Early on I thought Walter White was bad ass but as I watched more I realized that the man is a coward with too much pride. All that shit with Gus? Like Mike said, "we all had a good thing going until YOU fucked it up."
Walt couldn't stand that Gus was making so much money from his product. What Walt didn't realize is that a good portion of that money goes into keeping the distribution system working. Even when it was just him and Jessie he expected Jessie to handle all the hard distribution shit AND assist in the lab.
Walter's pride also got in the way when Hank thought he had found the super chemist. Walt couldn't stand someone else getting the credit for his work. He was in the clear at that point yet he made himself a target because of his pride.
Y'know, it's been too long since I watched it for me to remember exactly. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I never really liked or rooted for Walt(and maybe that's why it took me so long to get into BrBa when I first started trying to watch it), so maybe it's not. Rejecting that job out of pride is probably the first time you really get a concrete reason to say Walt is a dick I guess, though.
That goddamn shootout bothered me though. The whole show is one wild contrivance after another, from blue meth to the gun-toting Aryans who want it. The impressive part is how the writers play their contrivances off. The shootout was a great idea that they failed play off. It ended up looking like a procedural with too much money. I expect more and it dulled the tension.
Except he's totally imaginary and only comes out when Walt has weaseled his way into a temporarily auspicious circumstance, before getting his ass handed to him again. Gus was a badass. Heisenberg is a fake.
To be a badass, in my opinion, requires self esteem, not ego. Walt's got a lot of the latter but none of the former. There's a distinction. He's intellectually dishonest to boot and with a few core exceptions, his supposed principles and mores are subject to his convenience. Walt's a weasel with the brief and intermittent glory that a successful weasel may enjoy, not a badass.
I think the final standoff is really gonna be between Walt and Jesse. The Nazis are just the medium for that to occur. Walt will storm in with his big scary gun and rescue Jesse, because all of the vestiges of the Heisenberg aspect of Walt are crumbling and he's running on remorse and regret now. He'll rescue Jesse, and apologize, and Jesse will kill him. Fin.
Here's what I'm seeing, and I'm assuming we can go into full detail? Spoilz up to Sunday's episode cool? OK:
Walt knows from his meeting to make the hit on Jesse that the Nazis need his expertise to get actual quality product. Or at least that Todd isn't able to do it perfect on his own. If the show doesn't take a left turn, Jesse is gonna end up making their product better, and the blue meth will flow again. Heisenberg will hear word somehow that his product is back on the street in near perfect form and that will pretty-much tell him that Pinkman was involved as no-one else on earth would have the ability to do it. But that may, or may not, matter at all.
What if it's not about Jesse? (Tho, by all accounts, him being alive at all means he should be a factor no? It wouldn't be a proper end that the last thing we see is him chained in a Quonset hut meth lab.) What about his family he left? Skyler and Jr and Holley? They could be in danger, being used as bait for Walt to come back just as Brock and his mom are for Jesse. IT could be Jesse tries and fails to escape; maybe he kills Todd at least but doesn't make it through everyone: and with zero cooks left the only option for the Aryans is to lure in Heisenberg any way they can, and that means his family.
It would be the only good reason for Walt to return AT ALL, because on a 'ruin everything to save him level' Jesse means shit to him. The only thing that really matters is his actual family and no good could come to his family by him returning to them, unless they are already in trouble. The only other motive he could have would be pure revenge on the Nazis but, really, they are a constant force and acted out of no particular malice towards him: only self interest, when they killed Hank. I would wager the Heisenberg left would be more interested in his own self-preservation and keeping his family far away from any inciting events as possible, than going after revenge.
If Jesse or any individual person killed Hank out of Malice, I would see revenge as a more likely route for the character.
You've got a point there. What else is he gonna do? Just sit on his money, alone?
I do think he'll become aware that Jesse is alive, and I do think that he'll have a crisis of conscience and try to rescue him, but that may come to light while he's looking for revenge against the Nazis unrelated to Jesse.
yeah true, money is big... but 11 million aint a bad way to start into a decent life.
It's always a faux pas to say 'well I'd just do this:' but for a mental check roll on where I'd stand for thought experiment purposes:
If I had just been given a clean slate, nazis with a shitload of weapons took a lot of my money, but left me with 11 mil in cash? And my family basically disowned me because I had become a bit of a monster that destroyed the family? I'd consider cutting my losses and investing a portion of that 11 into some legit business and real estate to keep myself busy. I would probably be content to do that for a long while.
But of course Heisenberg sans the White Family is not too content to just sit and tend a legit business... so...
11 million ain't bad, but as broken as Walter is at this point, I can't see his ego letting him just let go of the other 69M. With his family basically destroyed as far as he's concerned, what else has he got left to live for?
Me or you, we'd probably never be in this situation in the first place, and at this point, almost certainly we'd sanely quit while we were still alive. But neither of us is Walter White. He's nuts.
I was somewhat following along on 4chan's /tv/ last night and that was very hard to do while playing cookie clicker: not so hard because of the show. It sold me the whole seat... and I used the whole damn seat. Not just the edge as previous episodes allowed, but a good percentile of the sittable surface.
It was a good episode of TV still, but it was a bit of a 'break' from the previous couple that were so intense. Probably not a bad thing to have a cooldown period before the final stretch? I mean, I trust it.
There's just not a lot of time to do any one storyline justice I feel. Like, any of the elements could be a whole episode, or two! But it will come down in one hour of footage.
I do almost want Todd to sail off with Lydia with their 90+% pure meth into the sunset... away from all the bullshit. BUT...but I wouldn't be sad if someone were to get the better of him and leave Todd with no head bits above his neck-ish bits. Vader would approve his disintegration and I would be ok with that.
I hope Walt is indeed gonna bring Grey Matter back into this and put a stop to the bullshit: even though I wouldn't be surprised if they really have nothing to do with the actual events that follow and are just used as a catalyst for action.
I really enjoyed Granite State, but I think anything is going to pale in comparison of Ozymandias.
It feels strange, but I think this was a really necessary episode for Walt. We had to see Heisenburg truly fall from grace. I'm still amazed at how these writers can still make me feel sympathetic for Walt, from the strength of the "Just 2 more hours?" and bar scenes. I think everything hit Walt over that time period of being locked up in the cabin. Just how he risked his life for money and it can't go anywhere when you are a dangerous criminal.
I think they set up all the stuff with Todd/Lydia/Jesse so Walter has a reason to comeback to ABQ and they have weaknesses in their operation. And Walter was on the verge of giving up, until Grey Matter appeared on the television.
I can't wait for the finale. I have absolute faith in these writers to wrap up most of the plot lines.
Comments
Walt couldn't stand that Gus was making so much money from his product. What Walt didn't realize is that a good portion of that money goes into keeping the distribution system working. Even when it was just him and Jessie he expected Jessie to handle all the hard distribution shit AND assist in the lab.
Walter's pride also got in the way when Hank thought he had found the super chemist. Walt couldn't stand someone else getting the credit for his work. He was in the clear at that point yet he made himself a target because of his pride.
That goddamn shootout bothered me though. The whole show is one wild contrivance after another, from blue meth to the gun-toting Aryans who want it. The impressive part is how the writers play their contrivances off. The shootout was a great idea that they failed play off. It ended up looking like a procedural with too much money. I expect more and it dulled the tension.
Except he's totally imaginary and only comes out when Walt has weaseled his way into a temporarily auspicious circumstance, before getting his ass handed to him again.
Gus was a badass. Heisenberg is a fake.
To be a badass, in my opinion, requires self esteem, not ego. Walt's got a lot of the latter but none of the former. There's a distinction. He's intellectually dishonest to boot and with a few core exceptions, his supposed principles and mores are subject to his convenience. Walt's a weasel with the brief and intermittent glory that a successful weasel may enjoy, not a badass.
-"…And the Bag's in the River"
-Mandala
-Pheonix
-Half-Measures
-Full-Measures
-Crawl Spaces
-Face Off
-Dead Freight
Made you feel?
"Ozymandias" is like an entire episode about the most tense, emotional scenes from this show. Holy shit...one of the best episodes of television.
Walt knows from his meeting to make the hit on Jesse that the Nazis need his expertise to get actual quality product. Or at least that Todd isn't able to do it perfect on his own. If the show doesn't take a left turn, Jesse is gonna end up making their product better, and the blue meth will flow again. Heisenberg will hear word somehow that his product is back on the street in near perfect form and that will pretty-much tell him that Pinkman was involved as no-one else on earth would have the ability to do it. But that may, or may not, matter at all.
What if it's not about Jesse? (Tho, by all accounts, him being alive at all means he should be a factor no? It wouldn't be a proper end that the last thing we see is him chained in a Quonset hut meth lab.) What about his family he left? Skyler and Jr and Holley? They could be in danger, being used as bait for Walt to come back just as Brock and his mom are for Jesse. IT could be Jesse tries and fails to escape; maybe he kills Todd at least but doesn't make it through everyone: and with zero cooks left the only option for the Aryans is to lure in Heisenberg any way they can, and that means his family.
It would be the only good reason for Walt to return AT ALL, because on a 'ruin everything to save him level' Jesse means shit to him. The only thing that really matters is his actual family and no good could come to his family by him returning to them, unless they are already in trouble. The only other motive he could have would be pure revenge on the Nazis but, really, they are a constant force and acted out of no particular malice towards him: only self interest, when they killed Hank. I would wager the Heisenberg left would be more interested in his own self-preservation and keeping his family far away from any inciting events as possible, than going after revenge.
If Jesse or any individual person killed Hank out of Malice, I would see revenge as a more likely route for the character.
I do think he'll become aware that Jesse is alive, and I do think that he'll have a crisis of conscience and try to rescue him, but that may come to light while he's looking for revenge against the Nazis unrelated to Jesse.
It's always a faux pas to say 'well I'd just do this:' but for a mental check roll on where I'd stand for thought experiment purposes:
If I had just been given a clean slate, nazis with a shitload of weapons took a lot of my money, but left me with 11 mil in cash? And my family basically disowned me because I had become a bit of a monster that destroyed the family? I'd consider cutting my losses and investing a portion of that 11 into some legit business and real estate to keep myself busy. I would probably be content to do that for a long while.
But of course Heisenberg sans the White Family is not too content to just sit and tend a legit business... so...
Me or you, we'd probably never be in this situation in the first place, and at this point, almost certainly we'd sanely quit while we were still alive. But neither of us is Walter White. He's nuts.
It was a good episode of TV still, but it was a bit of a 'break' from the previous couple that were so intense. Probably not a bad thing to have a cooldown period before the final stretch? I mean, I trust it.
There's just not a lot of time to do any one storyline justice I feel. Like, any of the elements could be a whole episode, or two! But it will come down in one hour of footage.
I do almost want Todd to sail off with Lydia with their 90+% pure meth into the sunset... away from all the bullshit. BUT...but I wouldn't be sad if someone were to get the better of him and leave Todd with no head bits above his neck-ish bits. Vader would approve his disintegration and I would be ok with that.
I hope Walt is indeed gonna bring Grey Matter back into this and put a stop to the bullshit: even though I wouldn't be surprised if they really have nothing to do with the actual events that follow and are just used as a catalyst for action.
It feels strange, but I think this was a really necessary episode for Walt. We had to see Heisenburg truly fall from grace. I'm still amazed at how these writers can still make me feel sympathetic for Walt, from the strength of the "Just 2 more hours?" and bar scenes. I think everything hit Walt over that time period of being locked up in the cabin. Just how he risked his life for money and it can't go anywhere when you are a dangerous criminal.
I think they set up all the stuff with Todd/Lydia/Jesse so Walter has a reason to comeback to ABQ and they have weaknesses in their operation. And Walter was on the verge of giving up, until Grey Matter appeared on the television.
I can't wait for the finale. I have absolute faith in these writers to wrap up most of the plot lines.