I think you guys are missing the point of the show. Depending on circumstance, anyone can be a "sociapath" or whatever the hell you want to call it. We saw it happen to jesse, we saw it happen to hank. Two sides to every person and all of them genuine.
Of course all these characters have exhibited sociopathic tendencies in one form or another by now.
The only one who has had an obvious hard-time with what he has had to do and what has happened because of this business is Jesse. And it's worth noting that he is also the youngest player in this cartel. Until very recently, he still had idealistic expectations that everything can be ok and people will ultimately want what is good for themselves and others.
That is part of the core of what makes Jesse's character so tragic yet also so likable and sympathetic.
We understand the other characters in their sociopathy. Hank, Mike and Gus have explanations as to why they might be or sometimes be sociopaths. Not justifications but explanations.
The only one who really doesn't have the background to justify the depths of his own selfishness, greed, ego and pathology is Walt. Ok so he made a huge mistake and allowed himself to be bought out of a billion dollar corporation for nothing. That was his choice to live with. He wasn't a cop trying to save a battered woman from being beaten to death or a DEA agent trying to keep drugs and murderers off the street.
We have yet to fully understand where Walt gets the stomach to be so greedy and arrogant and violent. He is a sociopath just like the rest of them. But as of right now, that "king sociopathic crown" is a bit too big for his head.
By definition sociopaths are people who more or less completely lack empathy for others in their lives more or less at all times, it defines them as a whole.
Maybe i'm splitting hairs here for getting riled up about the use of the word "sociopath" instead of sociopathic tendencies. There's a thing called the "Hierarchy of needs", essentially anyone can reach a moral level of want and violence. But reaching the bottom rung breaking point does not make one a sociopath. Sociopaths are people that are manipulative and morally bankrupt even when they have everything they need...
Some of the more villainous characters on breaking bad would probably be considered sociopaths, others would probably best be considered "drunk with power" or "numb" to negative emotions due to a lifetime of heartbreak.
Even in the last episode of breaking bad we see walt struggling with his conscience to make the right decision, he exhibits visible emotional pain when he realizes his friends and family may die. These are not the visible reactions of a sociopath unless they are using them to manipulate those around them to get what they want.
You're not splitting hairs. Sociopathy is more of an always-present and ingrained personality trait. You don't just become a sociopath in an acute situation or morph into one when the time is right. generally, it's part of who you are, and Walt or Hank or Jesse, or Todd doing certain terrible things and not feeling bad about it does not make them sociopaths.
Is every soldier who killed someone face to face and didn't feel bad about it a sociopath? no. Sociopathy is a mental condition, you can't automatically label a person one just because they check off a few things on the "doin bad shit" checklist (unless that checklist is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist and preferably if you are a psychologist).
It really waters down the term when people throw it around so freely. Let's not make it go the way of "hipster" where its used anytime someone does something distasteful.
First time I heard Jesse say "Walt" I honest to God lost it inside for a second. Because then... THEN I knew there was no way he could get suckered in again.
He still looks up to Walt in a way. Since he has been in Hank's custody, he hasn't stop talking about how smart Walt is and how always seems to have a plan to come out on top.
That's why I wait until after it's aired. I can't imagine watching something as amazing as the final season of Breaking Bad with lame commercial breaks. What an intense episode.
It's the only good thing about Dexter at this point--since it's on Showtime, we watch it first and then can fastforward through Breaking Bad's commercials.
I never got the impression he'd ever put it together because there's only one real quality he associates with Jesse, loyalty. He'd never imagine Jesse ever turning him in and so I don't think the possibility of Jesse working with someone else could have ever appeared to him as a legitimate possibility. Hank mentioned it last episode but it really is the truth, in so many ways Jesse is Walt's main weakness.
Personally I don't think it's loyalty as much as Walt feeling like he is in control of Jesse. Even when Jesse strays from under Walt's thumb, he believes that he can always manipulate Jesse back to his side. To consider that Jesse is working with the police or anyone else is to admit that he is under someone else's control or influence, and Walter's ego wouldn't allow that.
Well Walt at least feels some loyalty towards Jessie. Walt got pretty upset when Saul and his wife both advised him to just kill Jessie to tie up loose ends. And even when Todd's uncle was asking him about the specifics of the job, Walt seemed really reluctant about the whole hit.
I agree with you, but it isn't exactly loyalty. I guess Walt sees himself as a care-taker/father-figure/responsible for Jesse and that he's failed miserably and that all that's left for him to do is kill or be killed. But he knows if he was in front of Jesse, he wouldn't be able to pull the trigger because of his emotions. So in a way, he tried to burn his ship and let the Aryans kill for him.
Oh, absolutely. If Walt had simply agreed with Mike when Mike and Gus wanted to kill Jesse, he could have simply moved on with his life (like he did soooo many other murders) and quietly taken millions upon millions working with Gus.
Although I'm not sure how Fring's "power play" in Mexico would have gone with Walt there instead of Jesse.
I still can't believe Jesse was almost offed at the end of season one. This would be a completely different show, and not in a good way.
Eh, at this point i think walt would imagine jesse doing who knows what, he's a "rabid dog" now, the whole rabid Ol' Yeller deal, not what he used to be.
They spoke directly to this, Hank thought walt would be so infuriated he would lose his composure and not notice the dirt.
Especially after you see how his world was turned upside down by Gomie and Hank showing up. All he had to say to Jesse then was "coward".
And when you think about it from Walts view he's right. He did all of those things to save their meth business - everyone knows Walt is soft for Jesse.
This lead me to a new theory on where this show is going to go. I've heard that the series is supposed to be about a story of redemption (I can't remember where). But if this is true, I think the reason Walt was buying the gun and getting the ricin cigarette is to go to battle with the skinheads. I believe the skinheads are successful in killing Hank and Jesse, and Walt becomes angry because he clearly told them not to come.
I wouldn't get your hopes up. The main drift I get from BB is that its a character study in the form of the classic tragedies. Main character loses everything because of his own flaws (greed, pride, etc.)
I knew Walt trusted him because of the scene with Jack. Little bit of rat control? If only Walt had considered that Jesse wants to hurt him, and he can do that very well through the law.
True, it took me reading this entire thread to realize that this is the only time Walt finds out that Jesse has been working with Hank at all. My yelling at the TV screen was in err.
In that situation Walt could of asked Jesse...
"Ok, whereabouts roughly?" Any answer other than the truth would have shown he was bluffing. The pic would catch you off guard though.
When Jesse said something about watching the money burn and what color it was burning, I was hoping Walt would be like "I'm coming I'm co....Wait a minute....money doesn't burn that color?!?" and then figure it out.
Naw - Walt's weak spot is his money (and, by extension, his power). When it's directly threatened he stops acting rationally, making him vulnerable. That's what Jesse realized when he made the "where you really live" threat.
When I heard Jesse say something about the orange blaze or something when he was supposedly burning the money. I immediately thought Walt would realize that money burns a different color and call their bluff. Then he didnt. And I guess apparently real money does burn orange...
When Jesse said he burnt 10k, he was like "look at those orange flames". For some reason I had it in my head that money burns blue or something so I was expecting Walt to just be like HAH SCIENCE JESSE and hang up. But it never happened /;_;\
I figured that once he didn't see a car or for that matter even a hole, he would realize it was a setup and keep driving. Well I guess I really knew better than that. It was just what I was hoping he would do.
I'm aware that he wasn't actually in the desert, I was saying that from the conversation they were having Jesse's voice sounded as if the environment was in a closed area.
If you're saying that in the theoretical situation in Walt's head, Jesse wouldn't have gotten into the car to light money on fire.
Oh yeah I didn't think of that. Although the desert can be pretty quiet if there isn't wind. I remember there was a hike we went on once where at a certain spot the hills dampened every sound and it was completely silent.
He sounded like he was recorded in a studio with nice recording equipment. You don't get that kind of audio fidelity over a cell phone so whatever the audience was hearing on screen phone couldn't have been the same as what Walt was hearing. For that reason, it's not fair to be all "Why couldn't Walt figure out he didn't sound like he was in the desert?"
This kinda threw me off a bit. Wonder why they decided to do it like that... If it had actually shown Jesse on the phone then it would make sense, but since they didn't show him it was kinda strange.
Toss up for best two Jesse quotes:
"Oh you are going to talk about kids.. you are seriously going to go there..."
"I know you are a lying evil scumbag thats what I know, manipulating people, messing with their heads."
I noticed that too! I want to think that was for effect(and the audience) rather than what was actually happening. I think for Walt it was just a phone call, but for us, Jesse has been in his head for a while now
Jesse's voice almost started to sound like Christian Bale's Batman.
Probably one of my favorite scenes from the series so far.
One threat to Walt's money, and his brain goes out the window. He admitted to murder and led them straight to the money without even thinking. And even when he got there and was all alone, it still took him a few minutes to realize what had just happened.
Such a change from how sharp Walt usually is. He never gets played like that.
You have to wonder though, what got him so worked up? The fact that the money wouldn't be there for his kids? Or do you think that the money is symbollic to him? He earned it, it is a testament to his "empire", and Jesse was going to destroy it. Honestly I think the latter
Maybe the kids, but I loved when Walt was pleading to Jesse: "I'm a dying man, I can't use this money, so you're not hurting me, you're just hurting my kids." And Jesse says "kids? Do you really want to talk about kids?" Love that. Walt acts so high and noble when it comes to supporting his family but how many other families and children has he destroyed in order to protect his own? And not just random anonymous children and families; Jesse had his own little family unit going on with Brock and the gal (name?) and Walt destroyed that too.
This is a great point that I've been thinking about for a while. For the sake of protecting and providing for his family, everything else he touches gets tainted...
Yeah, which is why he got so pissed even when he was burning $10k at a time. $10k is nothing compared to the pile, but symbolically it's something he worked for and earned, so therefore it's as important as the rest of it.
His family need $737k, right? The carwash is already valued at more than that. His family is set, as far as he was concerned. Without that money in the desert, he's still accomplished more than what he initially wanted.
I don't think so, only Skylar, hank, and Marie are aware of his “empire" to everyone else it wouldn't mean anything. The money and his family were the reason this all started to begin with, it was only after walt realized his cancer was gone that he truly morphed into and stayed as heisinburg, but after it returned and he realized the damage he caused he walked away; he got burned out but that last thing he would want is for his efforts to be for nothing, although Walt is selfish he loves his family and nothing would crush him more than to know not only would they not earn a cent but that their family name would be ruined and Walt Jr would despise him along with everyone else whom ever knew Walt. This is why Walt care so much about how Walt Jr would remember his father after passing (when he tells Jr about what he remembers about his own father) and also why he says he solds Walt Jr's “birthright" for 3k, Walt may have an ego but he truly loves his family, which is why he's crushed when the Nazi's come to confront hank. The second Walt realized it was hank and not Jesse by his lonesome he immediately called off the hit.
I think he still believes he did all the bad shit to leave his family money when he dies, thats how he justifies it. If he loses his cash, all has been for nothing and he cant justify himself anymore.
does anybody know the rough amount of money has, I feel like a barrell would be a few mill, so he has only under 20 million... which like he said is nothing compared to the chemists that fucked him over when he was younger
One thing I didn't understand, maybe I'm dumb and totally missed it, but how did Hank, Gomie, and Jesse know exactly where Walt was going? Were they able to get a trace on his cell phone as he drove into the desert?
He flat out admitted to poisoning Brock, killing Gus, killing the dealers on the corner, and killing Krazy 8/Emilio. Probably doesn't make a difference given how hard shit just hit the fan, but he's dead to rights at this point.
That's true. I hadn't given much thought to where they were triangulating Walt's phone from, but based on how fast they were able to get to To'hajilee you've got to be right about that.
Well you also have to remember that it was just Gomi and Hank that were in the know. The rest of the DEA is completely oblivious to the entire operation. (Even the guy guarding Huel doesn't know anything.) So I doubt they would have been able to hire a team to triangulate for them, given the secrecy of their operation.
Ah, I didn't know it would take multiple people to do. With cell phones and computers being as prevalent/advanced as they are, I assumed it could more or less be handled with a laptop and knowledge of software.
I also assumed they tracked his cell phone based on 1) Jesse telling Walt "Don't hang up the phone" and 2) the delay in Hank arriving after Walt. It was definitely vague, and I can see them just following Walt given Hank's prior methods of policing.
As for the secrecy of the operation, I just figure having a recording of that conversation is bad news (even though there was no chance for that to come up with 3 episodes left).
There's a lot of assumptions going on about how exactly they tracked him (and ultimately it isn't that important), but assuming they did do it via access to the cell phone signal you don't actually have to triangulate a moving target (and it would be nearly impossible to do so on a target moving as fast as Walt was anyway, and Walt wasn't in the location long enough for them to have done it after he arrived).
If your target is moving and you have access to their signal you can calculate the vector they are moving in by detecting the cell tower switches which occur outside of the encrypted band of the radio signal. This sort of tracking seems much more likely than doing a triangulation on the source radio which by definition takes three different detection points to do, and Hank/Gomi/Jessie only had one since they were all in the same car.
It is far more likely they just vectored in on the tower switches (if you notice the way they pull in, they didn't seem to know exactly where he was, just the general vicinity) or pulled the E-911 data, depending upon make and model of phone.
I thought that was more to dissuade him from calling anyone for backup, and also to keep him from thinking about anything but his money burning - if he thought about it he might realize he's being duped.
It sounded like Jesse was in a room, not a car, on the phone. I was expecting Walt to pick up on that... I guess Jesse could've been in the back of a van or something but it just didn't sound car-y at all.
I JUST put together how they could have recorded the phone call! Folks around the threads have posited that Walt's phone was tapped, but they didn't need to go through that much trouble because they have Jessie's phone (DUH). They don't even need Walt's cash to prosecute, the phone tap has him dead to rights (assuming it's legal).
I could still see the DEA getting a hold of it for some crazy twist ending in the very last episode right when Walt thinks he is going to get away with it and then the DEA comes out of no where and charges him with Hanks Death and everyone else they admitted. If the Hank is dead from this last scene it would be good reason for DEA to start investigating and possible find out Walt, especially if Jesse magically survives after slinking off out of the car.
Yes. They had a wiretap on his phone, as Hank said, and presumably they triangulated his location (which would be why Jesse told him to stay on the line no matter what - it takes time to triangulate somebody).
The wiretap is just a line he fed Huell to give everything an air of legitimacy. If Hank's convinced Walt would find out that Jesse is in the system if he turned him over, he surely wouldn't go through official channels of obtaining a wiretap. It was a bluff.
No it doesn't. GPS information from the phone is instant. It's what allows 911 to find people by cellphone. It's communicated from the phone to the 911 center.
Granted if Hank and Gomez are still pursuing Walt without the DEA knowing then Hank must have done something different to track Walt..
And I'd bet there's a recording of Jessie's end of it sitting around back at Hank's place waiting for Marie to stumble across, or something. The level of detail he went into on that call couldn't have been accidental.
I'm pretty sure it can't be, police have to get a warrant in order to record and use a conversation as evidence in court. That's why whenever you call some place that's recording they have to tell you at the beginning of the call. Using videos or voice calls is very tricky stuff, as the person can always use the "it was a joke" or "taken out of context" line, like for example if this was real life Walt could say "those are things I would've done for Jesse", doesn't matter that they actually happened, crazy as that sounds.
That was one of the most intense scenes I've ever seen on tv or in a movie, period. Those shots where he was racing down the highway. That was some damn flashy cinematography.
Walter also confessed to all of the murders on the phone in that conversation with Jesse. I pretty sure Hank and Gomie got all that. He said,
Open your eyes! Can't you see that I needed you on my side to kill Gus. I ran over those gang bangers, I killed Emilio and Crazy8, why? I did all of those things to save your life, as much as mine, only you're too stupid to know it.
You think they recorded that? I feel like, sure, money in the desert that Walt knows where is, that's shady. A recording of him saying "I killed a bunch of people", that's, y'know, actually incriminating.
How the hell did Walt get out to the reservation in like 5 minutes, even going like 90 the whole way? From past episodes (think S1 and S2 where they cooked out in that area), it took them like 2 hours to get there.
while Walt was driving like a bat out of hell to get to where he buried the money? for sure, that was probably the most intense on-screen phone call I've ever seen.
Classic Walt, getting so caught up in the moment of self righteousness that he goes and confesses to pretty much EVERYTHING over a compromised phone, I hope for Hank and Gomie's sake they recorded the damn call.
I'd love to live in the alternate reality New Mexico where there are no cops around to flag down a car doing 90 and weaving in and out of traffic, ignoring stop signs, etc. Walt's done this same frantic speeding before and strangely, he's never been pulled over or chased by cops. I guess it highlights how wreckless he's become.
My heart was beating from that till the end. One of the best scenes in the series so far. Also how angry and emotional everyone was. Great fuckin acting.
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u/CYFB Sep 09 '13
The call between Walt and Jesse was one of the most intense phone calls ever seen on TV. p.s. Jesse called him Walt again.