3. The money he received from Gus has been filtered through the car wash. All of the sudden, the car wash starts reporting a HUGE loss of net sales and no one (i.e. the I.R.S.) is going to notice?
Skyler said the car wash was profitable on it's own, without the laundering.
I guess I can get why Walt might decide to go kingpin at this point if he was solo, but not why he'd risk endangering his kids yet.
His ego seems to be the overriding factor more and more with each episode.
Again, it's not his ego. He's just a criminal! Why do the mob open more and more businesses? Because they are the mob. Walt is a meth cook/supplier/dealer. That's what he is now.
Huh? His brilliance in his craft and ability to rule the market is what feeds his ego. Ego first, money second, "because he's a criminal" never.
Sure Walt has an ego. But that's not the point. The point is that when people ask "why doesn't he just go run a car wash", the simple answer is that he doesn't because he wants to be a criminal. Yes making money is a huge reason people engage in criminal activities.But at this point, he will kill, lie, manipulate, injure others and do anything possible to get his way.
Yes he wants money. Yes he has an ego. But the simple fact is that he is now just a bad guy. Bad guys do bad things. He used to debate what he was doing. He used to say he just wanted a certain amount of money and then he was out. Not anymore.
How about "he is a criminal because criminal behavior fulfills the desires of his ego"?I don't think anyone is really disagreeing here.
It's just that "criminal" describes the resulting behavior and "ego" describes a major factor contributing to that behavior.
"He's just a bad guy" really isn't a sufficient explanation of why he does what he does.
Yeah I think we are all dancing around the same basic issues. I guess I just see it as more of a function of him having turned into a "bad guy", which kind of is the entire point of the series.At the beginning he had "noble" reasons for doing what he was doing. His ego caused him to make massive mistakes and stay involved at times when he probably didn't have to. We've also seen his ego cause him to say stupid stuff when he really didn't need to.
I think the first four seasons were about Walt "breaking bad". This season, I'm of the opinion that he is now actually a BAD guy. He's has "broke bad" and now has fully embraced criminal activity regardless of the cost.
Is it ego? Sure, he wants to be what Gus was. (ie, the line "If Gus can do it we can do it")
Is it money? Sure, he still wants money and is now broke, although theoretically he could probably sell the business and get at least 500k.
There are plenty of people with MASSIVE ego problems, that don't go out and kill people and try and become criminal masterminds. So to say his ego is driving it is an oversimplification, in my opinion.
He's a bad guy with an ego problem and an insatiable desire to get money at any cost. It appears that the murder of Gus has completely finished his transition to "the dark side". He's now ready to engage in the criminal activities that he has gotten used to, and he doesn't even seem to try to rationalize it anymore.