Breaking Bad Season 4

[malcolmk14]

My prediction

Spoiler!

Walt Jr. starts smoking meth and dies, and Walt Sr. gives up and kills himself

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

People seem to have an issue with ending two. All I'm saying is, if Jesse can get street cred from an incident in one episode, rightly or wrongly, then why can't Walt Jr? That's my only question.

Because he's supposed to be 16 years old, and is partially disabled as well? I'm sorry, I just don't see Walt Jr as any kind of successful criminal. Not that this is anything bad, but rather to the contrary - he is supposed to be a nice, intelligent, inoffensive kid like everyone would like their hypothetical teenager to be.

Now if you said *Skylar* would take over the business, that I would find almost believable. She has already demonstrated a willingness to commit crimes (cooking books, hiring a guy to scare Bogdan into selling the car wash, and getting thugs to procure the all-important IRS payoff), and she certainly doesn't lack in the chutzpah department.

Frankly, I really admire Skylar and I can't figure out why some people don't like her. Walt has treated her abominably, and anything she's done to him has been, IMO, fully justified. Walt should have confided in her much earlier and saved himself a lot of grief.

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by jammies

Frankly, I really admire Skylar and I can't figure out why some people don't like her. Walt has treated her abominably, and anything she's done to him has been, IMO, fully justified. Walt should have confided in her much earlier and saved himself a lot of grief.

I guess the whole part where she starts $%^@ing some other dude and tries to take Walt's kids away from him doesn't sit very well with some people? Plus there's all this moral high ground BS she takes while she herself aids the criminal activity of the guy that she is $%^@ing. I have a really hard time understanding how anyone could not dislike her (although, in the interest of full disclosure, I found her to be much more tolerable in the 4th season). Still though, the best episodes are the ones that have as little of her as possible in it.

[jammies]

Anything Skylar has done doesn't even approach the wrong that Walt has done, yet he is still seen as likeable. Walt - Walt is a meth cook who kills people to solve his problems. Somehow that's ok, because just that makes him a badass, but oh no, we can't have a female character who judges him without being perfect herself, because that just makes her a bitch.

What would you do if you found out your spouse was heavily involved in the drug trade? Just shrug it off and make some more breakfast? Do you think you might feel betrayed and vulnerable enough to have an affair? I'm not saying she's justified in everything she's done, because she isn't, but she hasn't done anything near as bad as Walt or, for that matter, Jesse or Gus or Mike. Yet any of those four seem to have more fans than she does. Very strange.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by jammies

Anything Skylar has done doesn't even approach the wrong that Walt has done, yet he is still seen as likeable. Walt - Walt is a meth cook who kills people to solve his problems. Somehow that's ok, because just that makes him a badass, but oh no, we can't have a female character who judges him without being perfect herself, because that just makes her a bitch.

What would you do if you found out your spouse was heavily involved in the drug trade? Just shrug it off and make some more breakfast? Do you think you might feel betrayed and vulnerable enough to have an affair? I'm not saying she's justified in everything she's done, because she isn't, but she hasn't done anything near as bad as Walt or, for that matter, Jesse or Gus or Mike. Yet any of those four seem to have more fans than she does. Very strange.

She is annoying, it is a TV show.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

She is annoying, it is a TV show.

Oh well then, I stand corrected. It's clearly fruitless to wonder why people find her annoying, that's just a mystery that'll never be solved.

[Mtt48]

That actor is generally quite annoying. She is equally annoying on Deadwood.

[Ark2]

She detracts from Walt being a badass. Therefore, I dislike her.

[BlackRedGold25]

Originally Posted by jammies

Anything Skylar has done doesn't even approach the wrong that Walt has done, yet he is still seen as likeable. Walt - Walt is a meth cook who kills people to solve his problems. Somehow that's ok, because just that makes him a badass, but oh no, we can't have a female character who judges him without being perfect herself, because that just makes her a bitch.

What would you do if you found out your spouse was heavily involved in the drug trade? Just shrug it off and make some more breakfast? Do you think you might feel betrayed and vulnerable enough to have an affair? I'm not saying she's justified in everything she's done, because she isn't, but she hasn't done anything near as bad as Walt or, for that matter, Jesse or Gus or Mike. Yet any of those four seem to have more fans than she does. Very strange.

Has more to do with the audience understanding Walt's motives for getting involved with meth. He didn't kill anyone in cold blood before she found out. He wanted to provide for his family after he died from cancer - a noble excuse.

Walt didn't want to hurt her, he wanted to help her. She wanted to hurt him when she found out.

[jammies]

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Walt might have started out trying to provide for his family, but he is only fooling himself with that schtick now. The real Walt came out with his (admittedly superbly chilling) rant when Skylar wanted to go to the cops...

"*I* am the one who knocks."

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by jammies

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Walt might have started out trying to provide for his family, but he is only fooling himself with that schtick now. The real Walt came out with his (admittedly superbly chilling) rant when Skylar wanted to go to the cops...

"*I* am the one who knocks."

I understand the argument you are making, but I am also on the side of disliking the Skyler character and I will try to articulate why.

First, I think she is disingenuous, judgmental and punishing. Almost a bit cruel. While the Walt character is at first making choices facing the curtain of natural death and then as the show progresses, potentially unnatural death, Skyler is making judgments about Walt and his motives facing no such curtain.

Her concerns, especially initially, seem utterly trivial in comparisons to Walts, who, as a villainous lead character by the end of season 4, has undergone this transformation of character because of his love for his family. While it doesn't excuse his behaviour, it is certainly more noble than choosing a life of criminality for convenience.

As a character, Skyler choosing the path towards criminality all on her own, without the motivation of self-preservation or of saving a life, by choosing to fix Ted's books. All the while, Skyler is the one who first tips Hank off (via Marie) to Jesse and starts this whole thing rolling, instead of just letting a guy with cancer smoke a joint.

In the Episode where Walt gets the card for the vacuum salesman, and he has his breaking moment, he is facing the loss of himself and his entire family because of his wife's sabotage of his efforts towards self-preservation. It's her independent unlawful actions and subsequent dishonesty and infidelity which, seemingly for that episode, is the final stroke Walt.

Her presumptive approach to putting Walt on the spot and potentially exposing the whole operation, putting everyone in tremendous danger when telling Marie about the poker story. All too happy to take Walt's $600 000 to take care of her little problem, but judges him for the rest of the millions he makes (and she spends).

Finally, the repercussions of her selfish actions can seen in other parts of the show. For example, her smoking while pregnant and nursing. Walt Jr. has Cerebral Palsy. I don't think it's a stretch to think Skyler may have been smoking then. Maybe I am unrealistic, and maybe I will never understand because I am man, but I think subjecting a fetus to that is utterly selfish. I'm not going to say that's a major part of why I dislike the character, but it's part.

[jammies]

Well, that's well argued and understandable. I still think she is more victim of Walt than schemer - she doesn't really start acting out until she has been faced with Walt getting cancer and then running around behind her back doing *something* he won't tell her about, and which ends up being far worse than she could probably ever have imagined. I also don't think she is at all committing crimes for convenience, she's somewhat akin to Marie in that she cannot cope with what is happening to her life and starts making very bad decisions because of that.

But I can certainly see how her actions could be interpreted otherwise.

[jammies]

And to add to that, she's dead on when she says "Someone has to protect this family from the man trying to protect this family". Walt made the choice of saving Jessie knowing that it would set Gus irrevocably against him - what did he think would happen? Did he think that Gus would balk at involving his children and wife if he didn't get his way, considering he thought Gus was ok with killing kids already? That was far more foolish than anything Skylar has done to endanger others.

Even Skylar's paying off of Ted's IRS debt was forced by the fact that she can't bear scrutiny because of Walt - she could have probably skated by turning Ted in if it came down to that, but she couldn't because of Walt. I think she's actually paralleling Walt's descent - originally she cooked books because she was convinced by Ted (pre-affair) that he was doing what he could to save people's jobs, which is the same "I'll do some evil for a greater good" excuse that Walt uses. Now the two of them are taking each other down in a negative feedback loop where each of them causes the other to more and more extreme measures to cover up their crimes.

[Beerfest]

Did Gus have any kids? a wife?


http://www.reddit.com/r/breakingbad/...gus_have_kids/

[jammies]

Gus was gay. No straight man has that kind of subtle taste.

[fredr123]

Can anyone recall the explanation Walt gave (I think to Tuco) regarding the use of the pseudonym Heisenberg? Werner Heisenberg was a math and physics guy. Isn't it a bit weird for Walt, a chemist, to adopted a moniker like that? You'd think he would have chosen a chemist hero or something. Perhaps there's more to that name or the work of Heisenberg than has been revealed. Something to do with the Uncertainty Principle, perhaps? A commentary on determinism or something else more philosophical and poetic?

Edit: After a little bit of googling it appears that the real Heisenberg was diagnosed with cancer. It went into remission, but came back two years later and claimed his life. Foreshadowing?

[BlackEleven]

Originally Posted by jammies

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Walt might have started out trying to provide for his family, but he is only fooling himself with that schtick now. The real Walt came out with his (admittedly superbly chilling) rant when Skylar wanted to go to the cops...

"*I* am the one who knocks."

I think this is an important point, and will factor heavily into next season.

If Walt goes down it's not going to be because of logic. He's outsmarted everyone that he's come up against -- Tuco, the DEA, Jesse, and even Gus. If he goes down it's clearly going to be because of his ego.

I think where this really came to a turning point was at the dinner party where Walt got drunk and didn't want to give credit to Gale for being Heisenburg. He could have let the DEA think that Heisenburg was dead and all the heat on him would have disappeared, but he let his ego get in the way of a golden opportunity.

After that, there was the epic rant you mentioned, and then finally when he blew up Gus, the "I won" phone call where he could barely contain his joy and was proud of himself.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by BlackEleven

I think this is an important point, and will factor heavily into next season.

If Walt goes down it's not going to be because of logic. He's outsmarted everyone that he's come up against -- Tuco, the DEA, Jesse, and even Gus. If he goes down it's clearly going to be because of his ego.

I think where this really came to a turning point was at the dinner party where Walt got drunk and didn't want to give credit to Gale for being Heisenburg. He could have let the DEA think that Heisenburg was dead and all the heat on him would have disappeared, but he let his ego get in the way of a golden opportunity.

After that, there was the epic rant you mentioned, and then finally when he blew up Gus, the "I won" phone call where he could barely contain his joy and was proud of himself.

Yeah, by the end of season 3, Walt is a real anti-hero, slightly despicable character. Arguably, he's like that after the first couple of episodes, but this is a tv show and not real life.

By the end of season 4 he is clearly a villain.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by fredr123

Can anyone recall the explanation Walt gave (I think to Tuco) regarding the use of the pseudonym Heisenberg? Werner Heisenberg was a math and physics guy. Isn't it a bit weird for Walt, a chemist, to adopted a moniker like that? You'd think he would have chosen a chemist hero or something. Perhaps there's more to that name or the work of Heisenberg than has been revealed. Something to do with the Uncertainty Principle, perhaps? A commentary on determinism or something else more philosophical and poetic?

Edit: After a little bit of googling it appears that the real Heisenberg was diagnosed with cancer. It went into remission, but came back two years later and claimed his life. Foreshadowing?

Physics and chemistry and pretty intertwined.

[Flash Walken]

Update!

Gunn said production for the fifth season of "Breaking Bad" will start this month, with eight episodes slated to shoot. The highly anticipated final season will be broken into two shortened mini-seasons. The last batch of episodes will probably shoot in winter 2013, she said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/show...-season-5.html