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Breaking Bad

Lark

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I had a lot of sympathy for his parents. I saw them as attempting, imperfectly, to establish boundaries with a son who has proven time and time and time again that he's a liar and a junkie and not someone who can be trusted. I understood why his dad was cold and wary, even when he saw Jesse cleaned up and drug free. It takes a lot of time to gain that trust back.

At the same time, it's important, when your loved one is an addict, to remain open-hearted even while you're establishing those boundaries. So I did still think that revenge scene was satisfying.

I agree with you about his parents, although having dealt with addicts like Jessie, there is a point anyone would reach where unless they are hard wired to be of service some how they will say, enough is enough as the parents did.

Sometimes parents hang on longer than siblings but everyone has a shut off point.
 

Lark

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Finished this show lately, liked it a lot.

One of the few TV shows which deserves all the hype about it. Exceeded my expectations, which were high enough to be honest, had just finished The Shield lately.
 

nos4a2

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It's also interesting to compare Hank vs Walt. I guess you remember "One Minute" (great episode!). Hank screws up bad at times, he's a tarnished hero, but when the chips are down, he doesn't hold himself above the law. Meanwhile, Walt might be more open-minded about some things, but when the chips are down, he will do what he has to in order to survive and/or avoid culpability. It's an important contrast that only deepens over time.

Walt is no hero. You’re set up to “understand” why he wouldn’t take “charity” from his friends, and you do, but if he was really thinking of his family (and not himself), he would have—obviously that would’ve been much better for them than bringing in vast sums of money that couldn’t be explained. And it’s ironic that an INTJ-ish character who plans and thinks ahead (in contrast to Jessie, right?) turns out to be clueless about what he was getting himself (and his family that he is supposedly doing all this for) into by becoming involved with the underworld.
 

Totenkindly

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Cracking up -- "Metastasis," the Spanish remake of Breaking Bad, is now on Netflix.

I watched most of Ozymandias and now the finale, just to compare.

The scariest part is how much the lead actually DOES look and act like Bryan Cranston, especially the bald version. It's nuts -- he's got that weird "mouth gaping / jaw jutting" thing that Cranston did by the end of the series. You only know it's not Cranston when you get a direct front shot, but there's a lot of stuff from the side and distance where you'd think it was him.

Unfortunately, the pacing is kind of too fast, they don't give the lines room to breathe really, and the acting is a bit over the top versus more nuanced. But otherwise it's like they just remade each scene straight from the original; there are a few line changes here and there. It's clear the actors watched the entire series, it's like watching Cosplay or something.

I laugh at some of the dialogue translations (it's all close-captioned). For example, the scene where Walter tells Jessie about Jane in Ozymandias:

Wait.
Remember that girl you had?
That you loved so much, Juana?
I watched her die, you know?
I was there the night she died.
I was standing there.
You were both completely wasted
until she began throwing up.
I saw her choking on her own barf and did nothing.
I could have saved her but I didn't.​

Sorry, I can't take the word "barf" seriously.

But a lot of it plays out just like the original. They did trade in the happier scene in the American version scene for the one where Jesse recognizes Walt has cancer (because his grandmother had cancer) way back, to kick off Ozymandias. Holly / Valentina is older too in this version. Other small things. But it's weird -- it's like watching the "BizarroWorld" version.
 

draon9

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I am with Walter White all the way, you know making meth, killing gus and called his wife a dog and using people for his gaib.
ALL HE IS STERIOOOOODS!
 

Totenkindly

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I am with Walter White all the way, you know making meth, killing gus and called his wife a dog and using people for his gaib.
ALL HE IS STERIOOOOODS!

I feel bad for Gus.
 

Totenkindly

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After rewatching Season 1 this weekend, I gotta say they really did a great job with Jesse.

he comes off as some kind of scatter-brain on the surface, but he's smart in an experiential (rather than bookish -- like Walt) way, and the show established this early. This also fits my experience with similar folks.

1. He's street-smart -- he knows how things work -- versus Walt who has speculative ideas about how things SHOULD work theoretically but often fails from the practical end of things. Like Walt committing them to making 4 pounds of meth a week, without realizing that the scrape method of buying OTC product via smurf army can't handle that bulk. Or not realizing how the distribution channels work at first.

2. He does suck at detached/abstracted knowledge. Like his test paper, where he just had to offer theoretical answers and Walt chewed him out in writing saying he wasn't applying himself. Well, the point is, what good is theory? It feels pointless and detached from reality. Relevance?

3. When he was talking to Badger, who saw all the equipment in the RV -- we see that despite Walt's demeaning attitude towards Jessie and treating him like an idiot, Jesse actually absorbed all the stuff Walt was throwing at him. Things actually stick in his head when he EXPERIENCES them, and he can be sharp with details that feel relevant to him.... even details that seem as dry as the names and purposes of all the different kinds of glassware that can be used to cook.

4. Jesse can be intuitive when he's had practical experience. he saw Walt without his shirt and immediately recognized him as going through cancer treatment, because his aunt had gone through similar treatments and since his aunt meant something to him, it stuck with him. He also remembered relevant details walt did not expect -- like when he told him he was at stage 3A without clarifying further... and Jesse could rattle off what that actually means. Even Walt seemed shocked, with his low opinion of Jesse's intellect. But Jesse is actually pretty smart.

5. Jesse is capable of taking great pride in his work -- like, how he had been slumming before Walt, then watched Walt work and saw the product, and Walt doesn't recognize how Jesse actually reveres him on some level as a teacher. When he's on his own, he can't get the same results, so he keeps throwing out his efforts for "not being good enough" to Badger's protests.

6. Jesse's kindness also comes out here. Like when his parents toss/demean him for having a joint in the house (they think they're practicing tough love) but we find out it's actually his younger brother's stash and Jesse takes the blame.

All in all, I'm glad the writers were open to evolving sense of character throughout the series, since Jesse was supposed to die in Season 1... but the character and Paul's performance were just great enough that it ends up becoming a core part of the series that lasts through the last moments of the series finale.


-----------

I think Skyler wasn't really understood by some people, or took a rap as the "interfering woman." I think her motives and expectations are openly telegraphed throughout the first season. She also evolves as a character in later seasons. Again, she's not an intuitive per se -- she needs to experience things in general in order to grow and change quickly.

It seems like they have fallen into a routine in their lives and their marriage, raising/caring for their son. Walt seemingly has slowly detached from himself over time, after he left Grey Matter. he likes teaching but it's a routine and he feels robbed on some level / he's disappointed in life because he feels he could have done more. In that gap Skyler has stepped in (although probably also contributing directly to the gap) because she's a doer and a decision-maker. She has a strong sense of her role in life as a wife and mother, she has ideas about how the family should work, and she makes everything function while Walt is mostly disengaged emotionally and distant. She's not hard to figure out. In the process of caring for her family and making life work for them, she has also become somewhat domineering (to manage everything) and feels powerful when she can make decisions to make things work properly. In the process, this has contributed to further emasculating Walt, even as he has also disengaged and thus somewhat emasculated himself.

The change his cancer brings to their family structure was always going to be a rough ride, because Walt needs to decide whether he's going to fight the cancer or quit -- and this is a microcosm for life itself, is he going to live or just give up control over his life? -- and so him taking back some power necessitates Skyler learning to trust and let go of the reins a bit. This could have been worked out, just as countless marriages have had to shift power in the relationship to deal with crises... except that Walt went from powerlessness to efficacy via becoming a drug cooker and later kingpin.... all in a very short time. (The series I think starts with him around 50? And the series ends two years later in story time?)

Skyler in any case can have that sanctimonious approach to situations and demands too much that they fall in alignment with her perspective. But that's simply another type of person. Her expansion in life will be based on making room for other people to have a voice, and she does try to do this as time passes. She just wants her family to stay together. She also responds in a way I recognize from life -- that kind of person who easily makes decisions and enjoys taking charge to set things in place, so to change their mind you often have to butt up against them / scrap, but once they realize you CARE about what they care about and that you are engaging and trying to find solutions, they will step back and make room and listen. They're intimidating on the surface but are more flexible than actually given credit for if they recognize you as sincerely caring as much as they do.

It's heartbreaking to see Walt on the family video for Holly welcoming her into the family, talk about he's waited for her a long time, and she'll always know that her family loves her. It's heartbreaking because his feelings towards her never change but the family situation does. How complicated and frustrating and painful and tragic.
 

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^ ugh you’re making me want to rewatch it!! What a show.
 

Totenkindly

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Okay, El Camino (2019).


Basically it's less a movie (a new plot to explore and resolve) and more an epilogue to Breaking Bad, tying up loose ends in the week or so following Breaking Bad. Kind of like a two-hour episode of Breaking Bad winding everything down.

That being said, it is totally on par with the Breaking Bad we know and love. It is also a movie that you won't get as much out of unless you've seen the series, because there's just a lot of cameos and/or flashback sequences with some really prominent characters as well as some minor characters that you might have not cared about either way who it's nice to see again + a few new characters that we never realized existed until flashbacks and current moments explore them. It will resonate a lot more if you are familiar with the show, especially because you can pretty much then even place the flashbacks into the proper place of the series sequence.

Aaron Paul picks this all up as if it didn't take six years to get here. Also, this movie is a big test of his ability and the character, because Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die in Season 1, did not because of Paul's chemistry with Cranston, and now we get to see if the character can work on his own without his counterpart to circle around like two black holes orbiting each other in a fatal dance. Short answer: Yes, he can.

SKinny Pete and Badger as just so great -- they're such loser by society's standards, and so head-addled, and yet they are some of the best hearts in the show. Skinny Pete almost made me cry a few times. (When they weren't making me laugh. I don't know who writes this shit, but this buddy-pair has got to be one of the consistently funniest couples I've seen in any movie/TV story.)

Todd is also even more chilling than we remember him from Breaking Bad -- he's the low-key reserved / soft-spoken "good kid" on the surface but pretty much just a total sociopath, with everything way understated but thus even more repulsive. Jesse Plemons just nails this character, and the nuance he adds to the performance while never letting his heart seem to skip a beat even during horrible stress moments just makes him even worse. We find out shit that should not be surprising in the least, except in the fact it leaves you wondering how a human being can be so disgustingly without any sort of conscience whatsoever.

Any other cameos are mentioned here:


The film also really establishes that Walter was wrong and Jesse didn't need him. He takes care of himself just fine despite some pretty close shaves, because he has the edginess he needs to survive, and yet he does not lose his heart and soul in the process. He's still Jesse, just older and wiser. He's grown up.
 

Totenkindly

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Started a rewatch (was only going to watch Season 1, but now am up to S3E3) after BCS finished. The writing/acting is just so tight and nuanced -- even the secondary characters are treated respectfully and are pretty human, a mix of positive and negative qualities.

For example, with Jesse's parents trying to figure out how to deal with his lackadaisical life directions + involvement in drugs. They're at the tail end of disappointment and it has left them jaded regarding how to view their son, they can't see past all of Jesse's mistakes. You can't really fault them for those feelings and getting lost in the situation, and yet they have dropped into a passive aggressive form of trying to control after feeling like all of their prior investment has been for naught. So they can't recognize when Jesse actually doesn't conform to their negative view, and it almost feels like a victory when Jesse gets his house back from them.

John De Lancie also has a beautiful turn as Jane's dad, trying to hope beyond hope, then being devastated beyond devastated, and eventually never being able to really recover. His whole life gets destroyed. De Lancie does play it so well; he's so lost in ABQ, even just trying to pick out a dress for his daughter. Heart-breaking stuff.

I think also you can't minimize the amount of destruction Walt has already caused, directly or indirectly. He might have a higher body count after Season 2 than otherwise in the series tbh. You've got Jane, Jane's dad, Combo and 167 people on two aircraft who are dead/destroyed through the chain of Walt's choices. (I'm not really tallying Tuco's crew or Tuco into that since they were on borrowed time regardless.) Plus all the still living whose lives have been messed up, the closer they are to Walt. Walt doesn't really actively take lives aside from what happens in Season 1, up to this point; but basically his choices to either not help someone who needs it, or pushing strategies that put others in harm's way, all of that contributes almost immediately to the devastation of others. And he just never seems to consciously deal with that.

I think the writing was also pretty great about letting the story write itself. Maybe sometimes the writers have to introduce new plot points and characters, but so much of the story is a natural reaction to prior plot points. (Like the Cousins coming to the USA to payback Walt for Tuco's end. This in turn drags Hank into it and becomes a major subplot that has ramifications through the end of the series.)

Season 3, Walt really begins gaslighting Skyler. It's kind of shameless how he basically backs her into a corner in order to win their conflict (in part using his kids against her) and then also talks about (as if he really believes it) "what a good conversation they had that morning" etc. It's really clear everything is good when he gets what he demands and it's not good when his wishes are not complied with. I think on first view I missed the nuance about Skyler's affair since I rarely have rewatched the first few episodes of Season 3 (I'm more familiar with the middle of the season and then the season finale) -- that while the possibilities were always there, it primarily was triggered as a conscious act when Walt moves back in and refuses to leave, so then this becomes a form of retaliation for Skyler to get some of the power back. Walt will not be able to fool himself into thinking everything is okay and they're just a happy family again, as he seems bent on doing. She might not be able to kick him out and she might not be able to get legal intervention, but she can drag his heart through the mud as her last effort -- it's highlighted by how she quietly tells him, then goes into hang out with Lewis and Flynn/WJr and acts as if everything is okay, leaving him to be the one to wallow in pain out in the kitchen.

But it's amazing how quickly Walt moves from passive to demanding control over everything. He begins abusing Jesse pretty quickly in Season 1, since Jesse has no power of him -- he lets his own anger and disdain come out directed at his partner. So did Walt really "Break Bad?" I don't think he broke bad in terms of his personality, his negative traits seem to have always been there; he broke bad in terms of what moral lines he allowed himself to cross and how he justified it. That is where we are watching him slowly crumble. But the personality of Dark Walt always existed, it just was smothered by Passive Walt.

Which leads to another interesting thing -- how Jesse attracts abuse in this series. Almost everyone abuses him in some way or tries to diminish/dismiss him. Walt is the obvious one, but it's not just him. Tuco immediately fixates on Jesse as a "weak" person and actively physically and emotionally abuses him almost with contempt, rather than abusing Walt because Walt is far more defiant and has on some level earned his respect. Jesse's parents treat him poorly; Hank is dismissive; Gus is dismissive; even Jane's dad is dismissive. The only people who really treat Jesse well are his three friends and Jane. Then of course there's that whole thing in Season 5b, where Jesse is literally abused and confined and used. It's really great and remarkable to see someone in "El Camino" who somehow stands up for himself, gets out of Dodge, and gets his life back.
 

Totenkindly

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So I watched Sunset + One Minute last night, two of the best episodes in the series and the first two that really encapsulate Hank's moral caliber.

The series consciously does set up Hank up as a counterpoint to Walt in both personality and character. He starts out brash and a bit buffoonish, but eventually becomes more nuanced as they figure out what they're trying to say with him and as Dean Norris drops more into the character.

Again, there are two levels here -- one, personality, the other morality. Hank is kind of brash, obnoxious, a bit racist, he can be judgmental and opinionated, obsessive, and stuck on his own importance. Walt is the reserved intellectual sort, Hank is the guy who likes to be in charge and the center of attention. He's not entirely likable in the series up to this point, although he generally means well and is trying to support his view of justice. He sometimes butts in where he's not wanted (like being a father figure to Walt Jr, although it's because he's more accessible to his nephew than Walt is). I can't say I particularly like Hank compared to other characters at times.

However, these episodes are Hank's moments to "break bad" and he rises to the challenge, unlike Walt.
  • When faced with the choice between his wife's well-being vs capturing the target of his obsession, Hank doesn't even think -- he immediately hops in his vehicle and speeds to the hospital. (When Walt had to choose between being at his daughter's birth or making the largest drug deal of his life, he chooses the latter and then lies about where he was.)
  • When Hank beats up Jesse in retaliation, he accepts what he did -- he calls for help, he meets with investigators, and after a day of soul searching, he owns up to what he did because he realizes it doesn't meet the standards he believes in. He knows it will probably cost him his job and financial independence, yet he refuses to take the easy route, even when Marie tries to rationalize it all for him and encourages him to compromise. (Walt does the opposite, the series is based on Walt's inability to admit the truth about his many bad moral choices.)
  • The long soliloquy by Hank to Marie, where he explains his own soul searching. Hank is not an introspective person, but it's clear this experience with his own obsession resulting in violence has finally made him face what he's become, he doesn't like who he has become, and he decides to take responsibility for it regardless of the cost. He puts his moral code above his own comfort or well-being. He is brutally honest with himself. Walt rarely does this, despite being naturally more reflective; he justifies all his choices, often with mischaracterizations if not downright lies, and typically seeks to escape the outcomes for his own bad choices at other people's expense.
It's such a great two episodes -- both in how Walt almost gets caught, manages to pull Hank off, Hank's response, and then his moral decision making.... leading to also his confrontation with the cousins.

I can't imagine how riveting this was when it was airing live, where you'd have to wait a week to find out what happened. Damn.
 

Totenkindly

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Why are they getting slammed?
Because they said the fact the cousins do not speak doesn't work at all and ruins Breaking Bad.

Literally every viewer who responds thinks they're full of shit. Considering I just watched all the cousins episodes with the last week and also saw them on BCS, I think they're full of shit as well. I think it makes them pretty terrifying, with their paucity of comments. It also is purposefully in contrast to their relative Tuco, who just couldn't STFU and was terrifying in terms of being a hothead; obviously they were supposed to counterpoint that, while still being terrifying. It makes them enigmatic and unreadable. We don't need to know them as complex characters, they are instead a very dire, very intimidating threat.

It's not clear why Screen Rant is taking this viewpoint a decade after the cousins aired, except they have a habit of making up things to write about that end up feeling like a high school term paper assignment where they're trying to fill a word quota / page posting quota.
 

The Cat

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Because they said the fact the cousins do not speak doesn't work at all and ruins Breaking Bad.

Literally every viewer who responds thinks they're full of shit. Considering I just watched all the cousins episodes with the last week and also saw them on BCS, I think they're full of shit as well. I think it makes them pretty terrifying, with their paucity of comments. It also is purposefully in contrast to their relative Tuco, who just couldn't STFU and was terrifying in terms of being a hothead; obviously they were supposed to counterpoint that, while still being terrifying. It makes them enigmatic and unreadable. We don't need to know them as complex characters, they are instead a very dire, very intimidating threat.

It's not clear why Screen Rant is taking this viewpoint a decade after the cousins aired, except they have a habit of making up things to write about that end up feeling like a high school term paper assignment where they're trying to fill a word quota / page posting quota.
Yeah, I thought it was a bit of a bad take myself. I thought it was fairly realistic that they didn't speak much. It's very on point with childhood abuse and the perhaps toxic stoicism of the expectation of being a man of few words. Even now, there are many books and articles that advise men to "Say little but say it well." TBPH I think complaints like the SG rant speaks to a certain expectation of pandering to an audience. A demand to be told that there is definitely only one "real" way to interpret the art. Even though if they got what they seemingly want they would still argue something was wrong. Like children who come up to your sand castle and start criticizing because sand is no sound foundation for a tiny castle on the the beach...

I like characters who don't speak with dialogue. I wonder if the author of the rant suspects that any words a character speaks must be true, since telling not showing seems to be their focus?
 

Totenkindly

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So I've been plodding through and just finished s5e3 (yeah, making pretty regular progress!) -- it's been a great rewatch especially coming off of BCS because I see Saul in a whole new light. I think Saul's first appearance is maybe the roughest in terms of his personality, the rest of the show he's been more in line with what was established in BCS and pretty consistent... and funny AF.

Revisiting, Jimmy actually was not exaggerating how much he influenced Walt & Jesse in BB. He's actually (as he suggested) the "third" silent partner in their business, aside from Mike becoming a de facto fourth in s4 and s5. He's pretty much with them every step of the way, providing advice, handling various tasks that enable them to move up and/or keep cooking, helping them find places to cook, getting money to the right people, and so on. It's pretty crazy HOW involved he is. He recognized them as a potential revenue source and milked it for all it was worth. he even sets them up with their final production run, with Vamanos Pest control and introduces them to Todd. I honestly had forgotten how involved her was. He even interacts with Skyler on multiple occasion and delivers money to Ted Beneke.

Also some great stuff between Hector and Gus, and how their mutual hated ends up destroying both. Gus had even won but refuses to walk away and is vulnerable only because he insists on being Hector's tormentor to the very end. "From hell's heart I stab at thee" -- a quote from another story, but pretty much summarizes their relationship. That is a hell of a final scene, with the ruins of the chair and a human leg in the middle of the floor.

I do have to say that Walt's a little shit. There's very few episodes where he is stable, and typically he's the weakest part of the organization. Jesse might be emotional but it's all kind of predictable and usually because he's wrestling with guilt or loss, and otherwise he's got a good grip on himself. He's also very loyal. Walt is only loyal to Walt, and unlike Jesse (who emotionally has issues because he empathizes too much with others), Walt is completely clueless or indifferent in the empathy department. It's been really hard watching his relationship with Skyler in Season 5 where she's obviously terrified of him and he either is oblivious to or purposefully ignoring the signs because he wants to view himself as a loving provider. When he touches her and kisses her neck, while she's quietly crying / can't breathe, it's cringey AF. And the constant lies and misdirection -- usually often using the truth but just twisting part of it, like when he misdirects Marie by telling her about Skyler's affair as if that is the main impetus for her recent breakdown -- he makes his wife look terrible and himself good to her own family, with his awful lies, even when he had another out (the "gambling" narrative).

The show really charts his descent pretty well in terms of him embracing his neurotic need for control and unsettling everything around him because he's so unstable. And once Gus is dead, he becomes insufferable in his self-confidence.

I think it's also very clear how, despite Hank having some personal and professional hang-ups and seeming like a joke in Season 1, he's actually pretty smart in how he pieces together Gus' identity, and staying on top of the investigation even wheneveryone else loses confidence in him. He also tries to be there for Walter at various times (despite it not being his strong suit), but is usually rebuffed by Walt.

There's that wonderful sequence in Season 4 where Walt talks about his uncle with Alzheimer's to his son, to say he never wants to be remembered in that kind of state, and then his son tells him what he would hate to remember is how his dad has been the whole past year -- someone who is distant and who he barely knows anymore. It's kind of heartbreaking and encapsulates the values of each.

Anyway, on rewatch, the series is so damned good. The writers room did a remarkable job brainstorming and pretty much letting the plot write itself as much as possible. (For example, Gus's things are confiscated. Gus was a control nut and took video footage of everything because Walt was so untrustworthy, and now the laptop is in storage. They use an industrial magnet to scramble it but in the process shatter a picture of Gus and Max, revealing a bank account cluster overseas. So solving one problem results in all of Mike's men losing their money, which now creates a new problem in terms of silencing them and/or paying them off appropriately. This takes up a good chunk of Season 5a. But this is pretty typical for this writer's room -- every problem they resolve, they use to instigate new problems that must then be overcome. It's really great work.)

Lydia could have been a throwaway character too but she's so deliciously neurotic and single-minded. Mostly toothless but potentially dangerous if she's skittish about something.
 

Totenkindly

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Been rewatching this on and off. I'm at the Season 2 finale now, although I have to steel myself to watch this.

They did such a great job with the creeping descent of Walt, but really it's just a testament to how the writers + the cast created real breathing people even out of a few characters like Hank and Marie who were originally more of comic relief in function. Everything functions very smoothly, all the cogs slowly turning, whether it's how Skylar ends up in bed with Ted, or how Walter keeps kind of moving back and forth on the needle while always moving slowly in a decline. You can see his humanity just trickling away overall like it is slowly dripping from a leak until he is eventually depleted. And then there are just moments like where he tells the other meth dealers to get off his turf in a home depot parking lot (he's an old frail guy, but he looks totally intimidating in his body language) or when he forces his son to drink vodka as a powerplay against Hank, where Walt is just mean and Hank is confused and not sure what to do.

I also want to yell at the screen any time a new character meets him -- "Run away! He kills what he touches! He's poison!" Like when he meets Gus, and Gus is correct in choose initially to stay away, and he will regret ever deciding to do business with Walt.

I think it's just remarkable that all the characters are relatable and capable of good, but they are also so flawed. This whole Jessie, Jane, and Walter triangle.

Jesse does deserve his share of the money and Walt isn't his caretaker and has no right to hold onto his share. Yet Walt is right that Jesse is impulsive and a junkie and not really dependable -- but we also know Jesse has a heart of gold and actually cares about other people. But this is how he can be weak -- drifting, unmotivated, path of easiest resistance, and hurting so bad much of the time that he just keeps drifting back into drugs to by some respite.

Jane is definitely giving Jesse some spine and fighting for him because he just is weak in some ways and especially against Walt -- and she does care about Jesse and is seemingly serious about being together (she throws away her sobriety for him and finds him attractive enough to risk everything for in the first place). I get the feeling she senses he has a good heart and he's also extremely honest, and this makes him vulnerable to people like Walter, and she has no problem being a total bitch in Jesse's defense. I think she feels good standing up for Jesse when he is unable to do so. But you can also see her eagerness on her face regarding all that money. She wouldn't steal it from Jesse, but she's kind of enamored by it -- and it's scary how convincingly she can play the audience and her father, then turn right around when her dad leaves and be completely cold and indifferent again. How much of what Jane shows is real and how much is something she can just turn on and off?

We also are seeing Walt swerving between being a loving father/husband and being a complete dick, and here you can tell he actually does care about Jesse on some level, but it's also infested with wanting to be in control of Jesse, alternating fathering him and otherwise bullying him when he needs a punching bag or when Jesse doesn't do things Walt's ways. It's terrible how he blames Jesse for him missing his daughter's birth, when it was Walt's conscious choice.

I think one thing I really love about Jane and Walt is that Jane is totally impervious to Walt's lying words. Walt always tries to talk his way through until the other side gives in even if just to shut him UP. His words don't affect Jane one iota though. She totally disregards him. She knows exactly what he's terrified of and how to punch his buttons, and when he tries to talk to Jesse because he's targeting him as the vulnerable one (since he got nowhere with Jane), Jane just slams the door in his face, cutting him off. Walt must feel totally humiliated by her disregards and indifference towards him. It's kind of a come-uppance.

I think the flaws in Jesse and Jane is just that they actually still have the same temptations as junkies -- they could have not shot up that night, they could have just disappeared with the money, to get a head start on Jane's dad, but they are flawed and just can't resist. It's just really sad. In fact, I felt really uncomfortable and sad when they switch from light drugs to shoot up heroin because Jesse cannot deal with Combo's death. It's really hard to watch because you know it's a dark step down a path they can't easily come back from -- sad, disturbing, and there's nothing the viewer can do to stop them. So much in this season feels like tragedy slow-approaching, especially if you've already seen the entire show. It's an inevitable spiral to doom.

Which again is where Walt is at with the end of this episode. What happens to Jane happens indirectly because of him, but then directly because he chooses to not intervene. It's ugly and disappointing and sad and horrific -- and the tears in his eyes reveal his conscious knowledge that he's losing his humanity and yet he's only weeping for himself (selfishly); he's not really weeping for Jane because he sees her as an obstacle that gets in his way of controlling Jesse and being in charge. She's an opponent and a threat, and he decides to remove it.... just to turn around and go home and play loving father.

.... but I guess my main point is even more with these secondary characters, who are so good in some ways and so flawed in others... something that continued when this crew did BCS.

John de Lancie also deserves a real callout for his work here. Only in a few episodes, but he's great as the father who is trying to save his daughter and just veering between guilt, recrimination, support, doting love and adoration, rage, you name it. he feels so fully realized with so few episodes that he is in. (If you have only seen him as Q in STTNG, this is eye-opening to his level of talent.) And it's so much worse that he and Walt talk in the bar and don't even realize who each other are or how one of them will change the course of the other one's life forever. I don't think I can watch the finale tonight in part because of Jessie's grief but also the hollow emptiness of de Lancie's eyes, it just kind of haunts you.
 
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