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Breaking Bad - Season 4

It's possible that Walt did it, he was missing for a good chunk of the episode and nobody was able to contact him on the phone during the time when he would have done it.
No, it's really not. That's just not remotely plausible in that amount of time, and, as already detailed, it would involve the cooperation of people who have no reason to help him. And how would he have found Brock, or gotten him to ingest the poison?

The Walt we see through most of this episode is a guy resigned to his last stand.
 
And how would he have found Brock, or gotten him to ingest the poison?
How would Gus' men?

The Walt we see through most of this episode is a guy resigned to his last stand.
Not really, because we don't see Walt for a good chunk of this episode so it's hard to know what he was thinking, that's why I'm open to the idea while not necessarily buying into it. For the twenty minutes between Walt spinning the gun and Jesse arriving at the house, we don't see the main character of the show. Three different times during that period we see someone try to call Walt and not getting a response. Ignoring the plausibility of the plan for a moment, which I agree is rather far-fetched, if you were a writer trying to conceal this act from the audience that is a textbook way to do it.
 
And how would he have found Brock, or gotten him to ingest the poison?
How would Gus' men?
Gus has a small private army of operatives that has been shown to be able to monitor people effortlessly. If he's keeping any sort of tabs on Jesse at all he'd have made it his business to know who Andrea and her kid were.

Walt's a perennial screwup and looks like he got the crap kicked out of him. His supposed plan is entirely too elaborate and successful for him to have pulled off, based on everything we've seen of him over the last four seasons.
 
And how would he have found Brock, or gotten him to ingest the poison?
How would Gus' men?
Gus has a small private army of operatives that has been shown to be able to monitor people effortlessly. If he's keeping any sort of tabs on Jesse at all he'd have made it his business to know who Andrea and her kid were.

Walt's a perennial screwup and looks like he got the crap kicked out of him. His supposed plan is entirely too elaborate and successful for him to have pulled off, based on everything we've seen of him over the last four seasons.

Hell, that's illustrated perfectly with how the two plans unfolded.

Gus: Discovers (through whatever means) that Jesse has a cigarette with ricin in it, meant to poison him. Finds a way to deliver it to Jesse's surrogate son, so that Jesse will blame Walt and kill him. Walt is out of the way, Jesse's loyalty is assured.

Walt: Plants a bomb in Gus' car. :lol:
 
Jesse and Walt should have come up with a plan to make Gus think Walt is dead which would bring Gus out into the open, thinking his pesky enemy is gone for good, and that would be the moment Jesse and Walt would take him out.
 
I'm not sure why Walter and Jesse haven't figured that Gus would have their places bugged. I assume that's why he didn't fall for Walt's trap, because he knew all about it and only went to the hospital to get a read on Jesse (and to mess with Walt).

For some reason I thought this episode was the season finale and my head just about exploded when it ended like it did. Imagine if that HAD been the finale. Worst finale ever. :lol:
 
Gus has a small private army of operatives that has been shown to be able to monitor people effortlessly. If he's keeping any sort of tabs on Jesse at all he'd have made it his business to know who Andrea and her kid were.
But how would Gus' man get Brock to ingest the poison? Both Walt and Gus have potential paths to know of Brock and where he lives, both have the ability to acquire or manufacture the poison, but they both have the problem of actually getting Brock to eat the poison. Theoretically, Saul is in a good position to do that because he has been shown to be friendly with the family, but it's very hard to imagine Saul intentionally poisoning a child on Walt's behalf.

Out-of-universe, there are other indications that Walt did it. Bryan Cranston has said that Walt does something at the end of this season that is shocking and will make the audience hate him. Also, in this week's Inside Breaking Bad video Giancarlo Esposito ambiguously suggests that Gus didn't know about the poisoning until Jesse told him at the hospital.

I'm undecided. In-universe, Gus is the more likely candidate, but there are certain televisual and narrative conventions that seem to point towards Walt. It's also possible that Brock took the cigarette and poisoned himself and Walt is just using this coincidence to manipulate Jesse. This is one of those situations where anything could happen and everything would surprise me.
 
If Walt did it, he's more of a stone cold bastard than I'd given him credit for, and is playing a much deeper game than I thought.

Having Walt be absent for most of the episode does leave enough ambiguity for us to think it's possible, but then they left it open to interpretation (at least for now.) Walt's story to Jesse is definitely plausible, and maybe Walt was banking on Jesse's naivete.

If Walt did it, his plan was gutsy as fuck! :lol:
 
Scary thought: I think Walt may have done it. I think he may have poisoned Brock to make Jesse think Gus had a hand in it so he can bring Jesse back onto his side and use his help in bringing Gus down. The more I rewatch the scene of Jesse confronting Walt about Brock, the more it feels like most of Walt trying to convince Jesse that he didn't do it and that it was Gus is a performance of some kind. I mean, part of this season has been about how far Walt is willing to go to survive the danger of Gus which now endangers his family. Maybe this is meant to show just how far. I hope I’m wrong. I hope Gus is behind it. But if it is Walt, I worry about what else he is capable of after crossing such a major line.
 
Huell being slick enough to take the ricin cigarette isn't very believable. Nor is there any reason to think Huell would do such a thing for Walt. Walt is something of a coward. He has nerve enough to let a drugged girl die or run down a couple of thugs transfixed by Jesse going kamikaze on them, but to risk being blown away by a Jesse who doesn't bother with asking for an admission of guilt? If the show is trying to leave it an open question whether Walt's guilty of this particular act, it's bad writing.

On the other hand, the discovery of the ricin cigarette on Jesse's coffee table and the diagnosis of Listeria (or something) for Brock's illness, would be finely poetic: The guilty flee where no man pursueth.
 
If Walt did it, he's more of a stone cold bastard than I'd given him credit for
Even if Walt isn't behind the poisoning, I figure it's only a matter of time until he commits an act just as heinous. It reminds me of the story behind Jane's death and how the first draft of the script had Walt injecting her with heroin while she slept to cause her to overdose, but they decided to hold off because they felt it was too soon in the show's run for Walt to commit such an act. But this is where Walt's character is heading and if he doesn't reach those depths this year then he'll probably reach them in the final season.


ETA:
The more I rewatch the scene of Jesse confronting Walt about Brock, the more it feels like most of Walt trying to convince Jesse that he didn't do it and that it was Gus is a performance of some kind.
For me it's the scene with the gun at the start of the episode. The way that the camera reveals the plant, combined with the impact of the music, suggests that something major is happening there. Some have suggested that the plant is white monkshrood, which is toxic, so it's possible that Walt used that to synthesise a poison. But what would a toxic plant be doing in Walt's garden?
 
I completely forgot about that scene. You could be onto something. When I saw it initially I was really curious about what was up with that plant.
 
breakingbad.jpg


Hugo - Not my work, sadly...
 
- I wonder how many takes they did with Walt spinning the gun so that it would point to him.

- Walt poisoning a kid seems a bit too heinous and could hurt the character and the show.
 
After the fiasco of the mass poisoning scene, it is possible that the writers mean to reveal Walt as Brock's poisoner. It would be a bad plot development because, despite claims to the contrary, Saul and Saul's guys would not be on board with the plot, save by decree of script.

Further, they could not easily poison Brock even if they wanted to. Children are not generally left lying about for strangers to put food, drink or medicines into their mouths. Indeed, any poisoners would have to know the family schedule to even have a hope. (I have it! Jesse poisoned Brock!)

Walt could not possibly know he could talk Jesse around before Jesse blows him away. He knows perfectly well that Jesse fundamentally hates Fring as an evil man, something that Walt does not. Walt merely fears Gus and envies his power. If Walt had not been so grossly, mindlessly abusive, Jesse would never have been even tempted.

There's also a problem with Fring's motivation. He must know, at some level, that Jesse is his personal enemy in a way that Walt simply is not. There's no reason Fring couldn't have just kept Walt as a highly paid specialist employee, while playing a waiting game. If the cancer comes back, he finds another Gail. But to rely on Jesse? Jesse was good for throwing to the Mexicans. He never would have been a happy camper in the organization.

Incidentally, Zap2it did a slide show on anti-villains, but omitted Jesse Pinkman, one of the best current examples.
 
That video presents a pretty compelling theory, except it doesn't adequately cover how the poison was delivered to Brock and how Brock was induced into ingesting it. That's a big hole, in my opinion. I can believe Walt is responsible, but the logistics of getting the poison to Brock are missing. Saul is a dishonest shyster but we've seen no indications he's on-board with murder, and certainly not the murder of a child.
 
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