The Breaking Bad Final Eight Episodes Discussions

[guitarfool2002]

It's hard to get this going because it might act as a spoiler for those who haven't seen the latest episode, or are waiting to catch up on-demand or from a recording. But this show is coming to a close and the first of the final chapters is in the books.

Just some general first impressions.

The opening scene was compelling. Just like last season's opener at the diner, it sticks in your mind as we all try to figure out how it will tie in later. These flash-forwards are a neat trick, but they are also frustrating. That opener last season is still maddening because there has been no indication yet how it ties into anything, so it's a small and very well-done vignette until we learn more.

One scene went on too long and I don't know why they'd need to fill time with something so superfluous: That scene of Jesse's friends, stoned, talking about a Star Trek script. I didn't get it, still don't, perhaps someone can offer an opinion to help me place it in context. Because it feels like the equivalent of a long, extended blues guitar jam that starts with promise but just keeps going too long with no real purpose other than to flaunt some chops and fill space.

In between, there were some good scenes. Lydia is going to be a major hassle for Walt. You don't just "quit" when an international network has been set up and made operational (and profitable) for many diverse interests. And as the point-person, Lydia depending on Walt then seeing the quality of the product which helped her build Walt's products into an empire of unrivaled quality and profit slip into mediocrity in his absence will lead to some action of some kind. So Walt isn't free, he never can be, only his "Gus" and "Mike" are now somewhere in Eastern Europe.

So expect a showdown somewhere. The scenes with Lydia were a little underwhelming after the final two of last season where her scenes, including the "Crystal Blue Persuasion" musical montage, were among the more compelling from one of the newer characters. And why after running this operation under the noses of intense DEA and international scrutiny would she take a rental car to a car wash? Sloppy, sloppy work. But then again, as good as she was at setting up distribution, she was wearing two different shoes in one of her more absentminded moments last year.

The scenes in between, nothing really earthshattering, again on first impression. Some parts of the show seemed a bit slow, actually.

But the final scene, between Hank and Walt, was an absolute masterpiece of writing and acting. It had been building up, the tension in just the actors' faces leading up to the confrontation, the way there was a feeling that something would explode at any time was present and bubbling under...then it happened. And it was a highlight of the whole series, a series which has made individual scenes of extreme intensity one of its trademarks.

"Tread lightly", a brilliant conclusion so far. And maybe I imagined it, but when that was said I actually saw just that bit of fear in Hank's face which is what I think Walt was striving for all along.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Call me crazy, but I find myself rooting for Walt v Hank, who honestly has been an ass most of the show. That said, for some reason I really liked Mike...Jesse getting conformation that Walt killed him is going to be something.

[the professor]

yes that Star Trek scene was tedious, but let me be a little inventive here. Perhaps it related to the mythology for the illusion that it is possible to use technology to take your guts out, that is to eliminate something from your system, that is something that Jesse is incapable of doing because the guilt of his crimes is so powerful in his heart that it cannot be eliminated. So I will take the entire Star Trek reference as a trope on the notion that technology or any force in the universe can simply work to eliminate something that nature has created, that is the profound conscience and guilt that is eating away at Jesse's insides and destroying him from the inside out

[the professor]

the professor wants to substantiate his analysis by pointing out that in that Star Trek story the teller began with some obscure Barry from the Voyager series and then was compelled to change it to blueberries, a clear reference to the blue that is the product that our heroes have been making and selling

[guitarfool2002]

What the Professor said about Star Trek is a great take on that scene, just the kind of thing I was looking for. On the surface, it was rambling, hard to follow, sort of like a few writers flexing their chops like a Tarantino would do in his worst bouts of egotistical indulgence as a screenwriter obsessed with pop culture schlock (I'm Quentin Tarantino, I'll throw in a bunch of obscure 70's references and mask them as a conversation between two of my characters...). But this analysis, yes I can groove on that quite a bit.

I'm not sure I accept Jesse as the moral compass, as others have been suggesting. Jesse has been looking for several things throughout the series, one is a father figure and the other is for those authority figures around him to trust him with a level of responsibility and confidence in his abilities that he has lacked all along.

Mike gave him a taste of both, especially at times when Walt was asking him to be even more submissive and trusting to his authority and better judgement. Ultimately Walt only got a piece of that back through pure deception, like the Lily Of The Valley poisoning.

BUT...Jesse lied to Walt as well, and Walt caught him lying if not outright betraying his trust regarding Gus and the ricin.

And of all the revelations Jesse needs to discover about Walt, I hope a key element is how Jesse was perhaps blinded if not seduced by Mike giving him some trust and acting as a fatherly mentor.

Because who here does not think Mike would not have shot the boy on the dirt bike even sooner in order to protect the "business", had he been in a similar scenario?

I came to like Mike as well as his story unfolded, but the writers wrote that sympathy into the character over time. But we forgot that what Mike had to do for Gus to work his way into that role of "head of security" was perhaps on a level with Walt. Because similar to any mob or mafia scenario, the only guys who the boss would trust at their side, with their lives, were the ones who were willing to do anything to protect both them and "the business" at hand. And Mike was that person at one time in order to be an outsider who worked his way up to Gus' side in what was a brutal organization.

[guitarfool2002]

On the Hank v. Walt side, I agree, I never had much sympathy for Hank until that scene where he returns to his office and produces evidence at that table to his co-workers that just lays them out, and proves that Hank was legitimately onto something regarding Gus, and how the Pollos Hermanos napkin played a role in the whole deal.

And yet, just when the writers have you thinking Hank is indeed a good guy, there was Hank pulling strings to get his kleptomaniac wife out of a list of felony charges regarding stealing those goods at open house events.

So he's wearing the white hat, in a way, but he's not all that clean either. Who else could get someone out of a list of felony theft charges as he did? In it's own way, how is that morally any different from Walt starting to cook to leave his family a comfortable nest-egg after his death?

It's the classic anti-hero setup like "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", where you love and associate with Butch and Sundance while the guys in the white hats, the lawmen, the "good guys" in any other scenario, are the ones you hope do not catch up to our loveable heroes...who happen to be outlaws. But they're the ones being cheered on, just like Walt and Jesse.

[the professor]

g-fool, you are so right and are providing great analysis too, thank you. I just re-watched the episode, and it's Gus's show, this one; he comes into his own, and the epic nature of the confrontation between the 2 is raging. Gus has bluster, but he's a man of ultimate virtue. And who wouldn't get that super cute wife of his out of any trouble! I myself would bend the law for her. . . .

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Professor, I think you mean Hank. Gus was the heavy that Walt and Jesse worked under for a couple of seasons.

It's funny...Gus was made a bit sympathetic when his first partner (and implied lover) was murdered by Hector in the flashback. Yet, when Hector got his ultimate revenge with the bomb (ding!) he was the sympathetic character at that point.

I think Jesse's gone off the deep end...there's a bit of sadness regarding him and Walt on both sides...there is a bit of a father/song vibe to them, and it's sad knowing things are ending badly between them after all they've been through.

[alf wiedersehen]

I think that the Star Trek scenes were to give you an insight to where Jesse is at this point.

His decisions have led him to the point where he's stuck with two, perma-stoned morons who have nothing important to say. As the conversation goes on, you can see Jesse is completely bored with them. He has absolutely no interest in what they're talking about. His mind is filled with other things that are going on, like the disappearance of Mike, and the fate of Kaylee and Drew Sharp's family, for which he feels immense guilt, and these things keep him an outsider to the fun his friends are having. He is too burdened.

He seems to be in a depression, his clothing choices, his unkempt looks, and him lying under that table (reminded me of the Neil Young album.) He wants to get rid of the "blood money," he can't handle what goes along with it, what he's done to get it. He gets rid of it any way he can: trying to give it to Mike and Drew's family (some sort of compensation,) and ultimately giving it to a homeless man and throwing it out of the window like he was delivering papers.

An aside: you misspelled "Episodes" in the thread title.

[the professor]

yes yes, sorry: Hank, the DEA; I meant Hank. . .thanks!!!

Professor, I think you mean Hank. Gus was the heavy that Walt and Jesse worked under for a couple of seasons.

It's funny...Gus was made a bit sympathetic when his first partner (and implied lover) was murdered by Hector in the flashback. Yet, when Hector got his ultimate revenge with the bomb (ding!) he was the sympathetic character at that point.

I think Jesse's gone off the deep end...there's a bit of sadness regarding him and Walt on both sides...there is a bit of a father/song vibe to them, and it's sad knowing things are ending badly between them after all they've been through.

[guitarfool2002]

The thing with Jesse is that you can trace through the previous seasons those times when he has lived as we saw him in the most recent episode, in a drug-addled dirty squalor of a place, and which episodes we saw him trying to live what many would call a "normal" life. There were some where he'd be seen cleaning and repairing his house, all the druggies were gone, and he was trying to create a family, with him acting as the father for whatever woman and her child he was with at the time.

I think that's Jesse's main driving force, both good or bad. At the same time he wants to build that kind of image for himself as a father, he can't find a father of his own, yet the closest he came to that was seeing Mike as a mentor. But then, Walt being just a bit more perceptive and sly, Walt noticed this and basically had to get Jesse to turn on Gus, which meant turning on Mike too. And that is why Jesse still began to choke up last week when he asked Walt about Mike.

Again, though, what I don't think Jesse realizes is that Mike would have also shot the dirt-bike riding boy in the desert and that any number of things Walt has done are what Mike had probably done as part of Gus' crew. Yet Jesse because he saw Mike as that mentor who also had some trust in his abilities was blinded by that desire to have a real father figure and mentor that he was willing to forget just who Mike was and what he was involved with.

It's one of the morality plays that has developed and hopefully gets resolved, because ultimately as viewers we're being asked to see Jesse as the moral compass of sorts but he really is not. He got into something way above his head, and the reasons he trusted certain authority figures are the reasons why his living quarters change at various times from clean to squalor.

[Alex]

Summary: Malcolm's dad goes bald and cooks meth. 

[Rocky Raccoon]

Great op-ed by Anna Gunn in the New York Times today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?_r=2