Bryce Lynch

When he went to the disappearer I think Saul was running from the law. IIRC, at that point the only who might have wanted him dead was Jesse and he and Walt would have assumed the Nazis had killed him as promised.I suppose the Nazis might have wanted to kill him on behalf of Lydia to tie up loose ends, but I didn't get that impression. If the DEA could connect him to Walt, Saul would be seen as the last living key player in a hundred million dollar meth empire that caused the deaths of 10 witnesses and 2 DEA agents. Who would he get a deal to testify against? Skyler? Saul would seem like a much bigger fish, IMO. Even if he somehow cut a deal, there is no way he is practicing law again. His best case would be managing a Cinnabon on Albuquerque instead of Omaha.

Regarding Saul returning to his old life, I think the DEA would be his biggest problem. If Jesse's confession DVD was at the Nazi compound or Huell spilled his guts to the DEA when Hank and Gomey never returned or they found evidence of his connection to Walt, he would be in a ton of legal trouble. Francesca or Kuby might also have ratted on him. Skyler White also could have implicated him to get a better deal when she brought the GPS coordinates to the DEA. That might have been risky for her, though, as Saul could paint a much nastier picture of her than Walt's call when he kidnapped Holly.

I think Chuck's issue is his phobia of electromagnetic fields, which has turned him into a shut in. Now that Tuco is in the story it will be interesting to see if any of he associates like Hector, Marco and Leonel, Gonzo, No Doze, Krazy 8 or Emilio show up. I know Emilio was a client of Saul's. Maybe this is how they met.

If anyone is wondering per his name tag, Saul (under the alias "Gene") is indeed the manager of the Cinnabon, meaning his "best case scenario" came true.

It is starting to seem like they are running out of good story lines so they are killing off characters just so something interesting happens.

Pre-Saul Jimmy seems a bit pre-Heisenberg Walt. He is struggling and nothing seems to go right. Also, the way he rehearses his lies reminds me of Walt early on.

I wouldn't say horrible. But you make a good point that having a slow moving and less than spectacular pilot may have squandered the TWD lead in.With Tuco getting involved and Jimmy on his face in the desert tonight's episode looks much, more promising, but most TWD fans who watched last night probably won't give it a chance.

Just checked and Betsy did get into the station wagon in her driveway and drive off. So Tuco's grandmother must have been driving a different car. I looked again and the cars are definitely different. Grandma's car had what looks like a Ford logo on the grill while Betsy's has none. Grandma's car also appears to be in better condition with a much better paint job. Perhaps Tuco had Olive Oil do it for her in Mexico. :) I think hers is a Ford Taurus which was nearly identical to a Mercury Sable.

It was a different car and house. Tuco's grandmother (or whatever she is to him) happened to drive by in a similar car and the skateboarders mistook her for the intended victim and crashed into her.

He also insisted on all his visitors "grounding themselves" by leaving their phones and other electronics in the mailbox and wanted Jimmy to contact someone doing research on the effects of electromagnetic fields.

The skateboard scammers had told Jimmy that the hit and run driver was headed toward a certain area, but I'm not sure they were specific enough for him to find her.

First episode was only so so. Kind of slow moving and amusing at times but not super funny. Hopefully episode 2 with lots more Tuco will be better.

I think Walt had multiple motivations. He clearly was trying to help his family, at other times he was scrambling trying to get himself out of trouble or save the lives of himself and those he cared about, and at times he was purely greedy, arrogant and evil (or at least amoral). Letting Jane die was not near the top of my list of bad things Walt did. I think even letting Hugo the janitor take the fall for his stolen lab equipment was worse. I liked Jane, (her sarcastic "Does it inspire awe" and "So you were a drawer, too" lines that went straight over Jesse's head were among my favorites) but Jane had become degenerate heroin addict, who was blackmailing him (and by extension threatening Hank's career) was probably going to kill herself with the heroin anyway and was dragging Jesse down with her, likely to his death as well. He went back there that night to save Jesse, and I think that goal was one of the main factors in his decision to let her die.

True, it is a gray area and one of those areas where people who generally believe in limited government divide. I do think there are a couple of differences between meth and alcohol though, that could justify different treatment under the law. a) Alcohol has been part of the mainstream culture of America and pretty much all of Western Civilization and beyond. With the exception of Islamic countries it is almost universally part of cultures. As a result, even if it were as harmful as meth, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate it or even drastically reduce its use and the resulting black market and violent, criminal enterprises around that market would cause for more harm than any benefits from the modest reduction in consumption, as demonstrated by Prohibition. Crystal meth is used by a far smaller portion of the population, so banning it is at least more feasible (though obviously not totally effective) b) Though drinking causes a significant minority of alcohol users to end up destroying their lives and/or the lives of others, the vast majority of alcohol users, use it responsibly or at least fairly responsibly. I'm not sure the same could be said of meth. I am no expert on it, but it seems like crystal meth use is destructive to the vast majority of its users or at least to a much higher percentage than alcohol consumption is. Alcohol could be viewed as a useful, popular product that some people can't handle, while crystal meth could be viewed as an inherently dangerous and harmful product that most people cannot handle. Of course there is still the argument that consenting adults should be able to put whatever they want into their own bodies and suffer the consequences. My point about morality is that if a population generally makes good, sound, moral, ethical, rational, healthy, unselfish choices, a Libertarian system with very few laws would work a whole lot better than it would with a population that is irrational, immoral, unethical, selfish and self destructive. Also, assuming for a moment we agree that selling crystal meth, being a pimp or whatever should not be ILLEGAL, that does not mean that decent people should consider it acceptable and that the people who do it are decent human beings. In fact, when the barrier of the law is removed, I think it is even MORE important for good people to speak out against, condemn, boycott, ostracize, etc. people, organizations, corporations, etc. doing things that harm others and society. I'd use Westboro "Baptist" "Church" as an example. The vile hate they spew is legal, but it is still wrong and good people should and do reject and condemn it and those spewing it.

Yes, the overall plot point worked well, to make up a reason that Skyler would give away Walt's "disappearer fund", apparently dooming the family, and give it to the man she had an affair with, adding insult to injury. The whole situation perfectly setup Walt's breakdown and hysterical laughter in the crawl space. The only thing that would have made it worse would be if he found that the rot had returned while he was down there. :) It is just the details about how they explained the accounting/tax scandal that were poorly written IMHO. Non accountants probably wouldn't even notice, just as I wouldn't notice any chemistry errors.

As Mike Ehrmantraut put it, "Everyone sounds like Meryl Streep with a gun to their head." :)

I am an accountant as well, as you might have guessed. I think the accounting chatter between Skyler and Ted was a bit confusing and possibly inconsistent. I think if he had been cooking the books to show extra profits, and the IRS auditor discovered that, it wouldn't be his concern. The IRS should be concerned with collected taxes on real income, not fake income. Now, if the company was public (and I am pretty sure it was not) the auditor would probably forward the case to the SEC for a securities fraud investigation. If it was solely owned by Ted or closely held it could bring problems with creditors, other shareholders and stakeholders and could possibly bring civil or criminal fraud charges. You have to wonder where Ted's outside auditors where when this was going on. :) From the meeting with the auditor, it seemed the issue was that cash was coming in (from Keller in particular) but no revenue was being booked against it, meaning taxes were being underpaid. I took Ted's earlier comments to mean that he was evading taxes to keep the company going under rather than overstating profits, but again, if you are in a situation where the company is losing money, there should be no taxable income to hide and evade taxes on. The other possibility is that Beneke Fabricators was making a profit, but not enough to support Ted's lavish lifestyle, private school for the girls, BMW, home with heated floors, and mistress (though Skyler seemed like a cheap one) :), so he was evading taxes to keep extra money. The fact that he ran out to get a new Mercedes as soon he received "Great Aunt Birgit's" money, rather than paying his freaking taxes and staying out of jail, would support the idea that he was a spendthrift and rather irresponsible. The somewhat clumsy way the accounting/tax issues were handled by the writers is one of my minor pet peeves, in what was probably the greatest TV show of all time. I'm sure some real chemists got annoyed with the chemistry inaccuracies in a similar way. :) The only other thing I can think of was the fuzzy math around the value of methylamine and the meth yield from it. If the thieves were willing to steal the 30 gallon barrel for $10,000, that would put the value at about $333 per gallon, meaning the 1,000 gallons would be worth around $333,000. Declan said the $15 million asking price was "steep" and was paying a premium to get rid of the competition from Heisenberg, but he was apparently offering about 45 times the value. Regarding the yield, Jesse and Walt made about 40 lbs with the 30 gallons, though they had a little left. Let's assume the could have made another 10 lbs. That would be a yield of about 1.66 lbs per gallon. Even if Walt had cooked the whole 1,000 gallons, I estimate he would have had made about $55 million after Declan and Lydia got their cuts of the domestic and international sales, respectively. Plus he had to pay Todd, the Vamanos pest guys, and purchase the other precursors, and during the "Crystal Blue Persuasion" cook scene, it appeared that Saul was still getting a cut. I don't see how he could have netted $80 million (plus whatever they spent in cash and what Skyler successfully laundered by ringing up phantom car wash customers (and wishing them all an A-1 day!) What makes it worse is that even after Todd and Declan's cook continued to cook (badly) during Walt's retirement period and then Jesse cooked for 8 or 9 months, there was still methlyamine remaining, so Walt probably couldn't have cooked more than about half of it.

I liked Gale, but I don’t really buy his "I'm a Libertarian" excuse. I get that you could argue that there shouldn't be a law against producing drugs that adults choose to take and ruin their lives with and harm others.But, because there shouldn't be a law against it, doesn't make it morally right to do it. You could argue that it shouldn't make him a criminal, but it still makes him a bad person. Liberty should be used for good not to do harm or contribute to harm. I believe that as a society becomes more Libertarian, with fewer laws, it is more, not less, essential that the people make good, moral choices. BTW, do you have any good recipes for vegan s'mores? :-)

Another question from "Bug". If the cartel wanted Jesse for its lab, why did Gaff take a shot at him, that would have killed him if Mike didn't push Jesse out of the way?

One thing from season 4 that bugged me a little was what I think was incorrect accounting talk regarding Beneke Fabricators. Skyler spoke of recorded revenue without backup, when if he was really hiding income, you would have the opposite. Also "cooking the books" normally means showing a greater profit than actual, to inflate the stock price, or in some cases "managing" profits by pushing profits into a future periods, to show artificial period over period growth. It is not normally used to describe tax evasion. Today, rewatching "Bug" it dawned on me that if Beneke Fabricators was really doing poorly and losing money, it would have no taxable income, and therefore could not have unpaid taxes that would bring felony charges on Ted. If anything Ted would be building up a nice Net Operating Loss carry forward to offset future taxable income if business improved. Another thing I noticed is that from certain angles the car wash resembles a jail cell. When Skyler is shown working at her desk, the vertical blinds look like bars. I noticed the same thing when Walt got the barrel of money photo and "Got my photo, bitch?" call from Jesse in To'hajiilee. I wonder if this was intentional.

Good point. I always thought Walt was a terrible liar, a brilliant plotter and schemer and manipulator, but a terrible liar. Walt always seemed to ramble on and add unnecessary and odd details and commentary during his lies.It seemed like while he was only occasionally caught in a lie, almost every time he lied he came up with something barely plausible enough that the person he was lying to couldn't prove he was lying, but left them with the feeling that he probably was lying. When Skyler said something to the effect that lying didn't come as easy to her, I scoffed. Skyler was a born liar and a very convincing one. There was her well researched and carefully rehearsed, gambling addiction story, her ditzy, blonde bookkeeper act, her going into labor act she used on store security when she tried to return Marie's stolen tiara, conning the locksmith into letting her into Walt's house, and the brilliant lies she channeled though Kuby to get Bogdan to sell the car wash. I always wondered if that is why when Hank jokingly "accused" Walt of being the W.W. in Gale's lab notes he put his hands up and joked "You got me!" and when Hank asked what was in the heavy duffel bag he replied, "Half million in cash". Was he making joking "confessions" to avoid making unconvincing lies? He did a similar thing in "Dead Freight" when Skyler sarcastically asked him if he was "Out burying bodies" and he calmly replied "Robbing a train."

Mike did have some of the best quotes. I thought it was fitting that Lydia was the last person killed by Walt and his last words were "Goodbye, Lydia." :) She was arguably more evil than Walt. She wanted to kill all of Mike's guys (and Mike) "as a prophylactic measure" as Mike put it, even while the hazard pay was keeping them quiet. Even that "dead eyed Opie POS", Todd had more of a heart than Lydia, as he declined her request to kill Skyler and chose to scare her instead.

I loved season 4. Gustavo Fring was a great character. I just noticed one strange thing. When the cartel was hitting the Los Pollos Hermanos trucks, why did Gus put armed security in the trailer, but not have anyone riding shotgun, in the cab with the driver? Another thing I always wondered was if Walt had not been forced to hire Jesse to save Hank from ruin, how awesome would the meth empire Dream Team of Fring, Walt, Mike and Gale have been? Walt and Gale could have produced massive amounts of ultra high quality meth. They might have even started a 2nd super lab with Gale in charge. Mike would provide security and manage the day to day distribution. Fring would run the operation with his amazing organizational skills and strategic evil genius. Plus, he and Walt, who proved to be on a similar level in that regard could brainstorm and come up with even more brilliant strategy and Walt could also provide Gus and Mike with all sorts of cool bombs, poisons and other weapons of mass destruction, made from ordinary household items. "Yeah, science!" I think the 4 of them could have taken over much of the Southwest and parts of Mexico and turned it into their own South American style military dictatorship. If only Jesse had shut the door when Hank came to beat the crap out of him. :)

That could be why he killed Mike, but I got the idea Mike was planning on going far away and never returning. Even Walt told Mike he realized he didn't need to kill him when he remembered Lydia had all the names. Then again, Lydia deduced that Mike must be dead because she believed Walt would never dare to kill his guys if he were alive.

Strange that they say one of "only" two. Roughly 3% of Americans are homosexual and 18% of this season's racers are. Not that I care either way, but homosexuals are over represented by 600% this season, so "only 2" seems like an odd comment.