Sorry, ended up deleting my message as it was answered somewhere else, but thanks for the answer, that makes sense. Yeah I was wondering about the method of delivery since Jesse was freaking out.

So did Walt rape Skylar at the end?

Seemed to be the way it was going...

From what i remember about that powder/ricin it was going to be dumped to the soup that Gus was making so Gus would then eat it and die.

Does anyone else get the sense that after 5 seasons, someone is finally going to get poisoned? Now that the ricin is conveniently hidden at baby level ....

This was a great episode and I loved that it focused a lot on Mike and some of the people behind the scenes. Banks was tremendous; you could really feel his internal conflict over killing the lady or not. The interrogation scene was phenomenal.

And speaking of the lady, I'm re-watching the episode now and when the camera panned over to the one German guy who said "allegedly" the camera focused on a dark-haired female. She looked an awful lot like the woman Mike dealt with this episode, but maybe I'm just imagining it.

Anyone else pick up on Hank's look of realization when his boss was talking about the bad guy being right under his nose the whole time? That has to be Walt-related, right?

I was wondering too, so thanks for that explanation. The scene before Walt went over to Jesse's to search the house makes a lot more sense now. Walt created two replicas of the cigarette depending on which route he needed to take. And he made a fake one with the Ricin because he didn't want to risk exposure. Really great attention to detail.

?

The whole GD Mexican cartel was poisoned? Gus was poisoned?

What do you mean?

#TheCrystalShip is already trending.

It's her.

Thanks! Glad to know I wasn't imagining things.

The Crystal Ship

I caught that as well and with the way Hank thinks its easy to assume that he could be mentally connecting the dots to Walt. Dying to see where that leads. Liked that they addressed if Hank sneaked a peak at the computer. His face when they were bagging it looked like he may have seen something but apparently not.

Anyone pick up when Hank said Gus's computer's files were all encrypted and probably wouldn't have gotten anything anyway. Meaning last week's episode with the magnet was pointless and inadvertently led the police to Gus' offshore accounts. All Walt's doing.

I guess I meant with the ricin that Walt and Jesse never seem to be able to use successfully.

The thing that gets me about this episode, and this season, how top shelf the writing is, is that if they hadn't gone after the laptop with the magnet? The secret bank accounts would not have been discovered. If the accounts had not been discovered, the money could not have been seized. Mike wouldn't need money himself, his guys wouldn't be losing theirs. Then his girl would not have gone crazy about killing everyone, and tried to kill Mike at Chow's, and Mike would not have had to ask her about P2P and decided to go back in with Walt and Jesse.

To go from the success of the magnet heist, that was talked about and debated by everyone all over, to that being both their potential downfall and saving grace to get Mike back in and start the operation back up.

That's some fucking A good writing.

Well yeah, I did.

But there were more layers to it than that.

What sucks is that ended up screwing Mike over the most.

This show has always been about cause and effect; how a single choice to act or not act can have huge implications. This is another great example of that, and it's one that some of the characters may never fully comprehend. Nothing in life happens in a vacuum and while this show is sometimes a bit over-the-top, it does a great job of illustrating how a person's decision can have far-reaching and unintended consequences.

Season 2 with the crash is probably the best example of this

Because Walt wanted to save the ricin in case he needs it later. I have a feeling he'll end up using it on Jesse.

Brilliant episode. I first thought that Lydia was Gus's wife and that was their daughter, but reading the episode on the synopsis on the Breaking Bad Wiki said Mike went to her home in Houston. I totally missed that, it didn't really feel like Mike traveled that far, but apparently she was an associate of Gus' through the German corporation (as the screen grab above showed).

I was kind of lost at first when she came in to the diner because I had never seen her before and I didn't put 2+2 together with her being there when the DEA was interviewing the German guys.

Absolutely love the writing and pretty much showing how every decision Walt has made has had nothing but serious repercussions. Aaron Paul's reaction to almost killing Walt over the ricin was really emotional and heartfelt. He absolutely deserves an Emmy for his performance, one way or another.

The final scene made me absolutely uncomfortable to the point where it felt like Walt was going to go as far to rape Skyler since she obviously feels no attraction to him anymore. I was waiting for her to pull a gun out or something, it was so bad.

It makes you think all the way back to Season 1 as to why Walt started doing this and how you felt so much compassion. I've never rooted for an anti-hero to be stopped as much as I am for Walt. He just keeps ruining lives.

Also, I love Mike-centric episodes. He's just such a fascinating character. Am I the only one who has a hard time believing this is the same guy who had food all over his face when Eddie Murphy flipped him over on to a banquet table in Beverly Hills Cop?

"Yeah, cuz!"

Here's a great write-up on tonight's episode, which also provides a pretty good explanation of how and why Walt poisoned Brock.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/07/break...-madrigal.html

AMC's Breaking Bad blog (http://blogs.amctv.com/breaking-bad/) often has links to online articles that give little hints about what's to come.

One of the hints was about the new character Lydia.

Sweet screen cap: I had no idea that was her.

Mike was awesome in this ep., top-notch acting too. That look on his face, only away from Hank, when he realized all his money was gone--superb.

"And there he was, right under my nose this entire time..."

Props, from last week's thread:

Breaking Bad has always struck me as a "comic book" series. It is about cause and effect and has its foot in reality just enough to be convincing. It keeps it fresh and makes it tremendously unique (though if they played it straight forward I'm sure it'd still be excellent.)