Marie tugging Hank’s pecker to make him hard so he left the hospital.
There is evidence to support getting home helps with the mental aspects of recovery, and infection rates are way higher in hospitals. Still his access to PT would be higher in the hospital.
She had some merits for wanting him home but it wasn’t what he wanted.
So was it caring love, helping him when he was down, or pressuring him?
Also we have no idea if she finished the job or not so that’s a whole other aspect or moral ambiguity.
Well now I feel silly. Every scene after this, I was thinking, "why doesn't Hank just use his groundhog buddy to get out of this one? Awful writing, haven't these posers heard of Chekov's Groundhog?"
> There is evidence to support getting home helps with the mental aspects of recovery, and infection rates are way higher in hospitals. Still his access to PT would be higher in the hospital.
I mean... to be fair, the hospital would've kicked him out sooner rather than later. His condition was stable and he recovered fine from surgery. An inpatient bed should not be used for an otherwise healthy/stable paralyzed man getting PT. It was technically his choice to leave when he did, but he wouldn't have had that choice 2-3 days later.
Not the greatest moment of moral ambiguity, but the greatest moment of meta-moral ambiguity is when Badger and Skinny Pete are in the back of Walt's car giving him back the laser pointers and Pete says he 'doesn't know how to feel about all this.'
The moment was symbolic of the whole series and then Walt pays them and the ambiguity is cleared up right away.
Skyler laundering Walt's money. Yes, that's the moment she willingly becames an accomplice to his crimes. But on the other hand, no other solution she could've come up with at that point would've been feasible without hurting and deeply confusing her children. She chose a (temporary) peace in her family over what was a morally correct thing to do. You might judge her for it, but let's not pretend like most of us wouldn't have a similar thought process in her situation.
I love how that interaction with Bogdon was the one time Skyler's pride/ego trumped Walt's (and she was partially leaning into it to manipulate Walt). Walt and Saul were pretty dismissive of Skyler's attempt to buy the car wash and were proposing a nail salon and laser tag, or another car wash entirely.
"I say it has to [be Bogdan's car wash]. I don't like him. He was rude about you and condescending and I don't like him."
Walt a minute later: "What do you mean rude about me?"
"You weren't man enough to face him yourself. You had to send your woman to do your bidding."
Walt: "We're buying this one."
Skyler got Walt and Saul to do exactly what she wanted. The whole scene is gold, one of Saul's best in Breaking Bad.
What also often gets forgotten is why exactly she started laundering his money. It was specifically to finance Hank's physical therapy after he'd been shot by the cousins, which Skyler correctly guessed was related to Walt and felt guilty about.
But she did that after she could have divorced him and washed her hands of this… Walt Jr. had already accepted that it seemed like his parents were getting a divorce. And Holly wasn’t old enough to be aware of it.
I might have had a similar thought process. My issue with Skyler is that she made her own poor choices while never owning them. But seemed quick to judge.
Walt still would have likely been caught or ended up dead, and it still would have devastated the family, and Hank would have likely lost his job, after having been almost killed, and be unable to pay for the best physical therapy to help Hank walk again.
I felt she should’ve been arrested or something. Like it sucks but that’s what made me not like her character as much. Jessie admits he’s the bad guy and skylar never can admit she is. Even Walt found peace in being a murderer.
I absolutely agree. She says she never wanted any of this but it is not true. When she went to the four corners monument she flipped a coin to let fate decide what she should do. When she moved the coin back to New Mexico she took her fate in her own hands.
I’d honestly go with Walt leaving Jane to die. Some people act like it’s up there with the worst things he’s done. She was threatening his life, harming Jessie’s and if they went through with their plan for the next day, would have actually dismantled the both of their lives. It’s not at all okay to not save a life when it can be so easily done (and if I’m remembering correctly, Walt sitting on the bed caused her to shift onto her back) BUT, Jane was a very real danger to both Walter and Jessie by that point in the season.
Now one of the most uncalled for things Walt does is tell this to Jessie as he sells him into slavery
Or maybe she wouldn't have died. Maybe if Walt saved her it would have been a wake up call. We don't know for sure. What we know is that Walt let her die, possibly with the justification that it was the lesser evil (although his interest was in separating Jessie from her), and it turned out that you really cannot predict or know what the lesser evil is. It's just evil.
If he'd saved her life, she'd gone on a drugs binge and died a week later, and her dad had caused two bigger planes to crash, would be have been responsible for that?
In the scenario you're talking about, the first plane crash wouldn't have happened. So there would be no comparison to make. All Walter/ the viewer would have known is that her death resulted in a tragedy (and was tragic in itself) and that Walter did his best to prevent it.
I mean Donald 100% was wrong for going back to work when he wasn’t ready. I get how ultimately it leads back to Walt not saving Jane, but outside of the whole “everything is connected” thing, the plane crash is fully on Donald.
Jane and Jesse were probably headed for death. However, I think Walt weaponizing it by the time Jack takes Jesse into slavery shows he didn't do it to save Jesse. The point of it was the illustrate it wasn't Walt's call to make and it ultimately just lead to Walt using Jesse more and more.
I don’t think Walt weaponizing it shows that he didn’t do it to save Jesse at the time. I think it shows how far he’s fallen - that he made a choice that, at the time, was done to help Jesse (among other reasons, to be sure), but now he is using this same thing to hurt Jesse as much as he can.
My view is that (1) Walt’s main motivation in letting Jane die was to help Jesse, and even in The Fly, he sees Jane’s death as him “never giving up on family,” (2) his regrets *after* Jane’s death were due to how much her death hurt Jesse, but (3) by Ozymandias, Walt is so detached from the good parts of his humanity that all he’s left with is his rage at Jesse’s betrayal. So he lashes out in the worst way possible *knowing* how much this will hurt Jesse. It’s his way of telling Jesse, “You never really knew me. I never really cared about you.” And that’s a lie. But it has its intended effect.
>It’s his way of telling Jesse, “You never really knew me. I never really cared about you.” And that’s a lie.
It's used as a way to twist the knife, so to speak, but to say not saving Jane was done solely to save Jesse is just not the case.
His decline comes from his emotion to the situation. He goes from crying after watching her die, to almost telling Jesse the truth in Fly, then gloating about it to Jesse in S6.
Walt's moral nuance is that of a paradox given he used the pretence of saving Jesse from Jane to further his partnership with him. This is elevated by the time Walt needs Gus killed.
Walt also shakes Jesse to awake which causes Jane to OD, which is never touched upon in these debates.
Hmmm I’m not sure we’re actually disagreeing on much here. I don’t think he let Jane overdose *solely* to save Jesse, but I do think that was a large part of it. And “saving” Jesse is inherently controlling and paternalistic - I think Walt’s feelings towards Jesse overall come from a place of wanting dominance and control over someone, so certainly him deciding that Jane has to die for Jesse’s own good stems from that. But I don’t know how much Walt himself sees it that way; I think he justifies it as trying to do the right thing.
I definitely agree that Jane is a huge part in showing Walt’s overall decline from S2/S3 to Ozymandias, but I think it’s more than just that he was sad earlier but not now. It’s also about how he views the effect of her death on Jesse; he’s overwhelmed by guilt in S2/S3 but IMO justifies it to himself by saying it was for Jesse’s own good, but then throws that in Jesse’s face in S5. I guess I just don’t think that at the time he let Jane die that he did it in a calculated way to gain more control over Jesse. I think it certainly had that effect, but I think Walt’s primary motivation was to help Jesse, as misguided as that may have been.
And I don’t think that shaking Jesse and knocking Jane over matters in the context of Walt’s motivation for letting Jane die. It matters in his overall culpability, but unless you think he rolled her over on purpose, I think it’s just the not-saving-her part that speaks to his rationale in that scene.
Out of everything in the series, I always defend this. Sure the plane accident wouldn't have happened if Jane didn't die, but at the same time Donald came back to work knowing he wasn't emotionally well enough to work again. And it was either Jane or both Jesse and Jane ODing to death.
>Now one of the most uncalled for things Walt does is tell this to Jessie as he sells him into slaver
That was awesome..
How as Jane realistically threating Walt's life?
As a junkie who did both meth and opiates: She wouldn't live to see next month, he might survive, but chances aren't ideal and I still wouldn't risk my money betting on that.
>if I’m remembering correctly, Walt sitting on the bed caused her to shift onto her back)
I just wanted this episode the other night - Walt jostling Jessie to wake him up is what put Jane on her back, he only sat on the bed when she started vomiting.
That was S1 Walt with a full head of hair. Supposedly when he had his morals.
The signs were pretty obvious that the guy had a nut loose inside somewhere.
I just rewatched that scene last night. First watched BB, then after many years just finished BCS, and now watching BB again. Such a fun thing to now see that guy in both (when watching BCS I didn’t remember he was in BB).
Nah, by that point morals doesn't play into it, there's been far too much back and forth.
Like, before Gus made that threat, Walt was trying to kill Gus, and before that, Gus was going to kill Walt, and before that, Walt did kill Gus's men, because Jesse was gonna try to kill them, because they killed a boy that killed Jesse friend.
What about when Skylar confronts Jessie for selling Walt weed? I always thought how wild that was of her but I’m gonna be honest and say I don’t know what moral ambiguity means and I tried to wrap my head around the definition already. I’m also really high tho
Holly's kidnapping? I mean it supported the image of Skyler simulating being a pure victim. So it kind of worked for the family's safety in the end of the day. Which was the outcome definitely desired by Walt. But carrying a baby with you while on the run means putting a baby's life at risk, doesn't it?
That doesn’t mean it isn’t anything but reprehensible. In Saul’s intro episode he repeatedly suggests killing Badger in a similar way. Walt and Jessie won’t do it and Saul said something along the lines of “having a conscious can be expensive.” By the time Walt is killing jailed associates to save money, he has run out of conscious.
Walt purposefully wrecking his new car and blowing it up. That car didn't deserve that.
“17 miles on the odometer”
Marie tugging Hank’s pecker to make him hard so he left the hospital. There is evidence to support getting home helps with the mental aspects of recovery, and infection rates are way higher in hospitals. Still his access to PT would be higher in the hospital. She had some merits for wanting him home but it wasn’t what he wanted. So was it caring love, helping him when he was down, or pressuring him? Also we have no idea if she finished the job or not so that’s a whole other aspect or moral ambiguity.
I think she did, wasn't that the whole deal?
Nah she just had to get the ground hog to come out of his cave - no word on whether she made him go back home too.
I remember this scene, it was very cryptic. I guess we'll never know what they were referring to with those codewords.
Well now I feel silly. Every scene after this, I was thinking, "why doesn't Hank just use his groundhog buddy to get out of this one? Awful writing, haven't these posers heard of Chekov's Groundhog?"
> There is evidence to support getting home helps with the mental aspects of recovery, and infection rates are way higher in hospitals. Still his access to PT would be higher in the hospital. I mean... to be fair, the hospital would've kicked him out sooner rather than later. His condition was stable and he recovered fine from surgery. An inpatient bed should not be used for an otherwise healthy/stable paralyzed man getting PT. It was technically his choice to leave when he did, but he wouldn't have had that choice 2-3 days later.
Not the greatest moment of moral ambiguity, but the greatest moment of meta-moral ambiguity is when Badger and Skinny Pete are in the back of Walt's car giving him back the laser pointers and Pete says he 'doesn't know how to feel about all this.' The moment was symbolic of the whole series and then Walt pays them and the ambiguity is cleared up right away.
Skyler laundering Walt's money. Yes, that's the moment she willingly becames an accomplice to his crimes. But on the other hand, no other solution she could've come up with at that point would've been feasible without hurting and deeply confusing her children. She chose a (temporary) peace in her family over what was a morally correct thing to do. You might judge her for it, but let's not pretend like most of us wouldn't have a similar thought process in her situation.
She enjoyed it for a moment. At least when she gets her petty revenge on Bogdan.
I love how that interaction with Bogdon was the one time Skyler's pride/ego trumped Walt's (and she was partially leaning into it to manipulate Walt). Walt and Saul were pretty dismissive of Skyler's attempt to buy the car wash and were proposing a nail salon and laser tag, or another car wash entirely. "I say it has to [be Bogdan's car wash]. I don't like him. He was rude about you and condescending and I don't like him." Walt a minute later: "What do you mean rude about me?" "You weren't man enough to face him yourself. You had to send your woman to do your bidding." Walt: "We're buying this one." Skyler got Walt and Saul to do exactly what she wanted. The whole scene is gold, one of Saul's best in Breaking Bad.
What also often gets forgotten is why exactly she started laundering his money. It was specifically to finance Hank's physical therapy after he'd been shot by the cousins, which Skyler correctly guessed was related to Walt and felt guilty about.
But she did that after she could have divorced him and washed her hands of this… Walt Jr. had already accepted that it seemed like his parents were getting a divorce. And Holly wasn’t old enough to be aware of it. I might have had a similar thought process. My issue with Skyler is that she made her own poor choices while never owning them. But seemed quick to judge.
Walt still would have likely been caught or ended up dead, and it still would have devastated the family, and Hank would have likely lost his job, after having been almost killed, and be unable to pay for the best physical therapy to help Hank walk again.
I felt she should’ve been arrested or something. Like it sucks but that’s what made me not like her character as much. Jessie admits he’s the bad guy and skylar never can admit she is. Even Walt found peace in being a murderer.
Even Marie confessed to her shit. It’s the lack of accountability for me
I absolutely agree. She says she never wanted any of this but it is not true. When she went to the four corners monument she flipped a coin to let fate decide what she should do. When she moved the coin back to New Mexico she took her fate in her own hands.
I’d honestly go with Walt leaving Jane to die. Some people act like it’s up there with the worst things he’s done. She was threatening his life, harming Jessie’s and if they went through with their plan for the next day, would have actually dismantled the both of their lives. It’s not at all okay to not save a life when it can be so easily done (and if I’m remembering correctly, Walt sitting on the bed caused her to shift onto her back) BUT, Jane was a very real danger to both Walter and Jessie by that point in the season. Now one of the most uncalled for things Walt does is tell this to Jessie as he sells him into slavery
This. Jesse and Jane are dead within a month if they leave together.
The show worked very hard to dismiss this kind of thinking, by explicitly showing that Jane's death resulted in the deaths of several hundred people.
maybe if walt let jesse and jane go out and die then donald wouldve only had two *half* full boeing 737s collide rather than 2/3s full
Or maybe she wouldn't have died. Maybe if Walt saved her it would have been a wake up call. We don't know for sure. What we know is that Walt let her die, possibly with the justification that it was the lesser evil (although his interest was in separating Jessie from her), and it turned out that you really cannot predict or know what the lesser evil is. It's just evil.
Eh...that's a completely unforeseeable consequence.
Exactly. The point is that your actions have unforeseen consequences, which is a warning against spreading misery in the world.
If he'd saved her life, she'd gone on a drugs binge and died a week later, and her dad had caused two bigger planes to crash, would be have been responsible for that?
In the scenario you're talking about, the first plane crash wouldn't have happened. So there would be no comparison to make. All Walter/ the viewer would have known is that her death resulted in a tragedy (and was tragic in itself) and that Walter did his best to prevent it.
And she was on the path to die eventually. If it wasn't that flight it could have been another flight.
I mean Donald 100% was wrong for going back to work when he wasn’t ready. I get how ultimately it leads back to Walt not saving Jane, but outside of the whole “everything is connected” thing, the plane crash is fully on Donald.
He could have been responsible enough to say "I'm not mentally capable to safely do my job right now".
Jane and Jesse were probably headed for death. However, I think Walt weaponizing it by the time Jack takes Jesse into slavery shows he didn't do it to save Jesse. The point of it was the illustrate it wasn't Walt's call to make and it ultimately just lead to Walt using Jesse more and more.
I don’t think Walt weaponizing it shows that he didn’t do it to save Jesse at the time. I think it shows how far he’s fallen - that he made a choice that, at the time, was done to help Jesse (among other reasons, to be sure), but now he is using this same thing to hurt Jesse as much as he can. My view is that (1) Walt’s main motivation in letting Jane die was to help Jesse, and even in The Fly, he sees Jane’s death as him “never giving up on family,” (2) his regrets *after* Jane’s death were due to how much her death hurt Jesse, but (3) by Ozymandias, Walt is so detached from the good parts of his humanity that all he’s left with is his rage at Jesse’s betrayal. So he lashes out in the worst way possible *knowing* how much this will hurt Jesse. It’s his way of telling Jesse, “You never really knew me. I never really cared about you.” And that’s a lie. But it has its intended effect.
>It’s his way of telling Jesse, “You never really knew me. I never really cared about you.” And that’s a lie. It's used as a way to twist the knife, so to speak, but to say not saving Jane was done solely to save Jesse is just not the case. His decline comes from his emotion to the situation. He goes from crying after watching her die, to almost telling Jesse the truth in Fly, then gloating about it to Jesse in S6. Walt's moral nuance is that of a paradox given he used the pretence of saving Jesse from Jane to further his partnership with him. This is elevated by the time Walt needs Gus killed. Walt also shakes Jesse to awake which causes Jane to OD, which is never touched upon in these debates.
Hmmm I’m not sure we’re actually disagreeing on much here. I don’t think he let Jane overdose *solely* to save Jesse, but I do think that was a large part of it. And “saving” Jesse is inherently controlling and paternalistic - I think Walt’s feelings towards Jesse overall come from a place of wanting dominance and control over someone, so certainly him deciding that Jane has to die for Jesse’s own good stems from that. But I don’t know how much Walt himself sees it that way; I think he justifies it as trying to do the right thing. I definitely agree that Jane is a huge part in showing Walt’s overall decline from S2/S3 to Ozymandias, but I think it’s more than just that he was sad earlier but not now. It’s also about how he views the effect of her death on Jesse; he’s overwhelmed by guilt in S2/S3 but IMO justifies it to himself by saying it was for Jesse’s own good, but then throws that in Jesse’s face in S5. I guess I just don’t think that at the time he let Jane die that he did it in a calculated way to gain more control over Jesse. I think it certainly had that effect, but I think Walt’s primary motivation was to help Jesse, as misguided as that may have been. And I don’t think that shaking Jesse and knocking Jane over matters in the context of Walt’s motivation for letting Jane die. It matters in his overall culpability, but unless you think he rolled her over on purpose, I think it’s just the not-saving-her part that speaks to his rationale in that scene.
Out of everything in the series, I always defend this. Sure the plane accident wouldn't have happened if Jane didn't die, but at the same time Donald came back to work knowing he wasn't emotionally well enough to work again. And it was either Jane or both Jesse and Jane ODing to death.
>Now one of the most uncalled for things Walt does is tell this to Jessie as he sells him into slaver That was awesome.. How as Jane realistically threating Walt's life?
As a junkie who did both meth and opiates: She wouldn't live to see next month, he might survive, but chances aren't ideal and I still wouldn't risk my money betting on that.
>if I’m remembering correctly, Walt sitting on the bed caused her to shift onto her back) I just wanted this episode the other night - Walt jostling Jessie to wake him up is what put Jane on her back, he only sat on the bed when she started vomiting.
Walt making meth, cause on the other hand he was doing it for his family /s
Kidnapping your own child. And then returning her to a fire station with a note attached.
Vandalising that guys car. On one hand, he was an asshole but on the other that's causing expensive damage out of pettiness.
That was S1 Walt with a full head of hair. Supposedly when he had his morals. The signs were pretty obvious that the guy had a nut loose inside somewhere.
I just rewatched that scene last night. First watched BB, then after many years just finished BCS, and now watching BB again. Such a fun thing to now see that guy in both (when watching BCS I didn’t remember he was in BB).
>Such a fun thing to now see that guy in both wait what
Probably killing Gus, considering the alternative would be that Gus would've killed his entire family.
Nah, by that point morals doesn't play into it, there's been far too much back and forth. Like, before Gus made that threat, Walt was trying to kill Gus, and before that, Gus was going to kill Walt, and before that, Walt did kill Gus's men, because Jesse was gonna try to kill them, because they killed a boy that killed Jesse friend.
Whether or not Gus killed Victor because he was a witness at the crime scene of Gale's death, or because Victor attempted to cook meth.
What about when Skylar confronts Jessie for selling Walt weed? I always thought how wild that was of her but I’m gonna be honest and say I don’t know what moral ambiguity means and I tried to wrap my head around the definition already. I’m also really high tho
Holly's kidnapping? I mean it supported the image of Skyler simulating being a pure victim. So it kind of worked for the family's safety in the end of the day. Which was the outcome definitely desired by Walt. But carrying a baby with you while on the run means putting a baby's life at risk, doesn't it?
Walter raping Skyler.
How is that morally ambiguous? That’s just a horrible thing to do point blank.
When Walter killed the guys in prison
Nowhere near morally grey. He killed 10 people to save himself. You know if Walt was in custody, he'd sell anyone out immediately
The hardest choices require the strongest wills
That doesn’t mean it isn’t anything but reprehensible. In Saul’s intro episode he repeatedly suggests killing Badger in a similar way. Walt and Jessie won’t do it and Saul said something along the lines of “having a conscious can be expensive.” By the time Walt is killing jailed associates to save money, he has run out of conscious.
The 3 women cleaning the lab for a few $$ just to be sent back to venezuela
Jesse killing Gale