What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Breaking Bad on AMC (15 Viewers)

Walt knows that Hank and Marie know that Sky is depressed and suicidal.

Who is more of an expert at killing people without leaving much of a trace? The ricin is back in play.

 
"He changed his mind about me, Skyler. And so will you." -Walt

"Breaking Bad" the series began as Walter White was turning 50, and this season began with him turning 52. There's still a birthday in between, and "Fifty-One" uses that occasion to look back over the past year in show time (which, in a meta touch, feels longer than that to Marie) and see who Walter White used to be, what he's been through, and what he's become.

Or maybe a better way to put that is that we reflect back on Walter White's 50th birthday as Heisenberg celebrates his 51st.

Walt used to wear the Heisenberg hat as a disguise, only donning it in his work life. When he finds it inside the repaired Aztek (which he wrecked trying to keep Hank from getting to Gus's distribution center), he dons it not as a disguise, but an accessory. Walter White is now a man who would wear this hat in broad daylight, in front of his son, his trusted mechanic Benny, or anyone who knows his true identity. Walter White drove an Aztek; Heisenberg drives a sports car.

"Fifty-One" doesn't bother with flashbacks, but there are enough visual and dialogue references to past events — to the hat, the car, the huge surprise party Walt didn't want (as compared to the tiny birthday dinner that disappoints him here), his early struggles with cancer — to make us very aware of his journey, and how close we are in real time (if not show time, which has a year to go before Walt has a machine gun) to the end of it.

Now he's a man convinced he can control everyone in his life, whether it's Jesse, Mike or Skyler. He boasts to Skyler that his new watch came from a man who once wanted him dead, and now considers him a friend. What he omits is the way he manipulated and hustled Jesse into feeling both emotions, where Skyler has arrived at her fear and hatred of her husband with her eyes wide open.

At that dinner party on the back patio, Walt launches into a mesmerizing, uncomfortable speech to rival the one he gave at the school assembly in the season 3 premiere, talking about all the times he thought he was done for, "But then someone, or something, would come through for me." Marie and Hank think he's talking about the cancer; Skyler and the audience know Walt's thinking back on his many brushes with death, from Krazy-8 to Tuco to the Cousins to Gus. That others — Hank in particular, since he got PTSD after shooting Tuco, and was nearly murdered by the Cousins — suffered greatly in the process of rescuing him doesn't even occur to Walt as he keeps talking and talking and talking...

... until Marie notices what he can't — because his back is literally turned to the action, but also because he's deluded himself about the effect his actions are having on his wife — and he has to dive into the pool to pull Skyler out of it.

Skyler in the pool is among the most beautiful and yet horrifying images the show has ever presented us with. You don't think she's going to drown, but as her skirt billows and the light from above the water puts a halo around her, she looks far more at peace down there than she has up above in quite some time. And she floats there serenely until Walt pops into frame for a few brief seconds before the scene ends — in much the same way that Spielberg used the shark in "Jaws." Skyler is not without guilt in this situation, which she readily admits to Walt in a later scene, but her husband is the monster she's trying to escape, and it makes sense that he would be filmed in that way, even for a few seconds.

And that later discussion not only illustrates the dark place the White marriage is in now, but evokes many earlier scenes in the series, where Walt would tear apart some thin plan Jesse had proposed, like buying a gun to kill Tuco. But there is, unsurprisingly, a nastiness to Walt's cross-examination of Skyler that was only sometimes there when he'd do the same to Jesse. After all, Skyler has threatened to separate Walt from his children, and Walt is convinced in his mind that they are in no danger because of him. So he attacks and attacks and attacks, until finally Skyler reveals her ultimate plan is simply to wait.

Wait for what?

"For the cancer to come back."

That's how far gone this all is: Skyler's only real escape from this comes as a result of her husband dying a brutal, if natural, death.

And the thing is, we have evidence that her prediction isn't far off the mark. The 52-year-old Walt is coughing, and he's taking pills of some kind. It could be misdirection, but we all, sadly, know how cancer works, and how rare it is for someone with an advanced kind like Walt's to stay in remission forever.

To celebrate the birthday, Jesse buys his partner a very nice wristwatch, an old-school gift for an old-school man. At episode's end, Walt places the watch on his nightstand and we listen to it tick-tick-ticking, sounding very much like the timebomb Mike suggested Walt was a few episodes ago, but also counting down the time Walt has between this moment of control and hubris and celebration to that day when he'll be sitting in a Denny's, waiting for Jim Beaver to give him a machine gun.

Fantastic, fantastic episode.

Some other thoughts:

* Hank takes the promotion to run the Albuquerque field office, because he knows he should, but he clearly doesn't want it. Over/under on how many episodes before he starts clashing with Gomez or whoever is placed in charge of the Fring investigation?

* Oh, Lydia. So crazy. So, so crazy, with her mismatched shoes, her screaming into pillows and her transparent attempt to scare Mike and Jesse away from using her to get the methylamine. Mike's insistence that the other two are being sexist by dismissing Lydia as simply nervous is an interesting one, if only because "Breaking Bad" has a spotty track record when it comes to introducing female characters. (Skyler in particular still has an uphill battle with many viewers based on how she was portrayed in the series' early days.) Mike's argument that the others are judging Lydia based on her sex suggests at least an awareness of assumptions about gender, but as we have yet to see her as anything but twitchy and panicked, it's hard to say what else is there.

* The opening scene at the garage also brought back echoes of the season-opening flash-forward, with Benny the mechanic echoing the Denny's waitress by saying, "Nothing beats free." Coincidence, or foreshadowing some sort of decision that involves turning down something that comes for free?

* This episode the most quintessential (and funny) Walter Jr. moment in quite some time, as he looks understandably dismayed when Skyler takes the bacon off his plate and puts it on Walt's. Doesn't Skyler understand that eating breakfast is Walter Jr.'s whole bit? Take away the bacon, and what does he have?

* That shot of the river of blood flowing down Walt's head after he nicked himself shaving it evoked, intentionally or not, the "Dexter" opening credits.
Click to expand...
 
I thought the watch symbolism at the end was a little over the top, but great acting this episode.

This season feels a lot slower than season 4. Don't think I'll get the full effect until the DVD comes out.

 
I think it's the best season yet. Every episode has been stellar and has moved the plot along. Even without fireworks, we have come a long way in a reasonably short amount of time (4 episodes). There are new characters who have importance and new depth to some old ones like Marie and junior. The fact that we know the/an end point with the machine gun makes it even more tense.

 
I think the ticking watch signifies that things are about to explode in the Walter White world. Season 4 built a tension that released in an incredible second half to the season. In four episodes, they've built the tension back to a boiling point in White's house.

Killing Fring released so much tension that you almost felt the show could end. Now things are on the edge again, only this time White thinks he's in control.

He's one confrontation away from the inevitable showdown with Mike, and it seems obvious that Skyler is going down.

While he thought he could control his marriage, he has to realize now that the marriage cannot be fixed.

Things are about to hit the fan.

 
'shader said:
I think the ticking watch signifies that things are about to explode in the Walter White world.
Click to expand...
The very last tic of the watch when they fade to black isn't a tic... it's either a gun cocking or a light switch.I played it several times and still can't say for sure.
 
Brilliant episode. And definitely Anna Gunn's submission for an acting Emmy next year. At least of those we've seen so far. That's the best scene I've seen her do.

Marie and the purple thing is killing me.

 
Liked the look of restraint on Mike's face after Jesse gave him a little shove. His fondness for Jesse or his love for his granddaughter will be his downfall.

With all the speculation of what will happen to Walt, I'm most curious to see what happens to Mike and Jesse.

 
'Apple Jack said:
Brilliant episode. And definitely Anna Gunn's submission for an acting Emmy next year. At least of those we've seen so far. That's the best scene I've seen her do.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Way too much complaining about her. What can she do as an actress to make people like her? What can her character do? Her behavior right now is exactly in line with reality. This isn't something that just happened over night. She hates Walt, she hates herself, all she can think about is what could happen to her kids, and rightly so.
 
'tommyboy said:
'Raider Nation said:
'shader said:
I think the ticking watch signifies that things are about to explode in the Walter White world.
Click to expand...
The very last tic of the watch when they fade to black isn't a tic... it's either a gun cocking or a light switch.I played it several times and still can't say for sure.
Click to expand...
Thought it was a camera shutter
Click to expand...
I thought it was the minute hand. If the minute hand ticks, there will be one tick each second for 59 seconds, and then two ticks each minute on the minute.
 
So Walt had to say they need Lydia alive until a new supplier is gone, then she can be done away with. Same as Gus told the cartel about Walt. Walt probably also likes that she bugs Mike so much. May even see an advantage there.

Hank taking that job is awesome. It gets him off Walt's case for a bit which was needed or he'd be all over them in an episode or two and that revelation has to wait longer than that. Gomez dismissed Lydia right away and now Hank won't be there to directly put the heat on her like he would have without the promotion.

I didn't like the "for the cancer to come back line". Would have been better if she threw threw something else in there. Like "cancer, or another Fring, some other partner.. anything" She is obviously frightened for the right reasons, and it isn;t cancer. Walt always thought of himself safe. Until he wasn't. Then it is panic. He's gotten out of it before with a lot of luck, some skill, and a lot of luck. Then the ego builds even more. He is being pretty naive to think "it's smooth sailing from here" and that was Skyler's chance to tell him.

Buying those cars was arrogant. Now he is naive and arrogant. That hasn't worked out well for him in the past. :popcorn:

 
Walt exterminates his house with Skylar still in it. Then cooks meth in the living room while her body lays on the kitchen floor.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Ministry of Pain
The Tourist on Netflix
Replies
2
Views
233
CGRdrJoe
CGRdrJoe
SwampDawg
Open Mic on Sirius XM Fantasy Show
Replies
2
Views
1K
nightmare
nightmare
JAA
Has anyone spoke to their kids varsity sports coach? How did it go?
2
Replies
56
Views
2K
cheese
cheese

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 16 (members: 0, guests: 16)
Top