[Movie] Breaking Bad: HOLY SHIT WALT

There's something really compulsive about watching the fall/rise of Walter. Five seasons in, after all the shit he's pulled and he can still shock me.

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As far as theories go...

Spoiler:

There's the "yellow" subtext - the filter and the colour of people's clothes indicating their involvement/relationship to criminal/drug related activities. Marie is seen in a bright yellow cardigan recently, and I don't think it had anything to do with her kleptomania.

Also I heard Walter is supposed to take on characteristics of the people he kills - after Tuco, he starts cutting the crusts off his sandwiches, there was something to do with him kneeling on a towel to be sick as Gus did when he was purging after the cartel poisoning, I'm sure there were more explicit ones. But in the cold opening for season 5 he's seen on his 52nd birthday arranging bacon on his plate into his age as Skyler had done for him previously, and (don't quote me) there's his new identity on an ID card, supposedly with Skyler's maiden name? I wouldn't be surprised if he was the one who destroyed his family. It feels like the logical trajectory.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I seriously nearly bit through my own finger during the last 15 minutes. This show sure knows how to do TENSE.

Spoiler:

People saying above, and even interviews with Vince Gilligan, how you get drawn into rooting for Walt even after what he's become. I don't, not so much. I am massively intrigued as to how things will play out for him for sure, but the person I really root for and feel for is Jesse. They're polar opposites. Walt is respectable teacher turned arrogant, cutthroat, basically a sociopath. Jesse was a petty criminal but he's tortured by the world he's got drawn into, he feels everything. And the way Walt uses him, time and time again, and won't even admit it! Like their convo at the end of episode 3. I realise things don't look good for him though...

How ya doing, buddy?

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck me

Behind a cushion for most of that!

How ya doing, buddy?

Spoiler:

My heart fucking bleeds for Jesse, it really does. He's done some shitty things but MAN. Worst year!

Now I want to know who Walt is after in those flash-forwards; is he after the Nazis alone, or Jesse too?

And I'm not quite over Gomie or Hank. I think I actually whimpered when Jack had the gun on Jesse too, just too much to take in all at once.

My boyfriend pointed out that the episode title refers to a poem:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

I was speaking idiomatically.

SHIT SON

Spoiler:

Personally, I think that ending was just about perfect. And completely ridiculous. But pretty perfect. I could never picture Walt being taken alive. Seeing him admit his selfishness to Skyler, and say goodbye to his family was so touching. The whole thing, damn, so cathartic. I'd really started to resent Walt by the end of this season, but the last few episodes, and then this one, where you actually see he's still in there, watching it all fall apart... I'm glad he gave the location of Hank and Gomie's bodies too, and saved Jesse (and Jesse's flight to freedom!). And Lydia! Thank FUCK. I'd forgotten about him taking the ricin (I think ridiculous neo-nazi slaughter scene drove it out of my mind for a bit). It was good to see Badger and Skinny Pete again too.

So many people laud it as their favourite TV show of all time, and I always thought that was a bit much; I mean it's damn fine TV but it's not comprehensively great. The finale was so on the money though. If I ever find the time I'd like to go back and rewatch with a fresher perspective.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?