Saturday, September 28, 2013

BREAKING BAD: pre-"Felina" brain dump…

Getting some of my thoughts, hopes, and dreams for the BrBa finale out of my head and into words here. Will identify items or issues that appear to be in play and discuss a bit.

THE RICIN.
If it remains in the vial, then Walt must mean to use it to poison someone. The telegraphed option I'm seeing is Lydia's Stevia. Walt was ready to do it once before—he brought the ricin with him to a coffee shop meet w her. Not sure if he would have seen her Stevia habit, but he's gotta know that she's a tea drinker.

Does anyone have any idea what would happen to someone who took a drag of a cigarette w a plastic vial of ricin in it? I have this finale fantasy of seeing Walt hide the ricin like that again, having the pack on him when he's killed or knocked out, and then having someone (I'm thinking Lydia—does she smoke?) take the pack off of his body and walk off into the sunset, believing her/himself to have escaped Lambert's revenge.

A really dark use of it, a nuclear option that would take a nice chunk of flesh out of all of Walt's enemies, would be to drop it into the works of the lab at Camp $hitkicker. One ricin-tainted batch, distributed in the Southwest and/or Eastern Europe. With crystal blue as the vehicle, his supposed signature product, that would level up his horrific criminal rep to mass murder levels, taking Gray Matter further down by association, and the poisoned product would take Lydia and her network down as distributors, and frame Todd, Uncle Jack, and the shooting swastikas as the incompetent suppliers/producers. Heck, if everyone's afraid that the best product out there might kill them, Walt might even put a dent in meth trafficking and use as a whole! That's a special legacy, no?

Maybe it could be a piece of (vicious) leverage that Walt leaves for Skylar to work an immunity/relocation deal for herself.

THE M-60.
Having Walt and Jr. watch SCARFACE in the early part of the season was conspicuous, right? I mean, it was fitting, not at all forced, but c'mon, "Say hello" coupled with the junk in Walt's trunk. I think we know what we're meant to think and anticipate and, frankly, twistedly hope for. But wouldn't it be just the sly move to set us up for that and then yank the rug out from under us? Cuz frankly, I have a lot of trouble seeing Walter Lambert staying on his feet for more than 5 seconds once he pulls the trigger on that machine gun. So, who's gonna be that perforates the scenery?

I think Jesse would love being able to cut loose in the middle of Camp Swastika. Maybe Walt makes it into the lab to free Jesse but they get discovered and pinned down. Walt's injured, or maybe they're separated, and Jesse finds himself near Walt's oversized duffel, and inside, the M-60. Jesse straps that sucker on, steps out from his lab table cover, and starts blowing away the $hitkickers.

That would be pretty awesome.

Funny how the scumbags are WHITE supremacists, no?

ALLIES?
I know it's kind of goofy, and would be way too joyful a thing to see, given the hellish descent of these last episodes, but I would LOVE for Badger or Skinny Pete (I'm seeing Badger more =) get dropped off with the M-60 inside the NeoN camp gate as a machine gunning diversion, while Lambert goes after Jesse.

Even if they don't get to handle the machine gun, I do think that Badger and Skinny Pete would make for devoted, if not super-effective, agents and soldiers in Walt's action vs. the $hitkickers.

I'd love for Walt to get the magnet-o-truck out of police impound. Wouldn't it make for a wonderful, surreal, and disorienting first wave of an assault? Yanking nuts and bolts and weapons and all kinds of hardware out of hands, buildings, and vehicles.

And Joe, the junkyard wizard behind its creation. He could be enlisted to conjure something special for one attack or another.

WALT'S KILL LIST.
Elliott and Gretchen. I dunno bout this. I mean, Walt turned his back on his Gray Matter legacy a long time ago. Having them publicly disown him, well, it sucks to get kicked when you're down, but is that really the switch flipper for him in that NH bar? I definitely wanted Gray Matter to make an appearance at the end here, but I think it's used as the story-bait to draw Walt's attention to what comes next: the revelation that blue meth is back on the market.

Having Walt go Scarface at Gray Matter technologies would definitely be cathartic and fun, but I just don't buy it.

What would hit them where it hurts would be the release of documents that prove that Walt was instrumental in the foundation of Gray Matter as well as the revelation of further proof of Heisenberg's most heinous crimes.

I've had it pointed out to me that somewhere along the line we learned that Walt abruptly and most unceremoniously left Gretchen. I'm unclear on the timeline of Walt professoring, dating Gretchen, leaving Gretchen, meeting and marrying Skylar, and the founding of Gray Matter. I feel like what would fit is that Walt met Skylar while he was seeing Gretchen, got Skylar pregnant, and decided to do the Right Thing and leave Gretchen and marry Skylar and commit to a family life and a work life that didn't involve the complication of partnering with a jilted ex. IS this a mystery? I honestly haven't tracked the details and timing well enough to know, but if it IS, I'd like to see it "solved" in a way that hurts the Schwartzes.

Uncle Jack & the $hitkickers. They killed Hank (Jack pulled the trigger). They took his money. They broke their contract to kill Jesse. They used Jesse to produce a knock-off of his product. In the immediate wake of Hank's murder, Walt is keen to have them killed. After a few months' exile in the Granite State, however, that was no longer a priority. The reemergence of crystal blue (and thusly, Jesse's survival) put them back in his crosshairs.

I'd like to see this happen… Walt confront Jack, and either they both draw at the same time or Jack gets the drop on him. Just as Jack seems ready to dispatch Walt, Jack gets plugged by… Todd. Dead-eyed Todd does this to demonstrate his loyalty to and respect for Mr. White. Uncle Jack should never have made light of his feelings for lovely Lydia, either.

Todd. I don't think that Walt's got him singled out for a bullet. I mean, as far as Walt's concerned, Todd's been a good student (he applies himself, and that's all Walt can ask of him, right?) and altho he's basically soulless homunculus, he seems to follow a code, a vicious, calculating one, but a code.

Altho… If Walt has any contact with Skylar and discovers the ski-masked home invasion he led to protect his lovely Lydia, Todd would shoot right to the top of the hit list.

Jesse. He's no longer on the list. Walt regrets ordering Jesse's death. When he hears of the blue meth returning to market, he's just as relieved to realize that Jesse's still alive, being exploited by Uncle Jack, as he is furious that the neo-Nazi scumbags who killed Hank are profiting from it.

With his cancer going un/home-treated, Walt is ready and willing to pay for what he's done to Jesse and will ask or manipulate Jesse into killing him. In Walt's mind:
  1. Death by execution will be faster than the cancer. 
  2. It'll be his adopted son and apprentice who pulls the trigger, not some $hitkicker or usurper looking to make his rep. 
  3. Jesse will get some justice, closure, and satisfaction. 
Thing is, I don't see Jesse letting Walt off that easy.

JESSE'S KILL LIST.
Walt. He let Jane die. He poisoned Brock (how the heck did that happen, exactly?). He killed Mike and had all of Mike's men killed. He manipulated Jesse with sickening natural ease throughout. Jesse doesn't want to just kill Mr. White, that would be too kind, a mercy. He wants to hurt him, badly. He's already taken a very effective swing along those lines by exposing Walt's money. Alas, more powerful in concept than execution.

Walt will ask Jesse to kill him, that he deserves it, that he wants it to happen—I want you to kill me, Jesse, I want *you* to kill m. Jesse will respond by incapacitating him, not killing him—I don't give a $hit what you want, bitch—and leaving him somewhere the authorities and/or rivals will find him.

Todd. This guy has got to go. Bad enough he tortured him, caged him, and extorted 92% purity out of him with the threat of hurting Andrea and Brock, the dead-eyed husk of a boy next door executed Andrea and orphaned Brock, right on their front porch! He has got to go. If Jesse doesn't get to hole punch him w the M-60 then I hope he can detonate him with a shard of fulminated mercury. Hrm… Maybe Walt brings a bag for Jesse to pass off as part of the latest cook batch and either uses it to destroy the lab and escape or lets Todd cart it off to be jostled in handling or transportation.

Uncle Jack & the $hitkickers. Well, sure. These guys are responsible for torturing, imprisoning, and basically enslaving him as their cook. Jesse will be more than pleased to see them die.

I'd be very happy to see JESSE do the Scarface routine on the Swastikas, but I'd *love* to see him drop some deadly chemistry on them in the lab. A flash bang and cloud of phosphene gas to knock out and kill as many of them as possible so that he can escape (perhaps together with a captured Walt). Alas, I doubt Jesse'd be able to create any fulminated mercury while chained under Todd's supervision.

THE MONEY.
It should all end up in Jesse's hands for redistribution. A sizable chunk set aside somewhere secure for orphaned Brock and Mike's granddaughter. A considerable contribution to the Wayfarer 515 Fund. Some arrangement for Walt's family if possible (regular donations via savewalterwhite.com, anyone?). And enough left over to get vacuum cleaner repaired to Hollywood with Skinny Pete and Badger. =)

WALT'S FAMILY.
Todd and the ski mask patrol have proven that they can get to Holly and fam in their new (temporary?) home. Sadly, the only roles I see for Skylar, Flynn, and Holly are as leverage for Walt's enemies against him, and hostages vs. the cops should the $hitkickers get caught there. A showdown/standoff would be pretty frickin prickly and intense, no?

Y'know, I totally believed that Walt taking proud credit for all of his Heisenbergian criminal activity was enough to save Skylar from prosecution, but Saul did a fine job of explaining the naivete of that.

Somewhere in the unfolding of his machinations, Walt needs to contact Skylar to present himself as a bargaining chip for Skylar's freedom. Once she gets an immunity agreement drawn up, she'll give up Walt's location, dead or alive, with a confession and/or hard physical evidence at the scene—Crossroads motel, anyone? Not sure if the cops will find him dead or alive, but he will have saved his wife from prison and his daughter from foster care.

Perhaps Walt will arrange to have his family vacuum cleaner repaired.

Longshot. And I don't really like it, cuz if it works, it gets Walt legally off the hook, but the bodies of Hank and Gomez haven't been found, right? MAYbe Walt can play his performance on the phone w Skylar as being delivered under duress, with madman Hank Heisenberg holding a gun to his head? Then Walt's DVD could still be in play, along with a story about Hank dumping Walt in some hole while he went to take care of business w Uncle Jack in the desert, never to be heard from again.

Or something…?
A PAINTING.
I'd love for the last thing Walt sees to be a clone of that painting from the wall of the hotel room where he contracts Uncle Jack for the deaths of Mike's men. I'm not sure what the subject was… There was a boat, several figures in robes/tunics, the water, and the shoreline—Jesus meets Peter? Any significance there?
Maybe… Maybe, after Jesse refuses to do him in, Walt ends up ricin-ing himself in a room at the Crossroads, and that painting hanging in it.
NATIVE AMERICANS?
I feel like they (and their vehicles) have been major and minor deus exes in a few episodes and the finale may need one or two of those to wrap up the stuff what needs wrapping. A longshot wish, Walt encounters the fellow who helped tow the RV out of the ditch way back when and either hitches a ride or buys his vehicle.
SAUL?
All right, enough crazy talk. Let me know if I'm way off on any of this and/or missed some detail in the show itself that renders any of my wishful thinking impossible.
Keep on keepin on~
P.S. Some earlier finale crazy talk

No comments: