Yo_Rudy
1781
I hope Landry lives but I think Jesse will kill him :(
Papageno
1782
That phone call Walt makes to Skyler was some amazing acting on Cranston’s part.
I couldn’t help but think when Walt Jr. was calling the cops how horrible and ironic it was that Walt had (at least started to) do this all for his family’s sake.
BTW, remind me, was there ever a good point where Walt realistically could have just gotten out of the business? Like maybe when he’d made that first big sale to Gus? Or at that point did Gus insist on his beginning to work with him? I think that before Todd’s shooting of the kid, Jesse would have been OK just taking his money and living his life. As we’ve seen, Walt’s fantasy of “I’m just gonna run this car wash with my wife as a private citizen” didn’t work out so well.
Todd (Meth Damon). I think Landry was his character on Friday Night Lights. If there’s one thing people who like Friday Night Lights enjoy, it’s pointing out when those actors show up elsewhere. More than any other show my friends watch.
tgb123
1785
If he had acted quicker he could have gotten away with a ton of cash before Skyler gave it all to Ted.
Chuck
1786
Really? He shot and killed an innocent boy and showed zero remorse (contrast that to Jesse’s horror about the murder), then tortured Jesse and put him on a dog run and made him his meth cook slave bitch… and you hope this character lives? I want to see Todd dead and I don’t care who does it. I guess it’s the power of this amazing show that we can have such different opinions.
Yeah, feelings towards Todd can go either way. He’s heartless, yet he looks boyish, and has this deference towards his uncle, respect for Walt, and immature teen-like craving for Lydia that make him sympathetic.
corsair
1789
Fring? He’s a dead man!
Alquist? Dead man!
Ehrmantraut?..
-J. Blutarsky
*Todd Alquist in case you are more familiar with the nicknames popping up of late.
Yeah. The guy just offs a kid and shows utterly no emotion. He might have been ordering a sandwich, before, during and after. There was a chilling coldness about Fring, a scary he-means-business about Ehrmantraut, but Todd is just something to be squished under your shoe before he gets into the food and ruins it. Not that he means to - it’s just he doesn’t know better.
“I.F.T.” was the best TV show title ever.
Great story. Reminds me of an episode of Hill Street Blues where J.D. had to moon Capt. Furrillo to protect himself (J.D.) from charges of having appeared in a porn flick. J.D. had identified the adult actor in question had a tattoo on his butt. It was a funny scene, especially since we all know J.D. is down with the porns.
Yo_Rudy
1793
Haha, I think it’s just mainly just my fondness of Landry from Friday Night Lights that makes me like Todd. He’s definitely a shithead, but I - and I’m sure all other FNL fans (Wholly Schmidt, you’re right, we’re pretty annoying) - am just so tickled that Jesse Plemons has managed to land another role on an incredibly well-written and excellent TV show that I want to see him make it to the end. And as Mogg has pointed out, that sad, awkward puppy love that he seems to have for Lydia is something is a dork like me can kind of relate to. Whether that turns out to actually be some sort of twisted or sadistic obsession remains to be seen (my guess is yes!), but for now, I can’t help but continuously think “Aw, Landry, you big goofball” whenever he does something silly or awkward (“Sorry for your loss.”), even if he killed that kid that one time.
I need to go back and watch Friday Night Lights again. Hopefully my tear ducts can survive another go.
tgb123
1794
Several years back we hired several former TV stars from the 50’s and 60’s to appear at my company’s home and garden show to tell stories and sign autographs. While a couple were quite charming (my wife and I had breakfast with Ruth Buzzi and Jon Provost [Timmy on Lassie]), Ken Osmond was perpetually pissed off, and just seemed like a bitter, old drunk.
DrDel
1795
how do we know Walt has an M60 in his trunk? I may have missed that…
Papageno
1796
Flash forwards at the beginning of last summer’s season as well as this one.
Desslock
1797
Dude should have tread carefully.
This show delivers when it counts. Season 4 built to a fantastic end, which they thought at the time could even be the series end, and this entire season has been so dense with developments and character moments.
It’s one of the best shows of all time. Yet there are still awkward contrivances that still hold it back - like the goofy “telephone answering machine” gimmick, when answering machines like that haven’t been common for 20 years now. It may not be as plausible or as immaculately detailed in its depiction of a setting as a show like the Wire, but I enjoy it a lot more because the writing resolves plots both in an intelligent and satisfying manner.
On the subject of the fifth season overall, I’ve been impressed at how well they’ve had their cake and eaten it too. I think I mentioned this as a worry earlier, but at the halfway point of season five Walt had basically “won”. Obviously Hank’s bathroom epiphany changed all that in the last seconds of the episode, and we also now know that Walt’s cancer was back, and Jesse would’ve been an ongoing problem for Walt in some way, but at the time, right up until Hank’s discovery, they also could’ve ended the show there. Walt had more money than he could ever spend, he was out of the business, and his home life was approaching at least a functional stability that we could’ve been left to imagine might’ve healed further if he stayed out of the meth business for good.
At the time I was worried it was basically cheating, that it would feel forced or contrived as a way to basically give the show two endings (not even counting the season four finale, which yes, also could’ve been at least a satisfactory ending). Here’s the happy ending! Now we’ll show things going bad too!
That basically is what’s happening, but in execution it actually seems pretty brilliant, not forced. They actually kind of pulled it off again with the fourth episode of this final half. Had Walt’s phone call to the Nazis gone just slightly differently, that would’ve been “the end” of things with a victorious Hank, arresting Walt with Jesse’s help. But again, everything is upended, and now things are truly going horribly wrong for everyone, and it’s still working. I’ve been so much more impressed with this season than I thought I would be when we hit the halfway point.
haha, someone needs to take an image of Hank in the desert and add those words to it.
