Cail wrote:I thought of Hank as a doofus for 4 full seasons. Hank ended up not being a doofus, which is nice.
Do you watch Talking Bad (the talk show after Breaking Bad)?
Dean Norris was on it this week and he said pretty much what you are saying. When Vince Gilligan first cast him as Hank it was to be pretty much the jock/doofus DEA agent. But as they worked together, he saw a lot more depth that Dean could bring to the character, so they kept working him in more and more and they started exploring the PTSD aspect. These past 2-3 seasons he has been amazing as Hank.
The Emmy vote could be tough this year. Cranston should get best actor, hands down. Hank and Jesse could be in a tough fight for best supporting actor though. Both of them deserve it.
Akasri wrote:Cranston should get best actor, hands down.
Heck, the phone call alone would demand that conclusion! Everyone here is right, it was genius. His performance was perfect on so many levels: selling the performance to the police, conveying real anger about Skyler revealing his crimes to his son, convincingly angry kingpin threats, and then his masked grief and torment. Wow.
Joe Biden … putting the Dem in dementia since (at least) 2020.
This was more of a transitional episode than anything, I think. Still good.
Interesting that they went all the way back to Walt's bitterness about Grey Matter - the root of all the pride and anger that turned him into Heisenberg - as the thing that makes him go back instead of turning himself in.
"Transitional" ... I considered it a set-up episode I guess. Sort of a last deep breath before the final plunge.
I am expecting a nut-breaker for a finale. Despite knowing that finales hardly ever live up to the hype, I hold out for this one.
And, yes, Walter is P.O.d by people white-washing the facts about him. It makes sense - for him, it's about his legacy. We have Grey Matter saying he was a nobody, and just prior, his son disowning him because he thinks he killed Hank. If people don't even know the truth about him, he really has made no mark at all.
I see him leaving some marks next week. Indelible ones.
Here is my prediction for the finale: Walt takes out the Aryans with the gun, rescuing Jesse in the process. Jesse kills Todd (hopefully slowly and painfully).
Walt uses the Ricin on Lydia (they made too big a deal out of her wanting Stivia in her tea last night) and then turns himself in. Knowing that he is nearly dead from the cancer anyway, he makes a full confession of everything, so that the actual truth about him will be out there, including where Hank/Gomez are buried (so Marie can get some closure).
Jesse takes the money from the Aryans and disappears.
Alternate possibility - some of the money ends up for Holly/Flynn/Skyler somehow...
Of course knowing the way my latest predictions have come out they could all end up singing Kum-bay-ah around a campfire together
We're watching a tragedy. There's no way this will end well. This is not a story about redemption. This is one man's futile struggle against his mortality ... making the wrong choices because he sees his life, his career, and his responsibilities to his family falling short of his potential. There is too much blood on Walt's hands for anything to redeem him in one episode. I don't care if he gives all the money to charity (which may have been hinted at last episode?), it won't make up for the lives he has damaged.
He needs to go out in a blaze of glory, rescuing Jessie, and dying a death on his own terms instead of the cancer getting him.
There is absolutely no need to kill Lydia. She has never done anything to Walt, and she can't possibly get him in more trouble than he's in now. Maybe she's a threat to Skyler, because of what happened last night, but killing Todd and his gang would be a better way of dealing with that.
The ricin is probably for himself. It *was* all for nothing, and nothing can change that. Everyone's lives are worse off because of Walt--every single person he knew. Family, friends, business associates. Nothing can make any of their lives better. There is no possible restitution, except rescuing Jessie. But I'm not sure Jessie even wants to be rescued at this point.
Joe Biden … putting the Dem in dementia since (at least) 2020.
It's an interesting predicament. We have roughly 60 minutes to wrap things up, and at the last moment, the issue of Walt's pride and Gray Matter is reintroduced.
I still believe Jesse is the only one who gets out alive, but I don't believe that as strongly as I did a few weeks ago.
After the amazingly disappointing endings of both Burn Notice and Dexter (admittedly, two shows which have never reached BrBa's quality), I'm looking at next Sunday with dread and trepidation.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
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"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
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"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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I honestly cannot picture Walt rescuing Jesse, not after last week. Not after all the bitterness and anger there. He wanted Jesse dead, and he wanted him tormented until the moment he died. Walt isn't going to suddenly turn around and change his mind. There's no redeeming him.
He was ready to give up and turn himself in, then that Grey Matter stuff turned up to bring all his anger and pride and bitterness back, and now he's recommited himself to finishing his business - which means killing the neonazis and taking his revenge on anyone else.
(It's also possible he heard the bit about blue meth still showing up and realised Jesse is still alive, so there's another loose end he'll want to get rid of.)
And given the type of show this is, this cannot go well for him. There absolutely cannot be a blaze of glory. It has to be pathetic and awful and final.
Well, that's the big question for me: What did I spend five years watching Walter's struggles, empathizing with his feelings, being scared for his welfare, cheering his victories, and being saddened by his darker humanity ... for?
To see him be pathetic?
God, that would be worse than Dexter. The Dexter finale was just dumb, but at least it wasn't backstabbing the viewer for having cared.
Walt's been pretty irredeemable since the end of season 3. His "victories" have all been part of spiralling deeper into a dark and unlikeable villain. The most positive thing he's done was to quit halfway through this season, and the things he's done in the last half dozen episodes have lost all the credit that bought him.
(That was the point of last week's episode, and Hank's death in it. To show that he's gone too far and there's no coming back.)
We're watching a fascinating character study, not a hero's journey here. It doesn't have to end with a victory for him.
wayfriend wrote:Well, that's the big question for me: What did I spend five years watching Walter's struggles, empathizing with his feelings, being scared for his welfare, cheering his victories, and being saddened by his darker humanity ... for?
To see him be pathetic?
God, that would be worse than Dexter. The Dexter finale was just dumb, but at least it wasn't backstabbing the viewer for having cared.
This is the conundrum though. "Justice" for Walt would be a pathetic, meaningless death with all of his work amounting to naught.
Sure, part of me would love to watch him dispatch the Nazis, be reunited with his family and his money, and die knowing that he'd done exactly what he set out to do. But if that's the ending, I'm gonna be pissed....Probably as pissed as I was about Dexter....because that ending would be a huge cop-out.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." - PJ O'Rourke
_____________
"Men and women range themselves into three classes or orders of intelligence; you can tell the lowest class by their habit of always talking about persons; the next by the fact that their habit is always to converse about things; the highest by their preference for the discussion of ideas." - Charles Stewart
_____________
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
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