Love that.

They showed us last week that the axe is his weapon of choice.

Couldn't agree more. Although how about an ending where he has been cut off from his family and is addicted to meth. Now that's comeuppance.

Then why did he use a gun first and leave his "weapon of choice" in the car?


Killing an immobilized man is less "easy" in the characters eyes than shooting him? They both seem easy at that point and condition. I could get the "not as easy" argument if he went with the axe initially. But if they are dead set (pun intended) on making him suffer then they wouldn't have just started blasting away. They'd have figured out a way to grab him and take him some place that they could take their time.

Like I said, it was a convenient plot device but by no means the most egregious one they've used in the series.

Because they didn't know he was unarmed. An axe isn't really a distance weapon.

Doesn't that just increase the difficulty factor? And they aren't looking for easy, are they.

We saw these guys kill with an axe one time. That doesn't establish it as a must use, "weapon of choice." And I'd still argue that finishing Hank off with his bare hands would be more personally satisfying than using any weapon.

It was a convenient plot device. Nothing more, nothing less.

Who says when they say too easy they are talking about the difficulty it takes for them to kill Hank? Maybe they mean the type of death, a bullet to the head, is too easy of a death for someone that killed their cousin.. Maybe they wanted him to suffer a brutal death, hacking off body parts, etc..

And you are arguing what would be more personally satisfying? Strangling someone or hacking them up with an axe? I'm thinking that is a matter of opinion..

If they wanted him to suffer they would not have gone in with guns blazing initially, as I previously said. They would have done a grab job to be able to take him somewhere to really take their time.

I agree it is a matter of opinion. My proposal for the strangling is that the axe was not the only method available that could be considered personally satisfying.

It makes sense that they go in with guns... they're trying to kill an armed man (or so they thought). They wanted him dead as payback - simple as that.

However, I think as soon as the one cousin gets crushed (and possibly dies) the other cousin decides it's even more personal now and wants to make Hank suffer with the axe. Seems like at this point the one cousin doesn't care about getting caught or anything, he just wants to satisfy his need to inflict the most amount of pain possible on Hank.

I think you've got some very valid points. In your premise they were happy to just off him initially but upon the one twin getting crushed, the other wanted a more appropriate ending for Hank.

That's a more sound rationale, to me, for the behavior than that the axe is a preferred weapon or that it was only grabbed to make him suffer (outside of the reason you stated).

Prediction:

Agree - Hank also crippled his brother about a minute ago. So NOW he realy wants to make him suffer!! A bullet to the head would be too humane.

So the idea to use the Axe, was definitely a result of the botched hit.

Killing a DEA agent is not "Easy,"

But that wasn't the point of my post. You had said that choking him would be more personally satisfying, when that's obviously not the case for this character.

They used the axe a single time. I don't think that clearly established it like you are saying it did.

They killed the police officer with the axe. They showed up at Walt's house ready to kill him with the axe. He went to his trunk to specifically retrieve the axe to kill Hank.

Yes, the axe has clearly been established as his weapon of choice.

And, when they tagged the street outside Walt's house, they drew a symbol of an axe.

WTF? It was a sickle or scythe. Not an axe.



http://www.cliqueclack.com/tv/2010/0...alt-and-jesse/

That's like a universal symbol of death.

I don't think his character was going to have wept at night if the 50 fucking bullets that he'd shot at Hank would have killed him. Why Paul Bunyan didn't have this weapon of choice strapped to his back like a security blanket, I'll never know.

No, I don't think he would have cried either. But again, you're missing the point of my post and your own argument. I don't remember any scenes of him strangling puppies to suggest that strangulation would have been more satisfying. The axe is his preferred method of murder and he was given the option to use it, so he took it. Jason Voorhees prefers a machete, but he didn't cry when he had to use an axe.

i think it was the least cheesy way they could make hank survive. if they would have ambushed him with an axe we would have had a van damme (sp?) fight scene with hank fighting 2 guys and narrowly dodging blows from the axe. same goes for if they would have kidnapped him to torture him. it would have ended with hank tied to a chair and just about as the brother is about to kill them the cops bust in and save him. just like on every cop show.

I have been working my way through Breaking Bad in the past few weeks, and I just came upon this episode.

Must have been one of the best episodes of TV of ALL TIME. The ending was so fucking tense and well done.

This show has slowly been creeping into my top 5 of all time, and this episode cemented it.

Luckily the ending is on youtube -- I've re-watched it a bunch of times, and each time it's just about as intense as the first time I watched it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg-qqVJ6g6Y

Same here. I watched the first two seasons on DVD, and the last one "live". It has been easily the best show on TV the last couple of years.

I just saw this episode on Blu-ray, and holy shit that was an unbelievable ending.

Top 5 shows ever for me too.

I'm yet another latecomer to the show. Been Netflixing it for the past few weeks, and it's certainly one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. Loved this episode, Tio giving life lessons to the two pre-nutjob brothers, Jessie's two big speeches, and Hank finishing off the assassins. Too bad about the bystander in the parking lot though. Maybe a little too much of a convenient Talking Killer ending, allowing Hank to load the round, but boy howdy that was tense.

Unfortunately, Netflix only has seasons 1-3. How am I going to see season 4? When does season 5 start? Hopefully AMC will rerun 4 before 5.

Season 4 just finished airing fairly recently, so S5 isn't going to be around for a bit. Probably late summer 2012 or somewhere around there.

The DVDs come up right before the next season airs, normally, and AMC pretty much always re-airs the previous season (if not the entire series) before the new one starts. Also, it looks like the episodes are also available on iTunes and Amazon, so that's another way to go about it.

another late comer to this show ... I've been "burning" through the first 3 seasons
this episode was fantastic