Breaking Bad

Walter

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Staff member
Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:
"Most are fine but the ones who had actual roles had terrible accents. Example: Don Eladio
That actor is from Cuba, but has had many roles in Spanish-language TV shows and movies. I figured he'd be okay as Don Eladio, who is (presumably) Mexican.
 
It's funny that you guys brought this up. I cringed when Gus spoke Spanish for the first time. It definitely wasn't good. But it didn't ruin the scene for me. In most shows and movies they'd just have the characters speak English with terrible accents. So I kind of appreciate the fact that they used Spanish at all.

I get what SrCraneo is saying though. On the one hand, I want to say it's asking way too much for Breaking Bad's writers (and/or Esposito himself) to find out, learn, and apply subtle regional variations of a language they don't speak. On the other hand, it's Breaking Bad where they put a lot of time and effort into even the smallest of details so it's not like they couldn't have done it if they really wanted to. At the end of the day though a character's Spanish accent is pretty low on my list of things that would kill Breaking Bad for me. I'll take Esposito and his Spanish any day over a lesser actor with a perfect accent.

Besides, it could be worse. At least he didn't have the "Spanish lisp." :troll:
 
Skeleton said:
I get what SrCraneo is saying though. On the one hand, I want to say it's asking way too much for Breaking Bad's writers (and/or Esposito himself) to find out, learn, and apply subtle regional variations of a language they don't speak. On the other hand, it's Breaking Bad where they put a lot of time and effort into even the smallest of details so it's not like they couldn't have done it if they really wanted to. At the end of the day though a character's Spanish accent is pretty low on my list of things that would kill Breaking Bad for me. I'll take Esposito and his Spanish any day over a lesser actor with a perfect accent.

I should mention that in general his Spanish sounds weird, it's not just a Chilean accent thing. But I agree, I too love Esposito and at the end of the day I'm fascinated by his performance. Just for the record Spanish is my first language and I still love BB with all my heart :farnese:. The best show I've seen hands down.

Besides, it could be worse. At least he didn't have the "Spanish lisp." :troll:

:ganishka: true, there's always the lsip
 
SrCraneo said:
I should mention that in general his Spanish sounds weird, it's not just a Chilean accent thing. But I agree, I too love Esposito and at the end of the day I'm fascinated by his performance. Just for the record Spanish is my first language and I still love BB with all my heart :farnese:. The best show I've seen hands down.

Ah, I thought the Chilean accent was your main beef. Yeah, I cringed when he first spoke Spanish because it sounded so awkward.

With a little google fu I found this semi-old interview with Steven Bauer (Don Eladio) where he talks about this:

http://www.parade.com/54073/joelkeller/steven-bauer-on-being-ray-donovans-enforcer-teaching-gus-fring-spanish-and-hanging-with-pacino/ said:
On teaching Giancarlo Esposito Spanish on the Breaking Bad set:

“Well, he barely knows Spanish. He’s got a feel for it. So what we had to do was just really learn it phonetically. Like every shot, he would check with me. He said ‘Is that believable? Do I sound like someone who speaks Spanish or do I sound like somebody who is just learning Spanish?’ [Laughs] Yeah. It has to be good.”

That explains why it sounded so weird.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Groovy Metal Fist said:
Fun Fact:

The actor who played Don Eladio also played Manolo in Scarface.

Just call him Manny. =) Speaking of which, it's clear that Jesse is thematically the Manny to Walter's Scarface. If he should ever cross that line, there's no going back.
 

Dar_Klink

Last Guardian when? - CyberKlink 20XX before dying
Man, I was just going to say that I'm really glad that Hank and Gomie are working together again, and now this. :judo:
 

Saephon

Die young and save yourself
Honestly the only thing that surprised me was
that it ended on a cliffhanger with all of the character's fates in question. The entire last 20 minutes played out exactly as if a death or two were going to happen, right down to Hank's phone call to Marie. Very puzzling to me that we have to wait until next week. I was certain Hank would kick it right there, but now I don't know. The pacing's thrown off haha.

But DAMN what an episode. The acting during Walt's car drive to the desert blew me away.
 
Saephon said:
The entire last 20 minutes played out exactly as if a death or two were going to happen, right down to Hank's phone call to Marie.[/spoiler]

You're smarter than me then. When Walt called off the dogs I thought that he would be arrested but somehow escape or not go to jail at all since he has Todd's uncle's connections within the prison system as well as Saul's legal powers. When Hank called Marie I realized he probably wasn't going to walk away.

Also, :ganishka: at the panned shot of Todd's uncle's gang shooting their large, high firepower weapons then it shows Todd shooting this little peashooter handgun.

Saephon said:
Very puzzling to me that we have to wait until next week. I was certain Hank would kick it right there, but now I don't know. The pacing's thrown off haha.[/spoiler]

Agreed. I kind of hope Jesse bites the bullet though. I don't want him to have a grand, heroic death at the end of an episode like Gus or Mike. He deserves to have an undignified death at the beginning of the episode like the rat he is.

Emotions aside, I think if anyone dies it'll probably only be Gomez. There's no way in hell they'd kill off a major character in the first part of an episode, is there? Now that I've said that, watch Gomez be the only one to survive (and turn in Walt's confession to the authorities).

I really enjoyed the battle of wits between Walt and Hank/Jesse in this episode, seeing who would fall into the other's trap first. I thought it was pretty satisfactory too. If Walt was battling Hank alone or Jesse alone I doubt he would have fallen into a trap. But how the set it up, with Walt thinking he's battling (the intellectually inferior) Jesse with Hank as a hidden player, made it so that they avoided the "there's no way in hell Walt would've fallen for that" trap that a lot of writers fall into. It was a great way of having Walt lose the battle of intellects without taking away from Walt's intelligence.

It was funny seeing Walt Jr. go fanboy over Saul too. That was great.
 

Gobolatula

praise be to grail!
The
desert scene nearly gave me a heart attack.
FUUCK. Great episode. What are the odds that
Todd's uncle snatches Jesse and forces HIM to cook?
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Gobolatula said:
The
desert scene nearly gave me a heart attack.
FUUCK. Great episode. What are the odds that
Todd's uncle snatches Jesse and forces HIM to cook?

Unlikely, since I imagine Jesse is going to drive away in Walter's car, leave behind Hank and Gomez. Those two are going to get acid baths.
 
My heart was in my throat for so much of this episode. I think this is the first time that Walt had been the pawn of manipulation, which is what made it so tense.

With Hank and Jesse being the primary antagonists at the moment, and such major characters I didn't think they would die until the very last episode. I thought Gomez would be a goner though; there was something I can't quite put into words about the way the camera was focusing on him and the expressions he was making that led me to think that.

The nazis showing up, however, was no surprise.

Generally speaking, since season 3, the show has felt like a drawn out strategy game with formidable opponents having small skirmishes, until someone finds a surprise breakthrough and acts in a calculated way.

I remember after seeing that they chose to end the first episode with Hank confronting Walt so quickly, I thought that season 5B would have a different feel. I thought it was going to seem more like a blood soaked free fall with Walt losing everything not too far in.

But so far this season had felt very similar to the previous ones, just with Hank's knowledge and Jesse's disloyalty added into the stakes. But this episode looks like the turning point. Perhaps the nazis assassinate Gomez, but escape with Walt. I don't know though, the writers are much better at this than I am.
 

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
Before we get to the obvious, something else that stuck out to me: Walt's and Jesse's perhaps final Three Stooges moment, after the serious staredowns and taunts, after Walt is seemingly going to be dignified and stoic about his undoing, but then Jesse spits on Walt and Walt charges Jesse and they try to fight even though Walt's in handcuffs and have to be pulled apart flailing, Walt throwing one last half-hearted kick while Jesse performed one final pratfall. I laughed, even though we all knew what was coming next...

"Mr. White, he's the devil. He is smarter than you, he is luckier than you. Whatever you think is supposed to happen, I'm telling you, the exact reverse opposite of that is gonna happen."

Even when he loses, even when he doesn't want to, Walt wins. Anyway, I was pissed at this ending, it was truly maddening, intentionally so. Any sooner or later and it would have been a perfectly satisfying dramatic stopping point, but this was truly ending medias in res. It was pretty brilliant though, how it played with and will continue to play with our expectations (like that phone call). Hank got to say his TV character goodbyes, he was surely going to die at the end of the episode, but now he has a reprieve, for a week anyway (I'm reminded of the year he spent in the bathroom). Now we're left wishfully wonder if, like Walt, he could possibly get out of it, like he's also done before. Was all that telegraphing a trick, or was the trick the ending, or both in tandem either way? Probably the latter, but it's nice to have Hank alive, and shooting, in our minds for at least another week.
 

Viral Harvest

Every Knee Bent Too Shall Break
Groovy Metal Fist said:
This is the most glowing praise for a TV show I have ever seen, and also somehow the most unquotable for a TV ad.

The most potent displays of art and drama disturb you profoundly (in my opinion, of course) I mean, this is why we're all Berserk fans too - right? :ganishka:
 

Th3Branded0ne

I'll be back.
see how hank was acting a bit like his old self when telling Walt his Miranda rights . Then after calling his wife. And Goidman with that blue ribbon on his suit , could it be a hint to the blue meth, or am I thinking too much. That bodyguard spilled the beans quicker than I thought. Was void to see Walt get tricked as well. Will need episode show when Walt starts to lose everything and escapes?????
 
Viral Harvest said:
The most potent displays of art and drama disturb you profoundly (in my opinion, of course) I mean, this is why we're all Berserk fans too - right? :ganishka:

The stories I respect the most are high tension and anxiety inducing, but make some degree of sense to me. I don't have to precisely figure out every single thing, but if all I can see in the story are a bunch of surreal/nightmarish images, I won't enjoy it. I respect a story that can manage to be unpredictable but not feel like someone randomly flipping a coin at the end. I love watching the final episode of a TV show, having no idea who lives and who dies.

I'm not sad that Breaking Bad is over. I'm actually thrilled to see the story come to a proper conclusion, which many, many shows don't get. They either get cancelled too early, run years past their prime, or never really have much of a point to begin with.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Last scene was extremely difficult to watch, because as the scene dragged on, it became clear to me that Todd's gang wouldn't give a fuck what excuse Walt had—they had a deal, and they need him. And then the scene slowed down, and every second I expect Hank and Gomie to just collapse in a hail of gunfire... Then Hank tells his wife he loves her, oh boy, he's DEFINITELY dead now! Then the episode just ends.
:ganishka:

Cant believe Walt may make it out of this circumstance... Of course, now he's likely working as slave labor to Todd's group...

My favorite moment in the episode was Walt on the phone with Jack, ordering the hit, then he sees Hank and that long pause. as realization sets in.

Griffith said:
Walt throwing one last half-hearted kick while Jesse performed one final pratfall.
Thanks so much, I hadn't noticed that last little kick. :ubik:
 
What the hell! That cliffhanger was maddening.

So who will make it out alive? On the one hand it's doubtful that Gomie, Hank, Jesse will die all at once, but on the other hand... Walter will probably not plead for Jesse's life now and there's no way that the nazis are going to let two federal agents live. And even if Jesse makes a run for it, they'll probably chase him down with their cars and assault rifles.

I hear you Viral Harvest, it's going to be hard to be productive this week.
 
Time flew real quick watching this episode, it was that good. Amazing overall and a bit over the top in the end.

Walter said:
Cant believe Walt may make it out of this circumstance... Of course, now he's likely working as slave labor to Todd's group...

Not really sure why Todd's uncle and crew fired all those rounds at the car knowing Walt was in there, those guys were brutal!

And yeah, when Hank and Gomez were out in the open, they didn't get shot?! Seeing Todd's expression as he shot those rounds was priceless heh.

Walter said:
My favorite moment in the episode was Walt on the phone with Jack, ordering the hit, then he sees Hank and that long pause. as realization sets in.

Agreed, loved that moment when he felt the emotional weight behind the scenario and
him crying
.

Saul talking to Walt with his banner in the background, funny.

Do you think Walt had enough time to get back in his car and drive off to a different spot maybe?

Hank splattering the brain in the beginning was cool and every time they zeroed in on him in the end, I had this foreshadowing sense of perhaps seeing Hank's own brain all over the place, shot in the head or something maybe by Gomez or uncle-n-crew. I was on the edge of my couch, anxious.

It's been hard to predict what may happen next because of good writing. I hope this week flies by quick.

If Hank dies, I can imagine Walt feeling massive guilt and rage about it. He could call off the cook-deal.
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Surakemastura said:
And even if Jesse makes a run for it, they'll probably chase him down with their cars and assault rifles.
Of course Jesse will get away. First off, Jesse is off by himself, while everyone is distracted. Second, Jesse is in Walt's super fast car near a highway, those pickups wouldn't be able to keep pace.

IncantatioN said:
Not really sure why Todd's uncle and crew fired all those rounds at the car knowing Walt was in there, those guys were brutal!
Well yeah, Nazis!

And yeah, when Hank and Gomez were out in the open, they didn't get shot?!
I didn't see it myself, but my cousin claims that he saw Gomez getting shot.

Hank splattering the brain in the beginning was cool and every time they zeroed in on him in the end, I had this foreshadowing sense of perhaps seeing Hank's own brain all over the place, shot in the head or something maybe by Gomez or uncle-n-crew. I was on the edge of my couch, anxious.
...
If Hank dies, I can imagine Walt feeling massive guilt and rage about it. He could call off the cook-deal.
I didn't catch that, but I imagine you're right about it being foreshadowing. The brain also kinda works with symbolizing Hank's hubris, his overconfidence in how much smarter he thinks he is than the criminals he is pursuing, including Walt. However, Hank isn't smart enough to see how much Walt has helped, and now there is nothing that Walt can do to prevent Hank and Gomez from getting their inevitable acid baths.
 

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Vampire_Hunter_Bob said:
Well yeah, Nazis!
I didn't see it myself, but my cousin claims that he saw Gomez getting shot.
I watched the scene twice and saw nothing like that.

I didn't catch that, but I imagine you're right about it being foreshadowing.
Why are you so sure? This whole brain thing really sounds like a reach to me... And that's coming from a guy with Void as an avatar.
 

NightCrawler

Aeons gone, vast, mad and deathless
Ok, just finished watching. I thought this episode was ridiculous, and actually i was kinda pissed off of how incredibly far-fetched everything was plotted and how cheesy the last 5min were.
It felt more like a soap opera than anything else.
 
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