Breaking Bad on AMC (1 Viewer)

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Someone is going to say it, so why not me. If Marie knew Walt was in town, why weren't there cops on all entrances of Skyler's apt?

The cops are after skyler so she wouldn't just invite them in like Marie. There was a car watching the house, but obviously Walt got there first.

 

[Psychopav]

Did he get the ricin to her? Missed that.

Put it in the Stevia. He knows her routine, remember?

I thought Todd handed her the stevia. Surely he didn't put it in every stevia packet. I'm trying to run interferende with my tree year old so I am missing a moment here and there.

She sits at the same table, every Tuesday at 10am. And there was only one packet of stevia

Love that the Stevia is like the only red herring in this whole series which wasn't. lol

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

At the risk of asking a dumb question, why did he leave his watch on the pay phone in the desert?

And was that the Rolex Jesse gave him for his birthday?

Yes it was. They discussed on Talking Bad.

 

[ang12]

At the risk of asking a dumb question, why did he leave his watch on the pay phone in the desert?

And was that the Rolex Jesse gave him for his birthday?

Gilligan said it was because he wasn't wearing it in Denny's when they originally shot the teaser. He imagined Walt took it off when he remembered that it came from Jesse.

 

[Raider Nation]

At the risk of asking a dumb question, why did he leave his watch on the pay phone in the desert?

And was that the Rolex Jesse gave him for his birthday?

Vince answered this on Talking Bad. Continuity with the way they shot the Denny's scene...and yes to Jessie's gift

Ahhh, thanks. Watching Pats/Falcons. Saved Talking Bad for later.

 

[Psychopav]

Jimmie Kimmel had a interesting point, what will this do to Stevia on the store shelfs?

Jimmy Kimmel line "I disagree" was awesome. The cast and I were both laughing well into the next question.

 

[BustedKnuckles]

Jimmie Kimmel had a interesting point, what will this do to Stevia on the store shelfs?

Jimmy Kimmel line "I disagree" was awesome. The cast and I were both laughing well into the next question.

the cast and YOU??? Explain please

 

[Jalapanose]

Epic Badfinger cut at the end. Was thinking ELO, but "Baby Blue" worked great.

Landing = stuck

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

I liked how Walt told Gretchen this was their chance to make things right.

 

[Psychopav]

Jimmie Kimmel had a interesting point, what will this do to Stevia on the store shelfs?

Jimmy Kimmel line "I disagree" was awesome. The cast and I were both laughing well into the next question.

the cast and YOU??? Explain please

They were on my TV, laughing in the background. I was on my couch doing the same. We were all laughing at that comment until well into the next question.

Is that confusing or something?

 

[Psychopav]

serious question here...I've never seen an episode of MASH...should I start now?

It's not in my top 10 but a lot of people do think it's up there. I thought it had brilliant moments but a lot of it was not funny or poignant. Then again, it ended when I was 12.

 

[Raider Nation]

Much to Tanner's delight... Sepinwall's final Breaking Bad review.

"I did it for me. I was good at it. And I was really — I was alive." -Walt

Moments after "Breaking Bad" concluded, Vince Gilligan joined Aaron Paul (and, of all people, Jimmy Kimmel) for the final installment of "Talking Bad," whose host Chris Hardwick was very pleased that Gilligan hadn't gone for an oblique ending that left viewers wondering what the hell had just happened. "The Sopranos" was cited, and that's the finale that's cast a shadow over everything that's come after, asking creators what kind of show they want to be making and fans what kind of show they want to be watching. Gilligan praised "The Sopranos" ending, but added, "this show needed the ending that was perfect for it. This show was intended all along to be very finite. It's a story that starts at A and ends at Z, as it were. It's a very closed-ended thing."

And we sure as hell got resolution in "Felina"(*). Short of finding out exactly why Don Eladio wasn't allowed to kill Gus (an old piece of business that wasn't going to be dealt with two years after the Chicken Man exploded) or what exactly went down between Walt, Gretchen and Elliott all those years ago (which could, in theory, have come up during Walt's visit to their new mansion), all our questions were answered, all our plot threads tied up neatly. Walt arranges to get the remaining cash (which he was able to collect from the cabin before the cops closed in) to Walter Jr. on his 18th birthday. He admits to Skyler what we've known for so long — that "family" was his excuse for doing something that made him feel happy and powerful — and arranges for both the discovery of Hank and Gomez's bodies and the end of Skyler's legal troubles. He poisons Lydia with the ricin, somehow sneaking it into one of her Stevia packets, and takes out Jack and the Nazis with the machine gun he bought from Jim Beaver (with some help from one last bit of improvised engineering). Jesse kills Todd and drives off into the night, and Walt dies from a stray bullet wound he caught during the massacre of the Nazis, but not before he gets to admire the chemistry set he helped design one last time.

(*) As pointed out on the Internet earlier in the week, the title can be read as the chemical symbols for iron, lithium and sodium (aka "blood, meth and tears") or as an anagram for "finale." It could also be referring to the Marty Robbins' song "El Paso," which plays in the tape deck of the stolen New Hampshire car, and which features a Mexican girl by the name.

Every move Walt makes works to perfection — even the unexpected discovery that Jesse is Jack's slave, rather than partner, and therefore needs to be saved. There is no ambiguity about what happened, and only some about what may happen down the road. (We assume, for instance, that Gretchen and Elliott will set up the trust for Flynn rather than risk the wrath of Walt's "hitmen," but we don't know what the kid will do with that money.)

I admire Gilligan's desire to dot every i and cross every t, and I adored many individual moments of the finale: the Badger/Skinny Pete punchline to the Gretchen/Elliott scene, Walt finally being honest about his motivations (and stroking a sleeping Holly's face while Skyler watched and cried), and the sheer visceral thrill of Jesse giving Todd the choking he deserved, to name just a few. This was cathartic, this was definitive, this was as gorgeously-acted as "Breaking Bad" has always been.

But was it ultimately too neat?

As Gilligan said, he had to make the ending that's right for his show. A hard cut to black in the middle of a confounding final scene that will be analyzed like the Zapruder film is not the way "Breaking Bad" should have wrapped up. This has always been a much more plot-driven and precise series. Each of the full seasons (not counting the strike-abbreviated first) concluded in a way that built on everything that came before, whether it was something planned from the start (the plane crash in season 2) or improvised later by the writers (Gus replacing the Cousins as season 3's big bad).

That being said, for all that "Breaking Bad" itself has been very orderly and precise, Walter White has not been. Walt is reckless. He doesn't think things through, and even when he does, his plans rarely go off without a hitch. He's always been scrambling, always improvising, always trying to deal with one unintended consequence in ways that lead to three or four more. Even when he accomplishes the seemingly impossible — blowing up Gus, or taking out all of Mike's guys in a two-minute window — he is helped enormously by both luck and by partners like Tio Hector and Uncle Jack.(**)

(**) So many important uncles in this show. Hector was Tuco's, Jack was Todd's, and of course Hank was Flynn and Holly's.

So for the finale to feature Walt largely operating solo (with the occasional small bit of help from Skinny Pete or Jim Beaver) and having everything work out as planned — with the sort of precision one might have expected from the watch Walt left behind at the gas station pay phone — didn't feel exactly like the kind of ending I might have expected from this show.

Of course, Gilligan has also talked in the past about the idea of a moral force in the "Breaking Bad" universe. When he and I discussed season 2's plane crash, he described it as "a rain of fire coming down around our protagonist's ears, sort of like the judgment of God." From that perspective, maybe Walt's sudden ability to settle all family business with minimal fuss isn't too much narrative economy, but rather the God of "Breaking Bad" deciding that after all the harm Walter White had caused to so many people, matters needed to be set right before he died, and he was the man to do it. Note that Walt — a man of science, not faith — prays when he sits in the snow-covered car in New Hampshire, desperate to get it started and escape the arriving cops; maybe once his actions were genuinely selfless and penitent, and once he was so close to death anyway, all his remaining prayers were answered.

I don't know. I'm going to be mulling over "Felina" for a while, and mulling over what, if anything, it has to say about this show's place in the larger pantheon. This last stretch of episodes has been so incredible that nothing short of epic failure at the very end would have knocked "Breaking Bad" off its perch. This was far from epic failure, and to a degree the previous three episodes were so messy and so devastating that the show practically earned the right for this vaguely happy ending. Walt defeats all his enemies, but dies in the process. Flynn may be getting $9.7 million (give or take taxes and legal fees), and Skyler may be avoiding prosecution, but I imagine both would rather have Hank alive, and their family intact. Jesse goes free, and for a moment seems genuinely happy as he roars down the open road, but he'll be carrying the physical and emotional scars of his association with Mr. White for the rest of his life.

Because of all that, "Felina" doesn't feel like a cheat, or a massive misstep, or an overreach. This is one of the greatest shows of my lifetime, and nothing in this concluding chapter changes that.

But it also felt so neat, and so orderly, in such an un-"Breaking Bad" sort of way, that I don't think I can give the show bonus points for its last episode in the same way that "The Shield" or "Six Feet Under" get extra credit for their finales. Most of this last half-season was astonishing, but I don't think Gilligan was just being self-effacing when he said "Ozymandias" was the best episode they ever made. That was, essentially, where the story of Walter White ended. These last two weeks have been an extended epilogue, the first half ("Granite State") gut-wrenching, the second half satisfying and tidy.

I understand why Hardwick, and so many of the people I follow on Twitter, were so pleased with the ending. In an era where the great dramas so often overreach, obfuscate or stumble in their conclusions, this was definitive. These were the final, unmistakable steps on the path Walter White put us on nearly six years ago.

But given everything that Walt had been through, and put us through, over these 62 episodes, I think I might have preferred the whole package be wrapped in a bow that wasn't so tight. "Granite State" suggested a world in which Heisenberg was dead and useless, but "Felina" brought him back to life, briefly more potent than ever before. It's a more cathartic, upbeat conclusion than if the series had ended with Walt getting into Robert Forster's van or living alone in that snowy cabin, but is it ultimately a more fitting one for this series?

Some other thoughts:

* I didn't put a clock on whether the episode actually had a bigger ad load than the last few, but by keeping ads out of the conclusion altogether, that meant that the opening acts had to start and stop very abruptly. Bills have to be paid, and I also appreciate Gilligan's desire to have the concluding moments uninterrupted, but it didn't play very smoothly — and I imagine was maddening for the people who caught up via Netflix (with no ads at all) and were watching live for the first time this season.

* In our brief revisits to the flashforwards from "Live Free Or Die" and "Blood Money," we unfortunately do not see Carol again, but Skyler and Marie spend an awful lot of time discussing her (and Marie's trouble distinguishing her from other neighbor Becky) on their phone call. I'll take it. That phone call also provides some closure to the Lambert sisters' relationship, as whatever schism there was earlier this summer is put aside so Marie can try to protect Skyler.

* Jesse's fantasy about making the perfect wood box, rather than being Todd's meth slave, was a callback to season 3's "Kafkaesque," where he tells Jere Burns and the rest of the 12-step group about a similar box he made in woodshop, then traded for an ounce of weed even though he loved it so much. Jesse was more marginal in this last episode than I would have liked, but that was a nice moment dwelling on his history before he later gets free, kills Todd and declines to kill Mr. White.

* Todd's ringtone for Walt was Thomas Dolby, and the one he has for Lydia is a version of "Lydia the Tattooed Lady."

* Elsewhere musically, we get the Marty Robbins song early, and we close with Badfinger's "Baby Blue," whose lyrics allude to both Walt's beloved meth and to a man who gets what he deserved.

 

[BustedKnuckles]

Jimmie Kimmel had a interesting point, what will this do to Stevia on the store shelfs?

Jimmy Kimmel line "I disagree" was awesome. The cast and I were both laughing well into the next question.

the cast and YOU??? Explain please

They were on my TV, laughing in the background. I was on my couch doing the same. We were all laughing at that comment until well into the next question.

Is that confusing or something?

no lol...i just thought you were part of the show ,the way you worded that...no offence

 

[Psychopav]

Jimmie Kimmel had a interesting point, what will this do to Stevia on the store shelfs?

Jimmy Kimmel line "I disagree" was awesome. The cast and I were both laughing well into the next question.

the cast and YOU??? Explain please

They were on my TV, laughing in the background. I was on my couch doing the same. We were all laughing at that comment until well into the next question.

Is that confusing or something?

no lol...i just thought you were part of the show ,the way you worded that...no offence

None taken. My point was that it was even funnier that the cast themselves go the joke and were as amused as I was. It's kind of like reading this thread. Vince Gilligan could post something in here and he'd get an "I disagree" almost immediately from some folks.

 

[timschochet]

What about Huell!!!!!

OK, that would have made a great epilogue. After the final credits, a shot of Huell sitting on the bed In the motel room, looking at his watch...

 

[Major]

A little sad the show has ended and mildly disappointed by the finale. I'm afraid it's all down hill from here b/c I'm doubtful any show will be able to touch the genius of Breaking Bad

 

[Zow]

And to think, Huell is still sitting in that hotel room...

 

[Zow]

I was a little disappointed. Too neat. Everything just wrapped up to perfectly. Throughout the show it was always expect the unexpected, i could have written this.

Jesus.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Anyone else thought Jesse was going to run over Walt at the end?

 

[Native]

The final head nod between Jesse and Walt was the signature moment of the entire show for me. Both, in their own way, nailed the scene. Each is finally able to move on. No one owes or demands anything from the other. After unimaginable loss and suffering, the slate is finally clean. Just perfect.

 

[Ned Ryerson]

Maybe I missed it , what does he have against Lydia?

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Ok maybe it is just me but I see Walt differently.

When talking with Skylar the only reason he said that"it was all for himself" was because he wanted Skylar to be able to let go. He still did what he set out to do for his family.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Maybe I missed it , what does he have against Lydia?

Lydia knows Skylar.

 

[Rohn Jambo]

Ok maybe it is just me but I see Walt differently.

When talking with Skylar the only reason he said that"it was all for himself" was because he wanted Skylar to be able to let go. He still did what he set out to do for his family.

Breaking Bad is like Fantacy Island for a guy with cancer.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

One ridiculous leap of faith each of the past two weeks:

- Last week, Walt conveniently sees Gretchen and Elliott on TV talking about him.

- This week, Jack feels compelled to produce Jesse from the dungeon to prove some point before killing Walt.

I'll allow it, but I don't feel good about it.

Thanks for the memories.

Don't forget Jesse putting things together minutes before he gets spirited off by the vacuum cleaner guy.

I can buy the Jack thing a lot easier. Jack's got pride, he obviously hates rats (and Jesse moreso) and is an old-fashioned, somewhat corny sort, I mean at that point (to his knowledge) it's not like the clock is running against him. He believes that he has complete control of the situation. It obviously didn't go down exactly like Walt thought, I'm sure he envisioned that his keys wouldn't be taken, at some point he'd hit the deck, and then the bullets would fly. In the end, he had to improvise (would they really take his keys?), perhaps the writers were squeezing out a bit more drama. But it wasn't a bad plan. Walt had to know it was a longshot, that there was a good chance it'd go completely sideways, but things came out his way this time, as they haven't been through most of the last season.

I pooh-pooh'ed the concept of "rooting" for some characters over others earlier in this thread, but I have to come clean: I felt a visceral thrill when Jesse strangled Todd.

The Holly scene was rough. The Flynn scene, too. Walt ambling about Gretchen and Elliot's home slowly was pretty hysterical.

It was a great ending to a great season to a great show. The ending was neat and tidy because the main protagonist attempted to wrap things up in a neat and tidy manner and by and large succeeded. He's a brilliant guy, after all.

How did he know where the Nazis were?

 

[Ghost Rider]

How did he know where the Nazis were?

He had been to their compound before. Hell, he was just there a few episodes ago when he asked them to kill Jesse.

 

[timschochet]

"Feeling a little under the weather, Lydia?"

 

[coyote5]

I shudder to ask this after the last go 'round about the White household locks, but how did the cops show up at the nazi compound? Are we just assuming the large volume of gun fire was reported? Or did I miss something, again.

I don't know why but I wanted Walt to apologize to Skyler and Jesse...

Amazing finale, Amazing series.

 

[Beerguzzler]

Sepinwall's review was pretty good, but he missed a glaring detail when he thinks the ending was too neat. That would be Walt ended up shooting himself. That seems to be far from neat. Granted he may have pulled the trigger himself later, but that doesn't scream "neat and tidy" to me.

 

[Ghost Rider]

Not sure if this has been pointed out, but the ending to this was just like the end of Crawl Space, with the camera panning up away from Walt's apparent lifeless body...only this time he really was dead.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

How did he know where the Nazis were?

He arranged a meeting after the talk with Lydia. They told him to come to hear his pitch but planned to take him out.

 

[Raider Nation]

OT: The season premiere of Homeland is starting on Showtime for those who missed it earlier tonight.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

How did he know where the Nazis were?

He had been to their compound before. Hell, he was just there a few episodes ago when he asked them to kill Jesse.

Durr, thanks.

 

[mad sweeney]

Kinda seemed like a "happy" ending, but not really. Nothing points to Flynn keeping the money. Maybe he buys the story, maybe not. I doubt Skyler gets off scot free. There's no Walt to prosecute, no knowledge that the Nazis did it even if that somehow exonerated Walt, they're not just going to let two DEA agents' deaths go unanswered. I'm not sure coordinates for grave info, especially if sisterly guilt demands that she reveal the location. She seems to have totally lost her coldness she had when telling Walt to kill Jesse, and in the early days of Walt's outing. So her holding out the location for total immunity may not fly with Marie tsking over her shoulder. Jesse's free but is probably wanted and penniless to boot, plus living with guilt over two g/fs and Gale. All of them are scarred for life. Even the Shwartzes are scarred, though you don't get that rich with too heavy a conscience. A lot like The Shield, their lives without joy are the punishments for their crimes. Jesse may've been better off dying with Walt.

This was a great finale. Well past the threshold needed to pick over nits, like keys in a visor or rigging an auto-machine gun (MacGuyver #####!" and setting up a false stevia packet. There's a few other issues that a lesser show would lead me to pick apart, but this was so satisfying an end to the best series all time IMO (still haven't finished Wire) that I don't care. Same thing happened with BSG, though that series was much inferior. The finale required ignoring some things, but I loved it enough to not care.

The best thing about this being the best show, and several recent shows being in the argument, means that the next best series ever is out there...

 

[mad sweeney]

OT: The season premiere of Homeland is starting on Showtime for those who missed it earlier tonight.

Nice heads up, thought it was next week. Eastbound and Down started tonight too. Flipped through other channels and all I caught before I flipped past was Kenny in his car calling some people in another car maggots, but with an f. Perfect snippet of that show.

 

[Ghost Rider]

How did he know where the Nazis were?

He had been to their compound before. Hell, he was just there a few episodes ago when he asked them to kill Jesse.

Durr, thanks.

heh, no problemo. So much happened with this show, it was easy to miss stuff.

And it makes me sad to say "happened," as that is past tense, and that means it is really over.

 

[mad sweeney]

With all of the off season speculation about Walt wearing a wire in last season's premiere, and all the other fan obsessionery, I have to think VG purposely had a Nazi die in a massage chair so it'd look like he was still breathing and some weirdos will run with it.

 

[Sarnoff]

"If wee gong that way you're going to need a bigger knife"

Seriously Colin, give up.

 

[tommyboy]

They aren't Nazis. They're Aryan Brotherhood.

 

[Daywalker]

I like how Walt's little bits of luck continued to the end. If he finds the car keys earlier he gets caught.

 

[Sarnoff]

Did he get the ricin to her? Missed that.

Put it in the Stevia. He knows her routine, remember?

I thought Todd handed her the stevia. Surely he didn't put it in every stevia packet. I'm trying to run interferende with my tree year old so I am missing a moment here and there.

She sits at the same table, every Tuesday at 10am. And there was only one packet of stevia

My only nitpick, and it's a minor one, is that Lydia sometimes sat at a different table. In the "Crystal Blue Persuasion" montage in Gliding Over All, she was in the row of tables one away from the window for one shot (the coffee cup 'match cut' with Skylar). The table she was at tonight was the "Mike" table, the one Todd sat at last episode, and she tried to sit at the next one with Mike (and he stopped her) and did sit there to talk back-to-back with Todd.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

I loved the ending of Lost. That show wasn't about the loose plotlines, or the science fiction elements; it was about the relationship between characters. For me, that ending was perfect. I didn't need to know what happened to this or that.

Breaking Bad, which overall is a much better show than Lost, was a much more straightforward plot: as Vince Gilligan just said, from A to Z. It's ending needed to wrap up all loose ends, and it did. It was also perfect.

The "relationships" on Lost were paper-y thin compared to Breaking Bad. Guy has a crush on girl, guy is mad at his dad, blah blah blah.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

A little pissed here. Walt is not friggin Batman, Superman, and Nostradamus combined.

First off, Lydia does not sit at that table every time. And a homeless-looking guy stealing all the Stevia from every other table for an hour is going to attract some attention. If they'd have been at one of the window tables like every other time, I'd be all in. But they weren't and I wasn't.

Not sure if that was my first WTF moment or if it was him going to see Skyler. Don't get me wrong, that was a beautiful scene in every way except for the fact that he should have never been able to get in or out! If friggin Marie knew he was in town, I'm pretty sure every federal officer with a badge knew he was in town. Gee, ya think more than two jabronies a block away might be involved here?

Not to mention all the variables he left in play when he went to Nazi-town. What if Mustache made him park where he said he wanted him to park? What if Beef just put the keys in his pocket? What if Jack had half a brain and just put a bullet in his head rather than trotting Jesse out? What if everyone actually ducked when the place started getting shot to pieces? Not sure about you, but me and other supercriminal Nazis can hit the floor in about half a second.

And finally, how did Walt have a shot through his midsection while he was lying on top of Jesse? He clearly tackled Jesse before he fired up the M-60, so where did that wound come from?

I was totally in, but for f##k's sake, there was way too much suspension of disbelief through most of it.

I'm happy with the way it ended, but decidedly NOT happy how we got there.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

A little pissed here. Walt is not friggin Batman, Superman, and Nostradamus combined.

First off, Lydia does not sit at that table every time. And a homeless-looking guy stealing all the Stevia from every other table for an hour is going to attract some attention. If they'd have been at one of the window tables like every other time, I'd be all in. But they weren't and I wasn't.

Not sure if that was my first WTF moment or if it was him going to see Skyler. Don't get me wrong, that was a beautiful scene in every way except for the fact that he should have never been able to get in or out! If friggin Marie knew he was in town, I'm pretty sure every federal officer with a badge knew he was in town. Gee, ya think more than two jabronies a block away might be involved here?

Not to mention all the variables he left in play when he went to Nazi-town. What if Mustache made him park where he said he wanted him to park? What if Beef just put the keys in his pocket? What if Jack had half a brain and just put a bullet in his head rather than trotting Jesse out? What if everyone actually ducked when the place started getting shot to pieces? Not sure about you, but me and other supercriminal Nazis can hit the floor in about half a second.

And finally, how did Walt have a shot through his midsection while he was lying on top of Jesse? He clearly tackled Jesse before he fired up the M-60, so where did that wound come from?

I was totally in, but for f##k's sake, there was way too much suspension of disbelief through most of it.

I'm happy with the way it ended, but decidedly NOT happy how we got there.

I think he was hit with a ricochet. That's very plausible, actually. As for the actual plan itself, I think he was really just hoping for the best, and he had to improvise in the end a little bit, not expecting that they'd take his keys. I thought at first he was going to lure them to the trunk to look at something, not shoot through the house. The tracers were a nice touch, though.

He got to Skyler via making crazy phone calls around town to (we assume) pull the cops on Skyler's house out of position.

Perhaps Walt looked around at 9:55, before Lydia showed up, found the most likely place they'd sit, and swapped the Stevia. Or maybe he sat there until right before 10, and then vacated.

How he's hanging out in a coffee shop in broad daylight is probably a more troublesome question.

ETA: Not saying that all of the logic here is bulletproof.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

Walt walking around in apparently very little pain after being shot in the gut is pretty strange also.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Watching again and the table is close to the windows but not right next to them like they've seemed to be in past episodes.

 

[Good Posting Judge]

How does this fairly large compound full of Neo-Nazis just go unmolested by law enforcement? Doesn't the FBI regularly keep tabs on these groups?

 

[Raider Nation]

There are many things which could be picked apart. It's a TV show.

 

[badmojo1006]

Watching again and the table is close to the windows but not right next to them like they've seemed to be in past episodes.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

And yeah, I got the distraction calls which I'm sure was Badger and Pete. But the odds on them pulling guys off the ex-wife? Zilch.

I'm the farthest thing from a nitpicker...I thoroughly enjoy sitting back and being taken along for the ride and being told a great story. But there were supercool scenes that I couldn't even appreciate because I was pissed about the last scene.

And what was the point of him pretending to be a reporter for the Times? No need for that at all...storywise, he already knew where Gretchen (hottie) and Elliot lived. What's the reason for that call?