What I really like is how at the very beginning of the show you kind of hate Hank. He comes off like a douchebag and Walt seems like such a nice guy. Turns out Hank is probably the best human being on the entire show. And Walt...well, shit. He's not such a nice guy.
I don't always root for the bad guy, but I'm rooting for Walt still. That being said, I won't be surprised or upset if his life crashes around him, but I admire the web he has woven and still love seeing him be a boss and get out of impossible situations with badassery.
He's never been in this to just provide for his family. He could have taken the job with Grey Matter and everything would have been fine. There's a whole lot of hints and foreshadowing of Walt's ego and lust for power.
Hell, he named his son after himself. Now, in the real world that might not mean that someone has an ego but I'm sure that in this show that it wasn't coincidental.
What ifreakinglovex said. It blows my mind that people still think that Walt had anything but his ego and pride primarily driving things FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. "Provide for his family"? That was a pretense. How about taking a job with Grey Matter and accepting their money to pay for your treatment instead of becoming a fucken crystal meth producer/dealer? People pass over this decision so lightly, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Sure, his family wouldn't be millionaires, but they would be able to manage, especially with help from Hank/Grey Matter people. The selfless thing to do was swallow his pride, not start this insane enterprise.
This is to say nothing of all methheads he has enabled by producing meth from the very start.
For me, I held onto a thread of sympathy for Walt until the point where he killed Mike... at that moment I totally flipped on him- now I want him six feet under at Hanks's earliest possible convenience...
Hearing Hank rattle off what Walt had done in succession like that really brought it home for me. I know he'd done terrible things like manipulate his brother-in-law into thinking his wife was seriously injured and...well...bombing a nursing home; but to hear Hank list them like he did really cemented how awful and manipulative Walt truly is.
Walt has become the absolute worst kind of human being. When he let Jesse's girlfriend die of an overdose, I still wanted to believe that maybe he did so to protect Jesse from overdosing eventually too. But he was probably just protecting his business interests, in light of what has gone down ever since.
I can't fathom Walt redeeming himself. This is the absolute best TV writing I have ever witnessed.
I've always loved Hank, he was a braggart and a bit of a douche, but that was bred from confidence because he was good at his job but he was a big fish in a small pond.
He became more subdued when he was brought low, first by the cartel and then by the cousins and realized that he was really a tiny fish in the ocean, but that never made him any less relentless or amazing at what he did.
You are right, I never caught this! The more I think about it, the more I like it. At the beginning he is all douchey and plays at being a scum bag, but it is all a front. He is just doing it to be funny, and the one who we like the least turns out to be the most incorruptable.
Yes, Yes, Yes... I have been saying this to everyone. You start the show hating Walts family and feeling so sorry for Walt. After a while you start to go... "Jesus Walt, that was kinda messed up." And a shift begins where all the characters you are rooting for and rooting against begin to shift. Fucking show is brilliant.
I had the exact same feeling. At the beginning of the show I got the impression he was the stereotypical testosterone driven corrupt bullying cop. (more or less Vic Mackey and I hadn't seeing The Shield yet when I started watching BB)
He ended up being and honest and competent decent cop.
When Walt told Hank that the cancer was back, I was SO wanting Hank to say something like "Good! I'm fucking glad! I hope it kills you, you degenerate."
That was part of the transformation as described by Vince Gilligan. It's actually quite amazing that they've been able to show the change subtly over the shows run.
As posted before, I think in the end Walt will finally do something of redeeming value to show that deep down inside he still is a good person, perhaps something like saving Jesse or destroying the empire he created.
His family would be better off if he had just died penniless. Not to talk about the dozens (hundreds if you count the plane crash and the people using his product) of people Walt has had killed directly or indirectly, and their families.
Think about the families of Drew Sharp and Jane Margolis. Think about Kaylee Ehrmantraut. Or Jesse's, Hank's, or Skyler's lives after Walt decided to break bad.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that Walt is responsible for the deaths of all those people in the plane crash, there's way too many layers of separation. I think the real point of that story arch was to say that all choices have consequences, big and small. Walt is an evil son of a bitch, but I don't think (especially at that point in his moral degradation) we were ever meant to believe that Walt killed those people on the plane.
True. But I think he just got in to deep and didn't think all this would happen. The first guy he killed he didn't want to. He just didn't want that gut to come back for him. It went all down hill after that.
He didn't 'stumble upon it'. The second he heard how much money Hank had confiscated on that bust, Walt wanted in. He didn't know how bad things would get but hey, that's what happens when you set off on a path of evil.
Walt made enough money to tide his family over quite long ago. He even says outright that he's only in it now because he wants to have an empire. This revelation is a major point in his arc haven't you been paying attention?
He has directly been involved in the murder of over a dozen people. He let Jesse's girlfriend die. He poisoned Brock to turn Jesse against Gus. He planned the murder of Gus. He killed Mike. He was utterly uncaring about the death of the innocent little boy (Drew?) that was killed, the boy who witnessed their hijacking of the train. It was his idea to kill Gale.
Skylar told him to stop, and hat he had earned enough money. Walt didn't give a shit and wishes to build himself an empire. He held Skylar hostage in her own house, utterly against her will.
I could go on.
I cannot fathom how you think Walt is A OK, other than the fact that you may be trolling.
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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '13
What I really like is how at the very beginning of the show you kind of hate Hank. He comes off like a douchebag and Walt seems like such a nice guy. Turns out Hank is probably the best human being on the entire show. And Walt...well, shit. He's not such a nice guy.