In this episode, when Walt was telling his bullshit pump malfunction story, there were a couple shots that were shown from outside the kitchen window. In the foreground, there were a couple plants, but they were kind of out of focus. Were these the "Lily of the Valley" plants, or did Walt completely get rid of those?

I don't think Walt will actually be Rambo, I think he will orchestrate things to make him appear to be Rambo. Todd's crew and the Chechens will be manipulated into handling most of the actual killing. A ricin-laced batch of meth ought to get things rolling.

I'm probably reading WAY too much into this but did anybody catch when Jesse was sitting at Hank's kitchen table and he had the DEA mug of coffee? Well the DEA was clearly present but the rest of the cup was blocked off by another mug in the foreground... it almost looked like it could have said "DEAD"... as in almost "DEAD". I know, very flimsy... but it stood out to me because the shot angle never changed during that scene.

I agree with the sentiment that I think the showdown that is causing Walt to buy a machine gun will be because of Todd/Lydia's crew, NOT the DEA. Otherwise I have no earthly idea of what will happen. But it's been a hell of a ride so far.

Not sure what the plants you saw were, but he ditched the Lily of the Valley plant he used to poison the kid. If he had more than one I assume he would have gotten rid of all of them since he was doing it to hide his involvement.

Yeah, I don't think Walt would believe he could take on an entire goverent agency, even with a big gun. But a gang of skinheads is a fight he might think he had a shot at winning.

A couple points of order:

"Czechs", not "Chechens"

Skyler

Checks and Skylirr, got it.

Whoops! My bad. I never watched an episode of this show until I started from the beginning last month. It was a lot to process...mistakes were made...

Something else to consider unless I misremember this too: there is no reason to necessarily conclude the gun Walt bought in the flash forward was for his personal use.

RE: Skyler

Some women writers have complained about the writing of that character, they have mentioned that are no women in the Breaking Bad writers room, so that may affect. There is that.

Now, Skyler is not a likable person. If you have watched the show from the beginning there's no way you like her or at least think good of her. I don't hate her but I don't like her either. My wife really hates her though. So it's not only misogynists men who hate her.

And of course, since Season 4 at least, most people don't like Walter either.He's not a hero, not even an antihero. We are intrigued about his saga, but we are not "rooting" for him. Most people I've read online will like him to suffer really bad at the end.

Oh no...

I don't need to see him suffer assuming he seeks some redemption. I don't see any way he comes out retired on the Riviera, but he can still accomplish a large part of his initial goal and repair some things with the people he actually cares about. And as someone mentioned, other than the kid he poisoned (who he knew would recover and be fine) did he ever actually harm a "civilian?" Closest I can think of is Jane, who he harmed by omission but who was hardly innocent by that time.

The moment that has stuck with me the more than any other this season is when Cranston perfectly delivers the line "Hello Carol." Absolutely chilling, but leaves it open to interpretation as to which way Walter has chosen to proceed. Brilliant.

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Well, he sent his elderly neighbor to check on his house, knowing full well she might be blown up and/or murdered.

There's also potentially endangering innocent people at the nursing home.

Really?

He created a powerful/addictive drug that's destroying peoples lives. You can argue that they were already destroyed, but he's still helping that. As shown in a previous episode, Season 2 I think, that's one of the reasons Jesse wants out, his conscience is killing him.

I think Gale comes close. Of course he wasn't technically innocent, but he did not appear to be a bad person and was mostly in the way of Walt bringing Jesse back into the fold (although in the end it was to save their lives).

It's interesting thinking how Jesse was originally written to die in season 1. Basically everything bad that has happened since and everything that went wrong has hinged on Walt manipulating Jesse in some way. That's what I've loved about this show's story arc, how easily Walt could have just gotten away with everything had he not upset the order in Gus' lab. That was the apex, and everything has spiraled out of control since.

While it's true drugs aren't a good thing, you could argue Walt is improving their lives in some way by at least producing a chemically pure product. From what little I know about Meth, most of the nasty side effects are the result of a crappy homemade product.

Doing that also ended up causing the deaths of a lot of plane passengers as well. Wasn't a lawyer also killed with the prisoners? Assuming they were a better person than Saul he was probably still a civilian.

And had Jane done anything worse than relapse on drugs? I'm rewatching season 2 at the moment, so I'm spacing on if she had engaged in more serious crimes.

Blackmail? Thats about all I can think of

That's primarily what I was thinking of.

The people Walt harmed all chose to be involved on some level with "the business," except for the kid. Users, cartel lawyers, etc. all chose their path that brought them into Walt's. Yes, Jesse's conscience is bothering him, but Walt's was bothered when Jesse started pushing as opposed to limiting involvement to being a cook/distributor.

Don't get me wrong, Walt is a bad dude, but he has definitely shown he has his limits. They have shifted over time, but there are some lines not to be crossed that are still there.

How many of Mike's guys in prison had children? Weren't those kids hurt? Wasn't Mike's granddaughter hurt? I wouldn't say Walt never hurt innocents.

Does a judge harm a child when he puts a criminal who is a parent behind bars? The judges I know say the criminal is the one who brought that on his family. Why is that any less the case in this instance?

Wealthy business owners that sell Americans and the rest of the world crap food that can cause health problems are just as guilty as Walt is. He creates a product that people choose to use. Their problem if you ask me. They don't have to use meth or any other drugs to survive but they choose to.

I have watched from the beginning and I like Skyler just fine. She is one of the only "good" people on the show and she too has done some bad things. But Walt continues to lie to her and back her into corners where she has to do things like lie to her sister or get the kids out of the house because killers and drugs are coming in and out all the time.

In my book, Skyler is a fucking SAINT. She should have dumped Walt's ass and turned him in the second she found out about the meth. Walt is a terrible human being and I give her a ton of credit for sticking with him.

I don't know that the Ricin and the M90 Machine Gun leave much room for interpretation. He's not going to deliver the gun to Hank as a gift.