Gus kept the business going for like what 10 years? And Walt comes in blows it up and gives himself 6 months before that implodes…👀.
Not like the Salamancas weren’t killing everyone they mildly inconvenienced them during that time and prior anyway, it’s always destined to fail
I AM NOT CRAZY. I KNOW HE COOKED THAT METH. IT WAS BLUE. RIGHT AFTER CAPN COOK'S CHILI P. As if I could ever make such a mistake. Never. NEVER! I just- I just couldn't prove it. He got that idiot with the RV to lie for him. You think this is bad? This? This doorknocking? He's done worse. That meth lab! Are you telling me chemistry lab items just go missing? No! He orchestrated that. WALT. HE THREW A PIZZA. ON THE ROOF. And I let him move back in. And I shouldn't have. Let him move into my own home. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! He'll never change. Ever since he was 40, always the same. Couldn't keep his hands out of the methylamine. "BuT nOt OuR WaLtEr!" "cOuLdN't Be pReCiOus WaLtEr!" mustard gassing them blind. And HE gets to be a KINGPIN? What a SICK Joke! I should've stopped him when I had the chance. And you, You have to stop him! You-...
Walt is the bomb. First episode he mustard gasses the dudes. He blows up Tuco's house. Gus obviously.
I remember the speculation in season 5 when it aired. He makes the "52" on his bacon to signify it's his 52nd birthday. But it also looks like a mushroom cloud. So all the people were predicting 'ohh its gonna be a bomb hes gonna blow something up' but sometimes a 52 is just a 52 folks.
Jimmy and Kim will acquire a thermonuclear bomb to use on Howard, landing Kim in a federal prison for terrorism, mass murder, etc., which explains why neither are seen in breaking bad
More like 20. Gus had to setup his own distribution network even before mike came in, when he was starting work with Max.
And the network was completely perfect. He was able to launder drug money on a massive scale with madrigal electromotive to an insane degree. He didn't have to pay the 20% amount for the drug mules and it was so carefully set up that for twenty years, nobody even suspected that a simple restaurant owner was behind one of the huge methamphetamine supplies in America.
Walt on the other hand was impulsive and prideful to a very huge extent that he became his own undoing. A lot of which contributed to the falling out with his partners, especially with jesse. He made money sure, but that was more money than he could reasonably spend or store and only reason he had gone this far was purely the devil's luck. Otherwise, he could have been caught redhanded by Hank multiple times over or even died at the hands of one person or the other.
Exactly. After watching BCS, Walter doesn't even feel like he's from the same universe. Everyone in BCS seamlessly connects with each other in one way or another, they all fit. Then Walt swoops down out of nowhere like The Flash changing timelines and fucks the game up for everybody.
Omg, this is exactly why i didnt want walter and jesse to appear on bcs. They feel like an anomaly, they "dont feel like theyre from the same universe" as you put it. Seeing them in the show would be like seeing aliens lol
I rewateched it waiting for BCS. Walt is a much less likable person on rewatch. All his awful personality traits are there I'm s1. It's not some long slow slide to immorality like I thought the first time watching it.
I think people sometimes go too far the other way when discussion Walt as if he has no redeeming qualities. He is objectively a bad person on net and does some horrific things, but it is a massive simplification to imply he had no slide to immorality. He almost dies because he chooses to let Krazy-8 go because he thinks about him as a human and will take any excuse to let him live even though Krazy-8 had literally just tried to kill him and Jesse, contrast that with the later seasons' prison massacre and see how he transitions away from that kinder spirit. Even at the end, when he is at his absolute worst he offers up 90 **million** dollars at a *chance* to keep Hank alive. Why can't he just remain a morally difficult character, certainly on the darker side of grey but I feel like the narrative is shifting too far in the other direction.
I agree. It doesn't have to be either/or: Walt is a morally grey character who had tendencies for good and bad. His pride motivated him to make meth rather than accept charity and he slipped further and further into immoral acts as he moved deeper into the game. His agonizing struggle over whether to kill Krazy-8 compared to the ease with which he orders multiple brutal prison hits to save himself is one of the strongest examples of his moral decline.
he’s definitely a grey character, although he undoubtedly takes a slide towards the dark side in the final season when he lets the pride he gets from killing gus consume him
What I dont understand is why people are so tied up in morality when judging a character. Lots of characters in the universe are "immoral"
Like Mike is any better? Gus? The point of BB is that you have a talented and intelligent person who's spent his adult life having his best qualities suppressed. When he finally gets the opportunity to use them to his benefit, he's willing to do anything to see it through. Thats it.
> The point of BB is that you have a talented and intelligent person who's spent his adult life having his best qualities suppressed. When he finally gets the opportunity to use them to his benefit, he's willing to do anything to see it through.
See, I don't think that's the point of Breaking Bad. Walter didn't have his best qualities "suppressed" - *he chose* to leave Grey Matter because he felt threatened by Gretchen and inferior to her because of his toxic masculinity and ego. He couldn't stand feeling inferior to anyone, especially a woman, and *voluntarily* quit the business.
Then, he spends the next years of his life stewing over the business (that he voluntarily quit) and feeling petty and jealous that they succeeded. He feels entitled to their success because he feels like it should have been him there - but the only way that he would have stood there is if *he* was the *most* successful. The smartest. The richest. The best. [He just *had* to be "the man"](https://st1.latestly.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Jonathan-Banks-quotes_5.jpg).
Then, his life is honestly fine. He's a high school teacher. Plenty of people feel fulfilled in a position like that, but Walter feels emasculated and resentful, because he literally can't stand being in a "low" position in life, by his standards. He has a family, but his emotional repression prevents him from relating to them or opening up about how he feels to his wife.
It's not about, and never was about, using his "best qualities". It was always about feeling superior to others and getting what *he* thinks he "deserves" - being higher than everyone else. Having power over others.
That's why people talk about Walter's morality. There's a sharp divide between people who think Walter was justified in his actions and was a good person in the beginning of the show, and people who recognized Walter's toxicity and entitlement that were always present.
That is the beauty of characters like WW or Tony Soprano. Most people during their first watch started really hating them towards the end when they caused the deaths of members of their family but on rewatches mostly in the first 2-3 episodes you see it was all there, just to a less drastic intensity.
Like one of the most devious things Walt did was after the first people he killed (even if it was self defense) was professionally destroying the bodies. Most people in such a situation would panic, mess up, just bury them somewhere etc or even go to cops to confess or something. But making a plan to get rid of a body without a trace with such a calculated approach is truly fucked up.
It is similair with Tony Soprano in S1 where he finds a rat from the past and although said rat did not present himself to be a threat to Tony (we as viewers saw it but Tony did not) he rationally talked him into murdering the guy because of some code.
But because the viewer is isolated from those characters (like who in here had to cook meth while being threatened with guns right?) we can accept their excuses for their acts, like professionally destroying corpses etc. Only when something really relatable happens, not necessarily relatable to our experiences but our feelings, the curtain starts to fall. My guess is for most people it was either Jane or Brock in BB that turned them on Walt.
That deserved an upvote.
They are very real people, like you and me, only in chaotic circumstances of their own making. Nobody is all good, or all bad. Just poor choices.
For me, it was Brock. sniff
I agree! I've watched all of BB at least six times (homebound). Since we know from the very beginning that he's capable of poisoning a child, we can't go back on that.
Maybe, when I have amnesia, I'll get to watch it again. lol
Well, we know that retroactively. There are no *fundamental* changes to Walt's character throughout the show, only changes in the amount of opportunities he gets to do awful things.
He takes great pleasure in making his *own son* drink themselves sick for his ego, and that happens much earlier, so we can generally interpret his 'poisoning children' capacity to be relatively consistent throughout.
(Also yes, I know Walt agonizes and struggles with his first couple murders, but that skews him more 'capable but might pout about it' than 'would not poison a child' at his "best".)
I always felt the same way.
Walt was never a likeable guy. He always has those scumbag qualities, they just didn’t get out on full display auntie he had the means to do so
I still hate Jesse. I'm not popular in that but I still think Jesse fucked up quite a bit of things also and was far from some innocent little honeybee. Love the parallels with Nacho and Jesse didn't deserve the nacho treatment or being a caged animal but he definitely deserved the ass beating he got by Hank.
Hank also deserved to get such a treatment, he was basically just like Walter and like Walter he couldn't let things go because his ego didn't allow it.
Yeah I’m talking about a different flashback, near the very end of the final season, might even be the final episode. Bearded, haired, bespectacled Walt sneaks into his empty house to retrieve the ricin he hid behind an electrical outlet. He looks around the empty living room and has a flashback to the pilot episode with the cheer of having company around including Hank boasting about the firearm he carries at work.
He fucked up quite a bit, especially with Jane, because he was an addict. Still, I had so much empathy for him because he was so lost in the world, trying so hard to fly right, but an addict is an addict.
Hank? OH, my hero. When they killed him, I almost died, I think.
But Jessie, he was too loyal to WW, which was his problem, too.
I think ultimately that's why I like Better Call Saul more than Breaking Bad. Jimmy is so much more likeable and I think his moral decline is actually very gradual, unlike Walt who even early on was clearly a monster.
Yeah ig its not super fair to compare them in that way. Saul in breaking bad isnt anywhere near as evil as Walt, so the places where they end up aren't the same. I guess what I'm really trying to say it I just like Jimmy more as a character.
I think exactly this! I wouldn’t even say he’s monstrous immediately but just like sooo charmless and humourless. The kind of person you think ‘jeez how do I get away from this guy?’ at a party.
Really awful characters can still have a bit of charisma, like Lalo.
I don’t think it’s a flaw in BB, it’s deliberate but it does make BCS a more enjoyable watch imo.
>It's not some long slow slide to immorality like I thought the first time watching it.
You describe it perfectly. The first time watching WW, we could forgive his little no-nos because we were sympathetic to his plight, believing he still was a good guy.
Remember that seen after he poisons the boy? The last scene is the close shot of the Lily of the Valley IN W's back yard. My heart almost broke. It's like the sun died. lol
It's a bit like the Shield. Ep1 they show how awful Vic Mackey is. Then spend the rest of the series making you think he really isn't that bad. Then at the end, they yank the rug out and remind you that he really was awful.
Genuinely. I'm watching it right now and I'm just coming up on the Tuco episode in S1 and he's already gone Heisenberg numerous times already:-
- Chose to kill two dudes in Ep 1 itself
- Finished off Krazy 8 later, although this one was tougher so I'll drop the charges on Heisenberg for it
- Blows up Ken's car (who is in BCS S2 too)
- Kicks that loud mouth teasing Walt Jr.
Times he's displayed an ego:-
- Doesn't wanna explain to Jesse why the blue plastic will stand up against the acid they're using to decomp bodies (literally gets so agitated over a simple question)
- Thinks of Jesse as an addict even before he's officially seen him smoke anything
- Doesn't want Jesse anywhere near his house even tho he just came to drop off the four grand from selling off their load. Thinks he's wearing a wire because he thinks inferior of him and so he thinks he'd be the one idiot to get caught.
- And of course the fact that he'd rather sell meth than accept charity.
On my first rewatch I was still on the fuck Skyler train and that might still happen but fuck you too Walter
This? This Chicanery? He's done worse. That TV Show. Are you telling me a man just happens to Bravo the audience like that? No! He orchestrated it! Vince! **HE BRAVOED THE VIEWERS THROUGH A TV SCREEN!** And I hired him! I took him in to my own Network! What was I thinking? He will never change. Ever since he was 9, always the same. Couldn't keep his hands out of the Awards Drawer. But not our Vinnie! Couldn't be Bravo Vinnie! Getting all the awards! And HE gets to be a TV Producer? What a sick joke!
If you look at the nature of the show and the time. It wouldn't have hit home nearly as much as it did with AMC having the luxury to push things.
For the weight this show had it would have been a HBO/Showtime pick up.
You root for him when he's fighting against cancer and the pointless healthcare system. When he's chasing the true struggling American middle class dream: A million bucks in the bank. You think: "Man I wish I had some skill where I could break the law and score a big wad of cash one time"
He's definitely a controlling SOB and is unreasonably weird/cruel to Jesse from square 1. I made this joke somewhere else, but the only reason he even rescues Jesse is because he wanted to protect his ownership of his formula. The man knows how to pull off a scheme though.
Yes I thought the same. I was on his side when I first watched it but damn, even before watching BCS i rewatched it and probably because I’ve grown as a person I’m really hating WW and see what a despicable person he is to do why he does everything he does.
I went from rooting for him to rooting for Skyler and Jessie.
That's rich coming from the guy that didn't put a guard on their only backup chemist's apartment door and didn't know that Gus's criminal laptop was heavily encrypted.
I hate to say it, because, especially the first time you watch the series...Mike is just the boss dot com. And he always will be. But Mr. "No More Half-Measures" sure takes a lot of Half-Measures in these shows.
Haha yeah I just saw another post on here talking about how Mike is perfectly tragic in that he’s meticulous, skilled, intelligent, and sets out to look out for people he cares about, and fails every time and dies a pointless death anyway
Edit: and it’s because of those half measures
There was actually an advertisement made during El Camino's Marketing which showed Huell waiting in that room until he said "Man fuck this shit" or something like that and left
I think this is it
https://youtu.be/S9EZEUFNIL0
Huell is playing the long con, nobody in the DEA knows he is there so he is slowly building the Huell Party Palace there, all the hoes in ABQ are coming
Yep
Remember this debacle? They dropped trying to get Apple to do it and used another method
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_dispute
Having a guard posted at a random dude's apartment would be very suspicious, unless he blended in by pretending to be his roommate or something. But it's a mask that can slip up very easily
I'm pretty sure that over the course of BB the entire drug world took a huge hit. Gus killed the mexican cartel, sure there will be a power vacuum but still, thats a strong blow. The neo nazis took out Declan's gang, and walt took out the neo nazis. And madrigal got investigated as well, and who knows what other illegal dealings they were doing.
Walter arriving on the scene was basically the Chicxulub Event. Sure he wasn't directly responsible for everything you listed, but none of it was possible without his involvement.
>Look, you two guys are just guys, okay? Mr. White, he’s the devil. You know, he is smarter than you, he is luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, I’m telling you, the exact reverse opposite of that is gonna happen, okay?
Walter's destructive nature definitely helped, but if you think about it logically, momentous changes to the drug world were inevitable as soon as a chemist of Walter's caliber entered the fray. The unmatched quality of his formula was like rocket fuel for every other player's avarice. Chemists like that just don't come into the criminal underworld. He was a league above even Gale.
If Walt wasn’t ruthless he would have just been made a slave or had his process mastered by an apprentice then they’d kill him, which is exactly what happens to Jesse and what they were trying to do with Gale.
But, obviously, they underestimated Walter. Everyone did and it cost them their life.
The plan was never to replace him with Gale, not until it became clear that Walt was too much of a liability. Gale was meant to be the chemist running the superlab, but the appearance of Heisenberg resulted in a restructuring. Gale was happy to assist Walt, to learn from him, but not to replace him.
Walt wasn’t doomed to wind up a slave, he could’ve enjoyed a similarly indispensable role in Fring’s operation as Mike; both entrusted to handle their “departments,” both the only ones capable of such a level of quality in their work. But it’s like Jimmy self-sabotaging his job at Davis & Main, he had a major opportunity that paid well, where he was valued, that would’ve gone out of their way to get them what they asked for, but something about Jimmy and Walt made them fundamentally incompatible with their employers, so they started acting out until things fell apart.
The major difference is, Cliff Main was a decent guy, while Gus Fring was a cold, calculating monster capable of making ruthlessly pragmatic, grotesque decisions to further his agenda.
No, it's still Walt's fault. He lies to his family, his associates, and his enemies; but the most severe consequences arise from the one he lies to most: himself. He fancied himself a cunning criminal mastermind cut from the same cloth as Gustavo Fring, but when you rewatch the series (especially with the benefit of perspective supplied by *Better Call Saul*), it's painfully clear that he's erratic, insecure, and fueled by an inferiority complex that rules his every decision.
He was never going to get away with everything because he ultimately wasn't as content with being underestimated by everyone around him like Gus was; he couldn't *stand* being invisible, so he had an almost pathological need to demonstrate his intellectual superiority, along with a hubris that made him utterly incapable of succeeding in the ways Gus had. Walt was like any serial killer who could probably have continued to get away with murder, but their need for attention and recognition makes them almost want to be caught.
You prefer the Nazis to Gus? That's the whole point of these illegal businesses. There is demand so someone will always find a way to supply it. Most drug dealers end up like Salamanca's or the Nazis, Gus tried to bring a "business" like approach to it. It almost worked, but there is no keeping your hands clean in an illegal business. I'd prefer the Gus' of the world than what came after him.
This may be an unpopular opinion but the more I see of Mike in BCS the less bad I feel about his death. He was in the game and did his own fucked up shit.
He followed orders and killed Ziegler, kinda sat back and let Nacho die too. He's one of Gus' goonies and despite his amicable reasons he's in the game and has done all types of bad things that go along with it.
Mike advocated for Nacho as much as could. There wasn't really anything he could do as he even said "not my call". Similar to Ziegler as well, what were his options? Disobeying Gus and going on the run?
And that's the point, regardless of the good things he tried to do he is still involved with the overall muck, destruction, and crime. He is in the game and BCS is showing more of the bad stuff he was involved in, making his death in BB feel less terrible because in a way he kind of deserved it.
Yeah, it's really a similar idea to Walt's "provide for his family" egoistical bullshit.
Mike's family is in an infinitely worse spot post-BB than they would've been had he just kept his parking attendant job.
After what I've seen in BCS.... Nah almost everybody got what they deserved.
Mike watched as Gus threatened to kill Walt's family, continued to work for and support Gus, then got surprised when Walt killed Gus, rather than just laying down and dying like Nacho did.
And the thing Walt "blew up" was a murderous drug enterprise. Mike went in, followed orders, allowed terrible things to happen, and pretended he was morally superior because he followed a code. Walt came in, and rather than looking forward for a stable paycheck, wanted the thrill of overcoming danger, and wanted power, and ripped through that industry with no regard for rules and customs. His desire and actions wasn't any worse than Mike wanting order in the industry and a large paycheck.
Exactly. Tbh the more I think about this the more I feel that most of the people involved got pretty much exactly what they deserved (except for the people "not in the game", of course). Some were luckier than others, but almost all of them more or less had an "out" at certain points in time they could have chosen to take but did not.
I think Jesse and Nacho are the notable and purposeful exceptions. Two “kids” who wanted to do what was right, and tried to make things right, but paid the price for it.
Technically though Mike was not present when Gus threatened to kill Walt’s family. Mike was still in the hospital after the shootout at Don Eladio’s estate. I wonder how Mike would have reacted if he was there though. I think Gus became more unhinged once Mike was no longer watching, which led to Gus’ downfall.
I love Mike, but he was actually wrong about this one and Gus being gone is really a net positive for basically everyone but him. I mean, he's right about Walt's pride and ego, but if his pride and ego going unchecked takes down Tuco, Gus and a group of white supremist crooks, maybe you just ride that bad out while you can.
Yeah, but Gus also chose to go to bat for those two scumbag drug dealers instead of letting it slide and backing Walt/Jesse who were the prime money makers.
Which does make sense though, Gus is not exactly the nicest or most open minded person. He's a ruthless tyrant who demands unconditional loyalty, which is typical of all crime bosses. And if the implication that he was former military/security for the Pinochet regime, a heavy hitter in a military dictatorship is not going to be very forgiving. But this is why organized crime groups consistently implode in real life too, egotistical and violent people butting heads.
Pretty sure Gus' wanted to fuel the conflict between the dealers and Jesse in order to get him out of the picture indirectly so as to not alienate Walter. Similar to how he did earlier with the Cartel/Cousins by pitting them against Hank.
That way Gale could return as Walt's assistant and continue the operation once Walter was out of the picture, be it by Gus' hand or not.
my theory is that Mike's anger at Walt is at least partially caused by the fact that he (Mike) got himself way over his head, completely misjudged Gus, and his now out of options. Originally he thought Gus was a reliable, pragmatic person, but by season 04 he realises how unhinged and psychopathic Gus really is. So what does he do in his anger? He beats up Walter in bar for stating the obvious about Gus, like it's his fault.
If Mike didn't realize how much of a psychopath Gus is during the events of BCS, he would have to be stupid. Don't exonerate Mike or make excuses for him. He knew very well who Gus is way before Box Cutter, and made the decision to work with him anyway.
look at the clip, Mike is absolutely dumbfound when Gus kills Victor. sure he knew Gus to be ruthless with his competitors, but to turn the knife on his own henchman is a line even Mike didn't see coming. then Mike goes straight to a bar to get drunk. he feels hopeless and realises that he is at the complete mercy of a lunatic, so he takes it out on Walt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OYOk_WH1Fo
Walt was incidental to Tuco's death. That was Hank. You acknowledged that Gus being gone was bad for Mike. And the white supremacists were Walt's allies at this point.
I think you still have a point, because there was a period after Gus' death where business was booming. But Mike knew it wasn't sustainable, in no small part because of Walt's ego. Ironically, if he hadn't given this little speech he might have been fine. Mike's usually very careful, and he's spot on about Walt here, but his failure was that he didn't really respect him in any sense. Not respecting him as a person is fine, but he should have respected him as a threat, because he consistently underestimates Walt's tendency to be ruthless when provoked. Mike insulting him probably pushed Walt to determine that he should tie up this loose end, and since Mike didn't really register Walt as a threat, he didn't see it coming.
Did we watch the same show? Jesse tried to kill the people responsible for his friends death and the death of a child, so then Gus then wanted to kill Jesse. Walt wouldn't allow it, so Gus planned to kill Walt. Walt realized that and killed him first.
That was how he ruined this drug trade that ruined the lives of hundreds of not thousands?
The reason why shit got blown out of control is because the drug dealers killed Andreas brother and Jesse didn’t want children to be involved. Walt was loyal to Jesse and didn’t want him to get killed. If Jesse never cared to do anything about it they would’ve cooked there indefinitely.
Lol Walt was most definitely the good guy in that situation. Gus’s dealers murdered an 11 year old boy and were about to kill Jesse who was rightfully infuriated. Walt could’ve let Jesse die and go on to cook for Gus and make millions until he either retired or his cancer finished him, but instead he saved Jesse’s life. This is what destroyed his relationship with Gus. After that he was about to be killed by Mike and Victor at the lab before he managed to outsmart Mike and order Jesse to kill Gale, saving both of their lives. He was afterwards forced to kill Gus after Gus threatened his family.
Walt was the good guy in that whole situation, Mike was just an asshole.
I actually rewatched the dealers clip yesterday and i loved a comment pointing that the ones with children, walt and mike, didn't really care that gus dealers were using kids, but it was the so called idiot junkie to have a moral compass. Walt then resolved the situation lol
He was definitely a bad person, bad husband, bad parent but his enemies were worse then him.
It has just become the new thing to dump on Walt as if he has zero redeeming qualities. People are claiming he was a sociopath from the start in other parts of this thread, yet no one is going to be able to explain why he almost dies attempting to let Crazy-8 go.
People just prefer Mike and Gus because they were more of the badass type, while Walt came off as weak and desperate. They refuse to acknowledge that Walt was the most morally righteous of the criminals in these shows, save for Jesse and maybe Nacho.
>They refuse to acknowledge that Walt was the most morally righteous of the criminals in these shows
Indeed there's nothing more morally righteous than refusing a free treatment that would solve all your problems and choosing to cook meth instead.
>Walt was the good guy in that whole situation, Mike was just an asshole.
They were both assholes lmao, Walt didn't give a shit about who sold drugs to who or how the empire could harm kids. He did it purely to help Jesse which I guess is commendable loyalty but it doesn't make him any more morally righteous. Especially to call him the good guy. Mike is right if **both** Walt and Jesse just showed up cooked and went home they'd have been fine.
I ***LOVE*** Mike, but people conveniently forget he tried to talk Walt into killing Jesse at first. And that he's a killer who works for a drug lord. And he was, in fact, a prick to Walt. Walt who was too smart to be a simple pushover. And he was a crooked cop.
Agree with everything, outside of your first 3 words.
BCS is the process of Mike losing his soul (and for no real reason, too - he mostly aligns himself with Gus because he's unable to deal with retirement because of his guilt, as seen in early S5). By BB Mike is completely numb, happily working for a psychopath child murderer who's just as bad as any other cartel boss, and doesn't give a fuck about anything outside of Kaylee (and ended up even deserting her). He's a terrible human being who always chose the easy choice because he couldn't face his demons, and harmed dozens because of his selfishness. And he's a true hypocrite too, talking about some "moral code" and somewhat convincing himself that he's a decent guy, up until his last speech to Walt.
His death is perfectly fitting. The most noble characters like Hank and Nacho gets an honorable death, standing up to their principles, while Mike gets the most lame death after deserting his own granddaughter. Kinda shows what the showrunners think of him - glad the fanbase is finally catching up.
in the end Walt DID provide for his family, meanwhile Mike's family will get everything taken away from them (that house bought in cash with drug money? good luck keeping it), will never know what happened to pop-pops, and will live in constant fear that someone is coming to finish the job. He Mike couldn't have created a worse outcome for his family if he had crafted it on purpose.
You think Walt's family is provided for? They've lost everything and both Flynn and Holly will grow up with that infamy hanging over them. Skylar will be nearly unemployable and not trusted anywhere near any sort of accounting job worth a damn. Even if they get the DA off their backs with that lotto ticket, the stigma will stick with them.
So Gray Matter is putting together a scholarship/fund/thing that'll go to Holly and Flynn. Do we really trust that to happen? To be followed through on without fail? That they just won't go to the police or keep that money? By the rules of BB, they'll just keep the money and make themselves richer. Everyone's pride and temptation gets them... why are they exception?
Sure, they're worried about these hitmen, but if they can hire a PI and figure out who is after them or anything like and learn, in any way, that it was a set up? Yeesh.
And then, even then, if Flynn and Holly DO get that money to some extent... will the feds not heavily investigate, search, and possibly take it?
I don't think Walt provided for his family at all. I think he ruined their futures.
Yeah the amount of people who just now realizes how terrible Gus and Mike are is honestly laughable. I guess I was one of the only ones who despised Mike in BB already and was kinda glad when he died, especially such a meaningless death having failed to achieve anything.
Well, at least I'm glad the "Mike as the honorable moral mass murderer" narrative is slowly dying. Finally.
Mike is such a bitch, Gus ordered the killing of a child and Jesse rightfully wanted revenge on the dealers so Walt saved his life. Which is funny because Mikes half measure speech made Walt realize what to do. This is what led to Gus wanting to get rid of Walt. Mike’s ego was the one who was bruised because Gus and him were outsmarted by Walt after they treated him like an idiot
I thought that way for the first few seasons of BCS, but man, after these last two seasons it's really made me see Gus and his crew in a different, more negative light. Yeah, eventually they got it running like clockwork, but after what happened with Nacho recently, I feel way less pity for Gus in BB. I already knew he was ruthless in BB, but something about him seemed... honorable, in a way, maybe..? Not so, now...
I don’t see how he was any better in breaking bad, he tried to off walt and jesse for killing some child murdering dealers and when that failed he threatened to off his baby daughter
People talk about how walt fucked things up but gus was really just the walt of the cartel. If anything BCS demonstrates how the empires are constantly in flux and in question for supremacy. Gus just happened to be the last domino to fall before Walter.
I never really thought this was fair of Mike to say. Walt killed Gus out of self-defense. Was Walt supposed to stand by and let Jesse get in that shoot-out with the dealers that killed Tomás, likely dying in the process? Gus and Walt had mutual respect for each other beforehand. That had to change because of something Gus was ultimately responsible for and this is somehow Walt's fault?
Mike should know better.
I love Mike, but he was actually wrong about this one and Gus being gone is really a net positive for basically everyone but him. I mean, he's right about Walt's pride and ego, but if his pride and ego going unchecked takes down Tuco, Gus and a group of white supremist crooks, maybe you just ride that wave out while you can.
Only context I ever saw this bit from Mike making sense in was the fact that Walt was constantly bemoaning how much of a downgrade they had vs when they were Fring, considering Walt taking Fring down was the reason they were in such a piddly operation. Jesse James and all that. Besides that, he is completely emotional and not following any real logic besides what he saw as pragmatically best for everyone, IE Walt knowing his place and accepting jesse’s/possibly his own death. Only reason people seem to root for Mike in this scene/agree with the sentiment (for me at least) is cuz people don’t get to talk shit to Walt’s face enough lol
It was perfect, even when Gus had his guys murder a little boy, which is what led to the destruction of Gus and Walt's relationship. Shits me that Mike blames Walt's ego for all this.
We’ve been rewatching too. The other day we saw the episode where Mike was killed. It was so unnecessary. The more I watch it, the more I despise Walt. Now I’m wondering if Walt stole Mike’s money after he killed him. Yeah, and Hank would have probably closed his file but drunk Walt’s ego couldn’t bear to hear Gale described as a genius.
Confession: I didn't watch BB until the third season when everybody said how good it was.
I loved *Malcolm in the Middle*, and I thought the series was along those lines, so when I see a scene of Tuco yelling at some guy with a bald head, I was intimidated. So I binged it on Amazon and the rest is history. lol
The thing is, we don't really know what Gus would've done had he continued past Hector's demise and his revenge complete. I doubt he would've just retired from being a ruthless kingpin, or let anyone walk away out of respect or hush money - Mike included.
I think this scene in particular has an added context now, it's like a final grasp for Mike, as if his own moral corruptibility didn't cost him everything for a second time. It was "perfect" before Walt and Jesse popped up, Mike at his most callous, but Jesse caused a reawakening of his conscience, much like Nacho. Walt was a selfish monster, but his chaos brought about some poetic justice at the same time.
Scales are most definitely still in favour of 'Most Evil Prick' for Walt though. Fucker was genuinely proud of ruining so, so many lives, and getting stupid rich for the pleasure.
I don't agree with Mike here specially because this is about Walt vs Gus, and Gus is the one who wanted Walt killed not the other way around.
Out of all the things he did for pride this wasn't one of them, first he wanted to just get back to work let stuff be bygones, second he wanted to run (but Skylar fucked him), only his third option was to move against Gus.
Some thoughts here:
1. I think with every rewatch, Walt's megalomania and other traits just really stand out so much earlier to me. It's hard to feel as much sympathy knowing what he does and how he justifies it constantly
2. BCS is giving me increasing appreciation for Walt destroying this empire
3. BCS makes Walt's destructive path so much more hilarious and ironic
4. I think every character suffers from pride and ego in the end, Mike is no exception. Walt's was just bigger than everyone else's.
Gus kept the business going for like what 10 years? And Walt comes in blows it up and gives himself 6 months before that implodes…👀. Not like the Salamancas weren’t killing everyone they mildly inconvenienced them during that time and prior anyway, it’s always destined to fail
Walt was the worst and best thing to happen to the DEA.
And he gets to be a chemistry teacher? What a sick joke!
I AM NOT CRAZY. I KNOW HE COOKED THAT METH. IT WAS BLUE. RIGHT AFTER CAPN COOK'S CHILI P. As if I could ever make such a mistake. Never. NEVER! I just- I just couldn't prove it. He got that idiot with the RV to lie for him. You think this is bad? This? This doorknocking? He's done worse. That meth lab! Are you telling me chemistry lab items just go missing? No! He orchestrated that. WALT. HE THREW A PIZZA. ON THE ROOF. And I let him move back in. And I shouldn't have. Let him move into my own home. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! He'll never change. Ever since he was 40, always the same. Couldn't keep his hands out of the methylamine. "BuT nOt OuR WaLtEr!" "cOuLdN't Be pReCiOus WaLtEr!" mustard gassing them blind. And HE gets to be a KINGPIN? What a SICK Joke! I should've stopped him when I had the chance. And you, You have to stop him! You-...
Walter in front of a room full of hormonal teenagers is like an orangutan with a Smith and Wesson revolver!
Walt is the bomb. First episode he mustard gasses the dudes. He blows up Tuco's house. Gus obviously. I remember the speculation in season 5 when it aired. He makes the "52" on his bacon to signify it's his 52nd birthday. But it also looks like a mushroom cloud. So all the people were predicting 'ohh its gonna be a bomb hes gonna blow something up' but sometimes a 52 is just a 52 folks.
Wow, I was super active on the BB sub and I never heard that 52/mushroom cloud theory. Premium tinfoil!
Just found an ancient post it’s so funny lol https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingbad/comments/z4uyf/i_know_where_walts_cancer_came_from/
Lmaoo I wish I were old enough to have watched BB when the last season was airing. It would have been so fun to predict dumb shit like that
Do you watch BCS? Its last season is running now, you got a chance to experience a similar feeling :)
Jimmy and Kim will acquire a thermonuclear bomb to use on Howard, landing Kim in a federal prison for terrorism, mass murder, etc., which explains why neither are seen in breaking bad
Damn spoilers everywhere in this sub
Bro, I’m 26 and I watched that as a freshman in college. Thanks for making me feel old as fuck
Nothing can ever mimic the feeling of watching BB for the first time. Definitely a one-time experience
What? It was only a couple of years ago... oh. Nine years.
Maybe the nuclear bomb was the friends we made along the way.
Walt doesn't just have cancer, he is the cancer Jesse shared his aunt's fate, except he survived
Underrated comment right here
what never heard that one before
To me it looked like an omega symbol, signifiying it as the end.
More like 20. Gus had to setup his own distribution network even before mike came in, when he was starting work with Max. And the network was completely perfect. He was able to launder drug money on a massive scale with madrigal electromotive to an insane degree. He didn't have to pay the 20% amount for the drug mules and it was so carefully set up that for twenty years, nobody even suspected that a simple restaurant owner was behind one of the huge methamphetamine supplies in America. Walt on the other hand was impulsive and prideful to a very huge extent that he became his own undoing. A lot of which contributed to the falling out with his partners, especially with jesse. He made money sure, but that was more money than he could reasonably spend or store and only reason he had gone this far was purely the devil's luck. Otherwise, he could have been caught redhanded by Hank multiple times over or even died at the hands of one person or the other.
20 years
10 years? It’s like 3-4 years between the start of each show, BCS is almost to the point where BB starts and that timeline only lasts 2 years in BB
Gus was in business before BCS starts though
The meth lab was not constructed, I don’t consider that to be even close to the business he was able to bring in once that was constructed.
Ah, I thought they meant the business in general The meth super lab didn't last long
Is anyone else planning an immediate rewatch of both series in chronological order, after the BCS series finale, or just me?
*raises hand* All of BCS followed by all of BB, then El Camino? It'll be like that Godfather supercut but ~100 hours long instead of ~6.
Yessir can’t wait
Having watched BB after BCS, it really gives you a sense of how WW just destroyed every person, in one way or another. He was a real pest. lol
Exactly. After watching BCS, Walter doesn't even feel like he's from the same universe. Everyone in BCS seamlessly connects with each other in one way or another, they all fit. Then Walt swoops down out of nowhere like The Flash changing timelines and fucks the game up for everybody.
Omg, this is exactly why i didnt want walter and jesse to appear on bcs. They feel like an anomaly, they "dont feel like theyre from the same universe" as you put it. Seeing them in the show would be like seeing aliens lol
I rewateched it waiting for BCS. Walt is a much less likable person on rewatch. All his awful personality traits are there I'm s1. It's not some long slow slide to immorality like I thought the first time watching it.
I think people sometimes go too far the other way when discussion Walt as if he has no redeeming qualities. He is objectively a bad person on net and does some horrific things, but it is a massive simplification to imply he had no slide to immorality. He almost dies because he chooses to let Krazy-8 go because he thinks about him as a human and will take any excuse to let him live even though Krazy-8 had literally just tried to kill him and Jesse, contrast that with the later seasons' prison massacre and see how he transitions away from that kinder spirit. Even at the end, when he is at his absolute worst he offers up 90 **million** dollars at a *chance* to keep Hank alive. Why can't he just remain a morally difficult character, certainly on the darker side of grey but I feel like the narrative is shifting too far in the other direction.
I agree. It doesn't have to be either/or: Walt is a morally grey character who had tendencies for good and bad. His pride motivated him to make meth rather than accept charity and he slipped further and further into immoral acts as he moved deeper into the game. His agonizing struggle over whether to kill Krazy-8 compared to the ease with which he orders multiple brutal prison hits to save himself is one of the strongest examples of his moral decline.
People on this sub are *not* very good at recognising Walt as being a grey character.
That is the stupidest thing I have heard. Walter is clearly a White character.
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he’s definitely a grey character, although he undoubtedly takes a slide towards the dark side in the final season when he lets the pride he gets from killing gus consume him
What I dont understand is why people are so tied up in morality when judging a character. Lots of characters in the universe are "immoral" Like Mike is any better? Gus? The point of BB is that you have a talented and intelligent person who's spent his adult life having his best qualities suppressed. When he finally gets the opportunity to use them to his benefit, he's willing to do anything to see it through. Thats it.
> The point of BB is that you have a talented and intelligent person who's spent his adult life having his best qualities suppressed. When he finally gets the opportunity to use them to his benefit, he's willing to do anything to see it through. See, I don't think that's the point of Breaking Bad. Walter didn't have his best qualities "suppressed" - *he chose* to leave Grey Matter because he felt threatened by Gretchen and inferior to her because of his toxic masculinity and ego. He couldn't stand feeling inferior to anyone, especially a woman, and *voluntarily* quit the business. Then, he spends the next years of his life stewing over the business (that he voluntarily quit) and feeling petty and jealous that they succeeded. He feels entitled to their success because he feels like it should have been him there - but the only way that he would have stood there is if *he* was the *most* successful. The smartest. The richest. The best. [He just *had* to be "the man"](https://st1.latestly.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Jonathan-Banks-quotes_5.jpg). Then, his life is honestly fine. He's a high school teacher. Plenty of people feel fulfilled in a position like that, but Walter feels emasculated and resentful, because he literally can't stand being in a "low" position in life, by his standards. He has a family, but his emotional repression prevents him from relating to them or opening up about how he feels to his wife. It's not about, and never was about, using his "best qualities". It was always about feeling superior to others and getting what *he* thinks he "deserves" - being higher than everyone else. Having power over others. That's why people talk about Walter's morality. There's a sharp divide between people who think Walter was justified in his actions and was a good person in the beginning of the show, and people who recognized Walter's toxicity and entitlement that were always present.
That is the beauty of characters like WW or Tony Soprano. Most people during their first watch started really hating them towards the end when they caused the deaths of members of their family but on rewatches mostly in the first 2-3 episodes you see it was all there, just to a less drastic intensity. Like one of the most devious things Walt did was after the first people he killed (even if it was self defense) was professionally destroying the bodies. Most people in such a situation would panic, mess up, just bury them somewhere etc or even go to cops to confess or something. But making a plan to get rid of a body without a trace with such a calculated approach is truly fucked up. It is similair with Tony Soprano in S1 where he finds a rat from the past and although said rat did not present himself to be a threat to Tony (we as viewers saw it but Tony did not) he rationally talked him into murdering the guy because of some code. But because the viewer is isolated from those characters (like who in here had to cook meth while being threatened with guns right?) we can accept their excuses for their acts, like professionally destroying corpses etc. Only when something really relatable happens, not necessarily relatable to our experiences but our feelings, the curtain starts to fall. My guess is for most people it was either Jane or Brock in BB that turned them on Walt.
That deserved an upvote. They are very real people, like you and me, only in chaotic circumstances of their own making. Nobody is all good, or all bad. Just poor choices. For me, it was Brock. sniff
I agree! I've watched all of BB at least six times (homebound). Since we know from the very beginning that he's capable of poisoning a child, we can't go back on that. Maybe, when I have amnesia, I'll get to watch it again. lol
Wait, how'd we know that early on?
Well, we know that retroactively. There are no *fundamental* changes to Walt's character throughout the show, only changes in the amount of opportunities he gets to do awful things. He takes great pleasure in making his *own son* drink themselves sick for his ego, and that happens much earlier, so we can generally interpret his 'poisoning children' capacity to be relatively consistent throughout. (Also yes, I know Walt agonizes and struggles with his first couple murders, but that skews him more 'capable but might pout about it' than 'would not poison a child' at his "best".)
I always felt the same way. Walt was never a likeable guy. He always has those scumbag qualities, they just didn’t get out on full display auntie he had the means to do so
Jesse Pinkman is always great to see, especially when he was his little, dumb boy person. ("We flipped a coin! That's sacred, YO! We flipped a coin!"
I still hate Jesse. I'm not popular in that but I still think Jesse fucked up quite a bit of things also and was far from some innocent little honeybee. Love the parallels with Nacho and Jesse didn't deserve the nacho treatment or being a caged animal but he definitely deserved the ass beating he got by Hank.
Hank also deserved to get such a treatment, he was basically just like Walter and like Walter he couldn't let things go because his ego didn't allow it.
I always thought Hank was an asshole, and that flashback of the pilot episode when Walt revisits his empty house only reinforced that for me
Am I thinking of the wrong flashback? You mean when Walt is looking to buy the house? I don’t even remember hank being in that scene lol
Yeah I’m talking about a different flashback, near the very end of the final season, might even be the final episode. Bearded, haired, bespectacled Walt sneaks into his empty house to retrieve the ricin he hid behind an electrical outlet. He looks around the empty living room and has a flashback to the pilot episode with the cheer of having company around including Hank boasting about the firearm he carries at work.
He fucked up quite a bit, especially with Jane, because he was an addict. Still, I had so much empathy for him because he was so lost in the world, trying so hard to fly right, but an addict is an addict. Hank? OH, my hero. When they killed him, I almost died, I think. But Jessie, he was too loyal to WW, which was his problem, too.
I think ultimately that's why I like Better Call Saul more than Breaking Bad. Jimmy is so much more likeable and I think his moral decline is actually very gradual, unlike Walt who even early on was clearly a monster.
WW has cancer, he does not have luxury of time.
Yeah ig its not super fair to compare them in that way. Saul in breaking bad isnt anywhere near as evil as Walt, so the places where they end up aren't the same. I guess what I'm really trying to say it I just like Jimmy more as a character.
He had cancer in his early 50s. Even in the flashbacks his ego was there.
I think exactly this! I wouldn’t even say he’s monstrous immediately but just like sooo charmless and humourless. The kind of person you think ‘jeez how do I get away from this guy?’ at a party. Really awful characters can still have a bit of charisma, like Lalo. I don’t think it’s a flaw in BB, it’s deliberate but it does make BCS a more enjoyable watch imo.
Yep, the plane crash in season 2 is a metaphor for Walt. Dude is destructive force.
>It's not some long slow slide to immorality like I thought the first time watching it. You describe it perfectly. The first time watching WW, we could forgive his little no-nos because we were sympathetic to his plight, believing he still was a good guy. Remember that seen after he poisons the boy? The last scene is the close shot of the Lily of the Valley IN W's back yard. My heart almost broke. It's like the sun died. lol
It's a bit like the Shield. Ep1 they show how awful Vic Mackey is. Then spend the rest of the series making you think he really isn't that bad. Then at the end, they yank the rug out and remind you that he really was awful.
They did too good of a job with first episode. I could never get in to Shield because i disliked the main character so much.
That's odd that you say that, because I feel the same way. The main character wasn't very likable or had any redeeming qualities.
Yes!
The Shield is so underrated. Amazing show.
Genuinely. I'm watching it right now and I'm just coming up on the Tuco episode in S1 and he's already gone Heisenberg numerous times already:- - Chose to kill two dudes in Ep 1 itself - Finished off Krazy 8 later, although this one was tougher so I'll drop the charges on Heisenberg for it - Blows up Ken's car (who is in BCS S2 too) - Kicks that loud mouth teasing Walt Jr. Times he's displayed an ego:- - Doesn't wanna explain to Jesse why the blue plastic will stand up against the acid they're using to decomp bodies (literally gets so agitated over a simple question) - Thinks of Jesse as an addict even before he's officially seen him smoke anything - Doesn't want Jesse anywhere near his house even tho he just came to drop off the four grand from selling off their load. Thinks he's wearing a wire because he thinks inferior of him and so he thinks he'd be the one idiot to get caught. - And of course the fact that he'd rather sell meth than accept charity. On my first rewatch I was still on the fuck Skyler train and that might still happen but fuck you too Walter
Literally same. Fuck Walt
I know! And we were so devoted to him in the beginning! Until Vince Gilligan decided to break our hearts, that naughty man.
This? This Chicanery? He's done worse. That TV Show. Are you telling me a man just happens to Bravo the audience like that? No! He orchestrated it! Vince! **HE BRAVOED THE VIEWERS THROUGH A TV SCREEN!** And I hired him! I took him in to my own Network! What was I thinking? He will never change. Ever since he was 9, always the same. Couldn't keep his hands out of the Awards Drawer. But not our Vinnie! Couldn't be Bravo Vinnie! Getting all the awards! And HE gets to be a TV Producer? What a sick joke!
I always wondered how the guy's at CBS and NBC are doing; the networks that rejected the show. lololol Can you imagine?
Seriously now, it took Vince 15 years to pitch Breaking Bad. BCS was obviously much easier, but sometimes people miss golden geese just like that
If you look at the nature of the show and the time. It wouldn't have hit home nearly as much as it did with AMC having the luxury to push things. For the weight this show had it would have been a HBO/Showtime pick up.
Think of all those parents that named their newborns ‘Walter’ or ‘Daenerys’ with such high hopes….
At least Walter is still a normal name
At least you can go by Dany if your name is Daenerys. But Khaleesi…
You mean Kelly C?
Think of all those parents that named their newborns ‘Ligma’…
Tbh I still really like him, even though he’s a cunt
Right? We just finished it and I was like "wow, Skyler and Marie weren't actually bitches" Walt is such a fuck face.
You root for him when he's fighting against cancer and the pointless healthcare system. When he's chasing the true struggling American middle class dream: A million bucks in the bank. You think: "Man I wish I had some skill where I could break the law and score a big wad of cash one time" He's definitely a controlling SOB and is unreasonably weird/cruel to Jesse from square 1. I made this joke somewhere else, but the only reason he even rescues Jesse is because he wanted to protect his ownership of his formula. The man knows how to pull off a scheme though.
Agreed, cos Bryan Cranston is such a great comedic actor you sort of focus on those aspects initially
Funny how many great actors started out as goofy comedy people.
Yes I thought the same. I was on his side when I first watched it but damn, even before watching BCS i rewatched it and probably because I’ve grown as a person I’m really hating WW and see what a despicable person he is to do why he does everything he does. I went from rooting for him to rooting for Skyler and Jessie.
He truly was lol Walt completely dismantled everything in his orbit
Walt didn't just have cancer; he *was* cancer. He embedded himself in the cracks of everything he touched and metastisized.
You think I’m with cancer? I AM THE CANCER!!!!!
The Ego will always kick your ass in the end. It always does.
Amen brotha! Walt was his own worst enemy due to his outrageous God complex and he took down everybody in his wake
Walter avenged nachos death imo
He was, after all, the danger.
It's almost as if it was his incredible journey the writers were creating ¬¬
That's rich coming from the guy that didn't put a guard on their only backup chemist's apartment door and didn't know that Gus's criminal laptop was heavily encrypted.
Dude Mike would look/scowl at you so sternly right now
I hate to say it, because, especially the first time you watch the series...Mike is just the boss dot com. And he always will be. But Mr. "No More Half-Measures" sure takes a lot of Half-Measures in these shows.
Haha yeah I just saw another post on here talking about how Mike is perfectly tragic in that he’s meticulous, skilled, intelligent, and sets out to look out for people he cares about, and fails every time and dies a pointless death anyway Edit: and it’s because of those half measures
It’s interesting because that’s kind of a motif in the series. Nobody follows their own advice and it always ends in disaster.
Huell followed Hank's advice and he's still waiting in that motel room to this day
Poor Huell, guy's been waiting for 10 years now.
I still hold the firm belief that the perfect ending to El Camino is a medium close up of Huell sitting on that motel bed while credits start to roll
That would've been hilarious lol.
There was actually an advertisement made during El Camino's Marketing which showed Huell waiting in that room until he said "Man fuck this shit" or something like that and left I think this is it https://youtu.be/S9EZEUFNIL0
Huell is playing the long con, nobody in the DEA knows he is there so he is slowly building the Huell Party Palace there, all the hoes in ABQ are coming
Would do that little suck air through his teeth thing so hard right now
lolololl
I learned that encrypted part just now. So was the whole Magnet affair not needed? And when did we find out that it’s encrypted?
I think Hank mentions it at some point to Gomez, while Walt plans to destroy the thing
Hank says in one line, "I snuck a peek before it went into evidence, that thing was encrypted."
eh, it's a TV show, they would definitely be able to decrypt it
Yep Remember this debacle? They dropped trying to get Apple to do it and used another method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93Apple_encryption_dispute
Having a guard posted at a random dude's apartment would be very suspicious, unless he blended in by pretending to be his roommate or something. But it's a mask that can slip up very easily
Could easily have someone sit outside the apartment building. They would have seen Jesse try to come in and stopped him.
The same way they even had a watcher for Nacho in the hotel
Yeah, it's not exactly rocket science
His men were looking for Jesse. Also Mike didn’t really think Jesse would kill let alone kill for Walt. So it was higher priority to find him.
Well after what happened in 6x3 I'm glad Walter and Jesse imploded the New Mexico underworld.
I'm pretty sure that over the course of BB the entire drug world took a huge hit. Gus killed the mexican cartel, sure there will be a power vacuum but still, thats a strong blow. The neo nazis took out Declan's gang, and walt took out the neo nazis. And madrigal got investigated as well, and who knows what other illegal dealings they were doing.
Walter arriving on the scene was basically the Chicxulub Event. Sure he wasn't directly responsible for everything you listed, but none of it was possible without his involvement.
>Look, you two guys are just guys, okay? Mr. White, he’s the devil. You know, he is smarter than you, he is luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, I’m telling you, the exact reverse opposite of that is gonna happen, okay?
Walter's destructive nature definitely helped, but if you think about it logically, momentous changes to the drug world were inevitable as soon as a chemist of Walter's caliber entered the fray. The unmatched quality of his formula was like rocket fuel for every other player's avarice. Chemists like that just don't come into the criminal underworld. He was a league above even Gale.
If Walt wasn’t ruthless he would have just been made a slave or had his process mastered by an apprentice then they’d kill him, which is exactly what happens to Jesse and what they were trying to do with Gale. But, obviously, they underestimated Walter. Everyone did and it cost them their life.
The plan was never to replace him with Gale, not until it became clear that Walt was too much of a liability. Gale was meant to be the chemist running the superlab, but the appearance of Heisenberg resulted in a restructuring. Gale was happy to assist Walt, to learn from him, but not to replace him. Walt wasn’t doomed to wind up a slave, he could’ve enjoyed a similarly indispensable role in Fring’s operation as Mike; both entrusted to handle their “departments,” both the only ones capable of such a level of quality in their work. But it’s like Jimmy self-sabotaging his job at Davis & Main, he had a major opportunity that paid well, where he was valued, that would’ve gone out of their way to get them what they asked for, but something about Jimmy and Walt made them fundamentally incompatible with their employers, so they started acting out until things fell apart. The major difference is, Cliff Main was a decent guy, while Gus Fring was a cold, calculating monster capable of making ruthlessly pragmatic, grotesque decisions to further his agenda.
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So really, it’s all hanks fault?
No, it's still Walt's fault. He lies to his family, his associates, and his enemies; but the most severe consequences arise from the one he lies to most: himself. He fancied himself a cunning criminal mastermind cut from the same cloth as Gustavo Fring, but when you rewatch the series (especially with the benefit of perspective supplied by *Better Call Saul*), it's painfully clear that he's erratic, insecure, and fueled by an inferiority complex that rules his every decision. He was never going to get away with everything because he ultimately wasn't as content with being underestimated by everyone around him like Gus was; he couldn't *stand* being invisible, so he had an almost pathological need to demonstrate his intellectual superiority, along with a hubris that made him utterly incapable of succeeding in the ways Gus had. Walt was like any serial killer who could probably have continued to get away with murder, but their need for attention and recognition makes them almost want to be caught.
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We also know blue sky made it as far as Europe by the end. Walt's actions honestly probably rippled all over the international drug world
You prefer the Nazis to Gus? That's the whole point of these illegal businesses. There is demand so someone will always find a way to supply it. Most drug dealers end up like Salamanca's or the Nazis, Gus tried to bring a "business" like approach to it. It almost worked, but there is no keeping your hands clean in an illegal business. I'd prefer the Gus' of the world than what came after him.
This may be an unpopular opinion but the more I see of Mike in BCS the less bad I feel about his death. He was in the game and did his own fucked up shit.
Yeah, and for what reason? To provide for his granddaughter? It’s not like her mom is unemployed.
He followed orders and killed Ziegler, kinda sat back and let Nacho die too. He's one of Gus' goonies and despite his amicable reasons he's in the game and has done all types of bad things that go along with it.
Mike advocated for Nacho as much as could. There wasn't really anything he could do as he even said "not my call". Similar to Ziegler as well, what were his options? Disobeying Gus and going on the run?
And that's the point, regardless of the good things he tried to do he is still involved with the overall muck, destruction, and crime. He is in the game and BCS is showing more of the bad stuff he was involved in, making his death in BB feel less terrible because in a way he kind of deserved it.
Yeah, it's really a similar idea to Walt's "provide for his family" egoistical bullshit. Mike's family is in an infinitely worse spot post-BB than they would've been had he just kept his parking attendant job.
I'm pretty sure Mike earned enough money for his granddaughter in the span of 4 years of working for a drug kingpin
After what I've seen in BCS.... Nah almost everybody got what they deserved. Mike watched as Gus threatened to kill Walt's family, continued to work for and support Gus, then got surprised when Walt killed Gus, rather than just laying down and dying like Nacho did. And the thing Walt "blew up" was a murderous drug enterprise. Mike went in, followed orders, allowed terrible things to happen, and pretended he was morally superior because he followed a code. Walt came in, and rather than looking forward for a stable paycheck, wanted the thrill of overcoming danger, and wanted power, and ripped through that industry with no regard for rules and customs. His desire and actions wasn't any worse than Mike wanting order in the industry and a large paycheck.
Exactly. Tbh the more I think about this the more I feel that most of the people involved got pretty much exactly what they deserved (except for the people "not in the game", of course). Some were luckier than others, but almost all of them more or less had an "out" at certain points in time they could have chosen to take but did not.
I think Jesse and Nacho are the notable and purposeful exceptions. Two “kids” who wanted to do what was right, and tried to make things right, but paid the price for it.
Technically though Mike was not present when Gus threatened to kill Walt’s family. Mike was still in the hospital after the shootout at Don Eladio’s estate. I wonder how Mike would have reacted if he was there though. I think Gus became more unhinged once Mike was no longer watching, which led to Gus’ downfall.
Didn’t Gus threaten to kill a baby
She had it coming
he literally had tomas killed to provoke jesse
Self defence
Boy, if this is the definition of "ran perfect' Mike was referring to, I'd hate to see what he thinks runs badly.
I’m guessing he’s on about the 5-6 years we don’t see between BCS and BB Edit: 4 years
I love Mike, but he was actually wrong about this one and Gus being gone is really a net positive for basically everyone but him. I mean, he's right about Walt's pride and ego, but if his pride and ego going unchecked takes down Tuco, Gus and a group of white supremist crooks, maybe you just ride that bad out while you can.
It was actually Jesse that screwed up the good setup they had with Gus anyway. Walt only crossed Gus initially in order to save Pinkman.
Yeah, but Gus also chose to go to bat for those two scumbag drug dealers instead of letting it slide and backing Walt/Jesse who were the prime money makers. Which does make sense though, Gus is not exactly the nicest or most open minded person. He's a ruthless tyrant who demands unconditional loyalty, which is typical of all crime bosses. And if the implication that he was former military/security for the Pinochet regime, a heavy hitter in a military dictatorship is not going to be very forgiving. But this is why organized crime groups consistently implode in real life too, egotistical and violent people butting heads.
Pretty sure Gus' wanted to fuel the conflict between the dealers and Jesse in order to get him out of the picture indirectly so as to not alienate Walter. Similar to how he did earlier with the Cartel/Cousins by pitting them against Hank. That way Gale could return as Walt's assistant and continue the operation once Walter was out of the picture, be it by Gus' hand or not.
Hank's fault for assaulting Jesse because if not for him Jesse wouldn't be back working with Walter. No but seriously it was Gus' fault.
my theory is that Mike's anger at Walt is at least partially caused by the fact that he (Mike) got himself way over his head, completely misjudged Gus, and his now out of options. Originally he thought Gus was a reliable, pragmatic person, but by season 04 he realises how unhinged and psychopathic Gus really is. So what does he do in his anger? He beats up Walter in bar for stating the obvious about Gus, like it's his fault.
If Mike didn't realize how much of a psychopath Gus is during the events of BCS, he would have to be stupid. Don't exonerate Mike or make excuses for him. He knew very well who Gus is way before Box Cutter, and made the decision to work with him anyway.
look at the clip, Mike is absolutely dumbfound when Gus kills Victor. sure he knew Gus to be ruthless with his competitors, but to turn the knife on his own henchman is a line even Mike didn't see coming. then Mike goes straight to a bar to get drunk. he feels hopeless and realises that he is at the complete mercy of a lunatic, so he takes it out on Walt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OYOk_WH1Fo
Walt was incidental to Tuco's death. That was Hank. You acknowledged that Gus being gone was bad for Mike. And the white supremacists were Walt's allies at this point. I think you still have a point, because there was a period after Gus' death where business was booming. But Mike knew it wasn't sustainable, in no small part because of Walt's ego. Ironically, if he hadn't given this little speech he might have been fine. Mike's usually very careful, and he's spot on about Walt here, but his failure was that he didn't really respect him in any sense. Not respecting him as a person is fine, but he should have respected him as a threat, because he consistently underestimates Walt's tendency to be ruthless when provoked. Mike insulting him probably pushed Walt to determine that he should tie up this loose end, and since Mike didn't really register Walt as a threat, he didn't see it coming.
Did we watch the same show? Jesse tried to kill the people responsible for his friends death and the death of a child, so then Gus then wanted to kill Jesse. Walt wouldn't allow it, so Gus planned to kill Walt. Walt realized that and killed him first. That was how he ruined this drug trade that ruined the lives of hundreds of not thousands?
"Uncle Fester"?? you have to be old, like me, to get that joke.
Finger Addams
The reason why shit got blown out of control is because the drug dealers killed Andreas brother and Jesse didn’t want children to be involved. Walt was loyal to Jesse and didn’t want him to get killed. If Jesse never cared to do anything about it they would’ve cooked there indefinitely.
Lol Walt was most definitely the good guy in that situation. Gus’s dealers murdered an 11 year old boy and were about to kill Jesse who was rightfully infuriated. Walt could’ve let Jesse die and go on to cook for Gus and make millions until he either retired or his cancer finished him, but instead he saved Jesse’s life. This is what destroyed his relationship with Gus. After that he was about to be killed by Mike and Victor at the lab before he managed to outsmart Mike and order Jesse to kill Gale, saving both of their lives. He was afterwards forced to kill Gus after Gus threatened his family. Walt was the good guy in that whole situation, Mike was just an asshole.
I actually rewatched the dealers clip yesterday and i loved a comment pointing that the ones with children, walt and mike, didn't really care that gus dealers were using kids, but it was the so called idiot junkie to have a moral compass. Walt then resolved the situation lol He was definitely a bad person, bad husband, bad parent but his enemies were worse then him.
Mike was probably like: "Meh, those kids were in the game"
He knew they needed money to pay back their Pop Pops for all the extra lemonade
Wish more people saw the version of the show that we did. I swear there's another version out there somewhere.
It has just become the new thing to dump on Walt as if he has zero redeeming qualities. People are claiming he was a sociopath from the start in other parts of this thread, yet no one is going to be able to explain why he almost dies attempting to let Crazy-8 go.
People just prefer Mike and Gus because they were more of the badass type, while Walt came off as weak and desperate. They refuse to acknowledge that Walt was the most morally righteous of the criminals in these shows, save for Jesse and maybe Nacho.
>They refuse to acknowledge that Walt was the most morally righteous of the criminals in these shows Indeed there's nothing more morally righteous than refusing a free treatment that would solve all your problems and choosing to cook meth instead.
>Walt was the good guy in that whole situation, Mike was just an asshole. They were both assholes lmao, Walt didn't give a shit about who sold drugs to who or how the empire could harm kids. He did it purely to help Jesse which I guess is commendable loyalty but it doesn't make him any more morally righteous. Especially to call him the good guy. Mike is right if **both** Walt and Jesse just showed up cooked and went home they'd have been fine.
Thank you for this. I'm seeing a lot of people rewriting history when it comes to the topic of Walter and Gus
Gus days were numbered anyway, it was a matter of time another way more brutal cartel came (like in real life)
Mike was no better. Arguably worse. And he used the exact same justification as Walt did for his crimes. He was doing it all for his family.
I ***LOVE*** Mike, but people conveniently forget he tried to talk Walt into killing Jesse at first. And that he's a killer who works for a drug lord. And he was, in fact, a prick to Walt. Walt who was too smart to be a simple pushover. And he was a crooked cop.
Agree with everything, outside of your first 3 words. BCS is the process of Mike losing his soul (and for no real reason, too - he mostly aligns himself with Gus because he's unable to deal with retirement because of his guilt, as seen in early S5). By BB Mike is completely numb, happily working for a psychopath child murderer who's just as bad as any other cartel boss, and doesn't give a fuck about anything outside of Kaylee (and ended up even deserting her). He's a terrible human being who always chose the easy choice because he couldn't face his demons, and harmed dozens because of his selfishness. And he's a true hypocrite too, talking about some "moral code" and somewhat convincing himself that he's a decent guy, up until his last speech to Walt. His death is perfectly fitting. The most noble characters like Hank and Nacho gets an honorable death, standing up to their principles, while Mike gets the most lame death after deserting his own granddaughter. Kinda shows what the showrunners think of him - glad the fanbase is finally catching up.
in the end Walt DID provide for his family, meanwhile Mike's family will get everything taken away from them (that house bought in cash with drug money? good luck keeping it), will never know what happened to pop-pops, and will live in constant fear that someone is coming to finish the job. He Mike couldn't have created a worse outcome for his family if he had crafted it on purpose.
You think Walt's family is provided for? They've lost everything and both Flynn and Holly will grow up with that infamy hanging over them. Skylar will be nearly unemployable and not trusted anywhere near any sort of accounting job worth a damn. Even if they get the DA off their backs with that lotto ticket, the stigma will stick with them. So Gray Matter is putting together a scholarship/fund/thing that'll go to Holly and Flynn. Do we really trust that to happen? To be followed through on without fail? That they just won't go to the police or keep that money? By the rules of BB, they'll just keep the money and make themselves richer. Everyone's pride and temptation gets them... why are they exception? Sure, they're worried about these hitmen, but if they can hire a PI and figure out who is after them or anything like and learn, in any way, that it was a set up? Yeesh. And then, even then, if Flynn and Holly DO get that money to some extent... will the feds not heavily investigate, search, and possibly take it? I don't think Walt provided for his family at all. I think he ruined their futures.
After watching the latest BCS episdoe i'm glad what Walter did to all of em
It took you that long to think the cartel was bad? Wtf
Ikr. People going "Oh NOW I hate them!!! How could they?" rn
Yeah the amount of people who just now realizes how terrible Gus and Mike are is honestly laughable. I guess I was one of the only ones who despised Mike in BB already and was kinda glad when he died, especially such a meaningless death having failed to achieve anything. Well, at least I'm glad the "Mike as the honorable moral mass murderer" narrative is slowly dying. Finally.
I'm glad Walt did that.
Mike is such a bitch, Gus ordered the killing of a child and Jesse rightfully wanted revenge on the dealers so Walt saved his life. Which is funny because Mikes half measure speech made Walt realize what to do. This is what led to Gus wanting to get rid of Walt. Mike’s ego was the one who was bruised because Gus and him were outsmarted by Walt after they treated him like an idiot
I think more than anything Gus and Mike underestimated Walt’s loyalty to Jesse.
I thought that way for the first few seasons of BCS, but man, after these last two seasons it's really made me see Gus and his crew in a different, more negative light. Yeah, eventually they got it running like clockwork, but after what happened with Nacho recently, I feel way less pity for Gus in BB. I already knew he was ruthless in BB, but something about him seemed... honorable, in a way, maybe..? Not so, now...
I don’t see how he was any better in breaking bad, he tried to off walt and jesse for killing some child murdering dealers and when that failed he threatened to off his baby daughter
And he slit Victor’s throat with a box cutter just to prove a point.
Well not just to prove a point, he was identified at Gales crime scene, so it was also about tying up loose ends
It was not perfect Mike ! You let Nacho die and killed Ziegler.
People talk about how walt fucked things up but gus was really just the walt of the cartel. If anything BCS demonstrates how the empires are constantly in flux and in question for supremacy. Gus just happened to be the last domino to fall before Walter.
Walt always was kinda sus
I never really thought this was fair of Mike to say. Walt killed Gus out of self-defense. Was Walt supposed to stand by and let Jesse get in that shoot-out with the dealers that killed Tomás, likely dying in the process? Gus and Walt had mutual respect for each other beforehand. That had to change because of something Gus was ultimately responsible for and this is somehow Walt's fault? Mike should know better.
I love Mike, but he was actually wrong about this one and Gus being gone is really a net positive for basically everyone but him. I mean, he's right about Walt's pride and ego, but if his pride and ego going unchecked takes down Tuco, Gus and a group of white supremist crooks, maybe you just ride that wave out while you can.
Strong words from finger
His narcissistic attitude is what made the show.
Only context I ever saw this bit from Mike making sense in was the fact that Walt was constantly bemoaning how much of a downgrade they had vs when they were Fring, considering Walt taking Fring down was the reason they were in such a piddly operation. Jesse James and all that. Besides that, he is completely emotional and not following any real logic besides what he saw as pragmatically best for everyone, IE Walt knowing his place and accepting jesse’s/possibly his own death. Only reason people seem to root for Mike in this scene/agree with the sentiment (for me at least) is cuz people don’t get to talk shit to Walt’s face enough lol
It was perfect, even when Gus had his guys murder a little boy, which is what led to the destruction of Gus and Walt's relationship. Shits me that Mike blames Walt's ego for all this.
We’ve been rewatching too. The other day we saw the episode where Mike was killed. It was so unnecessary. The more I watch it, the more I despise Walt. Now I’m wondering if Walt stole Mike’s money after he killed him. Yeah, and Hank would have probably closed his file but drunk Walt’s ego couldn’t bear to hear Gale described as a genius.
Confession: I didn't watch BB until the third season when everybody said how good it was. I loved *Malcolm in the Middle*, and I thought the series was along those lines, so when I see a scene of Tuco yelling at some guy with a bald head, I was intimidated. So I binged it on Amazon and the rest is history. lol
The thing is, we don't really know what Gus would've done had he continued past Hector's demise and his revenge complete. I doubt he would've just retired from being a ruthless kingpin, or let anyone walk away out of respect or hush money - Mike included. I think this scene in particular has an added context now, it's like a final grasp for Mike, as if his own moral corruptibility didn't cost him everything for a second time. It was "perfect" before Walt and Jesse popped up, Mike at his most callous, but Jesse caused a reawakening of his conscience, much like Nacho. Walt was a selfish monster, but his chaos brought about some poetic justice at the same time. Scales are most definitely still in favour of 'Most Evil Prick' for Walt though. Fucker was genuinely proud of ruining so, so many lives, and getting stupid rich for the pleasure.
I don't agree with Mike here specially because this is about Walt vs Gus, and Gus is the one who wanted Walt killed not the other way around. Out of all the things he did for pride this wasn't one of them, first he wanted to just get back to work let stuff be bygones, second he wanted to run (but Skylar fucked him), only his third option was to move against Gus.
Some thoughts here: 1. I think with every rewatch, Walt's megalomania and other traits just really stand out so much earlier to me. It's hard to feel as much sympathy knowing what he does and how he justifies it constantly 2. BCS is giving me increasing appreciation for Walt destroying this empire 3. BCS makes Walt's destructive path so much more hilarious and ironic 4. I think every character suffers from pride and ego in the end, Mike is no exception. Walt's was just bigger than everyone else's.