Ronin Jackson

That was a tough one for me. The character deaths that get to me the most are sometimes the supporting characters. These deaths had a very similar feeling to (Breaking Bad Spoiler): This was similarly deflating, and very much by design. We were strung along to keep hoping they had a chance out. There was the comedy of pretty much the entire thread leading up to the arrival of the house, then the temporal fake out editing of the cop raid.. Even cutting away before we see the deaths. Esmail and co did a fine job punching us in the gut, and I hope there's a good reason for it. I also though it was really cool that two members of the OG F Society crew were played by Indian American actors, even if they weren't playing Indian Americans. Though the show always seems to have an abundant rotation of South Asian American/Canadian actors, which is a neat and very unusual quirk about the show, But it still makes these particularly brutal deaths a little tougher to take.

I loved the episode. I watched it twice last night and love it more the more I think about it. I'd long commented that episode 29 of the original series was the most bizarre hour of television ever made, and it's only fitting that an episode of the new series would overtake it. I definitely understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea. But there are those saying Showtime shouldn't have allowed Lynch to make an episode like this. I couldn't more vehemently disagree with that opinion. I'm willing to deal with art I don't care for if it means artists have more creative freedom. The anger of the people who think this episode shouldn't be allowed to exist is delightful. Almost nothing like this is ever created and they are angry that this miraculously came to fruition? Again you don't need to like it, but if artists having creative freedom pisses you off you deserve to be angry.

Also this: The white mother thing is the same creature that killed the couple in New York. The same actress is credited in both episodes as "Experiment Model" in part 1 and "Experiment" here.

His face isn't all over the place yet. The bus benches come later. He used a billboard once, temporarily. And all his commercials ran during re-runs of Murder She Wrote. It's hardly out of the realm of possibility that an agent for an insurance company may not be familiar with him. As for as the legal community in ABQ, their opinion of him isn't going to matter to the clientele he will soon be targeting-- criminals. In fact that may be the one market left where his unsavory reputation wouldn't effect, and perhaps even could enhance, his credibility. It's actually clear from what we know of him in BB that he will eventually take his reputation and embrace it, transform it into something that would appeal to his new clientele.

One thing this episode established very well is why Jimmy is going to change his name to Saul. Before this episode that aspect of the story was unclear. But this episode established enough that to make the name change make sense. It's still a mystery how Chuck's death will affect Jimmy but changing his name could work as both a rebuke and a way to honor what Jimmy might believe would be Chuck's wish. It's also established that the name of Jimmy McGill is now tarnished, which also establishes why Saul will eventually tap into the type of clientele that eventually becomes his base (criminals are not going to be bothered by things the elderly might)). Going back to an earlier episode-- I wonder if changing his name will be a way for him to skirt around the insurance rate hikes as well..

My prediction is next season, after a Gene teaser, will open with a flashback of Jimmy and Chuck, with Michael McKean back in his role at least one more time. Jimmy went a long way towards Saul this season, but Jimmy made a comeback in the season finale. He's not quite all the way Saul yet, so there's still more story to tell there. Chuck's death will be a big part of that I imagine. I'm not going to predict just how Jimmy will react. Will he feel guilt that he may have driven his brother to suicide? Will he feel that Chuck brought all of it on himself? A good bit of both perhaps? I would think another part of what turns Jimmy all the way Saul is whatever happens with his relationship with Kim. There's a whole story there and I don't think these writers will rush it. But it sure seems like Kim and Jimmy will have to drift a long way apart before Jimmy can become Saul. I'm thinking that moment when Jimmy becomes Saul Goodman, may still be many episodes off. Maybe even a whole season. It's probably been about a month tops since Jimmy had his law license suspended. Eleven months can be a long time in the Breaking Bad/Saul universe. Breaking Bad took four plus seasons to cover a years time. There was only one notable time jump at the end of the series (not counting various flashbacks/flashforwords). There could be a time jump next season with Saul but I think there's still a lot of things that need to happen in the story first.

Jimmy manipulating the ladies to turn on poor Irene was definitely a big leap towards becoming Saul Goodman, but I wonder if it's really that far removed from the warm, charismatic Jimmy we were introduced to earlier. Even if his intent was never harmful, Jimmy has never been above manipulating old people for his personal gain. Now he's crossed the line into potentially ruining a poor old lady's simple existence for his personal gain, but it's only a nudge of desperation that got him there. I'm impressed once again with how Gilligan and Gould handle the evolution of characters over time. This is quite unique to their shows. Look at some of the other great dramas... The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, The Shield, etc... the characters at the end of the show are not necessarily that different from how they started (I might give Mad Men a slight exception there). But In Gilligan's shows the characters completely transform. For a while it was hard to see how Jimmy would become the unsavory Saul Goodman, but now we are seeing it happen and it's easier to see that the signs were always there.

I've seen this comment a lot lately from fans (and not just with regards to Twin Peaks... it happened with the Samurai Jack revival as well). My question is, who gets to define what feels like Twin Peaks? The fans or Mark Frost and David Lynch? The thing about Twin Peaks is, the tone has always shifted, and it always jarred a certain segment of the fans. When season 2 started with this lengthy, deliberately paced sequence involving the waiter and the Giant, it was a major shift in tone from what was established in season 1. In fact there were several tone shifts in those opening episodes of season 2... much more slapstick comedy, characters completely transformed (literally overnight because Season 2 started the day after Season 1 ended). Some of that was good, some was bad, but the waiter/Giant seen made a lot of people restless at the time. It's now considered an iconic Twin Peaks scene though. Season 2 would have many more tone shifts.. After the Leland/Bob story concluded there was a mostly bad tone shift. And again, at the end of season 2, Lynch cranked up the uncompromising weirdness way beyond what we'd seen previously (IMO, a good thing). Then FWWM came along, and again a major tone shift and some negative reaction from fans who felt it was too big a departure from the tone of the show. And now we have a new season picking up 25 years later. A tone shift was almost inevitable, but much more so considering it's Twin Peaks which has always had shifts in tone. Eventually those tone shifts have been considered part of the Twin Peaks tone, but not before some initial reactions that it felt out of place.

Was there any narrative significance to the opening scene with the sailor? Or was it purely some kind of metaphor?

Blue Rose is a specific type of classified FBI case that hasn't been totally explained yet. I don't think it has to do with the victims. Sam Stanley was investigating the murder of Teresa Banks but he didn't have clearance to know about the Blue Rose. He also thought Chet Desmond was going back to the Fat Trout trailer park for the Blue Rose. Chet Desmond found The Ring and disappeared. Perhaps Blue Rose and The Ring are connected.

I'm curious how many fans are watching the new series only having watched the old series but not FWWM? I wonder if that's part of the problem with some of the vitriolic reaction of a portion of the fan base (seems bigger here than elsewhere). IMO so far FWWM has factored more heavily into the new series than almost the entire original series has. Certainly if you take out the final episode of season 2 that's the case. The evolution of The Arm, the ring, Philip Jeffries, Blue Rose... all these things come directly from FWWM. It's without question essential viewing to at least begin to understand what's happening in the new series.

I haven't started season 2 yet but was planning on it. I definitely enjoyed season 1. I'm a little more leery of jumping into season 2 if it's going to end on a cliffhanger or there's really no closure. Just how frustrating is it for people who have seen season 2 that it's cancelled? Should I save myself that frustration?

It may snow a lot in New York in real life, but this isn't real life. It's a constructed work of fiction, and every time they make a choice to include a shot of snow, they are doing it for a reason. In this case we had an earlier scene in a snow storm where two characters ended up in the same bed. At the end they included two shots which took us right back to that scene. IMO it's not ambiguous. This show does like to make some unconventional artistic choices (a b&w episode, taking out sound when we follow a deaf character, holding on an extended shot of Dev in a cab for an uncomfortably long time), but if they were trying to play a game with those shots it wouldn't have much of a reason or payoff. It's a pretty clear flashback to me.

It was snowing in the last scene. That should indicate it's a flashback to the earlier scene. Granted, it could be a flash forward to some future snow storm, but unless the object is to mislead us, the only reason to include the shot of the snowy windows is to place the scene during the earlier snow storm. If they just wanted to trick us into believing it was a flashback only to reveal later it was a flashforward, adding the shot of the snowy windows seems like overkill.

It's interesting to see the disparate reactions across the net. First time checking the reactions on this forum and it's almost 90% vitriol. Fans seem to be having the most negative reaction. I'm a huge Lynch fan so I suppose it's not surprising that I'm loving most of it. Episode 4 was my least favorite so far... I'm not finding a lot of the repetitive humor all that funny and it was by far the most conventional. And maybe I've just watched too much Twin Peaks and Lynch, but I'm not finding the story incoherent at all. Basically, we start with the Good Coop trapped in the lodge. 25 years ago he got trapped and his evil doppelganger got out, disappeared and has been leading a secretive life of crime. It's time for the Good Coop to leave and the doppelganger to return. Someone, perhaps the doppelganger himself, wanted to avert this and created a second doppelganger to trick the Lodge denizens into taking the wrong doppelganger. It worked, but the Good Coop was sent on a journey through nonexistence and ended up taking the place of the second doppelganger, only he has no memory of who he is now. Meanwhile there are sprinklings of other mysteries throughout... the creature in the glass box, a double murder in South Dakota which may be a spirit possession similar to Bob/Leland, the mysterious billionaire who may also be the terrible person the Winkie's diner guy in Vegas was talking about, Hawk trying to decode the Log Lady's clue, the clues left by the giant (or is it the giant????), etc. Oh and the little dancing man from another place evolved into an electric tree with a meat blob head. Simple stuff guys., you following all this?