S05.E08: Bagman

[Bannon]

2 hours ago, Lonesome Rhodes said:

The firefight.

Mike ended up perched up the bluff from where the bad guys approached from in front of Saul.  It was impossible for him to have been trailing Saul.  He was, basically, behind and to the left of Saul as Saul assumed the position immediately prior to the first shot taken.  The second kill made perfect sense from this same spot.  No worries as to the shootings, themselves.  That he knew this would be the spot, out of 30(?) miles of off-road that the boys would make their move?  If he guessed wrong, he would never have had the chance to surprise them from in front, as he did here.

Now it gets dicey.  The leader stupidly decided to grab the cash, thus putting himself in Mike's field of fire and got drilled.  No worries.  Made sense physically.  But, would he have been that stupid?! 

Now comes the last two kills.  Mike had to substantially change his angle and elevation to get to those two because they were ensconced behind vehicles.  No way did enough time transpire for Mike to attain his new position prior to taking out the next guy with a shot through glass.  And man, what a freaking shot!  The last remaining kill involved more movement by Mike and it went through a fender and such.  Again, too little time involved.  And an alltime shot.

Then we had Mike get in his car and approach the scene from the absolute opposite direction from which he had shot them all.  This would have taken a very long time and made no sense.  That last perp, who ended up pursuing Mike and Saul, would have had plenty of time to make his getaway, and to shoot Saul just for fun.  

So, yes.  Mike was a kickass sniper.  Several of the kills made good and perfect sense.  But, it was just too much altogether to not beg a healthy dose of disbelief suspension.   G/G have been so very meticulous, so very much of the time.  The slightest movement or nod or whatever has held great meaning.  It's (they're) awesome in this.  This firefight simply does not fit or jibe with the vast bulk of this marvelous series.  YMMV.

   

Yeah, I'm unconvinced that any viewer of the episode can make confident assertions with regard to bullet trajectories and firing positions, based on what appears on the screen. As you say, YMMV.

As to whether any of the targets would do something really stupid? People who have not trained, and trained, and trained some more, really, really, hard, when they are being attacked by people who are really, really, good at killing, can be very reliably counted on to do really stupid stuff. That's what makes them so easy to kill.

(edit) I'll add on to note that there's a chance that in real world sniping against an undisciplined enemy, the encounter would be more one-sided than depicted. In mountainous terrrain like that it can be very difficult for the targets to locate the weapon being fired, assuming a flash suppressor. A good sniper might get 3 or even 4 targets prior to effective cover being taken, and one of the dumb things often depicted in movies is a car's sheet metal being reliable cover against a sniper round. 

.

 

Edited April 8, 2020 by Bannon

[Clanstarling]

On 4/6/2020 at 7:21 PM, Skyfall said:

So Kim dies by the end of this right? She overplayed her hand.

That's what my husband said as soon as she went in to see Lalo.

On 4/6/2020 at 7:40 PM, Eulipian 5k said:

Lalo gave him an out! Now they’re F. F. L.

I don't think he really gave him an out. It just sounded like it. He knew too much to let him walk away.

On 4/6/2020 at 8:19 PM, Eulipian 5k said:

Kim needs her vacuum cleaner repaired. Yesterday.

And that's another option for where Kim is in BB, and how Saul got to know the vacuum cleaner man

On 4/7/2020 at 4:22 AM, ShadowFacts said:

Did Mike take the license plate off the Esteem?  What was the point, there is still a VIN number.

Yep, I kept wondering about that VIN number.

On 4/7/2020 at 5:23 AM, NoReally said:

One question I had:

When Mike and Saul had been walking in the desert for quite a while -- sunburned, tired, out of water -- why, when Saul decoyed the remaining bad guy didn't Mike wait for the guy to stop his truck and get out before shooting?

That way, he could've both had an easier shot and avoided getting the truck wrecked, so he and Saul would've had transportation.

I was surprised too, but then again, from the way the scene was shot, it looked like the guy was going to run Saul over.

On 4/7/2020 at 11:56 AM, peeayebee said:

And papers in the glovebox.

Not in mine. I learned not to keep them there when a friend's car was broken into in college. And then her apartment immediately after - since they knew her address. I keep them on me instead.

15 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I loved the "Fly" episode of Breaking Bad; I'm guessing y'all didn't. 
Just for fun, which did you prefer hate least: "Bagman" or "Fly"?

Preferred "Bagman" by far.

[ShadowFacts]

26 minutes ago, Bannon said:

Yeah, I'm unconvinced that any viewer of the episode can make confident assertions with regard to bullet trajectories and firing positions, based on what appears on the screen. As you say, YMMV.

As to whether any of the targets would do something really stupid? People who have not trained, and trained, and trained some more, really, really, hard, when they are being attacked by people who are really, really, good at killing, can be very reliably counted on to do really stupid stuff. That's what makes them so easy to kill.

(edit) I'll add on to note that there's a chance that in real world sniping against an undisciplined enemy, the encounter would be more one-sided than depicted. In mountainous terrrain like that it can be very difficult for the targets to locate the weapon being fired, assuming a flash suppressor. A good sniper might get 3 or even 4 targets prior to effective cover being taken, and one of the dumb things often depicted in movies is a car's sheet metal being reliable cover against a sniper round. 

.

 

Even police officers who are trained and drilled are sometimes killed by people who aren't even really good at killing.  There is (bad) luck involved.  Mike himself said he would have brought men if he had known what was going to happen, telling me that he wouldn't have expected to be totally successful, wouldn't have been confident in the outcome just by himself.  I'm glad they included that line, otherwise it just seems a little mucho macho overkill in the planning and execution of the shootout scene.

[Lone Wolf]

9 hours ago, ByTor said:

The only thing that urine scene reminded me of was Stephen King, he's had a few "had to drink his/her own urine to survive" paragraphs.

That's nothing - in one of his short stories he has a shipwrecked surgeon who literally cuts off and eats his own body parts to survive.  I'd drink a Davis & Main special all Happy Hour before it would even occur to me to do that. King is deliciously twisted (see what I did there?).

To get myself back on topic, though...

On 4/7/2020 at 11:56 AM, peeayebee said:

Oh, and Alan Sepinwall mentions in his review that the Cadillac we see being cleaned up in the beginning might end up being given to Saul. 😄

 

That was the first thought I had when the camera was focused on the hood ornament.  Now, knowing what happens to the Esteem and that Saul drives a Caddy in BB, I think it's more than likely.

[PeterPirate]

I went through the shootout scene again.  My confusion lifted when I realized that Mike was perched above the hairpin, away from the road in both directions.  Each of the guys Mike shot were exposed to his position, even if just for a couple seconds, so he would not have needed to change his location.  The big suspension is in believing Mike stopped at that spot and drove a thousand feet or so off the road.  

 

16 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

Quote

Kim needs her vacuum cleaner repaired. Yesterday.

And that's another option for where Kim is in BB, and how Saul got to know the vacuum cleaner man

Makes sense.  Although I hope they put that off until season 6.  

 

22 hours ago, ahmerali said:

It's a breather episode in a sense, to set up the last two hours.

Tony Dalton said as much in his interview.  I'm really looking forward to it.  

Edited April 9, 2020 by PeterPirate

[qtpye]

On 4/7/2020 at 6:16 PM, ShadowFacts said:

It was somewhat the same with Jimmy listening to Mike's disbelief about Kim. It was like it never occurred to him.  Both Kim and Jimmy were uncharacteristically un-savvy.  It was set up for Jimmy in his pre-wedding promises to be forthcoming to Kim, and I guess we're supposed to think Kim loves Jimmy so much she thinks she can just ask a murderous cartel defendant for answers and get them.  They were both a far cry from Giselle and Victor.

People love scams because it automatically makes them the smartest people in the room. The cartel is a totally different matter and Kim just seems to be so stupid when it comes to Jimmy. I imagine that Jimmy's last act of kindness will be to expel Kim from his life as he does not want to take her down with him. 

21 hours ago, MaryPatShelby said:

Me too.  Unpopular opinion, but eventually I was bored.  

 

11 hours ago, ByTor said:

I even said "Wow this is boring" out loud.  I thought this by far was the worst BCS episode this season.

I often disagreed with the BB cold opening in the Denny's when they gave away that Walt makes it to his 52nd birthday. It took out a lot of the suspense of the series for me, even though I thought it still was an amazing show.

Here, we know that Jimmy and Mike are not going to die in the desert. We know that they make it out and are fine. I know the whole episode was a metaphor for transformation by fire but it still annoyed me that they were wasting our time in this manner.

[nuraman00]

Even if Lalo has to get a money order for the bail, how would he get a $7 million money order without raising suspicion?

 

How did Mike drive near the ambush, and set up his sniper rifle, without being seen?

 

There were 6 bad guys.  Wouldn't one of them have seen Mike's car, before they started to ambush Saul?  And if Mike came after they started the Ambush, again, wouldn't one of them have seen Mike set up?

 

Mike couldn't have known exactly where the ambush would take place, so he couldn't have set up too much time in advance.

[nuraman00]

On 4/7/2020 at 4:51 PM, Bryce Lynch said:

The episode takes place in 2004, according to the Fandom timeline.  The Vietnam War ended on 1975. So, theoretically, Mike could be as young as 47 in this episode, if he served in Vietnam in 1975 at age 18. 

When he bought the M40 from Lawson, he alluded to using one with a wooden stock that warped in the jungle humidity.  They started replacing the wooden stocks with fiberglass in the early 70s, so that probably moves Mike's service back at a least a few years.

But, it is still totally realistic that Mike could be in his early to mid 50s in this episode, though not that Jonathan Banks could be.

 

This episode should be in 2005.

 

Mike mentioned the Eagles SuperBowl to Kaylee, which was in 2005.

 

And that was months ago, as Mike would later then get stabbed, and have to recover, in Mexico.

Edited April 9, 2020 by nuraman00

[nuraman00]

22 hours ago, ahmerali said:

The way it sounded to me is that if Nacho had the opportunity to take possession of 7 million dollars, he has the smarts and wherewithal to completely disappear with it. Think about it. He would have chartered a dude with a helicopter or something to pick up his dad, get him out of there and take them directly to the nearest airport, and thence to South America. They would be capital-G gone.

Lalo realizes that Jimmy is smart, but doesn't have the means or will to pull something like that off.

Manuel Varga doesn't want to run away though, and no amount of convincing will change his mind.

[nuraman00]

8 hours ago, Eulipian 5k said:

Sacrilege!

I got lucky and avoided a spoiler.  I just watched The Sopranos in 2019.

 

If I still hadn't seen The Sopranos, I would have been disappointed that I got a spoiler about the show, when reading a Better Call Saul forum.  It's one of the shows that I'd been wanting to watch for a while, and in early January 2019, HBO ran a marathon, so I DVRed it and watched it over the next few months.

 

Luckily I had managed to avoid other spoilers, over the years.  Whenever I'd read TV recaps, if I ever saw them mention the Sopranos, I'd either scroll down, or close the tab.  Because I knew that I would someday see it.

 

[scenario]

59 minutes ago, nuraman00 said:

Even if Lalo has to get a money order for the bail, how would he get a $7 million money order without raising suspicion?

 

How did Mike drive near the ambush, and set up his sniper rifle, without being seen?

 

There were 6 bad guys.  Wouldn't one of them have seen Mike's car, before they started to ambush Saul?  And if Mike came after they started the Ambush, again, wouldn't one of them have seen Mike set up?

 

Mike couldn't have known exactly where the ambush would take place, so he couldn't have set up too much time in advance.

Thought about it some more. Mike is usually very thorough.  He had a highly placed informant. Weeks ago he asked where all of the drop spots were and he checked them out. 

Saul was told the drop spot and went to it the next morning so there was close to a full day between the scene in the Jail with Saul and Lalo and the scene with Saul and the cousins. 

Mike found out out about that Saul was doing the drop late that night after all the local stores had closed. He's went to the drop spot to make sure that Saul doesn't steal the money, mostly. Saul had told Mike in season one that if he ever had a chance to steal a large amount of money in the future he wouldn't hesitate. (The family hiding in the tent's money, can't remember their names.) He grabbed whatever water he had at the house and his guns.  He got to the drop site very, very early. 

He checked out the actual drop site but no where to hide his car so he backtracked to a good spot. He hid his car and climbed up to a good observation spot and waited. Hours pass. He's careful with the water but he drinks most of it up. Saul goes by. The cousins go by. Then the bad guys show up and hide their cars. They chose the same spot as Mike did because it's the closest place to the drop where they could hide their cars from the cousins.  He sees them set up the ambush so he gets into place. The cousins drive by and the bad guys let them go.  Once the cousins are out of sight they drive their cars out of hiding but not where Saul could see them and wait.

Then Saul drives up and falls into the trap and Mike is waiting. They didn't show the setup because they didn't want to ruin the suspense. 

Edited April 9, 2020 by scenario

[j-beda]

I kept thinking about how much all that money weighs! Each bill is 1 gram, so ten thousand $100 bills (which is a million bucks) weighs 10,000 grams = 10 Kg = 22 pounds. Seven million would be 154 lbs.

That's pretty heavy for a backpack. That's way heavy for two gym bags.

[Bannon]

4 hours ago, ShadowFacts said:

Even police officers who are trained and drilled are sometimes killed by people who aren't even really good at killing.  There is (bad) luck involved.  Mike himself said he would have brought men if he had known what was going to happen, telling me that he wouldn't have expected to be totally successful, wouldn't have been confident in the outcome just by himself.  I'm glad they included that line, otherwise it just seems a little mucho macho overkill in the planning and execution of the shootout scene.

Oh, the line about bringing men with him totally rang true. Professional killers aren't interested in a fair fight. If he strongly suspected that multiple vehicles were going to stop Saul, he would not have assumed a small number of poorly disciplined cowboys, he would have assumed professionals, and brought enough professionals to set up a well constructed kill box. 

The vast, vast, majority of police officers are very, very, poorly trained in small arms combat, really nothing compared to someone who went through the Marine or Army sniper schools (The Army did not have a permanent school for snipers until the 1980s), and then several months on deployment in a combat zone. Someone with such experience, who worked to maintain his skills would consistently take apart a small group of poorly trained opponents, absent some spectacular luck for the opponents. Mike would bring more men to remove luck from the equation.

 

17 minutes ago, j-beda said:

I kept thinking about how much all that money weighs! Each bill is 1 gram, so ten thousand $100 bills (which is a million bucks) weighs 10,000 grams = 10 Kg = 22 pounds. Seven million would be 154 lbs.

That's pretty heavy for a backpack. That's way heavy for two gym bags.

Yeah, the writers could have reduced bail to 2-3 million for sake of realism.

[DoctorAtomic]

I liked the nice touch of how people still waved their cell phones up in the air to try to get a signal. 

I like Mike, but he can be a kind of a bitch. You know you know more than people. You can tell them what they don't know in a way that will help both of you. 

Edited April 9, 2020 by DoctorAtomic

[Dev F]

3 hours ago, nuraman00 said:

This episode should be in 2005.

 

Mike mentioned the Eagles SuperBowl to Kaylee, which was in 2005.

Kaylee mimicked her pop-pop cheering "Go, Eagles! Kick ass!" after he talked to her about watching the Super Bowl together, but it's not possible for the current year to be 2005, because it was early 2004 at the end of last season (per the end date of Jimmy's PPD), and an entire year definitely hasn't passed since then.

In fact, at the time of that conversation between Mike and Kaylee, the two tweaker idiots were still in the middle of their two-week crime spree in reaction to Jimmy's 50% off sale, which he initiated immediately after getting his bar license reinstated at the end of his PPD. And the librarian who witnessed the TravelWire murder at the end of last season is said to have amended her statement "two months" after the crime just before Lalo got arrested, so there's not really any room for much time at all to have passed off screen.

It's possible that the Eagles reference was in error -- say, a writer's assistant tried to look up who won the Super Bowl in 2004 and instead found out who won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2004 football season. But the obvious in-story explanation is that Kaylee was just quoting what she most often hears Pop-Pop saying when he watches football, not necessarily who he was cheering on in that particular Super Bowl. (And the Eagles were in the NFC Championship that year, so there was ample opportunity for her to hear Mike cheering them on.)

[shapeshifter]

3 hours ago, j-beda said:

I kept thinking about how much all that money weighs! Each bill is 1 gram, so ten thousand $100 bills (which is a million bucks) weighs 10,000 grams = 10 Kg = 22 pounds. Seven million would be 154 lbs.

That's pretty heavy for a backpack. That's way heavy for two gym bags.

3 hours ago, Bannon said:

Yeah, the writers could have reduced bail to 2-3 million for sake of realism.

As with the firefight, the amount of cash was just over the top of reality. I imagine the writers calculating the maximum amount a 39-year-old lawyer could carry and then adding 50 lbs. 

Edited April 9, 2020 by shapeshifter

[ShadowFacts]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

As with the firefight, the amount of cash was just over the top of reality. I imagine the writers calculating the maximum amount a 39-year-old lawyer could carry and then adding 50 lbs. 

Is he really supposed to be 39?  That's funny.  And that weight just makes me feel sorry for mules and horses. 

[PeterPirate]

10 hours ago, Dev F said:

Kaylee mimicked her pop-pop cheering "Go, Eagles! Kick ass!" after he talked to her about watching the Super Bowl together, but it's not possible for the current year to be 2005, because it was early 2004 at the end of last season (per the end date of Jimmy's PPD), and an entire year definitely hasn't passed since then.

In fact, at the time of that conversation between Mike and Kaylee, the two tweaker idiots were still in the middle of their two-week crime spree in reaction to Jimmy's 50% off sale, which he initiated immediately after getting his bar license reinstated at the end of his PPD. And the librarian who witnessed the TravelWire murder at the end of last season is said to have amended her statement "two months" after the crime just before Lalo got arrested, so there's not really any room for much time at all to have passed off screen.

It's possible that the Eagles reference was in error -- say, a writer's assistant tried to look up who won the Super Bowl in 2004 and instead found out who won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2004 football season. But the obvious in-story explanation is that Kaylee was just quoting what she most often hears Pop-Pop saying when he watches football, not necessarily who he was cheering on in that particular Super Bowl. (And the Eagles were in the NFC Championship that year, so there was ample opportunity for her to hear Mike cheering them on.)

So there's still four years to go until Walt's 50th birthday.  That's going to require some jump in time somewhere along the way.  Probably with Saul working from the strip mall office, alone.  😞

AMC no longer shows the first few episodes of the season, so I can't go back and listen to the exact wording about the Eagles.  As I recall the impression given was that Eagles had played in the most recent Super Bowl.  That is a pretty glaring discontinuity for this show.

Edited April 9, 2020 by PeterPirate

[Pike Ludwell]

In the latest insiders podcast, Vince coincidentally answers a couple of the questions that have also been raised here. First, that cadillac is not intended to be the same one Saul will have. Second, he goes into detail as to the weight of the money. I don't recall the details but he states what the weight would be and that they did things to reduce the weight so Saul could more easily carry the bags.

[peeayebee]

From an interview with Gilligan:

Quote

The bags of money, it’s $7 million in $100 bills and Mark Hansen, our prop master, showed us the prop early on. He said, “Try lifting it,” and I’m like, “Jesus. I’ve had back surgery. I’m not messing with this.” I could barely get the thing off the ground and he said, “It’s not even the actual weight.” He said, “We figured it out mathematically. Seven million dollars, $3.5 million per bag, will fit in these duffel bags, but they’re 75 pounds apiece.” That’s 150 pounds of cash is what $7 million in hundreds is. So I thought, “Does it have to be $7 million? Can the bail be $3 million? Do they still print the thousand-dollar bill? Can it be a cashier’s check?” But I think finally the prop on day one maybe weighed 35 or 40 pounds per bag. And Bob was saying, “I need more weight.” And then every day the bag got five or 10 pounds lighter. Even though Bob’s very tough and he’s in great shape and he wanted to do it very Method-y, even he, by the end of the first week or the second week, was saying, “I gotta be able to work tomorrow. I can’t carry these things when they weigh 50 pounds each.” The bags got lighter as the days went on.

 

 

[Eulipian 5k]

17 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

On 4/6/2020 at 10:40 PM, Eulipian 5k said:

Lalo gave him an out! Now they’re F. F. L.

I don't think he really gave him an out. It just sounded like it. He knew too much to let him walk away.

Jimmy's his lawyer. Aren't they paid to know and transmit that type of info. anyway, a la Tom Hayden (in One)? Don't most mobsters use their lawyers' conferences to arrange hits, and arrange money transfers. If Jimmy was just a bagman and not a lawyer, yeah, he would be killed for refusing after he learned the drop location.

[Eulipian 5k]

18 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

On 4/7/2020 at 7:22 AM, ShadowFacts said:

Did Mike take the license plate off the Esteem?  What was the point, there is still a VIN number.

Yep, I kept wondering about that VIN number.

Isn't the desert filled with wrecked carcasses of abandoned vehicles, that no one pays any mind to? Like those cartoons that always show a cow's skull next to a cactus. What happened to Hank's car

Spoiler

before Marie was told?

 

[Clanstarling]

1 hour ago, Eulipian 5k said:

Jimmy's his lawyer. Aren't they paid to know and transmit that type of info. anyway, a la Tom Hayden (in One)? Don't most mobsters use their lawyers' conferences to arrange hits, and arrange money transfers. If Jimmy was just a bagman and not a lawyer, yeah, he would be killed for refusing after he learned the drop location.

I'm not sure criminals like Lalo completely trust the lawyer-client privilege. And particularly trust someone like to me.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Clanstarling

[meira.hand]

On 4/7/2020 at 2:08 PM, Xena said:

Ok, I was pretty stoned watching last night, but didn't Mike take the gas cap out of the Esteem?  I just figured that's how the robber gang knew the drop spot - someone had bugged the gas cap before Saul left town.  

Actually, I think it was Mike who bugged it and this was how he knew to follow Saul in case he got into trouble. Mike has done this in the past (I don't remember when but I clearly remember him doing it.

[Sam Spayaid]

Kim, Kim, Kim. I get it - you love Jimmy..you really do.....but now?!!!

To say that this woman has put herself in mortal danger, peril, the path of really, really bad trouble, would be a massive understatement. For a woman who appears smart and capable she made one really terrible decision. Seeing as there is no Kim in BB, it would be safe to guess that she and Jimmy parted ways.......OR. 

I really like the parted ways outcome better. I like Kim. And her ponytail.😪

[Xena]

8 minutes ago, meira.hand said:

Actually, I think it was Mike who bugged it and this was how he knew to follow Saul in case he got into trouble. Mike has done this in the past (I don't remember when but I clearly remember him doing it.

You got it!  I rewound back to that point, Mike turns around... and puts the gas cap in his gun bag (which he would only do if it's 'his' bug).  

Note to self:  Save the bubba kush for AFTER the show.  LOL.

p.s. I think you may be remembering the episode when Mike was going crazy trying to figure out how HE was being followed - he tore his car apart - before he finally realized the bug was in the gas cap (then a fantastic episode where he wore down the battery in THAT bug so that he could con the men into coming to 'replace' the gas cap... which he had replaced with his very own bug, that the bad guys carried off, then he was able to follow them.... omg I love this show).

 

 

[Joimiaroxeu]

Did Saul think the Salamanca brothers wouldn't know who he was? What was that pidgin Spanish all about?

Nobody does shootouts like Vince Gilligan. That scene was freaking amazing.

Wonder if someone involved with writing these episodes recently saw the Matt Damon film, Gerry. I think having seen that movie made this episode bother me less than it probably would have otherwise.

[PeterPirate]

22 hours ago, Xena said:

You got it!  I rewound back to that point, Mike turns around... and puts the gas cap in his gun bag (which he would only do if it's 'his' bug).  

 

I've gone round and round on this, and I think it was just chance that Mike stopped at a place to watch the money exchange through his sniper scope, and that turned out to be the location of the ambush.  Jimmy didn't drive very far from the meeting with the cuzzins before he got stopped. 

 

On 4/8/2020 at 4:54 PM, qtpye said:

I imagine that Jimmy's last act of kindness will be to expel Kim from his life as he does not want to take her down with him. 

As much as I want Kim in Jimmy's life, this makes the most sense to me.  Jimmy restored Irene's life and he will do the same for Kim.

Makes me think of the ending to Casablanca.  Or Dr. Zhivago.  And in the latter story, Lara is pregnant when Zhivago sends her away.  Holly is going to need a criminal lawyer someday.

Edited April 10, 2020 by PeterPirate

[dwmarch]

I have seen many posts about Kim going to visit the vacuum cleaner salesman but if she really is "in the game" now she could also end up working at Madrigal.

Also, did it sound to anyone else like that kid Kim defended for smoking a joint might have been Jesse?

[Eulipian 5k]

13 minutes ago, dwmarch said:

but if she really is "in the game" now she could also end up working at Madrigal.

Giselle would be too tempted by a 'nervous nellie' mark like Lydia.

[Firsttimelongtme]

5 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

So there's still four years to go until Walt's 50th birthday.  That's going to require some jump in time somewhere along the way.  Probably with Saul working from the strip mall office, alone.  😞

AMC no longer shows the first few episodes of the season, so I can't go back and listen to the exact wording about the Eagles.  As I recall the impression given was that Eagles had played in the most recent Super Bowl.  That is a pretty glaring discontinuity for this show.

 

[Ohwell]

2 hours ago, Eulipian 5k said:

Giselle would be too tempted by a 'nervous nellie' mark like Lydia.

I think Lydia would be jealous of Giselle and have her killed.

[Scout Finch]

Ever since Breaking Bad, I've thought of Mike's default expression as that of an exasperated sigh!

[Clanstarling]

4 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

I've gone round and round on this, and I think it was just chance that Mike stopped at a place to watch the money exchange take place, and that turned out to be the location of the ambush.  Jimmy didn't drive very far from the meeting with the cuzzins before he got stopped.  Mike had the high ground and could have following the money exchange through his sniper scope.

To me it seems like he's an experienced soldier/sniper who could easily scope out a likely ambush location while he followed Saul. I don't think it has to be anymore complicated that that.

4 hours ago, dwmarch said:

Also, did it sound to anyone else like that kid Kim defended for smoking a joint might have been Jesse?

Yep.

[Scout Finch]

Near the end of the episode, Mike climbs up to get a clear vantage point of the roads. 

Me: Do you see any cow houses?

[tljgator]

I'm glad y'all finally brought up the issue I came here to talk about...I can hand-wave the shoot-out logistics, but the weight of the money was bothering me the whole time. It's a pet peeve anyway when bad guys on TV ask for millions in small bills and it fits in a tiny little briefcase (sure!) that gets flung around like it weighs nothing (why not!), so I was at least happy to see two giant duffle bags that were hard to pick up when they were loaded into the trunk. 

But once Saul had to pick up both and walk for miles, the first thing I did was Googlefu how much it weighed. I mean, 150 pounds is A LOT. Could you walk one mile carrying essentially another person's weight? Now imagine walking a marathon, through the desert, with a person riding piggy-back, and no water. Nope.

Still... Bagman > Fly 

[shapeshifter]

55 minutes ago, Scout Finch said:

Near the end of the episode, Mike climbs up to get a clear vantage point of the roads. 

Me: Do you see any cow houses?

"cow house"??
*shapeshifter Googles*  (urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cow house)

Quote

Jesse "yeah nothing but cows and a big cow house"
Heizenburg "cowhouse?"
Jesse "Yeah its where the cows live"

🤣
 

[Dev F]

14 hours ago, PeterPirate said:

AMC no longer shows the first few episodes of the season, so I can't go back and listen to the exact wording about the Eagles.  As I recall the impression given was that Eagles had played in the most recent Super Bowl.  That is a pretty glaring discontinuity for this show.

It definitely leaves that impression, but it doesn't say it directly. Mike asks, "You remember when we watched the Super Bowl?" and starts grilling Kaylee about how many points per number of touchdowns, and after a few questions Kaylee just blurts out, "Go, Eagles! Kick ass!" Mike says, "You don't talk like that. Who taught you to talk like that?" and she replies, "You did." The obvious assumption is that she heard him talk like that during the Super Bowl, but it's not impossible that with all the talk of football, she was just recalling an earlier instance when he was watching football and got memorably excited -- as I mentioned, it could've been during the NFC Championship a few weeks before.

In any event, it's far from the most egregious chronological error in a universe where Kaylee's age has been retconned a couple times, where the writers forgot that Osama Bin Laden was still alive during the Breaking Bad era, and where every detail revealed about the backstory of the McGill brothers makes their age difference more and more incomprehensible.

[PeterPirate]

10 hours ago, Dev F said:

It definitely leaves that impression, but it doesn't say it directly. Mike asks, "You remember when we watched the Super Bowl?" and starts grilling Kaylee about how many points per number of touchdowns, and after a few questions Kaylee just blurts out, "Go, Eagles! Kick ass!" Mike says, "You don't talk like that. Who taught you to talk like that?" and she replies, "You did." The obvious assumption is that she heard him talk like that during the Super Bowl, but it's not impossible that with all the talk of football, she was just recalling an earlier instance when he was watching football and got memorably excited -- as I mentioned, it could've been during the NFC Championship a few weeks before.

 

That makes sense.  Being from Philly, I can't imagine Kaylee would shout "Go Patriots!"   I myself now need to disinfect my keyboard after typing it. 

Go Bears.

Edited April 10, 2020 by PeterPirate

[scenario]

12 hours ago, Dev F said:

It definitely leaves that impression, but it doesn't say it directly. Mike asks, "You remember when we watched the Super Bowl?" and starts grilling Kaylee about how many points per number of touchdowns, and after a few questions Kaylee just blurts out, "Go, Eagles! Kick ass!" Mike says, "You don't talk like that. Who taught you to talk like that?" and she replies, "You did." The obvious assumption is that she heard him talk like that during the Super Bowl, but it's not impossible that with all the talk of football, she was just recalling an earlier instance when he was watching football and got memorably excited -- as I mentioned, it could've been during the NFC Championship a few weeks before.

In any event, it's far from the most egregious chronological error in a universe where Kaylee's age has been retconned a couple times, where the writers forgot that Osama Bin Laden was still alive during the Breaking Bad era, and where every detail revealed about the backstory of the McGill brothers makes their age difference more and more incomprehensible.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mike stays with Kaylee every Sunday because either her mother works (time and a half in some places) or she wants some time to herself. So Mike watches football with his granddaughter. The Eagles are in the NFC and are on national TV a fair amount. I've lived in New England for almost all my life and the Eagles are on TV here at least 3 or 4 times a season when their any good. 

Kids, especially little kids remember when the parents and grandparents do stuff that they aren't allowed to do. I can see a 5 or 6 year old love screaming kick their asses to her grandfather because she heard him say it several times and she gets to be naughty. It doesn't have to be in the Superbowl. He probably says it every time the Eagles are on TV. 

[Chick Chandler]

Since Vince is from Virginia, what are we to make of that Va. license tag "2920" lying on the top of that stack?

[MaryPatShelby]

On 4/8/2020 at 1:04 AM, shapeshifter said:

I loved the "Fly" episode of Breaking Bad; I'm guessing y'all didn't. 
Just for fun, which did you prefer hate least: "Bagman" or "Fly"?

I did like "Fly".  I don't have the recall of every BB episode like you guys do, but I feel like that was one where I was on the edge of my seat the whole episode waiting to see if Walt would tell Jesse about Jane.  There was no edge-of-the-seat feeling with Bagman because we know that both Mike and Jimmy live.

[Ottis]

On 4/6/2020 at 8:19 PM, Dianaofthehunt said:

I couldn’t watch the last half. I have to keep reminding myself that there are crew just out of frame holding boom mics and wearing headphones.... that’s the only thing that got me through this harrowing episode.

I don’t understand why this episode was harrowing. Aside from the fact we already know what happens later to these characters, where was the suspense? The shoot out echoed the shoot out Walt survived in BB. That was amusing. I spent most of the episode wondering why Mike didn’t do at the start what Saul eventually forced Mike to do at the end. Mike had already taken out what, 3-4 guys? What’s another 2?

I greatly enjoy the unpredictability of Lalo. And the show’s cinematography. 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Ottis

[Clanstarling]

You can know what the outcome is, be well versed in it, and still find the episode (or film) suspenseful. Apollo 13 is a good example of that (at least it was for me). Depends, imo, on how deeply invested you are in the characters. People watch in different ways, some are detached, some are emotionally involved. I've been both with different series. I, personally, have much more fun when I'm emotionally engaged.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Clanstarling

[peeayebee]

I liked Bagman, but I really loved Fly. I think it was the psychological aspects of both Walt and Jesse that drew me in.

[Clanstarling]

3 minutes ago, peeayebee said:

I liked Bagman, but I really loved Fly. I think it was the psychological aspects of both Walt and Jesse that drew me in.

And I didn't care for Fly at all, despite loving BB in general. Mileage varies, which is part of the fun of the forum. 🙂

Edited April 11, 2020 by Clanstarling

[Milburn Stone]

On 4/9/2020 at 10:07 AM, peeayebee said:

From an interview with Gilligan:

 

I'm glad to know Vince Gilligan asked about using $1000 bills, because I was wondering why the cartel wouldn't use them. Reading this interview excerpt made me go and google the subject, whereupon I learned that the $1000 bill was discontinued in 1946!! I definitely saw them in my life, and I was born after that, but that's because existing bills weren't taken out of circulation until 1967. Still, that's 53 years since the last one was seen. Who knew?

[JudyObscure]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

Who knew?

I knew, but that's just because I was a bank teller for many years.  I was reminded of those  days when I saw the Cartel workers counting money with one of those whirring money counters.  I used to get $300,000 a day in 20's  to fill the ATM machines -- heavy, but not as heavy as 7 million in 100's.  One day something went flying by in the counter that tweaked my antenna and it turned out to be a counterfeit.  A counterfeit coming from the federal reserve was unheard of.  Someone needed a refresher course from Nacho.

[PeterPirate]

2 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

And I didn't care for Fly at all, despite loving BB in general. Mileage varies, which is part of the fun of the forum. 🙂

Frankly, the most memorable moment for me was Jesse asking for El Axo.

And along the subject of discussing BCS/BB tie-ins, which one of Ziegler's crew left behind that raisin?  

[peeayebee]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I'm glad to know Vince Gilligan asked about using $1000 bills, because I was wondering why the cartel wouldn't use them. Reading this interview excerpt made me go and google the subject, whereupon I learned that the $1000 bill was discontinued in 1946!! I definitely saw them in my life, and I was born after that, but that's because existing bills weren't taken out of circulation until 1967. Still, that's 53 years since the last one was seen. Who knew?

That reminds me when I was little, my dad showed me a $1000 bill that he was paid with by a client. He was a house painter and often worked for wealthy people. I think that's the only time I've seen one in person.

Edited April 11, 2020 by peeayebee