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Breaking Bad Final Half Season

The Schwarz security thing that people keep bringing up is not really relevant. Walt never breached their security. Mrs Schwarz pressed like 20 numbers to shut off the house alarm - Walt was sitting outside in the shadows the entire time and never got in the house until they unlocked it and failed to reactivate the system. People do that all the time, because nobody ever thinks someone is waiting to break in until it's too late. Walt simply exploited their laziness. Nothing contrived about it.

No, but it was lucky that the Gretchen didn't lock the door behind her. And it was lucky that the Schwartzes' publicist or whatever didn't check back with the New York Times. And on and on. To me it undermined the Walt character a bit. Earlier on, he was shown to rely on his scientific and technical mastery to solve his problems, leaving nothing to chance, and even though he was terrible I had to respect that to a certain degree. But in the finale, he didn't so much engineer his big plan as just catch a string of lucky breaks.
 
Gilligan himself likes to believe Jesse "got away" and was able to start over...

That's good enough for me. Breaking Bad is his baby, and so if he says Jesse "got away" then I'll believe it, too. :techman:

On the last episode of Talking Bad, Jonathan Banks (Mike) said that he reckoned Jesse ended up looking after Brock. I kind if like that idea. Myself, I had previously thought that maybe he'd end up going through college and becoming a chemistry teacher, so his story and Walt's basically meet while going in opposite directions.

It's nice to think about, but there's absolutely no possible way that Jesse could ever look after Brock. By this time Brock is already in foster care. Jesse has no claim to him, not being any sort of family. Adoption is right out, since Jesse is a former drug addict with a criminal record.
 
It's nice to think about, but there's absolutely no possible way that Jesse could ever look after Brock. By this time Brock is already in foster care. Jesse has no claim to him, not being any sort of family. Adoption is right out, since Jesse is a former drug addict with a criminal record.
who'd almost certainly face prison time as the last living soul to have association with the infamous Heisenberg drug cartel,

Jesse Pinkman is dead. That's the last word from the photographic evidence on DEA ASAC Hank Schrader's personal phone

It's the only way Jesse remains free, by starting a new life as someone else, & cutting ties with anyone he ever knew. Maybe he can go work for Saul at his Cinnabon in Omaha

Whatever he does, low profile is key
 
I was routing for the Rambo option myself. At the very least, the gun shouldn't have taken out everyone and he'd have to do a little more shooting.
 
The Schwarz security thing that people keep bringing up is not really relevant. Walt never breached their security. Mrs Schwarz pressed like 20 numbers to shut off the house alarm - Walt was sitting outside in the shadows the entire time and never got in the house until they unlocked it and failed to reactivate the system. People do that all the time, because nobody ever thinks someone is waiting to break in until it's too late. Walt simply exploited their laziness. Nothing contrived about it.

No, but it was lucky that the Gretchen didn't lock the door behind her. And it was lucky that the Schwartzes' publicist or whatever didn't check back with the New York Times. And on and on. To me it undermined the Walt character a bit. Earlier on, he was shown to rely on his scientific and technical mastery to solve his problems, leaving nothing to chance, and even though he was terrible I had to respect that to a certain degree. But in the finale, he didn't so much engineer his big plan as just catch a string of lucky breaks.

I can't really gripe about the phone call he made. That's social engineering and it happens all the time. The key is to sound like you know what you're talking about. Most people will just take you at your word that you are who you say you are. This is how a lot of malicious hackers get access to facilities and data, by the way. ;)

That's good enough for me. Breaking Bad is his baby, and so if he says Jesse "got away" then I'll believe it, too. :techman:

On the last episode of Talking Bad, Jonathan Banks (Mike) said that he reckoned Jesse ended up looking after Brock. I kind if like that idea. Myself, I had previously thought that maybe he'd end up going through college and becoming a chemistry teacher, so his story and Walt's basically meet while going in opposite directions.

It's nice to think about, but there's absolutely no possible way that Jesse could ever look after Brock. By this time Brock is already in foster care. Jesse has no claim to him, not being any sort of family. Adoption is right out, since Jesse is a former drug addict with a criminal record.

Short of Andrea having left behind a will indicating she wanted Jesse to have Brock, yeah, Jesse's got no hope there.
 
They could always do a spin-off centered around Jesse Pinkman where he walks the earth, meets people, gets into adventures. You know, like Caine from "Kung Fu." :p
 
I think it was primarily to eliminate her as a threat to Walt's family.
Yes, I think from the moment Walt realized Lydia had sent goons to threaten Skyler and the kids, her life wasn't worth a plugged nickel, as they say.

Lydia was a target because Walt knew should would call for him to be hit. It was very calculated. This wasn't the first time that she had ordered underlings to do her dirty work of killing, so she wasn't exactly any kind of innocent person. Walt was just turning that on her, which I think she deserved.
I don't think the sequence of events supports any of this.

After giving the money to the Schwartz', Walt gets confirmation from Skinny P and Badger that blue meth is back on the streets and better than ever. Walt becomes incensed and says, Jessie.

Next morning he goes and poisons Lydia. Walt finds out about the visit to Skyler from Skylar AFTER he has already poisoned Lydia.

Gillian was quoted saying that Walt went to the Nazis to kill them and Jesse--for cooking blue meth thereby screwing with Walt's ego/legacy.

Unless someone can come up with some other "evidence", I can't see any reason for killing Lydia, other than A last attempt by Walt to protect his legacy.
 
Great finale. One minor nit I had was Walt's reveal to Lydia over the phone that she'd been poisoned with ricin- while obviously satisfying from a dramatic standpoint, it might have given her time to retaliate against Walt's family so I'm not sure it was a smart move. Overall though I really enjoyed the finale, and given that they only had an hour to wrap everything up I think they did a great job. I loved that Walt solved the problem of the nazis using a gadget. One more chance for him to use science.
 
I can't really gripe about the phone call he made. That's social engineering and it happens all the time. The key is to sound like you know what you're talking about. Most people will just take you at your word that you are who you say you are. This is how a lot of malicious hackers get access to facilities and data, by the way. ;)

Quite right, but my point is Walt couldn't engineer the situation to prevent her from making a call to the Times, he just had to hope she didn't. He couldn't engineer the situation so all the police between New Hampshire and New Mexico would miss a stolen car with a most-wanted fugitive and a likely destination, he just had to hope they did. And so on. Nothing "scientific" about it.

I don't think the sequence of events supports any of this.
[...]
Unless someone can come up with some other "evidence", I can't see any reason for killing Lydia, other than A last attempt by Walt to protect his legacy.

Walt made the deal for the M60 and and retrieved the ricin before talking to Skyler. He knew Lydia saw Skyler at the car wash. He knew Lydia had no problem with having people who were a threat to her killed, because that's what she wanted done to Mike's men. It seemed pretty clear to me that Walt's main objective was eliminating her and her gang allies as the number one threat to his family. Not that there wasn't an element of revenge involved, of course, but that was just a bonus.
 
I kind of have high hopes for Jesse, perhaps he overheard the Nazis talking about where they hid Walt's money
 
I think it was primarily to eliminate her as a threat to Walt's family.
Yes, I think from the moment Walt realized Lydia had sent goons to threaten Skyler and the kids, her life wasn't worth a plugged nickel, as they say.

Lydia was a target because Walt knew should would call for him to be hit. It was very calculated. This wasn't the first time that she had ordered underlings to do her dirty work of killing, so she wasn't exactly any kind of innocent person. Walt was just turning that on her, which I think she deserved.
I don't think the sequence of events supports any of this.

After giving the money to the Schwartz', Walt gets confirmation from Skinny P and Badger that blue meth is back on the streets and better than ever. Walt becomes incensed and says, Jessie.

Next morning he goes and poisons Lydia. Walt finds out about the visit to Skyler from Skylar AFTER he has already poisoned Lydia.

Gillian was quoted saying that Walt went to the Nazis to kill them and Jesse--for cooking blue meth thereby screwing with Walt's ego/legacy.

Unless someone can come up with some other "evidence", I can't see any reason for killing Lydia, other than A last attempt by Walt to protect his legacy.

I never said anything about the specific threat to Skyler by Todd having anything to do with it. If anything, that only reinforced that what he did was right.

Walt had it calculated in advance. He knew that Lydia was the kind of person who didn't hesitate to call on people to have her enemies eliminated. He knew that she would be after him the moment that he reintroduced himself in the coffee shop. He already knew that she might even be acting against his family because it was in her best interests because he knew how she acts. What he did was make the preemptive strike and he planned ahead like an elaborate game of chess. It might be a little bit too elaborate, but I think that's what they were going for was the mastermind angle.
 
I don't think the sequence of events supports any of this.
[...]
Unless someone can come up with some other "evidence", I can't see any reason for killing Lydia, other than A last attempt by Walt to protect his legacy.

Walt made the deal for the M60 and and retrieved the ricin before talking to Skyler. He knew Lydia saw Skyler at the car wash. He knew Lydia had no problem with having people who were a threat to her killed, because that's what she wanted done to Mike's men. It seemed pretty clear to me that Walt's main objective was eliminating her and her gang allies as the number one threat to his family. Not that there wasn't an element of revenge involved, of course, but that was just a bonus.
I agree with most of this but this is not how we saw it play out on screen. The question is; why did he kill Lydia, not, 'did he have good reason to kill her?'.

Walt poisoning Lydia comes on the heels of his emotional reaction to the news that his blue meth was being made and sold and it was just as good as Walt's. He thinks about this and utters "Jesse" with a certain amount of contempt. Had he also mentioned Lydia's name, I would not be questioning his motives for killing her. But he didn't.

Also, yes he knew Lydia had been to the car wash but it is a leap of speculative faith to say definitively that that was the reason, or even "a" reason for killing her -- at least based on what we actually saw on screen.

I guess my point on this issue is that the sequence of events and reactions to those events, have rendered Walt's reason(s) for killing Lydia, "vague" or "unclear".

We all know there are all kinds of good reasons for him killing Lydia, it's just that none of those reasons seemed to be portrayed on screen, with the exception of the ego/legacy argument -- and even this one doesn't quite make sense given what we saw.

I don't think there is another murder committe by Walt in the show's run where the reasons for the killing are not quite clear. I sure hope someone asks Vince about this.
 
What we got is better than all those ideas.
Agreed. I'm especially glad they didn't have Skyler kill herself. For all of her faults and neurosis, she is above all else a mother. She has done everything for the sake of her children and would continue to do so, and there's no way she would abandon her children in such a way, no matter how terrified and disgusted she was by Walt.
 
IMO the reason Walt killed Lydia was the writers didn't want any baddies surviving.
 
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