Breaking Bad Season 4 Premiere Sun 10pm AMC (Spoilers!)

[Homer Bailey]

Same here. My issue with it is that I just don't care about them. Not sure if you watched the Sopranos, but some people argued that the New York family served a similar purpose in the last season of that show. Difference is, on The Sopranos they had built up the storyline with the New York family as early as season 2 (I think). Here, these guys really did just come out of nowhere, with no buildup or character development, with the possible exception of Todd.

I think the point pretty much was that if you keep involving yourselves with psycho mass murderers, a person with no infrastructure is eventually going to get the power taken away from him. He conquered so many other killers before him (Emilio, Krazy 8, Tuco, Gus, Mike)... who else was left to take him down? There is irony in that he was calling in the Nazi's go help him murder someone, when he ends up getting the wrong guy killed and his fortune stolen, along with literally digging Hank's grave for him. I've got no problem with the lack of buildup for these guys.

Also, I think the writers will tell you it isn't the Aryans that are the ones bringing Walt down. It's his own ego/hubris/incredibly awful decision making.

Edit: Also the Sopranos was about a professional criminal organization. The whole characterization of this show has been about how amateur of an operation Walt has. An organized mob is of course going to have natural, sustainable, long term rivalries. A chemistry teacher turned meth cook who just tries to overrun everyone he comes in contact can only get away with it for so long. He hasn't been in the game long enough to actual develop any actual rivalries.

[757690]

I saw a couple people on twitter "forgiving" Rian Johnson for Looper because that BB episode was so good.......there are people that didn't like Looper?

[Homer Bailey]

For the past two plus seasons, the show has been wonderfully executed, and rich with symbolism, foreshadowing, and complex character arcs, just like the first three. However, the story over these last two plus seasons has been sloppy, conventional and full of plot holes. It's still a great show, but not as great as it was in its beginning.

I too am extremely intrigued to hear what the plot holes are.

I've actually never seen a show execute so well as it neared its end. Every other great show to me almost always faded at the end, and left me extremely unsatisfied. I thought last night's episode was the greatest single hour of dramatic television I've ever witnessed.

[Wonderful Monds]

I think the point pretty much was that if you keep involving yourselves with psycho mass murderers, a person with no infrastructure is eventually going to get the power taken away from him. He conquered so many other killers before him (Emilio, Krazy 8, Tuco, Gus, Mike)... who else was left to take him down? There is irony in that he was calling in the Nazi's go help him murder someone, when he ends up getting the wrong guy killed and his fortune stolen, along with literally digging Hank's grave for him. I've got no problem with the lack of buildup for these guys.

Also, I think the writers will tell you it isn't the Aryans that are the ones bringing Walt down. It's his own ego/hubris/incredibly awful decision making.

Yeah this is pretty much it. If it hadn't been Aryans, it would've been someone else. Walt is the real threat to himself and his family.

[Larry Schuler]

The Nazis are the fleas you collect when you run with hounds.

[19braves77]

Yeah this is pretty much it. If it hadn't been Aryans, it would've been someone else. Walt is the real threat to himself and his family.

and you always here about in real life about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The introduction of Brock was by chance and him showing an interest in Walt and Jessie's activities.

Anybody care to guess what the finale pulls in TV ratings ? Am saying it easily surpasses 10 million.

[Brutus]

and you always here about in real life about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The introduction of Brock was by chance and him showing an interest in Walt and Jessie's activities.

Anybody care to guess what the finale pulls in TV ratings ? Am saying it easily surpasses 10 million.

It will be close for sure. The overnight ratings had it at 6.4 million last night. With DVR, it was probably over 10 million. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the live rating cracks 10 mil.

[nmculbreth]

It will be close for sure. The overnight ratings had it at 6.4 million last night. With DVR, it was probably over 10 million. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the live rating cracks 10 mil.

The suits at AMC have to be kicking themselves for trying to pinch pennies and essentially forcing Vince Gilligan to bring the show to a premature close after seeing the huge spike in the ratings this season...

[19braves77]

The suits at AMC have to be kicking themselves for trying to pinch pennies and essentially forcing Vince Gilligan to bring the show to a premature close after seeing the huge spike in the ratings this season...

They gave Vince options to keep cost down. Like not shooting on set, no HD, and not shooting 35MM wide which is expense I guess. Nolan only shot 4 scenes in The Dark Knight in that format.

AMC wants endings. They advertise storytelling and you dont have a story without an ending. They also dont want Lost where you run out of time telling the story.

[Brutus]

The suits at AMC have to be kicking themselves for trying to pinch pennies and essentially forcing Vince Gilligan to bring the show to a premature close after seeing the huge spike in the ratings this season...

Indeed. In fairness, though, they still wanted Breaking Bad to have another season and Vince said they told the story they wanted to tell. I actually don't believe pinching pennies ended the show any sooner than Gilligan wanted. No doubt the cost is certainly helping AMC get their money's worth, though.

[kaldaniels]

They gave Vince options to keep cost down. Like not shooting on set, no HD, and not shooting 35MM wide which is expense I guess. Nolan only shot 4 scenes in The Dark Knight in that format.

AMC wants endings. They advertise storytelling and you dont have a story without an ending. They also dont want Lost where you run out of time telling the story.

I believe Lost had 2-3 seasons to wrap things up once the end date was decided upon. In no way can you say "they ran out of time". I loved watching the series, but the pace was Corky Miller-slow. They could have advanced the story faster, that's for sure.

[Brutus]

I believe Lost had 2-3 seasons to wrap things up once the end date was decided upon. In no way can you say "they ran out of time". I loved watching the series, but the pace was Corky Miller-slow. They could have advanced the story faster, that's for sure.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it J.J. Abrams, not ABC, that wanted to wrap up the show in six seasons? I was under the impression ABC begged them to go longer and he didn't want to do so.

[kaldaniels]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it J.J. Abrams, not ABC, that wanted to wrap up the show in six seasons? I was under the impression ABC begged them to go longer and he didn't want to do so.

He did. But if the excuse is "they ran out of time" (which I can't say I've heard that before), that's silly. If that was the case it was just poor planning on the writers' account.

But I don't subscribe to that point of view. They had 3 years to tell the story. Plenty of time.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/...-06-lost_N.htm

[Brutus]

He did. But if the excuse is "they ran out of time" (which I can't say I've heard that before), that's silly. If that was the case it was just poor planning on the writers' account.

But I don't subscribe to that point of view. They had 3 years to tell the story. Plenty of time.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/...-06-lost_N.htm

Oh, I was absolutely agreeing with you, I just meant it wasn't even like the LOST writers were forced to wrap up sooner than they wanted. They not only had a lot of time to do so, but did so on their terms.

[19braves77]

Okay, then the writers just got lazy and non caring:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...030103497.html

There's a lot of little questions that unfortunately we just don't have time to answer in the amount of time that we have left," co-creator Cuse told the uber-fans.

What with trying to keep all the intertwining story lines straight, it's probably slipped his mind that the "time we lave left" was determined years ago by Cuse and Lindelof themselves, which would seem to suggest that running out of time was something they had, um, planned.