perhaps as a metacommentary on the injustice of America towards the original inhabitants, but more likely because Walt just needs a plausible way to get home.

Oh wow...is Todd really doing what I think he's doing? Is Jesse going to live for a while because he can cook good meth? With a picture of Andrea and Brock right there to give Jesse motivation. Not that I expect anyone to be good on a show called Breaking Bad, but that's just twisted XD

And the twisted humor continues with the family stumbling upon Walt who is packing like his life depends on it.

...and he just drives off with the baby. Wtf XD

Even the baby abandons Walt, with cries of 'mama'.

As Walt rips apart his phone after ripping apart the hearts of his family, it strikes me that quite a few phones over the series have been casually ripped in twain. Wouldn't be the case nowadays with 99% of phones being of rectangular design rather than flip phones. But yes, idle phone musings aside, this was a very passionate moment, among the highest the series has dared do...the few remaining pieces of Walt's world are now out of his reach and he knows it. There is no path to salvation he has remaining, it is all just a matter of time for him.

What a way to be right. Start of the season I reasoned Walt made the call to the guy that could make people poof, but never could I have imagined these circumstances that lead to it happening. Still plenty of fallout to process and not much time left to process them in.


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That phone call is so good for so many reasons

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Heh, Saul took the buyout option too...sneaky way to fake us out a bit. Finally we get to see this guy and his vacuum shop. And Walt's there too because this is the future and not the past. He's going a little crazy in his isolation.

Saul makes well reasoned arguments...not even Mike could get money to his granddaughter. I also didn't even consider the phone call might have been a ploy, although at this point I'm not sure if that's just Saul's read on the matter or if that truly was part of Walt's larger plan. Leaning towards the former as Walt's world is just one big hot mess right now.

Although at least this answers who the guns were for in the opening tease this season. All to kill Jack and his crew to get Walt's illegal drug money back so he can give it to his kids because Walt's imagination lives in a reality where this will be possible.

"It's not over until cough cough cough-cough cough" Gee Walt, I don't remember you saying it like that. Also, kinda neat how this cough has slowly started to make its way back this final season, a firm reminder of how this whole shebang got started.

Somehow, despite the mask, I was able to recognize that as Todd...possibly the stance or his eyes. What are you doing at Walt's place, Todd? Oh, he's trying to make sure his waifu is safe. Alright, carry on.

Mr. Lambert has officially arrived in New Hampshire and is annoyed at the lack of things like phones to contact people. This guy's got business to do, you see. But he's also part of a nation-wide manhunt so he's lucky to be as hidden as he is.

96% batch and Jesse's reward is...a bit of ice cream. The vital nutrition of Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream fuels Jesse's muscles, giving him the strength and stamina to push beyond his limits and somehow make it out of that pit. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't get much further than that because Todd is presumably not an idiot and also there was a camera.

Aaaand there goes Andrea. She lasted far longer than Jane, although Jane still had a cooler dad. "There's still the kid" scene cuts to black before we can hear any confirming resolution. Jesse is really having a very not fun time in his own personal hell.

Meanwhile, Lambert's in a seeming eternal purgatory, slowly working up the courage to break free. Nothing is stopping him but himself.

Eventually he goes the distance though, but learns through a conversation with Jr. and then through a TV interview, that nobody really wants Walter White around anymore, and his contribution was essentially nil.

So he was ready to call it quits I guess, until something sparked him into action. Was it hearing that blue meth was still going strong? There's only so much plot that can happen with one more episode to go.


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Ahead of the final episode I just wanted to say its been a pleasure sharing this experience with you. Felt like I watched the show through new eyes.

10/10 topic!

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