well we know that Jesse is going to be unsuccessful at burning the house down

8/25/2013 10:06:26 PM

I don't remember what exactly happened w/ the ricin cigarette and Brock. Does someone mind explaining to me why Jesse freaked out all of the sudden?

8/25/2013 10:13:38 PM

I remember they determined it was that flower that was actually what made Brock sick, but there was something about Jesse losing the ricin cigarette ... been a while since I saw that ep.

8/25/2013 10:23:53 PM

Walt took it out of Jesse's pack...then later Jesse was freaking out about it, so Walt put a fake ricin cigarette he had made inside his Rumba vacuum

8/25/2013 10:29:35 PM

that confession video....

[Edited on August 25, 2013 at 10:31 PM. Reason : Hh]

8/25/2013 10:31:13 PM

Thanks for the info

8/25/2013 11:09:35 PM

Yeah. That "confession" video was . And also !

8/26/2013 12:08:53 AM

so Jesse became a super sleuth in a matter of seconds. that was a mighty large gap to fill to be honest. definitely feels like a reach to make Jesse connect all those dots.

8/26/2013 7:56:07 AM

Not really. He connected those dots a long time ago and Walt talked him out of it. When he had the gun to Walt's face, he had the whole thing figured out, that Huell & Saul lifted the ricin off of him. Last night he just figured out that Walt was behind it and worked him again.

8/26/2013 8:34:47 AM

There's a pretty good breakdown of the timeline in this review. It is all the way at the end. There are a lot of spoilers if you haven't watched last night's episode though.

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-breaking-bad-confessions-master-thespian

8/26/2013 9:32:23 AM

Quote :

"so Jesse became a super sleuth in a matter of seconds. that was a mighty large gap to fill to be honest. definitely feels like a reach to make Jesse connect all those dots."

A lot of people have been saying this, but I don't agree. I don't think Jesse is that dumb. That whole situation never made sense to him from the beginning, and it was too much of a coincidence that the cigarette went missing and Brock got poisoned (with something with eerily similar effects to ricin) at the same time. We've all had that moment of enlightenment where we suddenly realize something that we probably should have already figured out. That was the last piece he needed to connect the dots.

8/26/2013 9:45:48 AM

The more I think about it, the more I agree with ^.

8/26/2013 9:54:03 AM

Quote :

"There are a lot of spoilers if you haven't watched last night's episode though."

no shit, it's a review. also, probably 90% of the people in this thread read Sepinwall.

8/26/2013 10:44:22 AM

Vulcan91 i think i'm starting to come around to your opinion. One thing I always have to reconfirm to myself is that BB is taking place in a short timeline. It's only been a few months since the Brock poison arc, and not several years as has passed in the viewer's life.

8/26/2013 10:47:02 AM

^ Good point.

8/26/2013 11:17:17 AM

Yeah, Jesse's realization made perfect sense to me. The only iffy part of the episode was in Walt's "confession", if Hank is some big time drug kingpin, why would he need Walt to pay his medical bills?

8/26/2013 11:45:36 AM

^ Since the whole Confession was more of a threat to Hank than a legitimate confession, I took that as more of Walt forcing Marie to tell the Hank the truth about the medical bills than Walt trying to make a factual point to be used in court.

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 11:49 AM. Reason : ...]

8/26/2013 11:49:19 AM

it certainly made the point that if walt goes down he can take hank with him.

8/26/2013 1:58:54 PM

to me it seemed like less of a threat and more of a way for walt to tell hank about his human reasons for doing what he did without legitimately confessing, shrug.

8/26/2013 2:47:28 PM

what? really? how the hell did you get that?

8/26/2013 3:10:26 PM

Yeah I don't see that at all. Walt no longer has much humanity left after all he's done and I don't think he believes he's fooling anyone there. The DVD was the nuclear option to use if it became clear that there would be no reconciliation with Hank and Marie and that Hank would not drop his pursuit.

8/26/2013 3:17:54 PM

Hahahah, it's a testament to the writers and Cranston's performance that he's actually duping viewers of the show into believing he's not complete scum at this point.

8/26/2013 3:30:11 PM

Yep. This says it all:

8/26/2013 3:31:25 PM

i said "less of a threat," not "not at all a threat." it definitely accomplished both. I don't think Hank completely tuned out the "good" bits of walt's past he described, that he didn't know about before and walt couldn't previously tell him without confessing.

it doesn't take current humanity to say "look look i used to have humanity"

and it's obviously a weasely dramatic ploy just like the shit with Jesse regardless, I'm not saying he's being a good person

i just think it was a bit more than "hehe fuck you drug money paid your bills"

(obviously hank is the kingpin wouldn't stick but the medical bills thing could)

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 3:41 PM. Reason : .]

8/26/2013 3:37:48 PM

8/26/2013 3:49:39 PM

Quote :

"One thing I always have to reconfirm to myself is that BB is taking place in a short timeline. It's only been a few months since the Brock poison arc, and not several years as has passed in the viewer's life."

That's one of my only complaints about this show. The timeline is really hard to figure out, especially after about season 3. Walt has had 2 birthdays (Seasons 1 and 2 I think) owned 2 or 3 businesses, and shipped multiple shipments of product to foreign countries. I'm not sure how long it takes to close on the Salon, the Car wash, (maybe the laser tag place?), and pesticide business.... but it seems it'd take more than a month or two.

8/26/2013 5:16:32 PM

I don't think he owns or owned any of those but the car wash, and why would it take a month or more for a motivated seller to sell something?

8/26/2013 5:40:33 PM

pretty sure that is the only time a completely clear and linear timeline has been complained about as being "really hard" to figure out

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 5:56 PM. Reason : and he has only owned the Car Wash]

8/26/2013 5:55:43 PM

I'm not saying I don't understand the order of events. I'm saying I don't understand the overall amount of time passage from Episode 1, to the current episode. Someone said "A few months" since Brock was poisoned. Well that was a season and a half ago, so how long ago was that in Walters life?

I've been watching these as they've been released on AMC since season 2, so maybe I'm forgetting other obvious time stamps. (like birthdays)

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 6:08 PM. Reason : .]

8/26/2013 6:05:57 PM

In terms of the medical bills why wouldn't matter only that Walt has the paper trail to prove it.

Also the timeline doesn't seem that complicated I find Jrs. Progression through school a decent hint too.

8/26/2013 6:32:51 PM

Quote :

"A lot of people have been saying this, but I don't agree. I don't think Jesse is that dumb. That whole situation never made sense to him from the beginning, and it was too much of a coincidence that the cigarette went missing and Brock got poisoned (with something with eerily similar effects to ricin) at the same time. We've all had that moment of enlightenment where we suddenly realize something that we probably should have already figured out. That was the last piece he needed to connect the dots."

The bold part is what I don't get/missed. WHAT was the last piece? He was looking at a pack of cigarettes and suddenly knew all of that to be true? That's what doesn't add up to me. Did I miss something about that specific pack of cigarettes that made it all click for him?

Quote :

"Yeah, Jesse's realization made perfect sense to me. The only iffy part of the episode was in Walt's "confession", if Hank is some big time drug kingpin, why would he need Walt to pay his medical bills?"

and

Quote :

"^ Since the whole Confession was more of a threat to Hank than a legitimate confession, I took that as more of Walt forcing Marie to tell the Hank the truth about the medical bills than Walt trying to make a factual point to be used in court."

That was more of Hank saying, "by the way, you took drug money and used it for you hospital bills". He was threatening him further in a way by pointing out that his (Hank's) hands are a little dirty and that the money used for his medical bills could be tied back to Hank.

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 6:46 PM. Reason : .]

8/26/2013 6:44:07 PM

he realized his weed was gone, and that it must have been lifted in between sauls and when he dropped off -- he then looked at the only thing left, his cigarette pack, and realized that if they had lifted his weed without him noticing, then they also could have lifted that cigarette with the ricin in it

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 6:52 PM. Reason : rather than his previous assumption that he must have lost it somewhere around brock]

8/26/2013 6:49:30 PM

Quote :

"pretty sure that is the only time a completely clear and linear timeline has been complained about as being "really hard" to figure out"

It baffles me how so many people are having trouble with Jesse's revelation (and other things). I typically don't watch many of these serialized dramas because they have like 50 characters each with their own storyline and it's hard to keep track of things. But Breaking Bad has got to be the easiest drama to follow on TV. And people are still having trouble keeping up?

8/26/2013 7:08:02 PM

^^ Thanks. But I thought the kid was poisoned with a plant. And then at the end of the episode the camera goes through Hank's backyard and stops on a plant with a name/species tag on it that shows it is the kind of plant that poisoned Brock.

^I don't understand why people can't keep up with the time line. But Jesse's revelation was... ehh... a little questionable.

I got that he was looking for his weed in that scene. But I didn't make that conclusion he did because it's fucking ridiculous.

"hey, i put weed in my jacket pocket. Shit, my weed is gone... they must have taken it from me. Wait a minute, if they could get a bag of weed out of my jacket pocket without me knowing, then they could get a ricin cigarette out of a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket without me knowing. And since that's possible, then they DEFINITELY did that for Walt and Walt DEFINITELY poisoned Brock even thought he WASN'T POISONED WITH RICIN."

Not only is it a stretch, but it doesn't even make sense..... That's the problem people are having with his "revelation"


Edit: and to be fair, keep in mind that the brock thing was two seasons ago. People aren't going to remember every little detail. Shit, I barely remembered that Saul and them stole the cigarette from Jesse. But knowing that I probably forgot something, I was thinking maybe there's something about the pack itself (the brand or something) that gave it away (although again, the kid didn't have ricin poisoning).. and I just don't remember the details for it to make sense. But no... it was just a big leap onto a Jump to Conclusions Mat.


It would make much more sense if Jesse went to Walt's house for some reason just before heading out of town, and then saw the Lilly of the Valley plant in his back yard.

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 7:54 PM. Reason : .]

8/26/2013 7:37:41 PM

Quote :

"Wait a minute, if they could get a bag of weed out of my jacket pocket without me knowing, then they could get a ricin cigarette out of a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket without me knowing."

Well, I think what they were going for was that in a previous episode Jesse had already suspected that Huell took his cigs. So, now that he knows Huell lifted his weed (and was therefore a good pickpocket), it confirmed his earlier suspicions. I don't think at that exact instant he knew that Walt was involved, just that for some reason Saul wanted Huell to get Jesse's cigarette. When he rolled up on Saul, Saul gave up Walt and that's that.

Now, I will admit that the pacing makes it seem like a bit of a leap. Perhaps if they had shown Jesse going over it in his head for an episode or so it would've felt more natural.

8/26/2013 8:00:04 PM

What about the fact that Brock was poisoned with Lilly of the Valley and NOT ricin? *** note to be fair to you, I had edited my previous post and added the stuff about the lilly of the valley. You may not have seen it before you replied.

Fair enough that he's just realizing that Huell is a good pick pocket and could have stolen that cigarette. So what? Brock was poisoned with Lilly of the valley. What does Huell stealing his ricin cigarette have to do with poisoning Brock?

Edit: I suspect that something else will be revealed. The writing on the show is very tight. But I just don't see how this his actually a logical conclusion.

Granted, it could be an illogical conclusion by the character of Jesse. He knows that Huell could have lifted the ricin. He knows that Walt went through trouble of doing it and it was all around the time of Brock's poisoning, etc.

But it's definitely not logical to say "If walt had Huell pick pocket the ricin cigaretee off of me, then Walt poisoned Brock with Lilly of the Valley.

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 8:17 PM. Reason : .]

8/26/2013 8:04:55 PM

OK, so let's break it down:

* Jesse was on Gus's side and Walt was worried that Gus would get the OK from Jesse to kill him.
* Walt wanted to come up with a scenario that looked on the surface to be all Walt's doing, thus turning Jesse against him and allowing Gus to proceed with killing Walt.
* That scenario was to poison Brock with "ricin".
* Walt chose ricin because he knew it was something that Jesse knew Walt knew about.
* Also, the ricin was something that Gus could have "potentially" known about via security cameras.
* When the ricin turns up missing right at the time Brock is poisoned, Jesse does the obvious thing and assumes that Walt was responsible.
* Jesse confronts Walt and Walt tells Jesse "it must've been Gus! He wanted to turn you against me! I bet he knew about the ricin too!"
* This sounds plausible to Jesse and he's on Walt's side now.

But why lily of the valley? Presumably Walt didn't want to actually kill the kid, just keep the doctors guessing for long enough to kill Gus. When Jesse finds out it wasn't ricin, the whole thing is chalked up to a lost cigarette.

At the point of the last episode though, the lily of the valley part is irrelevant. Jesse had already theorized that Huell had taken his cigarette for some reason, but Walt was able to convince Jesse that it must've been Gus. When Jesse realizes that Huell did indeed steal his cigarette and gets Saul to admit that Walt was behind it to begin with (I don't think Jesse rolled back in Saul's office pissed off at Walt but rather wanted to know why his cigarette was stolen in the first place), now suddenly he understands that Walt had something to do with poisoning, not Gus.

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 8:23 PM. Reason : ...]

8/26/2013 8:19:33 PM

Alan Sepinwall breaks it down pretty well here too:

(Spoilers ahead):

http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/review-breaking-bad-confessions-master-thespian#uGtosDq44FmmtC23.99

Quote :

"1)In "End Times," to get Jesse back on his side in the war against Gus, Walt arranges for Huell to steal the cigarette pack with the ricin cigarette out of Jesse's pocket and replace it with a different pack. Saul calls Jesse to his office on shaky reasons, and Huell pats him down in a way that gets Jesse's attention. Walt doesn't use the ricin to poison Brock, but rather a lily of the valley plant that will have a similar but less dangerous effect on the boy. 2)When Jesse hears that Brock has been poisoned, he realizes that the ricin cigarette is missing, then (correctly) puts two and two together that Huell stole it, on Walt's orders. He storms into Walt's house and threatens to kill him for poisoning Brock; Walt convinces Jesse that it was Gus, not him, who wanted to hurt the boy — specifically so Jesse would come to this conclusion and murder Walt for him — and that Tyrus must have lifted the cigarettes from Jesse's locker at the Super Lab. Jesse accepts that Mr. White would never hurt a child, whereas Gus has a history of hurting children, and lets go of the theory about Huell. 3)Doctors later figure out that Brock was poisoned by a lily of the valley, not ricin, making Jesse doubt Walt's theory about Gus manipulating Jesse into shooting Walt, and leaving him to wonder what really happened to the ricin cigarette. Walt stages a phony search of Jesse's house and plants a fake cigarette (containing salt, not ricin) inside Jesse's Roomba. None of this sits well with Jesse, but he once again believes Mr. White. 4)Over the course of season 5, starting around the murder of Drew Sharp, Jesse has begun to realize that he shouldn't believe anything Walt says. Walt claims to be broken up over Drew's death, then whistles while he works. Walt claims that Mike left town alive, when Jesse knows that Walt would've never taken out Mike's guys unless Mike was dead. Walt gives Jesse a whole song and dance about how leaving town will be good for Jesse, when Jesse knows that it will be even better for Walt. 5)Having been primed to disbelieve any word out of Walt's mouth, Jesse goes to Saul's office, lights up a joint and gets scolded by Saul, who knows his relocation expert won't pick up anyone who's high. Saul orders Huell to again pick Jesse's pocket to get rid of the marijuana. 6)At the pick-up spot, a nervous Jesse reaches for his pot, and can't find it. He frantically checks all his pockets, but all he finds is a cigarette pack. Staring at the cigarette pack, and realizing Huell dipped into his pocket without him noticing, Jesse realizes that his first suspicions about the ricin cigarette were correct, and that Mr. White was manipulating him into turning against Gus, endangering Brock's life in the process. That the ricin wasn't actually used on Brock is beside the point. Jesse knew from the beginning that Huell had picked his pocket, and that he must have done it on Mr. White's orders. He has been thinking about this often in the months since it happened — far more often and more intensely than those of us watching the show have, and in a more compressed time period. When he realizes Huell picked his pocket, and stares at another crumpled cigarette pack, everything clicks into place about the events of "End Times" — including how convenient it was that this terrible thing happened to Brock, which turned Jesse back into Walt's ally, at the exact moment Walt needed an ally against Gus — and he goes on the warpath against Saul, Huell and that asshole Mr. White. You may disagree with whether Jesse would have put all the pieces together like that, but that's what happened."

8/26/2013 9:45:22 PM

Ok, right. I really forgot about Walt's story about how Gus knew about the ricin and was using it to play them.

Quote :

"But why lily of the valley? Presumably Walt didn't want to actually kill the kid, just keep the doctors guessing for long enough to kill Gus. When Jesse finds out it wasn't ricin, the whole thing is chalked up to a lost cigarette."

With all of that other stuff in mind, I think the lilly of the valley was actually very important and not just because he didn't want to kill the kid. It was because it would look enough like ricin poisoning that the doctors would say they thought it was ricin. And that was absolutely critical for Jesse to hear in order to suspect Walt, and for Walt to be able to sell him the story that Gus probably knew about the ricin and was using it to set Jesse against him.


But the part that is sort of suspect is him making the leap from the pot being gone to Huell having stole the ricin.

Meaning, Jesse couldn't have used sound logic to conclude that Huell stole the ricin cigarette. It was just a hunch because he knew that Huell was a capable pick pocket and because he was fishy when he patted him down around the time of the poisoning.

The doubt with everyone is the whole part where realized that Huell picked his pocket, he looked at the cigarettes, and then he took off and seemed to have had it figured out by then. I don't think he had it figured out by then entirely, or he would have went to Walt's and not Saul's. Huell stealing it was nothing more than a good hunch that he happened to be right about. But it did lead to some good information that does add up nicely to the conclusion of Walt poisoning Brock.

And I'm good with Jesse having an hunch and going after Saul to find out for sure or Jesse jumping to that conclusion incorrectly, going to Saul's, and then getting a confirmation. Although, he left there extremely confidently and clearly claimed "you stole the cigarette" in Saul's office.

[Edited on August 26, 2013 at 10:19 PM. Reason : .]

8/26/2013 10:02:46 PM

Also, there is the fact that it is a TV show, so you know... there is that too.

8/26/2013 11:09:26 PM

eh, the writing on Breaking Bad, especially things coming back around and actually making sense is well above "it's a tv show".

"It's a tv show" in the sense that the characters are characters and not the most logical necessarily, of course. And the character may have had a hunch that proved right, he may have even used bad logic and came to a conclusion that just so happened to be right. That's cool, people do that stuff.

But I do hold Breaking Bad to a higher standard than "it's a tv show" when it comes to writing holes. That said, there aren't any real holes here. It's just that you have to remember shit from 2-3 years ago, which sometimes requires talking it out and someone bring up something you forgot about.

8/26/2013 11:25:49 PM

^Seriously, you're just being a fag at this point. It's quite clear to everyone but you and in spite of everyone pointing it out you are standing firm. Jesse is a smart kid. The light bulb went off in his head. He figured it out enough to get Saul to spill the beans. You were a fag in the Dexter Season 7 thread for bitching about me not using spoiler tags and now you're douching up this thread too. Give it a rest and talk about something else.

8/27/2013 9:54:20 AM

How did Walt know that Hank had his book? You just got to let stuff like that go. These loose connections are built to keep the plot going at a hundred miles an hour. That's why the show is fun. I instantly knew what Jesse was thinking at that moment. The only thing that bothered me was how long it took him to call Walt out on his bullshit but it was such a good scene that all was forgiven. Aaron Paul is a good crier.

8/27/2013 10:49:37 AM

That's not a huge leap either. Hank's acting funny after going to the can and leaves abruptly. Book goes missing.

The only thing that was unbelievable to me is that Walt held on to the book in the first place, especially after he learned that Hank has Gail's notebook with the exact same W.W. in it. It made for good TV but c'mon.

8/27/2013 10:55:24 AM

^^ after he found the GPS tracker on a hunch after the book went missing after Hank left his house in a panic

^ even that isn't much of a stretch. there have multiple times in which Walt has been sloppy, almost as if it's the very last bit of his conscious wanting him to get caught. that and cockiness.

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 11:04 AM. Reason : whoops]

8/27/2013 10:56:21 AM

Quote :

"and cockiness."

8/27/2013 11:18:05 AM

^ Yeah, I think that more than anything. Walt has convinced himself that he is always the smartest guy in the room and thinks he can get away with anything at this point. Also, it isn't like he kept the book in a display case. A lot of serial criminals keep trophies even though it creates evidence to tie them to their crimes.

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 1:07 PM. Reason : .]

8/27/2013 1:06:58 PM

Quote :

"^Seriously, you're just being a fag at this point. It's quite clear to everyone but you and in spite of everyone pointing it out you are standing firm. Jesse is a smart kid. The light bulb went off in his head. He figured it out enough to get Saul to spill the beans. You were a fag in the Dexter Season 7 thread for bitching about me not using spoiler tags and now you're douching up this thread too. Give it a rest and talk about something else. "

what are you fucking 12

/message_topic.aspx?topic=604364

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 1:13 PM. Reason : and FTR, 'next week on dexter' is notoriously spoilery and shouldn't be watched or posted about.]

8/27/2013 1:11:02 PM

Quote :

"shouldn't be watched"

8/27/2013 1:40:35 PM

i mean do whatever you want but i'm not into having next's weeks episode almost completely spoiled. I really don't see why those segments exist.

"oh, [character from last season]'s suddenly coming back next episode, neat. I would've hated for a major character's 'surprise' return to have been a... surprise. glad showtime spared me the shock. better go tell the internet about it."

[Edited on August 27, 2013 at 1:47 PM. Reason : .]

8/27/2013 1:44:02 PM