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Breaking Bad Discussion II


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If you don't realize the damage Walt's actions have inflicted on everyone, you are missing the point of the show. The writers have gone out of their way to emphasize this idea (plane crash!).

I think that is a subtle theme of this season. Walt's actions hurt more than you see. One example is Mike's guys--some were working a simple security/bodyguard, never actually murdering or using meth, but they lost everything just the same due to Walt.

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Damn. Nice catch. I missed that.

I have not done a rewatch of this series at all, so I think that will be called for one day soon.

I remember on the IMDB forums last year, there was a guy that literally figured out almost every single aspect of Walt's plan just from that episode alone (including that Walt somehow used Lily of the Valley on Brock, and that Huell lifted the ricin from Jesse when he frisked him). I think the only major thing he missed was the whole Hector angle, which to be fair would be almost impossible to guess. Pretty damn impressive, really.

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I've always been sort of confused on the whole Walt poisoning Brock thing. They simply state that Brock was poisoned by the Lilly of the Valley plant he had by his pool, and that was that. Is any more explained? Like... how does Walt get the plant to Brock? Kids dont usually just eat plants laying around...

I agree that this is a weakness, but the fallout was so delicious that I forgave it.

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I agree that this is a weakness, but the fallout was so delicious that I forgave it.

I disagree on the weakness part, I fully expect complete flashback to exactly how Walt gave Brock the Lily of the Valley when it's time for Jesse to find out about it (something I'm also expecting) and this is all part of the plotting of the show.

I think the speculations that Jesse really hasn't broken up with Andrea or completely broken up with her plus the uncomfortable silence when Walt and Brock are left alone with each other on the couch is pointing to this.

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We see Saul giving candy to Brock once or twice during his visits to Andrea in S4, and then they mention it briefly in the first episode of S5, so it's implied that Saul somehow gave Brock the poison.

That's an interesting theory, but how does it square with Saul obviously not knowing that Brock would be poisoned? (Also, when did Saul leave town, in relation to Brock getting poisoned?) It would be odd for Saul to have given Brock some tainted candy or something at Walt's specific instructions without knowing what Walt was really asking him to do.

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I think Saul knew Brock would get sick, but had no idea just how seriously sick he would get.

I don't know. I think if Saul was the delivery mechanism, Walt would have brought that up and used it against him (in a "you knew what this was" kind of way) during their big confrontation.

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Yeah, I had thought that in this interview Vince Gilligan mentioned something about Saul being involved with the poisoning, but he actually implies the opposite:

And Walt was somehow able to get access to Brock, to give him the berries.

Yeah. That part's probably the trickiest part. I can't remember the specifics, but we worked it out in the writer's room. He technically had enough hours to do it. How he found his way over there unseen is probably a little improbable, perhaps, but not impossible, is the way we figured it.

So yeah, it seems like VG doesn't even really know exactly how the hell Walt was able to poison Brock. And they didn't seem to hint that Walt and Brock had ever met each other before when they were together a few episodes ago, or at least I didn't get that impression (but then Brock was acting a little strange, wasn't he?). Even so, what could have happened? Did Walt swear him to secrecy or something?

I don't know, it's definitely the fishiest part of the whole plan. I'd like to think that we'll get an explanation eventually, but they may try to just gloss it over unless it becomes important again, possibly in-relation to Jesse figuring it out as drawkcabi mentioned.

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Yeah, I had thought that in this interview Vince Gilligan mentioned something about Saul being involved with the poisoning, but he actually implies the opposite:

So yeah, it seems like VG doesn't even really know exactly how the hell Walt was able to poison Brock. And they didn't seem to hint that Walt and Brock had ever met each other before when they were together a few episodes ago, or at least I didn't get that impression (but then Brock was acting a little strange, wasn't he?). Even so, what could have happened? Did Walt swear him to secrecy or something?

I don't know, it's definitely the fishiest part of the whole plan. I'd like to think that we'll get an explanation eventually, but they may try to just gloss it over unless it becomes important again, possibly in-relation to Jesse figuring it out as drawkcabi mentioned.

I thought it was all hint that Brock and Walt had met before in that episode. Brock was acting like the kid whose uncle/step-father/whatever after doing something horrible says to him, "If you ever tell anybody what I did I'll kill your mother."

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I've noticed that a lot of people on other forums seems to think that Hank becoming ASAC will somehow hinder his ability to focus on catching "Heisenberg", but I had the opposite impression. It seemed to me that the writers were doing it so that now Hank can seriously throw everything he has into the case. Was there something that I missed, or is this mostly just speculation on other people's part? I was looking forward to Hank finally going all-out, and him being the new ASAC makes that all easier from my perspective. It would be kind of annoying if they just create another obstacle to delay his (obviously inevitable) discovery of Walt.

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Damn. Nice catch. I missed that.

I have not done a rewatch of this series at all, so I think that will be called for one day soon.

Yeah, that was a fairly obvious recall to the "Four Corners" episode where Skyler heads to the four corners and decides to leave it up to random chance where she'll run away to, only to not like the initial result and keep trying until she gets the result she wanted, which was to head back to New Mexico. Characters pretending to leave things up to fate only to consciously choose freewill.

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Okay so before E.5 let me give my quick comments on E4.

The writers basically admitted what we had all known for so long: they have no idea what they were doing with Skylar; they were writing her as they went along. Sky stated this as her defense: the reason she does not have a master plan is because most people do not go through life with a Master Plan. I thought this was the most realistic idea because its true: when things go bad in life most people do not plan 8 steps in advance like Walt and Gus (and to some degree Hank). Slylar is trapped because Skylar did not think this thing through. The writers basically turned their greatest weakness - Skylar's state of Mind- and made it a strength the only way they could: by telling the truth.

Sky has been acting irrational because she has no better option.

I thought they did as good a job as they could on this ( with one major exception: when Sky said, with a straight face- that as long as she lived in this house murder and drugs would not be spoken about so easily.. you know? Other than the last 8 months when that was exactly what they were doing?). I think Sky's run in with murder - Ted's duex-ex-machina - was made into a strength by showing that's where she drew her line (finally). I also think it shows that Walt, this whole time, REALLY DID empathize with Sky and DOES NOT want her to feel bad about what happened to Ted. Sky can't do it (though she feels fine about ripping off the original owner of the Car Wash, but whatever). Overall, I think Skylar finally came through when she said, "This is as far as I go."

Good episode.

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