Geez, out of all the deaths in the show, I think Andrea's may be the most upsetting to me. She was an absolute innocent with no connection to the drug business at all. I look forward to seeing Todd meet a messy end next week. Oh man.
I also want to add that I'm glad that for the moment, Saul is still alive and not an apparent threat to Walt. It seems like he may survive this.
It's been a while since I've seen those episodes, but Walt wasn't forced out of the company with a gun to his head was he? IIRC something went down between him and Gretchen and he took a buyout.
I love how all the speculation about the Ricin target goes back and forth between Lydia, Jesse, and even Walt (despite that not seeming to make a lot of sense), and then out of left field Gray Matter comes back and then you all of a sudden see two new potential targets. Bravo. It's possible that they aren't at all involved in the final episode in any way, but that's still just really great. It was interesting to see a discussion on Talking Bad concerning who was responsible for what happened to Andrea. That scene was just awful and this show is almost just getting too hard to watch because it is so heavy. All I kept thinking was that the Nazis probably wouldn't have known about who Andrea was or where she lived if it weren't for Walt, and of course Walt gave Jesse over to them. But Matt Jones, the actor who plays Badger, argued that again Jesse just really wasn't thinking so far ahead. That he's just too impulsive and is thinking with his heart rather than with his head. He said that Jesse had his choice to leave everything behind and to just disappear, but he let his heart guide him and wasn't thinking clearly. Same goes with this situation. You could tell that there were people in the crowd that disagreed with him by some of the gasps.
"Nothing personal" The extra 15 minutes I guess was intended to drive home the point of more time passage. Simply outstanding though, after an initial head-scratch. Loved that "would it make you feel better if I said yes" about the money. I so want those Aryans to die, and Tod to learn the code to become the new Dexter.
....Walt will kill them with the ricin and somehow get their fortune to Skyler and the kids. The fortune that he (and by extension they) should have had all along. It's been a while since I've seen those episodes, but Walt wasn't forced out of the company with a gun to his head was he? IIRC something went down between him and Gretchen and he took a buyout. ...... No, he wasn't forced out. He finally acknowledged that the one occasion that Jesse came to his home for dinner. People....the ricin isn't for Elliot and Gretchen. There's no redemption for Walt. Walter White has broken fully bad. He's spurred to life by the notion that someone is publicly saying that he had nothing significant to contribute to Grey Matter. Walter only cares that he's not getting credit. His delicate, wounded ego is his final inspiration to push back. Not his son's rejection of him nor his wish for his father's death. The ricin is for Jesse. Walter can't leave anyone alive who knows how to make his product and take the credit, now can he? Walter doesn't give a shit about Jesse. Jesse has now lost his parents, Jayne, and Andrea. He feels responsible for her death and for Hank and Gomie's deaths. Jesse has no hope of moving forward and forgiving himself. I hope Jesse blows Walter's brains out; that egomaniacal fuck has it coming.
Andrea's death hit me hard. Harder than even Hank's, since she wasn't even aware of what was going on and left poor Brock behind. Jesse's reaction was just devastating, and fantastically played by Paul. For all the wrongs he has committed, and for all he has brought upon himself, he has suffered immensely. I don't get all the hatred for the Schwartz's. Their company was hurting through guilt by association with Walt, so they tried to distance themselves from a murderous drug dealing sociopath who rejected any overtures from them and who blamed them for all the problems of his own making (he and Gretchen were broke up before she started dating Elliot, and Walt voluntarily sold his share of Gray Matter because he's a prideful jackass despite all his intelligence). What, are they supposed to remain loyal to Walt after all he's done? The inclusion of Robert Forster was a nice touch. The music in this episode was great. My prediction for the final episode: - There has been entirely too much focus on Lydia's OCD drinking habits and mixing Estevia into her tea for that not to come back and bite her in the ass during the finale. I say Walt uses her to gather intel on the Nazis, poisoning her tea with the ricin at the same time. In a final montage, we see her dying or dead in the hospital several days later. - The reintroduction of Eliot and Gretchen Schwartz at such a late date is interesting --beyond just rekindling Walt's supreme pettiness and bitterness as he's about to almost do one good thing finally-- and would seem to imply that they have a role to play in the finale, but that seems like a lot of stuff to squeeze in. I doubt Walt has the time to detour up to Santa Fe to take them out personally, so I'm going to guess that if they play a role in the finale, he finds a way to implicate them in his meth trade somehow. Perhaps he can say they were his methylamine source after Madrigal was busted, or that they're his distributor somehow. It wouldn't necessarily have to hold up in court, just be enough to damage them in the court of public opinion. - Walt will take out Jack and most of the other Nazis, but Jesse has to be the one to take down Meth Damon for killing Andrea and holding him hostage. - Walt has a change of heart about his "adoptive" son Jesse after Walt Jr. rejects him, convinces Jesse not to kill him because he'll turn himself in, and gives Jesse some money. Jesse takes Brock and starts a new life, finally gaining some measure of solace and trying to redeem himself for his many misdeeds. - Walt surrenders to the police, thinking he'll die of cancer after a few months in prison, but once again he goes into remission. He has to endure at least a few more years alone in his cell, with no friends or family to visit him, and no empire to control. - Robert Forster keeps his promise to deliver the eleven million to Walt Jr., Holly, and Skylar. They are at first tempted to reject it outright due to it being blood money, but eventually they accept. Can't wait for next week to see how this all wraps up. I can't believe it's only been a week since the last episode; that wait seemed like forever. This has really been the perfect way to cap off a series, and it's not even done yet.
I don't get the hate for Elliot and Gretchen, either. They were far nicer to Walt than he really deserved, offering to pay for his treatments--an act which would have let him exit the meth business very early on and spared everyone so much misery. I'm sure Walt saw their TV appearance as twisting the knife, but it was obvious at least Gretchen still had some affection for him and was upset at what he had become. It's been very satisfying to see Walt get his comeuppance so far. Can't say I blame him for leaving the cabin. How long could he really survive being completely alone for a month at a time with nothing to do but think about what he's done? And clearly, it never once occurred to him that he'd done anything wrong. His conversation with Flynn made that perfectly clear. He still feels completely justified, that everything he did was "for the family." And yet, rather than stay and face the music like Saul suggested, he let his wife and children suffer the consequences of his pride and arrogance. He abandoned them, plain and simple, because the person Walt is always going to look out for is Walt. It was great when Flynn told him off. The one person Walt thought he could reach and make to understand, and he was completely rejected. I'm still banking on Walt going to save Jesse and Jesse killing him. I hope Walt, Todd, the Nazis, and Lydia all buy it next week. I have to say, for a moment I thought Todd was going to kill Skyler. After what happened to Hank, you know no one is safe.
Why would Walt do a 180 and save Jesse? Hank dying was the straw that broke the camel's back, and in Walt's mind Jesse is responsible. I just don't buy it. Walt's as likely to kill Jesse as to kill Jack, Elliot, Gretchen, and the supremely annoying Lydia with her stevia and soy milk tea. Not that I don't think Cranston could sell it convincingly, but I don't see any final change of heart on his part.
Because Jesse is the only "family" Walt has left. Everyone else has rejected him. Jesse is his one shot at redemption, in his eyes. Again, this is not out of a particular love for Jesse, but from Walt's pathological need to be the winner. If he saves Jesse, Jesse will have to love him again, right?
It was a brilliant stroke to bring them back in, although I'm not terribly convinced that they're the targets for that kind of end. They were first and foremost used as a catalyst to tweak Walt's ego into returning to Albq. I'm almost thinking now that the M-60 is going to be used to wipe out their corporate offices and labs so that they lose some kind of massive pharmaceutical contract or some-such, forcing them into bankruptcy. Reducing Walt's historical involvement to nothing more than a side-note is believable and understandable, but at the same time smarmy and self-serving. Those two are like their name to me - gray and generally inconsequential. Walt will destroy them in a moment of personal retribution in the finale for marginalizing his efforts and move on to the bigger targets.
I really don't think Gretchen and Elliot are Walt's targets. They've been out of the picture so long it feels like a bit of a cheat for them to be the key to Walt's ultimate "victory." I think their presence really was just to catalyze him into going full Heisenberg once more and head back to ABQ for a final showdown with the Jack Pack.
I agree, 53 more minutes, not enough time. They just wanted to bring everyone back and them appearing on TV sets Walt in motion to kill Jesse and the Nazis.
Why does everyone think he is going after Grey Matter? That is a red herring. Walter watching that reminded him that he needs to take charge of his life and he is going after his money and to kill Jack and his game for not listening to him and killing Hank also. He may also want to stop them from making 'his' meth. Also, Jesse has to be the one to kill Todd.
I don't necessarily think that he will be going after them (although I don't claim any absolute certainty), I just think that it's interesting how people speculate endlessly about who the target for the ricin is, and then some characters come out of left field that people haven't even considered at all. Yeah, it's probably not for them, but I love the fact that even if as a red herring that they can be presented in that way. It's like Vince Gilligan just took the fan speculation and turned it on its ear, and I love that. I love the unpredictability of it all. That said, if the target is Lydia, I guess all the clues really are there, but I'm hoping that it's something a bit more unexpected than that.
^^^ Heh...the only predictability WAS the fan speculation. He wrote and filmed these shows months ago - it's almost like he instinctively knew how fans would react to the occurrences in each episode, and acted accordingly. Gilligan is a master writer, plain an simple, and we're all rats in his maze of changing walls. Normally, I would be pissed at being manipulated so handily. With this, I'm loving every minute of it. How odd...
I think if anything he is getting some joy out of Grey Matter's. They are like "He's a nobody" but all anyone wants to talk about is him. So now he's going to fight back and take out the Nazis as Grey Matter's stock falls.
So has Jesse. Jesse's not family. Walt doesn't view Jesse as family anymore, and he was always manipulative and psychologically abusive to him.. He turned him over to the Nazis to be killed without thinking twice. Hank's death ended any chance of Walt working things out with his family and Jesse brought Hank out there. Walt has no reason to want to help Jesse. This Walter White is too evil and far too petty. As long as Jesse could do something for him, Walter kept him around. Jesse is now incapable of stroking Walt's ego. The death of Hank changed everything. No. Now that Andrea, too, has died because of her connection to Jesse, Jesse isn't going to be grateful for another shot at life. I just don't see it anymore. Walter left Jesse for dead. Why would he suddenly want to save him? Walter is thoroughly despicable and beyond redemption. I may be wrong, but color me shocked if Walt saves Jesse for any reason other than to proclaim to the world that Walt is the big badass who cooks the best god damned crystal meth around. Walter wants his accolades.
Of course that's what Walt wants. I don't think anyone is disputing that. I'm saying Jesse's opinion doesn't actually matter to Walt. Walt is in this for himself. Saving Jesse is for his own gratification, not because Jesse would indeed be grateful for it. Walt would also not see any of this as his fault, because nothing is ever his fault. He always has reasons, and those justify everything he does. He can't help it if things get more and more fucked up! Anyway, saving Jesse only gets brought up because it's the one remotely redemptive thing Walt could do at this point. If his intention is just to go out in a blaze of glory while taking down as many Nazis as possible, well, that's a pretty fitting end for an asshole of Walt's caliber, too.
You say that as if Walter hasn't reversed his positions a hundred times throughout the series, especially where it comes to anything involving Jesse (holding out on giving him his share of the money because he was a junkie, changing his mind about Jesse robbing the meth-heads who ripped off Skinny Pete, quitting the meth game and coming back, saying he'll never work with Jesse again and then working with him right away, etc.). Walt, for all his intelligence, is a reactionary hothead who says and does stupid things in the moment out of anger and then reconsiders his position as time goes on. Walt, despite puffing himself up like a blowfish (to borrow his example) to intimidate rivals, can also lack confidence and feel inferior at times, and second guess his decisions. Walt is also driven by a desire to be respected and have someone be grateful to him for "all he has done for them" (a recurring theme throughout the series), despite him actually ruining their lives. He expected Junior to be grateful and loving over the money, because Walt is so far gone that he thinks money makes up for betraying and endangering his family. So delusionally, after Junior rejected him, Jesse is his lost shot at gratitude and recognition in his eyes, to which I think he's going to get a rude awakening.