Fafhrd on 21/6/2010 at 07:14
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
ps edit triple: The only thing that has rung really hollow and untrue so far in this season of Breaking Bad is Gus having any interaction with the low-level scum pushing his stuff on the streets, a man of his position would have little/no contact with that level of the operation, not without several buffer layers in place.
It's possible that 'too many middlemen' was one of the mistakes that Gus felt he had made when he was starting out. If he's hand picking
everybody in his organisation that gives him a lot more control over how product is moved and distributed, and he's able to keep everything much more airtight than he would with a heavily stratified structure. Yeah, the pushers can identify him, but he knows everything there is to know about them, and they know that he knows. And this adds some credence to something that you haven't seen yet so I'll stop here...
Scots Taffer on 21/6/2010 at 07:22
Okay, well I'll be able to discuss more fully tonight but purely from the standpoint of The Wire that level of identification within a drug empire doesn't make sense - it doesn't matter what Gus knows about his street level dealers, if they get busted and are facing major jail time, they'd roll the fuck over all the way to the top. That's the only thing that - at the moment - doesn't make any sense from Mr Cautious.
Scots Taffer on 22/6/2010 at 02:19
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
And this adds some credence to something that you haven't seen yet so I'll stop here...
So what was this exactly?
The finale was predictably excellent. I really love the direction they've taken at the close of this season.
The cold open was great at setting up an expectation that is neatly subverted, a knack this show achieves time and time again. This is also perfectly encapsulated when Walt and Jesse met to discuss
killing Gale and they clearly lay out the machinations of Gus (Gale learns, kill Walt, hunt down Jesse, keep production going at all costs) - in so many other shows, the lead characters would be unwitting in this respect until the last minute.
By allowing our leads to be ahead of the game, it changes our expectations and allows for the unexpected. Like Victor showing up at Walt's and fucking up the plan, the tension then mounts ridiculously until the climax, which again just pulls the rug from under us. When Walt handed responsibility of
Gale over to Jesse on the phone (instead of arranging to meet) I just freaked the fuck out. It was one of the most awesome moments in a show already utterly packed with them.
My head is now wondering where they go from here and the inherent longevity of the story:
- Jesse and Walt are playing a deadly game of chess with Gus and his posse, will there be a change of allegiances in one camp (Mike?) or are Walt and Gus going to simply go toe to toe with Mr Pollos?
- Though I doubt he has the skills, is Jesse going to become a murderous ghost to Walt's whims while they play this out? Who's next on the hitlist?
- I hope to amp up the tension the next season opens directly from Gale's death and we get to see Jesse face off against Victor
- Mike clearly respects Walt, but he knows who pays the bills and who's (currently) the head honcho, with a sudden power shift as expertly dealt by Walt will he see the situation differently and reconsider his options?
- Saul has been a sort of lawyer-ex-machina throughout this, he originally got the ball rolling with all of this stuff and yet now he's shown his allegiances lie with Walt/Jesse (presumably because they can offer him the largest cut of their income as he launders it as opposed to indentured servitude to Gus), Mike will clearly know from Walt's admission that Saul was lying about Jesse's whereabouts (of course, he does have some plausible deniability, but you'd think Gus will want to wrap up loose ends)
- The fact that Gus so desperately needs Walt to maintain his new-found tenuous grip on the US-side of the Cartel drug operations might be his undoing, it allows Walt (or rather, "Heisenberg") to perhaps overcome his woes with a newly reformed Cartel absent of the grisly connections between them - we already can see from the chemical factory altercation that this is very much an ongoing concern for him
- This game is so dangerous and so explosive that we are sooner or later going to lose one of our leads, otherwise this show will lose some of its teeth - also, we better not get any "your wife/kids have been kidnapped" bullshit, not interested
- Where can a partly disabled former DEA agent find his feet again? Could they ever involve Hank in the operation?
- What might fall out of Jesse's one-time relapse? He was nearly hitting it again just before Walt called him, the path down the slippery slope has begun
- This theory is somewhat controversial so I'm going to respoiler it, I can see the next season (or two, at the most) being in the establishing of Walt as a murderous drug kingpin with Jesse as his right-hand as they assume control of Gus's empire, but I think the time will come where the tough decision for Walt regarding Jesse is going to come to the fore again, however this would really be pushing Walt into the blacker than black Tony Soprano irredeemable character space, and it would really fly in the face of everything Walt has done so far to save Jesse's falls from grace
- Also, given Gus's willingness to shed blood, do we still think he's responsible for the call to Hank warning him? I've got serious doubts... I think this will be a big reveal for next seasonFafhrd on 22/6/2010 at 02:59
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
So what was this exactly?
The idea that Gus explicitly ordered the death of an eleven year old kid (you may have come to that conclusion before I did, but it didn't occur to me until Walt said it in the finale). The second your usefulness to Gus's organization comes to an end, you're dead. If one of his dealers were arrested, that dealer wouldn't live long enough to finger Gus (Mike was able to sneak into the secure ward in a hospital full of federal agents and poison the surviving twin, no way he couldn't do the same to someone in APD custody). He kept Gale around after Walt fired him because he knew that Jesse was going to fuck up at some point and have to be removed.
Scots Taffer on 22/6/2010 at 03:01
Oh yeah, I thought of it immediately. It's very much Gus's style to provoke indirectly knowing how events would then play out - I still don't think he did order it explicitly but rather knew that by ordering the dealers to cut the kids out of the operation, it would happen by osmosis - though in either case it's not at all clear that the boy being killed would somehow provoke Jesse.
fett on 28/6/2010 at 05:58
FUCK JACK BAUER.
Just finished the finale for S3, and wow, THIS is what I mean when I bitch about lack of character development in most shows. Bryan Cranston is a fucking genius with Walt's character. I echo some other post's disappointment with Hank's wife, and Saul devolving into a sideshow comedian, but the rest of the characters are the strongest I've seen since The Wire, and the writing is nearly as good. Like Scots said, I'm a little fuzzy on what's going on with Skylar, but Jesse, Gus, and (with these last two episodes) Mike more than cover their sins.
Walt shot that guy in the head. He fucking shot him in the head, yo.
I'm not sure who's more scary now - Walt or Gus. Next season is set up to be epic win. Let's hope they don't fuck it up.
Sigh. Now I've got to go back to Dexter and Weeds. :(
SubJeff on 31/1/2011 at 14:02
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
Obviously I still hold everything up against "The Wire" because, well, I'm on record that it's the best series ever. This is the best show I've seen since.
Well aren't I the idiot?
I don't know why I put off watching this, considering people on here who have (what I consider) to be good taste like it, but I've just finished Seasons 1 and 2. Season 3 is ready to go. :D
I totally agree with RBJ's quote above. I've enjoyed it all the way but I think the moment I realised that I was loving it was the last 5 minutes of Season 2 Episode 10 (with the DLZ/Death Professor track playing in the background). It's such a telling moment - both in the how it shows just how Walt has progressed and a foreshadow of what is potentially to come, and it was so subtle.
There is every other show and then there is The Wire. This is champing the heels of the Wire but isn't quite there yet. Still, it's a whole other level above everything else and they make good stablemates.
Having said that about people's taste on here; I really like True Blood but it gets a lot of hate on here. :confused: I think people take it too seriously/want to take it too seriously.
Thirith on 31/1/2011 at 14:48
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Having said that about people's taste on here; I really like True Blood but it gets a lot of hate on here. :confused: I think people take it too seriously/want to take it too seriously.
is great fun, but its shlock doesn't always work very well. For every great moment with Eric, Lafayette or Andy (or my current favourites: Jessica and Hoyt), there's a "been there, done that" scene with Sookie and Bill, both of whom are annoying way too much of the time. In terms of pacing and plotting, the series is painfully uneven.
SubJeff on 2/2/2011 at 23:30
Ok, all done. Awesome.
When do we get some more?
JediKorenchkin on 2/2/2011 at 23:49
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Ok, all done. Awesome.
When do we get some more?
July. :(
