<p>We had an earlier thread about Breaking Bad, but it died out. I was wondering if there are other fans here who are watching the final season?</p>
<p>I just saw Sunday night’s episode and was blown away by the ending. I have a feeling that some very bad things are going to happen to Walt, Jesse, and Mike this year. And can I just say - I really loathe Walter White, even though he’s a fascinating character?</p>
<p>Watching here. The ending of the last episode proved once again that Vince Gilligan is creating his own formula. Heartbreaking scene. I used to watch “The Sopranos” with a feeling of dread because I didn’t trust David Chase not kill any character off, though I knew Tony had to last until the final episode. I feel the same way about “Breaking Bad.”</p>
<p>I think it has to end with Jesse killing Walt, but I think inside the box and Vince doesn’t.</p>
<p>Son bought the first season on DVD for H’s birthday this summer. We watched it together, and are hooked. Immediately bought the second season and watched it right away before son went away for summer job. While son away, we TiVoed AMC rerun of the third and fourth season and have been watching them this last week while he’s home for a break, and have just caught up and are on track, watching Sunday’s episode in real time.</p>
<p>It has been great seeing the whole series in just a short amount of time and watching the characters develop.</p>
<p>My son and I had a debate about Walter White a couple of weeks ago, with him standing up for Walt, while I have really grown to despise him. After the end of season four, though, the whole family despises him. </p>
<p>I have always had a soft spot for Jesse, and I even have a soft spot for Mike. I think Mike has great instincts and should have gone with his gut to stay away from Walt. Wish both Mike and Jesse would just leave Walt and let him go under.</p>
<p>I do love Walt’s son. Such a sweet boy, and breaks my heart that he has such horrible parents.</p>
<p>Cross posted with frazzled. Would love to see with that ending. Worried it will be the other way around, though.</p>
<p>Actually, I also have a soft spot for most of the characters. I love Jesse (although I wonder what he’ll do if/when he finds out what Walt did at the end of last season. I’m trying not to spoil anything for anyone!) I love Mike, especially when he told Walt “Just because you kill Jesse James, doesn’t make you Jesse James.” I love Hank and Marie and even Skylar, who I used to dislike but her evolution this season has made me change my mind. And I loved the chicken man…</p>
<p>I agree that Vince Gilligan is a genius. I think it’s amazing how he took a nice sympathetic character like Walt and slowly turned him into a monster (well, I think he’s a monster.) Some of the riffs that Walt did on chemistry during Season 1 were amazing, too - H and I are both chemists, and we loved those parts.</p>
<p>^ A total genius, as is Bryan Cranston. The entire cast is exceptional.</p>
<p>Breaking Bad fan here. It’s going down a dark slippery slide, and it will not be a “happily ever after” ending. Let’s see how the creative writers dole out justice.</p>
<p>I love this show, but can’t say I love all the characters. I loathe Skylar, Walt Jr. (Flynn LOL). Love Bob Odenkirk - perfect casting. Too many options where this is heading but you know it’s not gonna be pretty.</p>
<p>I used to hate Skylar too, but I’ve softened on her a lot this year. At least she now realizes how dangerous Walt is and how much real danger her family is in. The scene from Sunday night’s episode - where Jesse came to dinner at the White household - was priceless!</p>
<p>SPOILER ALERT!!! Don’t read if you didnt watch last night’s episode. </p>
<p>I still love the show and I’m in for the duration. But I have to say that one of the aspects of the show I loved the most were the secondary characters (Gus, Mike, Saul, the guy in the wheelchair who communicated with the bell, …). But man, if he keeps killing them off, I’m not sure the show maintains all of its appeal. Skylar’s walking around like a zombie. Jesse wants out. I’m afraid we’re gonna get too much Walt and not enough of everything else that makes the show great.</p>
<p>Vince Gilligan, how could you do that to us?</p>
<p>For a while there last night, I wondered if Walt was actually going to kill Jesse. Jesse’s the soul of the show, so I didn’t really see how that could happen. But no one is safe. Walt reminds me of Tony Soprano in that everyone he touches meets with tragedy or death.</p>
<p>How great is Bob Odenkirk as Saul?</p>
<p>Don’t forget that Mike is a cold blooded killer, and that Jesse has blood–Gale–on his hands too. So we are talking comparatively here we we are talking about characters being sympathetic. </p>
<p>I think the idea of the show–and both Giligan and Cranston have said as much–is to take a normal person and see him evolve into evil. </p>
<p>Very telling when Mike talked about how they had a nice thing going and how Walter’s animus against Gus sent the whole thing to hell. (Mike did leave out the part about how he was going to kill Walt at Gus’s behest until Gale turned up dead.) All that money coming in, and nobody has any, plus they’re all going to be on the run–or dead. </p>
<p>In the previous episode, it was also clear how much it eats at Walt that he missed out on the billions from Gray Matter. There is a kind of infantile, “I’ll show them!” motivation for Walt.</p>
<p>One thing the series never directly addresses is why Walt went from being a brilliant research chemist to a high school teacher. You’d think that he could be snatched up by another high power company–even at the point after he received his cancer diagnosis and felt an acute need to provide for his family.</p>
<p>I think it’s difficult to obtain a new high powered job when dealing with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Watching this from the point of view of a cancer survivor is very interesting.</p>
<p>I love this show. Not only is watching the show great but I also love reading the many reviews and comments in between shows.</p>
<p>The ginormous Bill of Rights as the backdrop of Saul’s office always makes me laugh.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is illegal for an employer to ask about health status, and someone with Walt’s skills might be valuable even in the short term. That said, even a 6 figure salary wouldn’t have supplied the amount of money Walter was looking for after his diagnosis. </p>
<p>My wife, a lawyer, loves the Saul character. It reminds her of people she knows. Great parodies are based on serious kernels of truth. </p>
<p>Check out Saul’s web site. Hilarious. </p>
<p>[DUI</a>? Dealing Drugs? Better Call Saul!](<a href=“AMC | Watch TV Shows & Movies Online | Stream Current Episodes”>http://www.bettercallsaul.com/)</p>
<p>One of the fascinating things the show does, and makes plausible, is presenting a meth dealer with blood on his hands as an essentially decent person with a moral compass. That’s Jesse, of course - the anti-Walt. Walt doesn’t always enjoy bring a murdering opportunist (I think we saw that last night) but his self-centeredness makes him a monster, no matter how he momentarily regrets his actions.</p>
<p>Wondering how they can end the show. I think it would make great dramatic sense to have it come down to a Walt-Jesse death struggle. Though if Jesse won, would that mean that good had triumphed, or that Jesse had become Walt?</p>
<p>A quick google search will often uncover a details of one’s health status especially if the cancer patient is on fb or any cancer online support groups.</p>
<p>Oh, no!!! </p>
<p>Not Mike! He was one of my favorites!! I knew he was doomed, though, as soon as he started taunting Walt with all the things he’d f’d up. Latichever is right - it’s all about the ego and all about the money with Walt. He seemed genuinely frustrated with Jesse when the lure of more money did not make him reconsider his decision to quit cooking meth.</p>
<p>All this makes me wonder anew - at the very beginning of this season, the audience sees Walt (who looks sick, in my opinion - is his cancer back?) alone and buying some kind of rifle. At first I thought he was buying it to go after Mike. Now I don’t know who the target is.</p>
<p>Also:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m an ex-chemist (lost my job when the pharma industry imploded.) It is very very hard for mid-career chemists to find new jobs these days, especially someone like Walt - a middle-aged high school teacher? No way. His resume would never make it past HR in any mid- to large-sized company, and small companies may offer a salary comparable to that of a high-school teacher (been there). Jobs for organic chemists (which Walt seems to be) are very difficult to find, and if you don’t believe me, well, I have some friends who are still looking for jobs four years after our research lab closed.</p>
<p>Maybe this particular circmustance - the glum job prospects for organic chemists - played no part in Vince Gilligan’s plot design, but to me, it’s one more note of authenticity in Breaking Bad. Honestly, if the starting materials needed to cook meth were easier to get, I have some ex-colleagues who are desperate enough to try the Heisenberg way.</p>
<p>@scout59</p>
<p>Even a chemist who did work that lead to a Nobel and a multi-billion dollar company? It’s also not clear–unless I missed something–that Walter was middle-aged when he gave up research and started teaching. They kind of refer to the Grey Matter business having occurred circa twenty years ago. Maybe, it was a case of Walter wanting to stay in Albuquerque rather than casting a national net in searching for a job. Maybe it was originally seen by Walter as stop gap that took on a life of its own. </p>
<p>In any event, the show doesn’t addresss the circumstances of why he became a teacher. </p>
<p>On a different topic, why Heisenberg and not Lavoisier or Priestley?</p>
<p>I thought Walt had been teaching for at least 15 years? Before/at the time that Walt Jr. was born? I’m not sure why I thought that, but I thought the early episodes implied that he’d been teaching a while.</p>
<p>Plus you said this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He was definitely middle-aged when he got his cancer diagnosis. Like I said, no one wants to hire a middle-aged chemist, especially one who is really sick.</p>
<p>hey, one of the chemists who was fired from my previous employer was one of the co-creators of the best-selling drug of all time, which made 100s of billions of dollars for the company. So, yes, it’s a bad job market even for really productive chemists!</p>
<p>I just figured they chose the name Heisenberg for the uncertainty principle.</p>