I also wondered about the dirt we saw go into one of the tanks. I didn't catch which it was.
Yeah, that, and water.They started pumping water into the top of the tanker after they'd drawn about 300 gallons of the methylamine from the bottom. Water is denser than methylamine (since they were adding 920 gallons of water to replace 1,000 gallons or methylamine), so the water should sink to the bottom. After they started adding water to the tanker, they were probably drawing a water-methylamine solution toward the end rather than pure methylamine.
This is what I thougt too. In terms of suspense and great dialogue, this episode was definitely top 5.
The opening foreshadow and ending scene were perhaps the greatest cinematic display in TV history. But I found it a little unfortunate we had to suspend some semblance of reality to get through the episode. Examples include:
- Walt somehow knowing that him crying to Hank would both get Hank to leave the room (somewhat believable) AND that he would shut the blinds (not nearly as believable).
- the bug coming in so clearly
- them knowing EXACTLY where the train would stop and the coincidence of that being the perfect distance from the road to line up with the bridge
- the random train whistles in the distance way before the train even gets to the road
Really not trying to complain but that episode definitely had the chance to be the best TV episode of any show ever.