Thursday, November 07, 2013

Son of Coul

Just want to get my meandering thoughts on a Coulson-Asgard connection down in one place before I see THOR 2 sometime this weekend, especially in light of the latest AGENTS OF SHIELD episode. And now… some crazy talk =)

In THE AVENGERS Coulson was speared by Loki, an Asgardian god. He died heroically. In Norse tradition, what happens to a hero when he dies? He is taken to Valhalla! Otherwise, if a Norseman dies an unremarkable death, he might end up in Niflheim (I'm not certain if that's the same as Hel?) he becomes the subject of Hela, Norse goddess of the dead and daughter, somehow, of Loki.

I (want to) believe the Coulson did in fact die from Loki's attack, but because he was killed by an Asgardian, Asgardian death/afterlife protocols rule, and he—or perhaps his soul—is sent to Valhalla or Hel. As Asgardians are not meant to be worshipped as gods anymore by humans, this is something of an unnatural happening, an automatic exploitation of a kind of death loophole, an error that needs to be corrected. And it wouldn't be just Coulson, but any human whose life was taken by Loki (collateral damage in Germany and NYC, along w some SHIELD and Project Pegasus agents).

On Asgard, Odin would be the first to detect this. Actually, he might not need to notice a disturbance in the Asgardian force to know that this has occurred. Remember, Odin's ravens were on Midgard watching everything during THE AVENGERS.

Of course, Hela would no doubt hide/not mention it to any of the other Asgardians, as Coulson would be the first new humans she's welcomed in a long time. On their natural deaths, these humans should be consigned to the afterlives of their belief systems, and not pressed into Hela's service by circumstance beyond their control.

On Earth, Coulson might appear to those he was closest to, as a waking vision *ominous music*, or in dreams. Who that would be that we've already met… Fury? Hill? Pepper? The cellist? May from AGENTS? Or maybe Thor, as the Asgardian with the most quality time w the man.

Perhaps Odin has a way by which these human souls can be returned to Earth, alive (meaning that when they're back on earth, they'd be able to visit their own graves with their actual dead bodies). So, Odin would dispatch Thor to confront Hela and seek their return.

If she is not cooperative, Thor would storm Hel—I'd love to see Cap and Iron Man join him, maybe Loki would be pressed into service as well—and rescue Coulson, along with all of the other humans wrongly killed by Loki in his attacks upon Midgard. Odin should probably wave his hands and close the loophole that allowed for this misfiling of deceased humans, too.

An adjustment to my original thinking, which had Coulson trapped in Hel, providing us with a reason/excuse to have Avengers and SHIELD storm Hela's domain and battle all manner of undead beasties… Now, I think that Odin detects humans in Hel and Thor and the Avengers assume that Coulson must be among them. Once they kick Hel's ass and collect all the human souls there, they find that he's not among them. It's then that Odin talks them thru the rules of the Norse afterlife, specifically, the death of a hero. And then Odin summons a valkyrie (What's Valkyrie's name?) to bring Coulson to them. He offers him the choice of staying or returning to Earth. Coulson explains, "I'm no hero. I'm just a man with a job to do. I'd like to get back to it."

And so, Thor and company and the rescued humans return to Midgard. The humans' memory of their time in Asgard quickly fades, perhaps as a result of Odin's magicks, perhaps in obedience to Asgardian law or the self-preservation of human sanity. Y'know, the usual convenient reasons. Coulson remembers his time as "magical" and is hypnotically or psychically made to believe that it was spent in Tahiti. To shore that up with actual memory, perhaps part of his recuperation time was actually spent there.

I think that the first season of AGENTS OF SHIELD is going to revisit Coulson's post-death time in Asgard. Maybe someone/something hitched a ride back with him—maybe something bad, the Red Skull, maybe something good, Captain Marvel? Perhaps he unwittingly did something that ties him to Asgard, a la Persephone and the pomegranate seeds, requiring him to return so many days each year. Or maybe it was part of the spell or bargain that had to be struck to allow him to return to Midgard as a human, putting him in service of Odin, or Karnilla, or even Hela herself.

Anyhow, they'll encounter some Asgard-related threat that will bring Coulson's after-life misadventure in "Tahiti" to the forefront.

What does Coulson know? He knows that he's different. He's had a medical workup done to see if he's physiologically different. However, nothing seems inconsistent with his expectations. But what would those expectations be? Proper diagnostics for an enhanced LMD (based on Phineas Horton's Human Torch android tech), or the healthy test results of a human being? 

What does everyone else think? May, Fury, and the SHIELD doc all seem to believe that Coulson is somehow not-Coulson. Little jokey remarks from Coulson himself seem to worry May that he may be aware that he's not fully human. The thing is (and the great thing for writing it is) that we don't know if Coulson is consciously teasing his colleagues (and us) or not.

The Coulson-in-Valhalla/Hel scenario can allow for him to return to Earth in his body, cuz hey! Asgardian superscience! However, I'd really really like for that to have been impossible, and that his soul could only return to Earth in a vessel of some sort. I'm thinking an LMD modified with Coulson's DNA for the organic bits. How much would Coulson love taking up residence in the original Human Torch's body, right? =)

Oh, wait. Okay.

Coulson is speared on the helicarrier. He dies.

Fury has his body taken to a secret lab on the carrier where his brain/memories/engrams/whatnot are recorded and saved and saved.

SHIELD docs then use his DNA to create an LMD clone of Coulson at the age of his death (reproducing all of his scars along the way). They then program the LMD's brain with Coulson's recording, adding the magical Tahiti placeholder after his spearing and death.

This is who's running the Agents of SHIELD team. A copy of Coulson. Which is kind of amazing, considering how human, humanely, and compassionately he's been behaving. It is NOT Coulson.

However, a trip to Asgard might allow for this LMD to become the *complete* Coulson, by superscientifically adding the fallen Coulson's ghost to the machinery.

And this artificial LMD body could be capable of harnessing tech and powers and abilities that a normal human body could not, like, let's say, producing and storing energy from solar radiation, the control of the density of its molecules, which would allow for flight, enhanced strength, and intangibility. Doubt it? Hey, did you see this week's ep of AGENTS? Hel-LO! The Chitauri virus does exactly that! Sure in a HUMAN body it ends up killing the host, but how about an LMD and/or the Torch's body? They're giving us the pieces to this puzzle. Coulson would then be The Vision.

Or, wait. No.

Coulson does make it back from Asgard/Valhalla/Hel, in an Odin Force-restored human body. LMD Coulson becomes The Vision. LMD Coulson joins the Avengers roster and human Coulson takes his place as leader of the Agents.

Kinda weird for the Agents, I know, but I like that we get to have both Coulson and Vision at the end of this. Which probably means it's too good to be true/happen.

*sigh*

I hope you enjoyed my crazy talk. =)

If you're interested, check out some earlier, related crazy talk…

Post-AVENGERS crazy talk

Post-AVENGERS crazy talk 2

Setting up for the next AVENGERS…

Keep on keepin on~

Friday, October 18, 2013

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW. (October 15, 2013 @Somerville Theatre).

A remarkable feat of filmmaking! It combines guerilla-style-shot footage on location in Disneyworld with some simple strategic effects work and an intrepid cast to tell the story of an average American family's fried crack-up of a misadventure in the happiest place on earth (tm). I'm pretty sure you can tell if you'll enjoy it by whether or not you like the trailer.

Spoilery brain dump follows…

The conceit that allows for the twisted weirdness of the film is a combination of the father's won't-quit libido (he insists on following a couple of French-speaking teen waifs around the park) and a CDC alert about the spread of something called the cat flu. Apparently, the father has it, and the things he sees and experiences are tainted by the fever and delirium it brings on.

I was hoping for an overarching conspiracy/master plan to connect everything, but while there are hints of more, the explanation of the weirdness experienced by the family really does seem to start and stop with the flu.

For a while I thought an "Owl Creek" scenario, with cat flu being the cause of demise might fit, but it doesn't quite account for everything. For instance, one of the extra tail endings involves an alternate version of Dad showing up at the hotel with a different family just as his body is being driven away. A nice tease of… something.

Altho, I suppose Dad could actually be Owl-Creeking seeing his own body taken away… Maybe it does cover everything. Hrm…

There's some weirdness with the father's behavior in regards to his relation to and responsibilities involving the kids. At first it seems like he might be a stepfather or mother's boyfriend, and during a flu trip (during "It's A Small World" I think), he sees/hears his wife tell him, "You're not his father, you know." But over the balance of the film, he seems to own the legit fatherhood role, if pretty irresponsibly.

Dad. He begins his last full day at Disney out on the balcony of his hotel room, talking to his boss on the phone. Just before (?) the boss informs Dad that he's been let go, he tells him that he absolutely has to try the "Soarin'!" ride. After the phone call, the Boy wakes up and locks his father out on the balcony then goes back to sleep next to his mom on the bed. Dad then calls Mom from the balcony, who wakes up and answers, "Where are you?"

Also while he's out there, he notices a van pulling up to the front of the hotel and some kind of jumpsuited technician or operator get out and look up in his direction. He sees the same thing the next day.

Hrm… I'm confused now about how many days pass in the course of the movie. I thought it was one full day, but maybe it's two.

On the monorail ride over to the park, the Dad notices the French-speaking waifs in their car. They seem to take a shine to the Boy, but one of them might be making eyes at him as well. In any case, he takes every opportunity throughout the day to follow them around the park, which isn't difficult, as they consistently cross paths even when it seems he's lost them. In a hotel gift shop, his wife even notices that he's looking at a "Learn Just Enough French" book, and at the hotel pool, he shamelessly swims over to the girls while ignoring his son (who's just fine).

Late in the day, after cleaning up his bloody sock in a public restroom (he cuts his foot on broken glass in the hotel room), one of the waifs actually approaches him and invites him to join her and her friends. She says something about only wanting to help him, or save him, I think, but tempted as Dad is, he rejects her offer. Her farewell response is a face-spraying spit-take, flashed back to later when Dad apparently connects it to his cat flu symptoms. Kinda thin. And weird, considering it's an intentional spit-take and delivered long after he starts suffering hallucinations. Maybe she was trying to immunize him?

Note that at the fireworks show that night, the waifs are holding hands with the two boys they meet at the pool. The combination of pose and shot had me thinking "ritual" somehow.

At one point in the day Mom asks Dad, "Did you have another blackout?" as if he's had blackouts before. In this case, when Mom asks, Dad has *not* actually had one. However, later, after he meets the Witch, he seems to lose time between talking with her on the bench and then having her pendant slap him in the face while having sex.

I like this actor. He reminds me of a mix of Ken Marino and Harrison Ford. Together with the kid who plays his son in this, I'd dig seeing them in another/other creepy movie scenarios.

The Boy. The Siemens scientist guy berates Dad for not following directions. Apparently his boss w the accent, who fired him over the phone that morning, was supposed to tell him to take the boy to a certain ride (Soarin'?), and the scientist guy had to work to manipulate things—shutting down the Buzz Lightyear ride—so that would work out. But it seems like it didn't, because Mom took the Boy and Dad took the Girl to Soarin'. The Siemens scientist's focus on the Boy seems like a Good Direction storywise.It's the Boy who locks him out on the balcony in the morning. It's the Boy's eyes that go completely black during Dad's first weirdout. It's the Boy who closes the bathroom door on his cat-flu-ridden Dad in the hotel room the next early morning. It's the Boy whom the Disney henchman focuses on when they arrive to remove Dad's cat-transmogrified body. I would have liked to have seen the Boy as some kind of chosen one. Maybe a reincarnation of W? Maybe the second generation result of an experiment performed on Dad when he visited Epcot as a child?

Cat Flu. Would have liked to have had this to be revealed as a product of the Siemens secret lab. Or Disney. Something that is released on the theme park's patrons to turn them into new theme park workers or attractions. Maybe it was a failed such thing, a prototype Tigger Flu? Dad was coughing hairballs into the toilet (but we never saw him lick his arms or anything : P) and when the Disney henchmen check his body in the morning, he has cat's eyes.

The Mom. By the end of the film, she seems to be succumbing to the flu as well. When she spots the Parisian girl passing by, the girl's face morphs into something demonic.

The Girl. She starts the movie afraid of witches but learns that they're not real. Then she gets abducted by the sex-princess-witch, but comes to no harm. Dad finds her pretending to be Sleeping Beauty, apparently happily engaged in a make-believe game w the Witch. She skins her knee when the Rascal's bully of a son knocks her down. Dad takes her to a Disney first aid station where a hot Disney nurse cleans and bandaids the Girl's knee while Dad does some unsubtle ogling. It's here where we learn that anyone might be a host for a new brand of flu. We see a CDC poster warning of "Cat Flu" on the wall behind her. When Dad and the Girl leave the infirmary, the nurse breaks down and cries, apparently broken up over their imminent doom.

Sex-Princess-Witch. A married woman who befriends Dad while they watch their kids playing in some little safe zone of the park. She wonders aloud at when/under what conditions it's okay and becomes not okay for a person to embrace a total stranger. This in light of seeing kids hugging make-believe princesses at the park. She claims that Japanese businessmen pay top dollar to see these princesses after hours. She then takes it back as a joke.

Later, she reveals that she used to be one of these princesses.

Yeah, see, there's a lot going on here. A lot of potentially great and fun stuff. Unfortunately (for me), they're all given equal weight and discredit in the end by the death of Dad by cat flu. I kinda wish that this had been three or four shorts in a possibly interconnected anthology about a family that meets its end at Disneyworld, with causes ranging from simple human nature to flu-induced delirium to social/bio-engineering conspiracy.

Still, it's a pretty awesome trip. If you're at all intrigued by the idea of this film or its making, you should see it. =)

Keep on keepin on~

P.S. As a lovely bonus, we got the most perfect trailer before the screening =)

P.P.S. Did any screening of this film actually bring the lights up for the Intermission? Didn't happen in mine, and I didn't register it as a demarcation point between a first, slightly fried part of the film, and a second, totally gonzo wackjob part of the film.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Please sponsor! The moviegoer you save might be you!

But it's probably me. =)

Donate/sponsor my 2013 Watch-A-Thon run!
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For about two dollars, you can buy a soda, regular or diet…

For just two dollars a film at the Watch-A-Thon, you can help the Brattle Theatre keep thousands of moviegoers fed with buckets of popcorn, salt and butter optional…

For about two dollars, you can also buy a cup of coffee…

For just two dollars a film at the Watch-A-Thon, you can help the Brattle Theatre save moviegoers from salt-and-butter-induced dehydration by keeping drinks, soft and hard, hot and cold, pouring at their concessions counter…

For about two dollars, you can buy a couple of donuts, filled or frosted…

Mmmm… Frosted… Rarrr…

What? Huh? Was I saying something? Oh yes—

*ahem*


For just two dollars a film at the Watch-A-Thon, you can help the Brattle Theatre keep moviegoers illuminated by the digital and celluloid brilliance of the greatest, funniest, darkest, funnest, truest, smartest, coolest, and most fried films available. Films that open minds and punch hearts. Films that get you thinking, talking, laughing, and crying…*

Why don't you click this link right now and show your support? With just one not-too-complicated payment of $24**, you can start to change the life of a moviegoer forever. And if you join me at the Brattle sometime, you'll find that life could be your own.

Thanks for your support.

Keep on keepin on~

* What? Yeah, that's right, crying. What? I suppose you're gonna say you've never seen SHAUN OF THE DEAD or STAR TREK II?

** A suggested, not required, amount. Based on the number of films presented in this year's Watch-A-Thon and—"I want my two dollars!"

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Please support the Unofficial Film School of Boston, the Brattle Theater—

Monday, October 07, 2013

2013 Watch-A-Thon: Security Alert (not! =)

Please support the Unofficial Film School of Boston, the Brattle Theater—

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Dearest Customer,

As part of security measures, we regularly screen activity in the internets mail system for the traffic connected to the Brattle Theatre. I am recently contacting you after noticing an issue on your account.

Our system detected unusual Brattle Theatre inactivity linked to your electronic mail account, please follow the world wide web hyperlink below to fill the Watch-A-Thon form and ensure that your account we will not require to suspend and operation of the theater to proceed:

IMPORTANT WATCH-A-THON FORM

Note: If you are not fill the application your account will be permanently undisenabled and we look forward to your benefit from added monies (in US Dollars currency) of continued picture motion services.

This is serious matters of securing your privates and funds for advantage to this community as well to your taxation and promotion of arts culture. Please do not disregard.

Much appreciations for timely action,
Saul Overman, Esq.
Watch-A-Thon Division, Brattle Theatre

* If you would to join yourself to our Watch-A-Thon team of 2013, please examine the instructions here:

REGISTER FOR 2013 WATCH-A-THON

** And also option so attend any or every Watch-A-Thon events of cinema as listed here for 12 and 13 October:

WATCH-A-THON MOVING PICTURES

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Thanks! =)

Keep on keepin on~

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

THE WORLD'S END: the end is nigh (in Boston, at least)

UPDATE! October 3, 2013. THE WORLD'S END *CONTINUES* at the Capitol Theatre in Arlington!

Greetings, Programs!

"Urgent" "news"—It looks like this is the last week that THE WORLD'S END plays on the big screen in Bostonia. It's currently playing at the Somerville Theatre in Davis Square and the Regal Fenway in Boston.

Fenway's got it at 6:40pm thru Thursday and 9:55pm thru Wednesday…

The Somerville is playing it at 4:45pm and 9:40pm thru Thursday…

I'm game for any of those showtimes (tonight's included), with a preference for the Davis Square location (alas, it's no longer playing in the main room). Anyone wanna join me for one night, five friends, twelve pubs, sixty pints, aka BARMAGEDDON? Let me know!

And, hey! Y'know what, forget me (difficult, I know) and just go see it! =)

And for those of you beyond the Boston movie zone, look up your local options and get out there and see THE WORLD'S END in a theater before it's gone!


Keep on keepin on~

P.S. If you can't remember why you should see it—my (no spoiler) pitch.

P.P.S. Also, check out IN A WORLD… It started a week or two later, so you've got more time, but no lollygagging!

P.P.P.S. Can you spare a buck or twenty to help secure the fortune of a Nigerian Prince of an independent movie theater?—please support my Watch-A-Thon madness =)

Sunday, September 29, 2013

BREAKING BAD: two finale plot-theories…

1. Walt surveils Camp Swastika and confirms that Jesse is alive and cooking, chained up, for the $hitkickers. He puts together a plan to rescue him. He's not gonna walk thru the gate blasting away w that M-60. No, he needs help, but who? Badger and Skinny Pete! He also needs some transpo, an RV he buys off a Native American (they're BB's deus exes, no?), and the magnet-o-truck he manages to steal from police impound (or gets Junkyard Joe to recreate)!

Walt decides to attack in the afternoon, when Jesse is in the lab w Todd. Skinny Pete leads the charge in the magnet-o-truck. He does a zig-zagging circuit that yank nuts, bolts, and whatnot out of the camp's buildings and machinery and most of the weapons right out of the (Walter?) white supremacist jackholes' hands. Walt follows in the RV, letting Badger out on the edge of camp w the M-60 to perforate everything in sight but the lab. Walt exits the RV and enters the lab to find Jesse. Todd has left him to join Uncle Jack and the goons to deal with the obvious threats. When Walt cuts the chains, Jesse knocks him to the ground and backs away, flabbergasted, frightened, and enraged, still PTSD broken and hysterical after witnessing Andrea's execution. When Walt tries to talk him down, he's struck w a coughing jag that wracks his body and sprays blood on some machinery and the floor. Jesse softens just a bit at this, realizing how sick Walt is now, like his aunt was. Which is just when Todd enters the lab and gets the drop on them. He calls Uncle Jack and whoever else is still around. A few of the scumbags are dead or injured. The magnet-o-truck drove off out of the camp and the machine gunner is probably dead (his firing stopped abruptly). Todd starts a convo w Walt w the intent of recruiting him as their new master cook. Uncle Jack starts to put his foot down on that notion when Jesse yells, "Mask up, Mr. White!" Walt grabs the mask nearest him as Jesse grabs a mask for himself in one hand, a beaker of something or other with the other, and chucks that beaker into a bubbling part of the lab works, triggering a flash band and creating a cloud of phosphene gas. We see Walt make it out of the lab, half dragging Uncle Jack. Walt begins to explain the ways that Jack screwed up, but hey, he's lucky he caught him on a good day, and Walt explains what will happen to him given his exposure to the phosphene and then turns away from the gagging mostly blind Jack to find Jesse. Still sputtering, but apparently more able than he made out, Uncle Jack draws a blade from his boot and readies to lunge from behind at Walt. He's stopped by a bullet in his chest, and dropped by a second one. Walt looks to the gunshots and a cloud of smoke blows away to reveal Todd, mouth and nose covered with a rag, bandit style. He uncovers his face, revealing his smiling human mask. "Are you okay, sir?" We see that he's carrying a duffel from the lab, full of the most recent batches of Blue. Soulless dead-eyed homunculus that he is, Todd's done the math and realizes that Walt is way more valuable than Uncle Jack, and by killing him, he's proven his loyalty and trustworthiness. Todd approaches Walt and begins to parley, to paint a picture of a rebuilt Heisenberg empire with Todd as his apprentice, and maybe, one day, partner. Walt will have none of that, but he plays a receptive Heisenberg, and waits for an opening of some kind. He fingers the pack of smokes in his jacket (we see him earlier in the ep, alone, re-hiding the ricin this way).

Which is the same moment that Jesse (who made his own way out of the choke-smokey lab a while ago) chooses to whack Todd's legs out from under him—with a shovel, or no, the chain!—crumpling him to the ground. Jesse might have the presence of mind to explain to Walt that he has some unfinished business with Todd as he kicks Todd's weapon away. Walt graciously steps back, giving Jesse room to tenderize Todd viciously, delivering a slightly early eulogy that highlights his merciless inhuman acts, his f'd up excuse for a life, and his laughable attachment to both Walt and Lydia.

Bitch.

Todd's skull now crushed, Jesse turns to Walt. Walt hands him Todd's gun. I feel like they should be sitting, side-by-side, when they have their final conversation, so maybe they make their way to the RV, maybe they sit inside, maybe they sit on the ground in the shade against the vehicle. No, make it inside, cuz this RV is a better model in better shape than their first lab, inspiring Walt and Jesse to walk halfheartedly down memory lane again. Walt takes this to be a softening on Jesse's part, and he turns to his other, adopted, son now, to tell his story, for confession, forgiveness, and maybe to sell Jesse on carrying on his legacy as Heisenberg. I don't have the wordsmithing for it, but I'd have Walt deliver a speech about Heisenberg and how people get his principle wrong and what it really means. Part of him is still Mr. White, so of course he makes of it a teaching moment as well as a metaphor for their relationship, history, transformations, survival, and loyalty.

JP: I. Don't. Care. I only want to know two things. You watched Jane die?
WW: Yes.
JP: You poisoned Brock?
WW: Yes.
Jesse raises the gun.
WW: Do it. Yes. I deserve it and you deserve to do it. I *want* you to ki—
*BLAM*
JP: I don't give a $hit about what you want.

Jesse throws Walt's body out of the RV. We hear Walt groan—he's not dead, but bleeding and barely conscious. Jesse throws the duffel out after him.

Wouldn't want to forget your legacy…

From across the camp, we hear someone call Jesse's name. It's Skinny Pete, helping a limping Badger along. Jesse: "My boys! Yeah! Wait there, I'll pick you up!" And he gets back in the RV and helps get Badger inside. He gets Skinny Pete to follow him into one of the office buildings and they roll out and load the money barrels into the RV, then drive out of the camp and onto the road. Badger asks about the barrels, thinking that they're precursor so that Jesse will get back to cooking. Jesse ignores the question and asks the boys if they know anything about Belize.

Back to the blasted camp. All quiet and still except the wind… until a door swings open and out steps Lydia. She'd been at the camp to pick up the latest batch of 90-some percent. When the $hit started going down, Todd put her in a safe room and told her to wait. Sweet psychotic boy. Well, since the gunfire stopped, she's been watching what's been going on, and tracking the product. She apparently makes a bee line for Walt's body and finds his hands wrapped around the duffel. Walt might be conscious enough to say a few words, but Lydia cuts him short w some snarky pinched remark thanking Walt for taking care of loose ends for her. Walt blacks out and Lydia yanks the duffel bag out of his hands and shoulders it. She looks in the bag, assured by the baggies of Blue. She reaches in and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and smiles a tight little smile. She puts them in her pocket and begins walking to another building. We hear a garage door open, Lydia getting into her car, and then see her drive out of the garage, exit the camp, and get onto the dirt road. We then see her in the car as she puts on her music (I haven't figured out the perfect selection—opera? a broadway musical? learn-a-language? Andrew Carnegie?) pushes in the car's lighter, reaches over to the passenger side, where the duffel is, and pulls out the pack of smokes. She shakes out a cigarette and drops the pack back in the duffel. The car lighter pops.

Cut to black. Music continues. It should definitely be music. How about "Across The Sea?" (I *think* the show has already used "My Way," right? =)

Finish w a montage…

Flynn entertains Holly while Skylar takes her turn in front of Robert Forster's camera for their new IDs at the vacuum repair shop. Pan over to two money barrels in a corner of Forster's workspace.

Robert Forster is escorted into a bank vault. Once he's left alone w the unlocked safety deposit box, he transfers the contents of the carry-on bag he has with him into the box—a ton of cash, topped with an envelope that reads "To Kaylee on her 18th birthday - love, Grandpa."

Elliott and Gretchen fighting in Elliott's fancy library. On the screens of a couple of laptops are headlines about proof identifying Walter White as Heisenberg and open emails with attached legal docs with the word "patent" and "Walter White" and "Gray Matter" letter head.

Jesse in a Hawaiian shirt running on the wet sand, chased by Brock as waves lap their feet. Jesse stops and catches him and swings him around until they're both looking out at the water and waving. It's Skinny Pete at the controls of a motorboat, a girl at his side, with Badger yelling at him, being dragged on waterskis behind him.

Music fades down as voices come up and we see a hotel room. We don't see the two men in the room, but we hear a job interview wrapping up in a foreign language. Camera focuses on a painting of figures on a beach and a boat in the water a short way off. One of the men says, "You know, I'm certain I've seen that exact painting somewhere before… In another hotel room on the other side of the world. Who do you suppose paints these? Where do they come from? There must be a warehouse somewhere filled with the things, right? Oh, never mind. My mind does wander sometimes. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me." The interviewer explains that it's not final, but he's 95 percent certain that Madrigal will be calling him back later today, tomorrow at the latest. The camera slides from the painting across the room, passing the exit as the two men shake hands and the one departs, out of focus, and lands on the bed, at a black pork pie hat. The interviewer: "Oh, sir! Mr. Lambert? You've left your hat! Sir…?"

2. I'm unclear on the potency of the ricin, but hopefully there's enough in the vial to deliver a killing dose when mixed in with a batch of Blue. When Walt sneaks into the $hitkicker lab, without rescuing Jesse, he poisons the Blue, which ends up hitting all of his enemies where it hurts. The batch of lethal blue, which kills hundreds in the Southwest and Eastern Europe, is blamed on Heisenberg in the media. And, with a couple of emails with particular attachments sent to the right newspapers and stations, Walt leaks proof that he was *vital* to the foundation of Gray Matter Tech.

So, Elliott and Gretchen are undeniably tied to the drug dealer turned mass murderer known as Heisenberg. Gray Matter's stock plummets.

Lydia distributed the poison Blue, guaranteeing that she will either be outed or eliminated by upper management.

Todd, Uncle Jack, and the $hitkickers produced the deadly meth, ensuring their liquidation by some wetworks subdivision of Madrigal.

Walt manages to contact Skylar and get her to give him up (along with proof and the location of Hank and Gomez's bodies) in exchange for immunity and relocation for herself and her family. She does it, and the police find Walt, along with instructions and evidence, dead, sitting in a chair in a room at the Crossroads motor inn, facing a clone of that painting from the Hacienda motel where he contracted Uncle Jack to kill Mike's people.

Keep on keepin on~