Breaking Bad - Season 5

[davejames]

Great episode. I was wondering how the hell they would pull off the train heist, but the solution was actually pretty simple and ingenious. Although it does seem a bit far-fetched that the engineers wouldn't still have SOME way to contact someone anytime they have to stop the train. Or that the wouldn't see or hear anything going on in the back.

But oh well. The whole sequence was still intense as hell.

And wow, Walt is really pushing his luck with Hank. Not only by planting a couple of bugs (which you would think a suspicious cop like Hank would be on the lookout for), but talking about how much Skyler "hates" him and considers him a "bad influence" on the kids.

That, combined with Skyler's depressed and traumatized behavior around Walt, should be setting off alarm bells in Hank's head by now. Because her behavior isn't consistent at all with the story he's being told.

Not to mention the new cars and expensive watch Walt is buying himself...

 

[Harvey]

Hank is a good cop, but he has no reason to suspect his new office in the DEA's secured building would be bugged. One would expect the room to be locked, and the building to be well-guarded and monitored. He also has no reason to suspect Walter of any wrongdoing at this point (or, at least, is letting his personal feelings cloud his judgment). I give that element a pass.

I'm surprised this "season" is more than half-over at this point; it feels like it just began.

 

[davejames]

Hank is a good cop, but he has no reason to suspect his new office in the DEA's secured building would be bugged. One would expect the room to be locked, and the building to be well-guarded and monitored. He also has no reason to suspect Walter of any wrongdoing at this point (or, at least, is letting his personal feelings cloud his judgment). I give that element a pass.

I agree he has to reason to think Walt is the elusive "master cook" he's chasing after just yet, but he should still think something strange is going on with Walt.

Especially once Skyler started acting the way she has. Something clearly drove her to want to cheat, and to start acting all shaky and afraid all the time, and to want to get the kids out of the house so desperately.

Any halfway experienced cop would have to realize it was something the husband was doing.

 

[Harvey]

I'm sure if Walt was anyone other than his brother in law, Hank would be on to him, but his personal feelings are still clouding his judgment, I think. Plus, he bought the infidelity story.

 

[Jonas Grumby]

i spent he whole episode thinking that Todd was an undercover cop.

That's what I was thinking, too.

(Heh! There's a phone call I'd love to have listened in on. "Hey, Todd, how's your undercover investigation of that burglary ring going?" "Oh, Lieutenant, you're not gonna believe what I just stumbled onto!" )

But, like you said, by the end of the episode, I was pretty much disabused of that theory.

Does anyone else think the safest way to have handled the kid on the bike would have been to just pack up and walk away, maybe with some comment like, "Hey, kid, I bet you'd like to be a railroad repairman when you grow up to, eh? See ya around, sport!"? Even if the kid mentioned it to someone, it would have generated a lot less unwanted attention than a dead, or even just missing, child. I suspect even Mike would have called it that way. (At this point, I've no idea how Walt would have called it.)

 

[Temis the Vorta]

I expected the kid to die after seeing something he shouldn't, but I honestly thought it would be more baroque than him simply being shot, the way he tucked the glass jar with the tarantula onto the left side of his jacket. bad idea, on a dirt bike.

You fall the wrong way, maybe fleeing from some drug lord in the desert, the jar breaks, and a shard goes through your heart. That's a way to accomplish the same ends without needing to introduce a new character who is capable of shooting a kid.

Which was dumb anyway, Jonas Gumby up there has it right, the kid is too young to interpret what's going on, or report it as suspicious to any adults, as long as Walt and co play it cool. Now they had a missing kid in the area, his family probably lives nearby, and a body to dispose of.

They better make sure they don't leave any trace of their operations, because the authorities will be searching the desert for the kid, but oops how do you erase tire tracks from miles of sand? Albino Matt Damon has just blown it for everyone.

 

[stj]

You don't erase tracks from miles of sand, those are so many miles of decoy. You just clean the site, then drive the motorbike up the road and abandon it close to the highway, with a man's footprints leading away from it. I don't think Walt and Jesse could really get hydrofluoric acid in the quantities they have shown, but the show clearly says they can. What body? But you're right, it's not a nobrainer decision, and obviously Todd didn't think it through. I kind of think Walt might like blind obedience, though.

Strictly speaking Walt ordered Todd to kill any witnesses, but we are clearly meant to realize that Walt didn't mean it literally as he was speaking.

 

[MadOnion]

Regarding the wiretap: I'm surprised Walt wasn't worried about fingerprints. It's at least somewhat possible that the police chief's office is checked for bugs on a regular basis.

Fingerprints won't get you caught if yours aren't on record. I doubt Walt has ever had occasion to be fingerprinted and put into the FBI database. Would only be used as corroborating evidence if Walt was caught, and at that point bugging the office is the least of his worries.

I can see a scenario where Hank finds the bug and gets unidentified fingerprints, then later suspicions about Walt have him collecting Walt's fingerprints with the old fingerprints on the glass trick.

What I thought was great was the fact I totally forgot about the kid until he popped up in the last few seconds of the show. Lesser writers would have had an intermediate scene with his approaching the train during the robbery or something.

 

[davejames]

Which was dumb anyway, Jonas Gumby up there has it right, the kid is too young to interpret what's going on, or report it as suspicious to any adults, as long as Walt and co play it cool. Now they had a missing kid in the area, his family probably lives nearby, and a body to dispose of.

I don't know, the kid didn't look THAT young and clueless. Even if he didn't know exactly what the guys were up to, it certainly didn't look like any kind of "official train business". Especially with all the cheering they were doing, and the secretive way they went about it all.

Of course, it's doubtful he would have gone to the authorities anyway. Or that he would have been able to explain it well enough to make the cops care in the first place.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I took note of the train sound in the background as the kid rode away, so I knew he'd figure in somehow when the train was brought up later. I did forget about him briefly though during all the excitement.

I think the kid is old enough to know something was up if he saw it. Kids aren't stupid. Problem is, we don't know how much he saw. I think they could have let him go and not much would have come of the situation if he told someone. Not a lot of dots to connect.

 

[Mojochi]

In fact, I think there's a good chance Jesse becomes kingpin (and/or kills Walt) at the end of the show.

I've been saying that for at least an entire season now, except the kingpin part.

Jesse doesn't want to be a kingpin. Jesse doesn't even want anyone else to get killed at all. In fact, I'm beginning to think Jesse is only staying in this now, because he knows without him there will be a river of blood & violence to come from this endeavor. He isn't just coming up with good ideas. He's coming up with safe & clean, agreeable solutions, because he really has to, in order to avoid bloodshed. Mike & Walt don't care about bloodshed. They are cold & ruthless. Jesse is becoming good-hearted, or embracing that he always was, the Way Walt is embracing that he was always cold & cruel.

Jesse scrambled a great deal to save Lydia's neck, & he's intruded on more than one escalating confrontation between Mike & Walt. Sadly, the train scheme didn't work out well in that respect. Jesse grew a conscience way back when that drug dealing little boy got killed by Gus' guys & it's been surfacing more & more all this time

This new death will be crippling for him, & he'll have to notice Walt's lack of compassion over it, because deep down, Walt won't give one damn shit about that kid. This will be the turning point that will begin the journey of Jesse becoming the man who will end this all by killing Walt

Everyone's motives are coming into focus, & that's Jesse's, ending the bloodshed, & the bottom line is that all the bloodshed is a result of Walt's actions & choices, & Jesse already knows this... because he was the guy who said it, way back when he was brutally hospitalized by Hank

What a goddamned good epidsode. Best tv show on the air, & for me, Jesse has gone from being the most annoying character on tv, to perhaps the most interesting one on this whole show

 

[Trubinator]

I have to admit I'll be annoyed if they do something as cliched as having the apprentice kill the master. If Jesse were to shoot Walt, it would work thematically but everyone would see it coming a mile away. For Breaking Bad to truly end on a fantastic note, the ending not only needs to be satisfying ... but unpredictable.

 

[Mojochi]

I have to admit I'll be annoyed if they do something as cliched as having the apprentice kill the master. If Jesse were to shoot Walt, it would work thematically but everyone would see it coming a mile away. For Breaking Bad to truly end on a fantastic note, the ending not only needs to be satisfying ... but unpredictable.

I don't agree. We all knew that in order for Walt to keep breaking bad & go farther down that dark road, Gus had to die & Walt would be the guy to do it

And that's what happened. Was that predictable? I suppose so. Was it awesome? You bet your ass it was

Besides, Jesse was never Walt's apprentice. He is his foil, & he was his accomplice. In fact, Walt chose Jesse because Jesse had more experience in drug dealing. I actually hope it isn't as simple as a shootout though

 

[davejames]

This new death will be crippling for him, & he'll have to notice Walt's lack of compassion over it, because deep down, Walt won't give one damn shit about that kid. This will be the turning point that will begin the journey of Jesse becoming the man who will end this all by killing Walt

I don't think Walt is quite at the point where he won't care at ALL about the death of the boy, but he'll obviously be able to move on from it a lot faster than Jesse.

He'll be sad that the boy had to die, but also feel that it was a necessary evil that had to be done.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Unless his family lives in a trailer in the desert... That was a ten year old who was hours cycling speed away from civilization... His parents suck.

That was Kenny from Southpark.

 

[stj]

It's occurred to me that the first caper episode, with the magnet, started the chain of events that means they have to continue to get the money to stay free, or run, or get arrested. This second caper episode is what Mojochi said, the turning point in his relation to Walt. Walt will want to ditch Mike, Jesse will want to reign in Walt, the partnership is doomed.

But the modern version of morality says that its right for the strongest or the coolest or the baddest-assed to win and despises mawkish, namby pamby political correctness about right and wrong and triumph of good over evil. The only signs of hope I can see (I'm clutching at straws) is that Jesse thinking of the magnet and sneak robbing the train makes him cool enough to survive? Maybe when the Mexican cartels take note of the new production, since Jesse's the cook they know, he'll get a bad ass remake dealing with them? He did hold up his end in a desperate shoot out after all.

 

[Count Zero]

I liked how we were back to the whacky Walt and Jesse with their crazy plans show from the first 2 seasons with the train heist but then we got this dark turning point with the kid. I expected the train heist to go wrong somehow but my money was on Todd falling off the train when it starts to move and get killed. I do think this will weigh on Walt's conscience, too, not just Jesse's. Killing a child is something very different from killing (somewhat) bad guys (let's not forget that Gale was a meth cook, even though he was probably the most innocent of the bunch).

 

[Trubinator]

I also disagree with the interpretation of Walter that says he has always been a cold, ruthless killer at heart. For anyone who has paid attention to this series, he started out as a loving, honest person. It was only through circumstance that we began to see Walter go down a darker path. I think it would be fair to say that he always had the potential to be ruthless, but took his time actually getting there.

 

[Mojochi]

I also disagree with the interpretation of Walter that says he has always been a cold, ruthless killer at heart. For anyone who has paid attention to this series, he started out as a loving, honest person. It was only through circumstance that we began to see Walter go down a darker path. I think it would be fair to say that he always had the potential to be ruthless, but took his time actually getting there.

I don't dispute that, but the truth about Walt is that a man is never more true to the man he is at his core, than when he has nothing left to lose, & cancer put Walt right smack dab in the middle of that spot, & now we are seeing the man Walt is, whereas before, we were seeing the man Walt thought he was supposed to be. His is a story about how some men only live like they do because they have reasons to do so. Take them all away & they are someone completely different, capable of doing things we might never think them capable of. Walt is a flood gate, & maybe they opened it slowly, but there's no question that there was always a flood back there, & now the gate is gone

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Todd is a cold motherfucker.

Jesse really has been the clever one this season, always coming up with plans to save their skins without bloodshed.