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Breaking Bad - Final Season - SEASON 5 (Part II) Premieres Aug. 11

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Little known fact Dean Norris went to Harvard and was on his way to Wall Street when he took a U-turn and moved to LA.
 
just watched the last two episodes so i have been away from the thread. a couple thoughts

while there is certainly a decent amount of foreshadowing used, as well as the occasional flash forward episode lead in) there is plenty of stuff that is way over-thought (mike coughing comes to mind) so i think that something like the 52 on his birthday is a simple way to 1 - tease us about the situation on his 52nd b-day (potentially alone, fake id, big gun etc) and provide a time frame reference. it is really easy to forget the show has not covered 5 years but it more like 1 1/2 years in walt's life (2 plus when he buys the new hardware).

i am rather surprised anyone has read anything into the "go bag" pick-up choice as anything other than mike trying to protect jesse. i agree it's contrived that he would allow walt to pick it up since he sees walt for what he is and wants to distance himself but as others have said there are some things in tv/movies that you just suspend your disbelief and go with it. in a show so "real" those "not so realistic moments" just stand out more. but back to mike-jesse. mike certainly saw jesse as incompetent early on but during their road trip to pick up the stuff mike had cached all over he began to like the kid despite himself. after jesse took charge of the lab in mexico and then saved mike's life it seemed obvious to me there was a new respect for the kid and maybe even some affection for him. sepinwall did an interview after that episode with mike where he said that part of the melancholy of mike was that his granddaughter was his son's daughter and there was some unmentioned falling out with his son. the occasional woman you never really saw was the daughter in law. makes even more sense in that context that mike might feel some affection for jesse. walt felt, maybe even still feels at times, that affection due to the shared criminal activity and mentor relationship that the early days was. as walt's ego continued to explode he pushed him further away from "normal" relationships and he began to use people in whatever way he wanted.

i don't see todd attempting to push walt out and take over on his own. i do see todd's uncle attempting to push walt out and take over using todd.

i also agree there have been some short cuts taken this season (like someone mentioned showing more of jesse's life outside the criminal one). in the case of jesse i think they have tried to show just how depressed and upset he is with where he was in life so he had nothing left outside of work. in the larger picture they went from a 13 episode "season" to 8 episodes. they had to cut out some of the fat (that in a show like this is delicious) in order to get to the end.

that was way too long.
 
Billy Mitchell said:
Did Walt have the fancy watch on in the flash forward?
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He's wearing a long-sleeve jacket and it never shows the watch if it's there.


A few write-ups I've read (including the one linked above) suggest that Walt's cancer has come back and he's getting his final affairs in order by making things right with Jesse and claiming he's out of the meth business, but I'm not sure...

It all depends on if Walt's hair/beard in the flash forward is a result of his cancer still being in remission and he let it grow out to change his look or if it came back and he stopped with treatment...though him popping pills in the bathroom would make it seem otherwise.


What I think is that his cancer isn't back now, but it comes back so he resigns to one last standoff as opposed to fighting the cancer/continuing to run from Hank/etc.

Or something....I confuse myself quite frequently.
 
deaconson said:
just watched the last two episodes so i have been away from the thread. a couple thoughts

while there is certainly a decent amount of foreshadowing used, as well as the occasional flash forward episode lead in) there is plenty of stuff that is way over-thought (mike coughing comes to mind) so i think that something like the 52 on his birthday is a simple way to 1 - tease us about the situation on his 52nd b-day (potentially alone, fake id, big gun etc) and provide a time frame reference. it is really easy to forget the show has not covered 5 years but it more like 1 1/2 years in walt's life (2 plus when he buys the new hardware).

i am rather surprised anyone has read anything into the "go bag" pick-up choice as anything other than mike trying to protect jesse. i agree it's contrived that he would allow walt to pick it up since he sees walt for what he is and wants to distance himself but as others have said there are some things in tv/movies that you just suspend your disbelief and go with it. in a show so "real" those "not so realistic moments" just stand out more. but back to mike-jesse. mike certainly saw jesse as incompetent early on but during their road trip to pick up the stuff mike had cached all over he began to like the kid despite himself. after jesse took charge of the lab in mexico and then saved mike's life it seemed obvious to me there was a new respect for the kid and maybe even some affection for him. sepinwall did an interview after that episode with mike where he said that part of the melancholy of mike was that his granddaughter was his son's daughter and there was some unmentioned falling out with his son. the occasional woman you never really saw was the daughter in law. makes even more sense in that context that mike might feel some affection for jesse. walt felt, maybe even still feels at times, that affection due to the shared criminal activity and mentor relationship that the early days was. as walt's ego continued to explode he pushed him further away from "normal" relationships and he began to use people in whatever way he wanted.

i don't see todd attempting to push walt out and take over on his own. i do see todd's uncle attempting to push walt out and take over using todd.

i also agree there have been some short cuts taken this season (like someone mentioned showing more of jesse's life outside the criminal one). in the case of jesse i think they have tried to show just how depressed and upset he is with where he was in life so he had nothing left outside of work. in the larger picture they went from a 13 episode "season" to 8 episodes. they had to cut out some of the fat (that in a show like this is delicious) in order to get to the end.


that was way too long.
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Well technically this is being billed as the first half of the 5th season with the 2nd half also being 8 episodes....so instead of a 13 episode season shortened to 8 episodes it's a 13 episode season expanded to 16 and split in 2.....which just seems like bullshit to me...why call it a half season if they are going on the same 9 month hiatus?
 
DeaconSlim2.0 said:
Well technically this is being billed as the first half of the 5th season with the 2nd half also being 8 episodes....so instead of a 13 episode season shortened to 8 episodes it's a 13 episode season expanded to 16 and split in 2.....which just seems like bullshit to me...why call it a half season if they are going on the same 9 month hiatus?
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agree it's bs and likely has something to do with paying the actors. maybe they don't get a raise between "seasons" this way. at any rate, they still need an arc for the "half-season" if they prefer so they got their beginning-middle-ending. in order to get the arc they made you have to drop some of the normally very slow or deliberate pacing they have used in the past. it had some issues but, to me, was mostly effective.
 
For some reason, the more I think about this I do see a Sopranos-type ending for all this.

Hank and Walt facing off, one-on-one, in the desert, guns drawn and pointed at each other. Some dialog builds to a silent, tense moment... then a fade to black and a gunshot.
 
94Deac said:
For some reason, the more I think about this I do see a Sopranos-type ending for all this.

Hank and Walt facing off, one-on-one, in the desert, guns drawn and pointed at each other. Some dialog builds to a silent, tense moment... then a fade to black and a gunshot.
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Wouldn't really fit in with the history of the show... Gus's death comes to mind...

Plus nobody can ever do that again or it'll just be labeled a horrible rip-off.
 
A weak, Sopranos-style ending for BB would probably cause the internet to burst into flames.
 
DCDeac said:
Wouldn't really fit in with the history of the show... Gus's death comes to mind...

Plus nobody can ever do that again or it'll just be labeled a horrible rip-off.
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Well, Gus didn't die at the end of the series. I agree that it would be a let down and out of the apparent context but that sort of ending would leave the door open to future eps, should the principles desire.
 
Walt takes ricin and takes care of business before the time-release kicks in
 
The reason the book is out in the open is because when Walt moved back home, he was unpacking a box of books and saw Leaves of Grass. He paused, made a "hmmph" gesture and tossed it on the bedside table, while putting the rest of the books in a drawer or something. 2-3 episodes ago, whenever he moved home.
 
http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/breaking-bad-creator-vince-gilligan-on-poetry-books-time-jumps-and-the-end-for-walter-white

We have to start with the poetry book. First of all, I know we had seen the book before, but was this the first time we saw that it had that inscription from Gale?

Vince Gilligan: That's the first time we see it. We were very obtuse about it, in all honesty. Way back when, when Gale gave Walt the book, it is there, in that episode where Gale talks to Walt about Walt Whitman, he recites the poem, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," and the next scene we see after their first cook together is Walt reading that very book. To be honest, at the time we came up with that episode two seasons back, we were not thinking about that book playing in the very important way that it plays. But having said that, it seems to fit right in. It was always in our mind that that was a gift from Gale, so we figured why wouldn't he have written something like that?

But if Walt knows that the inscription is there, why would he leave it lying around in a house that he knows Hank visits all the time?

Vince Gilligan: Because Hank is not a poetry reader, I think. (laughs) I think this speaks a fair bit to Walt's increasing comfort level with living a life of crime. People get comfortable in their lives, and I think unfortunately for Walt, it's no different. I think it's a similar mindset to the Walt that keeps the plastic eyeball eyeball from the teddy bear, keeps it around and doesn't get rid of it. Clearly, it was a mistake on Walt's part to keep it around. But it was a matter of nostalgia.
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Milk and Cookies said:
The reason the book is out in the open is because when Walt moved back home, he was unpacking a box of books and saw Leaves of Grass. He paused, made a "hmmph" gesture and tossed it on the bedside table, while putting the rest of the books in a drawer or something. 2-3 episodes ago, whenever he moved home.
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that's when i saw it. thanks for reminding me. knew i had spotted it earlier.
 
deacphan said:
that's when i saw it. thanks for reminding me. knew i had spotted it earlier.
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They showed it after that as well. It was either in the finale or the episode right before (I just watched both back to back on DVR, so they are kind of bleeding together). Walt was doing his usual shower scene thing and he reached out of the shower and grabbed a towel off the rack right above where that book was. The camera lingered for a bit and it clearly was trying to show the book. At the time, I remember thinking "hmmm, that's strange. Wonder why they're making such an effort to show that book...guess that means something". But I had no idea what at the time obviously....I didn't know Gale signed it.
 
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