1661

What was up with this week’s episode name? To hajji who?

1662

Was it the name of the reservation?

1663

just force them to run out of ammo so they can be captured

Brilliant. That’s good theory. I could see that, but it sure is a risky way to take someone alive. Maybe the Whities don’t mean to run the DEA out of ammo, but that’s what ends up happening…

If the writers of the show want someone to survive a firefight of this magnitude, they should have had Hank and Gomie taking cover behind something substantial and not standing out in the open and popping up behind an SUV.

1664

The Tohajiilee Indian Reservation, formerly known as the Canoncito Indian Reservation, is a non-contiguous section of the Navajo Nation lying in parts of western Bernalillo, eastern Cibola, and southwestern Sandoval counties in New Mexico, USA, west of the city of Albuquerque. It has a land area of 314.911 km² (121.588 sq mi) and a 2000 census resident population of 1,649 persons. The land area is only about one-half of one percent of the entire Navajo Nation total

Wiki is your friend.

1665

They were obviously just talking about you.

1666

Dig it. That’s exactly what I thought. Not To Hajji, Tim Elhajj!

1667

One thing is for sure, whoever survives the gunfight will be walking out of the desert. No way any of those vehicles will run after all the hits they took.

1668

I somehow flashed on Walt running on top of a waste drum o’cash, boasting to all who will listen as he rolls down the street, “I am he who poisons his friends and draws them out of the hospital alive again. I am Heisenberg, no uncertainty about it. I am he that cooks unseen. I am the one who knocks, the Face-ripper, empire builder, Pork-pie hat wearer, and I am Barrel-rider.”

1669

I really like how the show has taken a slow but almost complete arc for both of the main characters.

In the beginning, we were supposed to believe that Jesse was the sleazy drug captain without any morals whatsoever. Walt found himself getting wrapped into the drug trade through a series of bad choices brought on by his exigent circumstances.

Everyone has seen how Walt has now gone to a point where he has crossed line after moral line, where now there is almost nothing left of him being a decent person.

But I like how Jesse has been shown to go in the opposite direction. He really is the character who has done horrible things for exigent circumstances (e.g. killing Gayle), but at the end of the day, he actually does have his moral lines that cannot be crossed, and he is disgusted at what Walt is capable of. He has been uncorruptable in a way that even Skylar cannot claim. This is about exactly the opposite of what we would have expected of the character from the first season.

1670

Walt’s car is fine (so far) and tv logic can easily make even Hank’s SUV run unless it blows up.

1671

They also all have working cellphones (as we know by Hank calling Marie, and Walt calling the Nazis), so I doubt getting out of the desert will be a material problem.

1672

All well-noted.

Thinking about this a bit: However it plays out, clearly Walt gets outed in some fashion for his neighbor to be shocked at seeing him. The ricin? I think it is for himself. The Big Fucking Gun? Lydia and the Aryan crew, as Walt is finally filled with remorse. Which tends to argue that that sides survives, and Hank’s doesn’t (I suppose trading Walt and the money for their lives is possible). Marie, realizing Hank is dead, uses the “confession” to get Walt no matter what the consequences. Jesse? Dunno. Walt’s family? Dunno. Just getting in some speculation.

1673

This is a good point that I never fully considered. If Hank does die Walt’s confession video loses its intended potency while still implicating him in many serious crimes. Unfortunately if this is the way it does go down, Hank (and by extension Gomie) would probably go down on the books as being drug kingpins who were killed in some sort of turf battle.

1674

Yes, Walt obviously survives this shoot-out, but the ricin for himself? No way. First we have to get to the point where Walt is suicidal, which isn’t totally inconceivable, but with his cancer returning it doesn’t add up. Long life isn’t in the cards for Walt as a free man or behind bars, and if he gets to the point that he’s so guilt-stricken he wants to take matters into his own hands anyway, why would he want to do it in such a complicated (it was obviously a risk to even come back for the ricin), painful, and slow way?

Now I still don’t have a good answer for who the ricin is for, because most of the same things that make it a poor method of suicide also make it an odd choice for murder at this point in the game. The “advantages” of ricin are in its secrecy, potentially undetectable in both delivery and the death itself until it’s probably too late. Most of Walt’s “problems” are pretty openly hostile to him at this point, so either it’s someone hard to predict because the relationship hasn’t changed yet, or maybe it’s someone in a hospital or something like that—someone who isn’t going anywhere who Walt could get to without a confrontation and slip away from long before anyone realizes what’s happened. We don’t know who that would be yet either, maybe someone from this episode’s shoot-out, but if we’re far enough in the future for Walt to have hair, it’s hard to predict.

The big gun for the Aryan crew is as good a guess as any, whether from remorse or an attempt at tying up loose ends. Hard to imagine Walt going up against them himself even with that much firepower, but they’re still the most logical target for that kind of fight.

Not impossible, but seems like a stretch. Hank and Gomez are still totally off the books at this point. Marie would have to figure out a lot—that they even got a confession, where it is, and then make her case to the police department on her own. I think at least one of the three—Hank, Gomez, and Jesse—need to survive the shoot-out to still have Walt on the run from the law (and it does seem likely from the flash forwards that’s still a concern).

edit: Plus, if Hank’s side “loses” the shoot-out, even if they’re not immediately killed, wherever Walt and the Aryans stand with each other, they’d both be pretty motivated to keep Walt out of jail, and I think Walt could get to and destroy his confession faster than Marie could put things together and find it.

Anyway, other than disagreeing pretty strongly about using the ricin for himself, just sort of brainstorming and talking to myself here too.

1675

I see him using it for Lydia and possibly himself, the “no that’s not poisoned, look I’ll drink it!” scenario

My prediction. Hank dies. Marie is the one that trashes Walt’s house, and paints Heisenberg in a futile effort for him to go down for what he’s done. Walt somehow escapes. The nazi’s force Jesse to cook using their new found leverage of Brock, and thus it is Jesse Walt is coming back for. The Ricin is for Lydia, as already noted.

1676

The confession he was talking about is the video DVD Walt gave to Marie and Hank, which presumably she currently has at her house still, the one where Walt confesses but says he did what he did because Hank made him do it. From your post it seems like you are talking about his confession on the phone.

If Hank dies, Marie could choose to use that video DVD confession to nail Walt for a lot of crimes, at the cost of possibly ruining Hank (and Gomie’s) reputation post-mortem, since them having a shoot-out in the desert with the nazis while being rogue is pretty good circumstantial evidence that Walt’s confession on the DVD was accurate.

In any case, I’m pretty sure Jessie survives the shootout regardless.

1677

Oh, you’re right, I read that part about the confession wrong, and I see what you’re saying. Still a little hard for me to believe Marie would be that pragmatic about the fallout, it’s hard to believe she could live with people believing Walt’s phony confession even if the practical consequences are a “win” at that point, but I understand now what you guys meant.

1678

Seems like a real possibility to me, at least if Hank and Gomie do die. Even minus the confession, those two dying out in the middle of the desert in a giant shootout (while doing something they never reported to the DEA or anyone else) would be a giant red flag that something fishy was going on. Marie presumably also has has access to Jessie’s recorded confession/history as well. Maybe the two things together are sufficient to clear Hank’s name while still implicating Walt, though we only got brief glimpses of whatever it was Jessie said so it still might be insufficient to clear Hank if this all did go down.

1679

Not sure who he is going to slip it to in the middle of a gun battle beyond himself, mostly to go out on his own terms. It will probably become more obvious as the situations and potential targets narrow or become better defined, but I think it is at least an option that has possibilities.

The big gun for the Aryan crew is as good a guess as any, whether from remorse or an attempt at tying up loose ends. Hard to imagine Walt going up against them himself even with that much firepower, but they’re still the most logical target for that kind of fight.

The DEA? I just don’t see that. Not sure who else there is at this point, beyond climbing to the top of an oil tank and proclaiming he’s made it to the top of the world.

Not impossible, but seems like a stretch. Hank and Gomez are still totally off the books at this point. Marie would have to figure out a lot—that they even got a confession, where it is, and then make her case to the police department on her own. I think at least one of the three—Hank, Gomez, and Jesse—need to survive the shoot-out to still have Walt on the run from the law (and it does seem likely from the flash forwards that’s still a concern).

You didn’t see the “confession” episode? The one Walt recorded for Hank and Marie where he blames them rather than himself to insure their silence? That they watched with dropped jaws?

Jesse is the likely survivor - I doubt he will be resolved until the second to last or last episode.

1680

That’s actually a pretty compelling argument.

Think how terrible you’ll feel about the A-Team gun battle if next week’s episode starts with a slow mo death cam of Hank and Gomie.