Brock wasn't an innocent character by any means. If he wasn't so greedy when drinking that juicebox, Andrea would have survived. But no, he just HAD to have that apple juice. Honestly on the same level as Jack.
One thing I do like about Better Call Saul is the ending to Mike's story - Mr. Varga pretty clearly very clearly tells Mike (and the viewers) that his code of honor is nonsense, and he's just as bad as the rest of the gangsters. It almost felt like an apology on the writers' part for how hypocritically Mike was handled in Breaking Bad
@@TAG152gamingbecause he holds himself higher than walt for example, sure he hasnt done bad things to the extent that walt has, but he definitely doesnt have a clean slate by any means. Hes still done a lot of terrible shit but for the most part acts as if he hasnt
@@TAG152gaming Mike gets mad that Walt killed Gus even though Gus was threatening to murder his entire family and had used Walt as a pawn to be disposed of.
I don’t think it’s an apology on behalf of the writers. I think it’s a natural conclusion of his character. In Breaking Bad Mike is portrayed as a pretty likable character because of his relative morality and his relationship with Jesse. Walt kills him around the same point in the show that Walt starts taking on a more antagonistic role so Mike’s rant is cathartic to the average viewer. Of course in hindsight you can see how self-serving it is since he probably would have done the same in Walt’s situation. In BCS, his arc over the course of the show gives us insight into how his morals and values changed over time. Mike starts out the show as a criminal, but with certain lines that he would never cross (killing innocent people is the main one), but the lines become eroded over time and as he gets more entrenched in the cartel he chooses time and time again to shift his morals to align with his actions rather than changing actions to align with morals. I agree with what you’re saying about liking the scene but I think calling it an apology implies that they messed up in BB by not acknowledging his hypocrisy more overtly. I kind of like that they let the viewer come to their own conclusion about his character.
One theory I have regarding why Walt was so passive at the start of the series is that he was suffering from depression. We don't know why- maybe something happened, maybe it just developed, but like many people, Walt developed a mild to moderate case of depression and it sapped his drive and career ambitions. This led to the change in his attitude, and ironically, the cancer diagnosis and his crime involvement helped bring him out of the depression, changing his attitude towards life and success.
Pretty interesting theory, could definitely be possible. The best thing is Vince himself said that any fan theories could be true, that its our show aswell as his and no one theory is set in stone
@@RonaldRobert-us7qk This is very obviously false. If I asked you what Walt's biggest character flaw was, you'd almost certainly get it wrong. It lacking nuance is crazy
Do we know for sure Gus put the hit out on Thomas? I always interpreted it as Gus telling the 2 dealers "No more children" was their last interaction on the matter, and the dealers misinterpreted Gus' words and killed Thomas instead of letting him go or at least not continuing to make him sell meth.
Yeah this is always what i thought, i dont see why gus would want this random kid to die especially since this would definitely rile up jesse and walt. In my eyes they dont give a shit about the kid he was just a tool to do their dirty work, so why would they care to let him live after letting him go, killing him would even be beneficial to them as they wouldnt have a loose end
When someone who's been a cartel underboss for 20 years tells you no more children i really doubt that he means something like "set the kid straight" or get him out of the streets, he indirectly tells them that they should kill him.
By the way, Marie's kleptomania is because Hank is abusive and neglectful toward her. She is doing it for the dopamine rush and for attention. Its common for addicts to relapse during times of stress, and kleptomania is an addiction. She was in "recovery" with her therapist until Hank got shot, and so she went back to stealing to get her "high"
Kleptomania is a compulsion. Not an addiction. Addictions can also pair with compulsions or cause compulsive behaviors but they're two very different things.
@@Void7.4.14 okay I just googled it and it took me about 10 seconds before I responded to you cuz I wanted to make sure I wasn't wrong. Yes kleptomania is an addiction. Go ahead and look it up for yourself, it's dicey territory that can land in the category of mental health disorder but usually always lands in the addiction category.
You just made me realize there could be an alternate universe were Jesse is killed off and (somehow) Marie becomes Walt's new cook partner. I don't want to live there.
Interesting you think season 4's poison reveal would have been a loose thread. I disagree, if face off was the finale then the final point would be, look how evil Walt got in order to "win."
@@unclekarl5219 Comically evil Neo Nazis who appear out of nowhere to become the villains. It was lame. Gus should've been the villain until the end. Season 5 felt forced with Todd and Jack.
@@AnneHathawayRulesNo, cause there'd still be loose ends such as "how's Walt gonna support the family now that he's lost major distribution and the lab" or "how does this change the Heisenberg case"? Sure, Gus felt like the big bad, but not everything is automatically fixed and out of the way now that he's gone.
I agree with you thoughts about Mike, and although Mike is right to a certain extent with what he says to Walt, he seems to forget Walt “doing his job” would mean the Jesse, who he likes, would be dead
I appreciate so much you have a reasonable take on Skyler. It is so funny how at first she was over hated but like you said the pendulum has swung completely the opposite way. So many people act like she did nothing wrong and it just blows my mind how people just ignore so many things like her trying to get Walt to put a hit out on Jessie or having Saul’s goons go out and make Ted pay his taxes 😆 That’s the best part of breaking bad is that no one is bad (black) or good (white) but rather a different shade of grey and while Skylar may not be as bad as Walt she is by no means a good, innocent person. She aided and abetted Walt’s criminal empire by the end (why do you think she refused to cooperate with Hank)
Ted paying his taxes kinda made sense to me. Bro was committing fraud that could've put the company in big trouble. It is fucked up to send two random dudes who aren't with the IRS in to get some guy to pay his taxes, even if the outcome of Ted crippling himself wasn't planned.
@@chrisrockett5897 I agree but here’s the issue you could say the same about a lot Walt’s choices too imo. He did the wrong thing for the right reasons so to speak! All I’m saying is keep the same energy. To your point Skylar isn’t a murderer so she didn’t go that far but she was definitely corrupted by the end of the series!
@@loganerb3952 Fr. She was actively complicit in Walt's crimes by the end of the series, even if she did it to protect the family from the feds, but not telling Marie and Hank earlier did more harm than good.
I agree with the finale to a degree. I always thought that Walts plan seemed a bit lucky/fortunate that it went off successfully, compared to some of his other plans.
Walter's decline in career makes a whole lot more sense today than when the show first came out Especially when you consider that the creator of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, the show that launched Adult Swim into what it is today, now works as an Amazon delivery driver who has to go to conventions to supplement his income. Now Walt's problems are all of his own doing, which is what the show really is all about, but it ages better over time tbh
also Mike is not supposed to be a "good guy" he's just the hardened criminal Walter thinks and wishes he was. Mike is a threat to Walter's ego and that comes to a head when Walt kills him.
100% agree with that, chuck and jimmy is what drove the drama and story of the show and once chuck was gone it all felt like clean up to get the characters where they are during BB.
But its still great after chuck dies, to me it serves as a point of freedom for the series, jimmy can go out and do all of his crazy antics from this point forward without the watchful eye and ridicule of chuck. This makes for a more exciting experience because now anything could happen, theres nothing holding him back from this point forward.
Love this video format. My hot take would be I just dislike all of season 5 as a whole. After gus the nazis and co were so uninteresting to me and a huge step down from season 4.
Agreed. After binging the series, I poked around Reddit to get a feel for others’ opinions and theories about the series, and I was FLOORED to see so many people claim season 5 as the best. Its final 4 episodes are amazing, but as a whole, season 5 is dead last in my book.
Completely agree with your Skyler take, I thought it was really weird how passionate some people were about hating her and just as weird how some people now are trying to make her into the only innocent victim of the show. It also always rubbed me the wrong way how condescending and passive-aggressive she often is in her interactions with "the working class", even though a lack of empathy for those worse off than you is kind of a big theme for a lot of characters in the show. And this should go without saying, but anyone who hates a character on a show enough to harass the actor playing them needs to seriously reconsider their relationship with the media they consume because normal, well-adjusted people don't do stuff like that.
I wouldnt say that wins by any means. Sure he dies and doesnt fave punishment for his actions, but his entire family hate him, he has no friends, and he tries to claw back the smallest bit of friendship he has left by rescuing jesse(who still ultimately hates him).
Mike’s final scene in breaking bad was always meant to be hypocritical. He’s fully aware that he isn’t innocent, the only reason he’s mad at Walt is because now he has to skip town and abandon his family thanks to Gus’ death. He’s completely right about Walt’s ego, he’s simply trying to win the argument since there’s nothing else he can do in his situation. In hindsight, it is weird that he doesn’t really comment on Tomás’ murder, but at the same time he likely sees betraying Gus as too big of a risk for both him and his family. Not to mention that he has become very desensitised to everything, and has given up attempting to fix/change anything, as we see with the nacho plotline in BCS. Mike’s death is where we finally see the cracks in his stone-cold persona come to fruition. It shows us that he and Walt are even more alike than we thought. After all, Mike is the last thing standing in Walt’s way to become a real Meth kingpin and thus able to retire with $80 million, at least until Hank finds out.
Nope, the point of that scene was to condemn Walter and show how right Mike is about him. However, the reaction of that scene went too far to the point that the audience side with Mike no matter what and think that Mike is a good guy so the showrunners had to make a “course correction” with Better Call Saul to show the audience that “Hey, actually, Mike is a bad guy all along” (Which they still ended up shooting on their own feet with the last 3 episodes when they chose to have an easy way out by blaming everything on Jimmy and let Mike, and everyone else, off the hook).
Also love the second take as I fully agree this discourse around Skylar is borderline gaslighting 😂. She was written as basically an antagonist to walt and extremely annoying. She is your typical middle aged Karen. No one is saying she is evil but was absolutely written to be one of Walts foils in the story and we are here to see a dying science teacher become a drug kingpin lol.
Annoying because she was against her husband who thinks meth making is somehow a good way to secure their family's fortune? Aight. I agree with her being a foil, but definitely not an antagonist. She was complicit in Walt's schemes despite disagreeing with them. Remember the time she said she wasn't gonna flatout divorce Walt and the lady from the divorce office called her stupid for not wanting to? Or the time Marie begged her to tell her side of the story to get more dirt on Walt, but she declined and Marie smacked her for it?
My position on the Skyler thing is extremely similar to yours. The majority of viewers understand on an objective level that she is a more moral figure than Walt, even in the earlier seasons when Walt isn't that bad. But it doesn't change the fact that for most of the show she acts as a fundamental meta-antagonist to the entire narrative. Her character is constantly threatening to end the plot, to end the show, to end the entertainment. Combined with the facts that Walter is mostly fairly sympathetic in seasons 1 and 2, and the knowledge that most people tend to kind of project themselves as being the main character in the film/TV/literature they engage with, and it makes sense! The show *does* set you up to if not outright dislike Skyler, than at least be frustrated by her activities. And as per the people who like to jerk themselves off over their "media literacy" (i.e., being smart enough to realize that the character who does not poison children is probably a better person than the one who does), it ultimately ends up reflecting their own inability to understand extremely fundamental aspects of regular human psychology. Is it really so impossible to comprehend why people are biased against a character that is trying to stop the protagonist? It's thousand of years of storytelling programmed into our brains. It all just reeks of someone going "Wow, I can't believe they missed the point by idolizing him..." when they see an extremely tongue-in-cheek sigma Patrick Bateman edit.
Hating Skyler for ending the plot never made sense to me. I always liked her, but her main issue to me is being pseudo-complicit to Walt's scheme, even though she doesn't fuck with him ever since she found out he was a meth maker. Now that I think about it, this deadass reminds of AOT fan discourse around the time the timeskip came around revolving around Eren's character.
Skylar had her moments, but I don't have issue with her. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She had her own internal battle with Walt's actions. Now if we are gonna talk about crappy wives... Lori Grimes haha!
Loved your points about Media Literacy. It's just a buzzword that certain people use to shame people who find enjoyment in something in ways those people don't like.
The opinion on Walt's Backstory at 10:40 is really interesting, but I won't lie, I do slightly disagree that it doesn't work or make sense. In my personal opinion, Breaking Bad paints a picture of a man who is deeply insecure due to extremely high sense of pride. His entire character hums an underlying and building hubris, where any times he might be successful, he creates his own pitfalls by avoiding anything that damages that pride. He has a deep need to be seen as strong, capable, and powerful but through avoiding things that would make him look lesser such as leaving Gretchen for fear of his upbringing vs. hers, he's landed himself in what he views as a truly shameful life. He left Gretchen, took the pay put, was supposed to have a temporary job as a teacher, but as his son was disabled, he suddenly was limited by financial needs to care for him medically and otherwise and his resume was lacking before he could go anywhere else, and he resigned himself to his life as a teacher too stressed about leaving that stability for another harder hit to his pride. Part if this came from his father and him viewing his own dad as weak in the face of illness and him wanting to be a strong, masculine figure that is remembered as such even when he dies. Overall, his pride and ego is what led him to fearing taking another shameful step and trapping him in his mundane life as a teacher. So, the slightest taste of power in meth making and being free of these burdens through his inevitable death is freeing. He can take those steps, he can ride those highs, because the consequences he once feared has an end to them. He's a well regarded character because of those real perplexing mix of who he is. He does love his family, but he can't stop chasing the high of power, so his reasoning behind making Meth is a convoluted mix of both until it slowly becomes not for his family. He's a manipulative, egotistical man who would turn meek or feign weakness for fear of consequences to him and the people around him. The doubt of not succeeding and the pride inside that looks down on himself for failing keeps him frozen until he no longer has pride for dying and finds himself already in the middle of the road when he no longer is going to die. Not my personal videos or plugs, but I love love love sharing videos I enjoy on similar topics and I've been enjoying your Breaking Bad videos so far. I think you might like these two! If not, no worries, I just like talking about things haha. th-cam.com/video/S3Znvb39kQI/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/PawBjDGGOCQ/w-d-xo.html
I love how you talk out the infestation of "intellectuals" who bring down content to only be viewed in their way. Makes me think of one guy who said dune is all about toxic moasculinity. Love you dislike those taoes as well kino!
My hot take is that Andrea shouldn't have died. It was horrible the way they killed her in front of Jesse, and makes the whole show much more depressing in rewatches for Jesse, Andrea and Brock's storylines. It came out of nowhere and affected nothing, it was the only thing in Breaking Bad done purely for shock value
I honestly thought it worked. It wasn’t completely out of the blue, it’s made pretty clear early on how Walt put Andrea and Brock in the firing zone when he used them to lure out Jesse and like everything else in the series it has lasting consequences. Andreas death makes Jesses possibility of escape impossible, he completely gives up after it which I think was important because his ending was beautiful BECAUSE he is a shell of a man. He has nothing out there in the world anymore but he no longer has to suffer. I feel like if he were to go back to Andrea and live happily ever after it would be too much of a fairytale. Maybe it’s a little harsh but it really did cement Jesse in his place and it made Walt’s final shoot down of Jacks gang even more satisfying lol
Terrible take. Gangs do shit like this in real life. If the art makes you uncomfortable its doing its job well. Grueling moments like this one is core to Jesses character and the theme of characters breaking bad in the show
@@anakinskywalker70 Gangs also rape people irl, but that doesn't mean I want to see the Salamancas or Jack's gang sexually assault anyone in Breaking Bad. Just because stuff happens in real life sometimes doesn't mean it automatically needs to be in the show
Nah, it works for me despite my sadness over her death. It put emphasis on how fucked of a situation Walt put Jesse in as well as how ruthless Jack and his crew is.
The only possibility that would allow Gus to even consider putting a hit out on Thomas is if the drug dealers told Gus: "Yo, so we had this kid doing some of our work fo us an' yea we made him blast a cornerboy fo us an--" Gus: "Excuse me. What did you make this child do?"
If gus didn't directly order it I still doubt he woulda have cared/felt bad that it happened and even approved of it in some ways. The dude is running a drug empire totally fueled by vengeance and hate. That empire is negatively affecting thousands if not millions, the point is to show how evil he and that empire is.
Yeah there is, Gus did it because it removes Tomas being a future problem and would prompt Jesse to seek out revenge and probably getting shot down in the process.
Hey Kino, I’m not sure if you’re a sports fan but it relates to Sopranos content big time.Apparently, in 2010 when Lebron James was a free agent the Knicks pitched him the chance to come to New York and their pitch video was Tony and Carmela in witsec figuring out where Lebron should reside in New York and then ultimately choosing Madison Square Garden(The Arena where the Knicks play).Despite being a weird recruitment, it could prove that Tony lived after the series finale(if canon.)
Fly is the best episode in retrospective but at the time of release it was very controversial because the audience had to wait an entire week after the fly episode for actual action to happen. Similar to the better call Saul episode nippy.
I have three hot takes: 1) Jesse routinely shows himself to be kind of awful, and like Mike, complicit in terrible, terrible things. Jesse gets kind of a pass by most fans because he's just simply surrounded by people who are so much worse. When pretty much every major character in the criminal side of the show seems eager to kill kids, or unwilling to protect them, Jesse seems like kind of an oasis in comparison. It also certainly does not hurt that he's handsome and often used for comic relief. I feel like a lot of fans think of him as a bit like a puppy. 2) Secondly, Gus has never done much for me. I went years hearing about how Gus was one of the greatest villains of all time. When I finally watched BB for the first time a few years ago, he didn't strike me as particularly rich in characterization. The reserved, calculated villain is not exactly an unexplored trope in fiction. And by no means do I think a character has to be novel to be engaging, but I honestly found Gus a little cartoonish. Things like slitting Victor's throat for kind of nebulous reasons were just huge shark jumps for me that took me out of the show. And while a character like Lalo revels in and embraces his cartoonishness, it feels like the show is telling you you're supposed to take Gus super seriously, when (in my eyes) he's really just one more side of the same extreme. Before I watched BB, I assumed Gus would be the main antagonist of the entire series, when in reality he's only hostile to Walt for one full season. Hank is really more the overarching antagonist of the show, even if he is a more heroic character than Walter. 3) Hank actually is a hero. It's become kind of popular to say he isn't, but I've never followed the logic. I know his hands aren't totally clean, but are anyone's? I think the few immoral things he done are entirely forgivable given the context they occur. He's a flawed person, but he consistently does the right thing more times than not in the series. He has dedicated his life to taking down a despicable operation that results in hundreds of deaths and thousands of ruined lives. Meth is bad and the people who sell it are bad. I don't understand why it seems like sometimes he's given more criticism than Jesse.
Dude I was rewatching BB and Jesse sees how his product negatively effects the lives of innocents with that one kid in spooge's house and there really is no problem for him afterwards, I mean yea he seems down but it seems to stem more from witnessing a brutal death. Jesse doesn't even really seem to care about the kid much after the initial sympathy and empathy when he was there and just continues to be apart of this horrible drug business. Also about Hank I totally agree, I do agree with some people saying Hank isn't 100% a good person and that it seems more ego driven when going after walt but I mean come on, the dude is trying to stop his insane evil brother by marriage. Within the show he def is the hero, the show just puts a more "everyone has something bad about them" spin to the hero thing.
Well Hank is more of an ass than Jesse towards those close to him, and beating Jesse half to death was really bad, especially since he's a law enforcement officer and federal agent. He also treats Marie unforgivably after he is shot and recovering when she does everything she can to help and support him. Had his friend from the force not given Hank Gale's notebook to get him back to work, he would have presumably just treated her like that for months or years more, maybe the rest of their marriage. He talks down to Walt and makes jokes at his expense to all of Walt's family and friends at Walt's own 50th birthday party, before taking over the party and making himself the center of attention by showing off how he was on the news for just doing his job. He was also totally willing to get Jesse killed near the end of the series if it meant catching Walt on tape killing him. On the other hand, I feel the same way towards Jesse that you do towards Hank, that "the few immoral things he did are forgivable given the context they occur." The only unforgivable thing I believe he did was selling meth to addicts in rehab
I fel like between the start of the series and the time Walt left Grey Matter, he probably did go on to work at another business but ended up being impossible to work with and found himself blacklisted. This is my headcannon but I feel like there are moments throughout the show that I feel are supposed to run parallel to how he ended up as a "weak beta male guy".
I can see the positive qualities for Felina but when we got to the point where it was the highest rated episode of any show on IMDb because it satisfied a bunch of walt apologists that's when my brain broke (Yes I'm aware that Ozymandias is higher now)
I think the "media literacy" phenomenon is just a subcategory of gatekeeping. You could replace "You missed the entire point" with "You're not a real fan, unless" and the sentence would ultimately be the same, in terms of content. I've always belonged in the radical camp of "All art is subjective, and even the creator has absolutely no say in what something is supposed to mean." because all information is ultimately processed through the lens of your own biases, and there's no way for you to, perfectly, see something from the point of view of someone else. This ultimately means that Breaking Bad has a slightly different meaning for everyone who watches it, and if only Vince's interpretation is correct, then literally no one understands the true point, because only Vince is Vince, and only Vince knows what Vince was thinking when some particular scene was written.
I don't care, I still hate Skylar. It's not about who was taking the right or wrong actions. It's the characters. Hank is directly opposed to Walter. Yet somehow we like both. It's because they both have character traits that make them relatable and to some degree likeable. Skylar is just awful. Even if she's innocent. Even if she's right. Still awful.
Yeah, even very early on in the show before Walt has done anything heinous she’s still giving him a hard time. It’s weird people actually think she’s not a b*tch. Not like Carmella Soprano, she seemed like a much more supportive, less naggy wife.
@@quagmoe7879carm knew exactly who she was marrying.. she knew what tony did and she still married him… skylar didn’t know walt had this monster inside him.. obviously she’d be a little angry when her husband randomly starts trapping 😂
@@quagmoe7879She thought she was marrying someone with ambition who was going somewhere not someone who would always let his ego get in the way of a good thing at every turn. Walt is a far worse person even in the beginning than people give him credit for
@@TheThreatenedSwan I disagree completely, before Walt gets fully into the meth business he’s done nothing wrong, and yet he still has her ire from the jump. She’s a nag.
People missunderstand felina. The show is abt Walter wanting to live life the way he wants it but he is unable to admit to himself who he is. When he says ‘’i did it for me’’ he finally faces that he gets to die on his own terms
Idk why you make a dichotomy between having fun with the show and being able to pick up on the not at all subtle theme and central storyline of the show. You don't need to deeply analyze the show to realize that Walt isn't a hero that you should root for. Same thing for Skyler, she's not "making the show boring" by confronting Walt, her opposition to Walt is a part of the tension of the story. The show would be boring if everything is just going smoothly for him. Also she's not the only character that tries to stop Walt or make his pursuit more difficult, yet she's the one a large chunk of the audience vehemently hates.
"Felina" is a good episode, but the ending is bad because it misses the point of "crime doesn't pay" and gives Walt his happy ending, which he didn't deserved. Better call Saul did the ending much much better, The Shield did better, The Sopranos did better, even the two terrible finales for Dexter did better as a conclusion than Breaking Bad. I agree that "Face-off" would have been a bad ending, and that's why i think "Granite state" would been a better ending with Walt dying or being arrested at the ending of the episode.
Completely disagree. Felina was a perfect ending and possibly the greatest ending of all time. Yes Walt got what he wanted but he got in the absolute worst way possible which is what makes his ending satisfying. You think he wanted to win like this? Hell no. Having him arrested or just randomly die in Granite State would’ve been a horrible ending because then everything that happened in the show up to that point would ultimately be for nothing. An ending like that would’ve ruined 5 seasons of legendary television
@@jakethesnake7917 No, it wouldn't. The Shield has one of the greatest endings in television and is exactly like that, everything Vic Mackey did was for nothing, the bad guy didn't get what he wanted. Breaking Bad is a show where the villain wins. I'll correct my previous statement, Granite State didn't need to be the final episode, if Felina was only about getting revenge on Jack and freeing Jesse, that would be fine.
@@funkyreapercat5280 Okay but that doesn’t mean a good ending has to be just like the shield. The villain doesn’t have to lose for it to be a good ending. Take Infinity War for example. Breaking Bad’s ending was perfect for a whole different reason. Yes Walt got what he wanted but from the audiences perspective he was the anti-hero since we followed his story from the beginning. By admitting that he did it for his own selfish reasons and still finding a way to help his family in the process that didn’t deserve any of this in the first place is the perfect wrap up to his arc. It’s a man who finally admits he’s evil but he can still right some wrongs before his final moments. It doesn’t get better than that
@@jakethesnake7917naw, Walter was an anti-hero up until he raped Skyler…which is when i stopped rooting for him. I heavily dislike Skyler but she didn’t deserve that
Walt didn't have a Nobel Prize. He worked on a team under people who actually won the Nobel Prize. The award in his house was just a memento created by the university to thank him for his work- they probably went out to people who did major research but were not included in the award citation, or it could have gone to people who washed out the test tubes as well. This is probably a reference to the Hauptman/Karle Nobel of 1985 for the study of crystalline structures. Working on teams that helped these two scientists complete their research is not necessarily a career boost. Indeed, being associated with studying Nobel-winning crystal structures means that many universities feel that the topic has been played out, and you can be passed over for jobs and grants for people in newer, less-explored fields.
I just found you and im very glad cuz of this Nice video! (Apart of this one thing u said about Lalo, how dare you, i guess i must check your vid about him) Good job 👍
My hot take is the show should've ended with "I Won." iirc season 4 was the original ending and was written as a potential finale just incase. The production company almost stopped season 5 from happening and that would've been fine imo. Also Vince Gilligan told on himself by writing Kim as an actually likeable wife character. If his comments about Skylar always being meant as the hero were true he would've written Kim to be much more like Skylar.
My hot take is I like Better Call Saul more than Breaking bad Im kinda indifferent on walt as a protagonist, but Saul is always interesting and entertaining, which just makes for a better show to me. Not the BB is a bad show solid 8.5 but BCS hits like a 9 for me
This is why you are one of the best guys around Kino. I wholeheartedly agree on all of these points. It seems to me many of the people who jump to Skyler Whites defense are people who forget that these are actually fictional characters and they don’t need you to defend them lol. At the same time people who hate Skyler and extend that hate to the actress are equally as cringe but I feel that’s an extremely small portion of the community. The media literacy people are just awful in general.
I do feel like the women get the short end of the stick in this series; they aren’t involved in the cool action scenes or the main machinations of plans and plots, and are very often more obstacles and barriers to the Men doing more cool action stuff. So when Skylar gets hate, I do think it partially falls on the writers for not really allowing women to participate in the Cool factor of the show. Even Lydia isn’t some great master manipulator, she comes off as more of a stick in the mud and anal than other drug kingpins.
I like the commentary but i disagree with his ego backstory. It's realisitic that he retreats into meekness while being inside a highly egotistical person. The meekness is false, a put-on face, with underlying arrogance. It is with the drug-running that he can finally express it again, which is why he slips into it so naturally.
I blame the pacing issues of better call Saul on El caminos hands. El Camino is cool and all, but all I remember from that movie is Aaron Paul's receding hairline.
I agree. I think Granite State was a better episode than Felina. I think the problem with breaking bad is that they killed Gus off too early and magically brought in Nazi bad guys from stage left. Also, BCS was better. Thats not a hot take.
@@jakethesnake7917 I enjoyed Walt being isolated and miserable and actually having to reflect on his actions more than the episode where he literally can get into Skyler's house without a key and with cops watching, magically stealing the first car with a set of keys in the visor, and using a machine gun to literally mow down all of the Nazi bad guys except the one Jesse has a problem with. I prefer the "all is lost" wintery solitary confinement ending to the saccharine Disney "the princess gets everything she wanted in the end" version of the breaking bad ending.
@@AnneHathawayRules You mean the house that has been abandoned and destroyed for months on end with 0 cops watching and an actual coincidence that real life everyday people do leave their keys in their visor especially when it’s in such a remote area with next to zero criminals and car thrives like in the show. You see I think you’re missing the point entirely, this is not Dinsey happy ever after ending. Almost everyone we know and love die at the cost of not only Walt’s but their own actions as well. Walt is an evil man who knows his fate is inevitable but can at least acknowledge that at this point in time and still right some wrongs for the benefit of others before his ultimate demise. Now tell me how that ending is a “princess gets everything she wanted and lives happily ever after” type ending. We needed this last episode because it has very important turning points and character moments that make the show come full circle. It isn’t about characters getting exactly what they do or do not deserve, it’s about sensibility and completeness. Without Felina the whole show would’ve been a complete waste of time and just another amazing show that butchered its ending.
@@jakethesnake7917 I'm not talking about that house I'm talking about Skyler's house, where Walt is able to just walk in and out while two cops are staked out in front of it. But that's not the point here, Walt did get everything he wanted and it was a pretty princess ending. His family got the money, he got away with it because he died 6 seconds before the cops got there, he got revenge on Lydia and all the cartoonishly evil Nazi bad guys, except for Todd of course because Jesse needed his revenge. You don't think the misery and the metaphor for karma wouldn't have been amazing had he have died knowing how much his own son hated his guts, isolated and miserable in some cabin knowing that "one of these days you're going to come up here and I'll be dead" and none of this cash will go to his family? I don't like happy endings though that's just me. And he didn't deserve one. But people wanted that I guess because they cheered for him the whole time when he was clearly a major if not the main villain of the show.
@@jakethesnake7917 and I want to know what they cleared up in the finale that they couldn't have cleared up in granite state other than "muh revenge fantasy" because sometimes life just doesn't get wrapped up. It would have been awesome knowing that he didn't get anything he wanted and that Jesse was a prisoner because of him for the rest of his life until he wasn't useful anymore.
I agree completely with your BCS take btw - on rewatch, I watched seasons 1-4, then just episodes 9 and 10 of season 5, then jump to the timeskip at the end of S6 right after Kim leaves (where Jimmy has gone full Saul, he's not Gene yet). Filling in the blanks based off Jimmy attracting Lalo to their personal life is better than having to endure that cartel plot again, as entertaining as Lalo is. BCS had a stronger finale than BB after all that too IMO.
I feel like the Skyler hate is justified. She’s a straight up bad person. She cheats on her husband, then steals all of the family’s money to give it to the guy she is cheating on her husband with. Then later in in the show, when Walt and Saul have the money laundering plan already figured out, she forces herself into the plan by making herself the chief money launderer only to complain About having to launder the money like two episodes later. Skyler makes similar shitty choices as Walt. We all agree Walt is a bad guy. Idk how the person committing tax fraud, volunteering to join a criminal enterprise, and cheating on their spouse is supposed to be the moral compass of the show. For me, Skyler is the worst part of the show, because of the squandered opportunity. If she was an actual good person dealing with this monster in her home it would be so much more compelling. Instead it’s just a contest over who can act shitter and who can propagandize the kids better. I feel it was a missed opportunity.
She didn't cheat nor did she steal money to bail out Ted, she did it so the IRS investigation wouldn't lead to an investigation into Skyler and Walt's own finances. And the reason why Skyler got involved in the first place (her role was fairly minor in the grand scheme of things) was because of Hank's medical bills.
@@unclekarl5219 Skyler 100% cheated on her husband. Idk what show you’re watching. She also did steal that money to bail out Ted. She took the money, gave it to the guy she was cheating on her husband with, for him to give to the IRS to help him with his legal troubles. It’s funny, when Walt says he is doing this for his family, everyone sees through it. But when Skyler says the same thing she’s taken at face value. It’s a show about bad people.
@@gangsta8929she didn’t cheat on Walt. They weren’t together at that time. And again, Ted being investigated by the IRS would mean Skyler and Walt also getting investigated by the IRS. Sure maybe there was an ego involved in skyler’s involvement but there was never a moment where someone offered Skyler the money to solve all her problems and she refused, like there was with Walter
@@unclekarl5219 I’m not saying Walt was a good guy. Walt was a bad guy, and Skyler was a second also bad guy (gal?). I see the reasoning a lot and it really baffles me. Skyler is a good person, because Walt did bad things? Isn’t there room for more than one bad person in the world? Yea, Walt’s a bad guy that did a list of shitty things, including murder, that Skyler didn’t do, but that doesn’t set the bar. If I knew Skyler irl she’s not a person I would want to associate with.
@@gangsta8929I’m just saying the reasons why skyler became a criminal are a lot more subtle. There are signs she suffers from feelings of inferiority but they’re less blatant than Walter. It seems her reasons for it (such as Hank’s medical bills) were a lot more genuine
How do you know he got the money to his family? Really think Elliot wouldn’t have just gone to the cops? So in the last episode Walter doesn’t get everything he wants. And even if he does you are left to wonder as the camera pans up from his dead body if any of it was worth it. And apparently you answered that with yes😂bad take
I think it’s okay that whether Walt actually got what he wanted or “if any of it was worth it” is left ambiguous. The ending already feels too good to be true, and if anything those questions lend more nuance to Walt’s “victory”.
@@camcam8995 I never said the point of the ending was Walt getting it all, nor did Kino suggest it was about being worth it. Kino’s point is: from a filmmaking and narrative view, the finale is presented as a ““good”” or at least satisfactory outcome for Walt, despite the immense suffering he’s inflicted on his family and so many people. This dissonance bothers a lot of viewers, and maybe Kino too. It sounds like you’re just trying hard to dunk on others’ viewpoints without understanding them.
Brock wasn't an innocent character by any means. If he wasn't so greedy when drinking that juicebox, Andrea would have survived. But no, he just HAD to have that apple juice. Honestly on the same level as Jack.
Breaking Bad fans be doing this so much unironically, it drives me nuts.
My favorite Italian American TH-camr
lol
Sicilian... don't generalize
With the last name moltisanti
His family name is Kinorelli
@@littlekingtrashmouth9219they're gonna redo it... Fuckin Jason. He's dyslexic
One thing I do like about Better Call Saul is the ending to Mike's story - Mr. Varga pretty clearly very clearly tells Mike (and the viewers) that his code of honor is nonsense, and he's just as bad as the rest of the gangsters. It almost felt like an apology on the writers' part for how hypocritically Mike was handled in Breaking Bad
hypothetically how so?
@@TAG152gamingbecause he holds himself higher than walt for example, sure he hasnt done bad things to the extent that walt has, but he definitely doesnt have a clean slate by any means. Hes still done a lot of terrible shit but for the most part acts as if he hasnt
@@TAG152gaming Mike gets mad that Walt killed Gus even though Gus was threatening to murder his entire family and had used Walt as a pawn to be disposed of.
I don’t think it’s an apology on behalf of the writers. I think it’s a natural conclusion of his character. In Breaking Bad Mike is portrayed as a pretty likable character because of his relative morality and his relationship with Jesse. Walt kills him around the same point in the show that Walt starts taking on a more antagonistic role so Mike’s rant is cathartic to the average viewer. Of course in hindsight you can see how self-serving it is since he probably would have done the same in Walt’s situation. In BCS, his arc over the course of the show gives us insight into how his morals and values changed over time. Mike starts out the show as a criminal, but with certain lines that he would never cross (killing innocent people is the main one), but the lines become eroded over time and as he gets more entrenched in the cartel he chooses time and time again to shift his morals to align with his actions rather than changing actions to align with morals. I agree with what you’re saying about liking the scene but I think calling it an apology implies that they messed up in BB by not acknowledging his hypocrisy more overtly. I kind of like that they let the viewer come to their own conclusion about his character.
In the end Mike accepted his position
You eating grilled cheese off that radiator behind you?
20 fuckin years he'll be uploading videos.
Gabagool?
20 Fuckin Years!
Like that would help him become a varsity athlete.
One theory I have regarding why Walt was so passive at the start of the series is that he was suffering from depression. We don't know why- maybe something happened, maybe it just developed, but like many people, Walt developed a mild to moderate case of depression and it sapped his drive and career ambitions. This led to the change in his attitude, and ironically, the cancer diagnosis and his crime involvement helped bring him out of the depression, changing his attitude towards life and success.
Pretty interesting theory, could definitely be possible. The best thing is Vince himself said that any fan theories could be true, that its our show aswell as his and no one theory is set in stone
Because he's an ultimate narcissist who wasn't getting his way. There's no nuance in t;his show. What you see is what you get.
@@RonaldRobert-us7qk This is very obviously false. If I asked you what Walt's biggest character flaw was, you'd almost certainly get it wrong. It lacking nuance is crazy
@@errwhattheflip Obviously.
@@RonaldRobert-us7qk bro said obviously to something that goes against what he said. Crazy
Mike is the strong, silent type
"MY SON WAS NOT DIRTY"
not so silent huh
@@_Baj_even Furio shed a few tears over his father…and not being able to plow Carmela, the live action Lois Griffin
Fuck him and his alligator tears
Cooperesque
He was gay, Mike Ermantrout?
Do we know for sure Gus put the hit out on Thomas? I always interpreted it as Gus telling the 2 dealers "No more children" was their last interaction on the matter, and the dealers misinterpreted Gus' words and killed Thomas instead of letting him go or at least not continuing to make him sell meth.
Yeah this is always what i thought, i dont see why gus would want this random kid to die especially since this would definitely rile up jesse and walt. In my eyes they dont give a shit about the kid he was just a tool to do their dirty work, so why would they care to let him live after letting him go, killing him would even be beneficial to them as they wouldnt have a loose end
When someone who's been a cartel underboss for 20 years tells you no more children i really doubt that he means something like "set the kid straight" or get him out of the streets, he indirectly tells them that they should kill him.
@@masterchief4136Gus even tells Walt he should have let him take care of them, meaning he didn’t want them to kill him
If we go by Mike working for Gus, children maybe was off the table before.
Gus wanted Jesse dead at that point. Ordering the hit got rid of Tomas and would’ve led to Jesse getting himself killed
By the way, Marie's kleptomania is because Hank is abusive and neglectful toward her. She is doing it for the dopamine rush and for attention. Its common for addicts to relapse during times of stress, and kleptomania is an addiction. She was in "recovery" with her therapist until Hank got shot, and so she went back to stealing to get her "high"
@@honkerdoodles2764 and your wife must be a very unhappy woman
Kleptomania is a compulsion. Not an addiction. Addictions can also pair with compulsions or cause compulsive behaviors but they're two very different things.
@@Void7.4.14 okay I just googled it and it took me about 10 seconds before I responded to you cuz I wanted to make sure I wasn't wrong. Yes kleptomania is an addiction. Go ahead and look it up for yourself, it's dicey territory that can land in the category of mental health disorder but usually always lands in the addiction category.
Hank was definitely not abusive. I don't know where you are getting that nonsense from, but it simply didn't happen.
@@ivanenfinger9331 Emotional abuse and verbal abuse are real things.
It felt that Marie's story got de-emphasized for a while to provide time to Jesse (who as we all know was supposed to be a season 1 only character).
I remember when you were just a season 1 character, and as far as I'm concerned you SHOULD STILL BE THERE!
Good. Marie is one of the most annoying characters in TV history.
You just made me realize there could be an alternate universe were Jesse is killed off and (somehow) Marie becomes Walt's new cook partner. I don't want to live there.
Interesting you think season 4's poison reveal would have been a loose thread. I disagree, if face off was the finale then the final point would be, look how evil Walt got in order to "win."
The show lost it's direction when Gus died. They should've held off.
Hey man, love your vids!
@@AnneHathawayRules Literally how, the show goes in a pretty consistent direction
@@unclekarl5219 Comically evil Neo Nazis who appear out of nowhere to become the villains. It was lame. Gus should've been the villain until the end. Season 5 felt forced with Todd and Jack.
@@AnneHathawayRulesNo, cause there'd still be loose ends such as "how's Walt gonna support the family now that he's lost major distribution and the lab" or "how does this change the Heisenberg case"? Sure, Gus felt like the big bad, but not everything is automatically fixed and out of the way now that he's gone.
I agree with you thoughts about Mike, and although Mike is right to a certain extent with what he says to Walt, he seems to forget Walt “doing his job” would mean the Jesse, who he likes, would be dead
I appreciate so much you have a reasonable take on Skyler.
It is so funny how at first she was over hated but like you said the pendulum has swung completely the opposite way. So many people act like she did nothing wrong and it just blows my mind how people just ignore so many things like her trying to get Walt to put a hit out on Jessie or having Saul’s goons go out and make Ted pay his taxes 😆
That’s the best part of breaking bad is that no one is bad (black) or good (white) but rather a different shade of grey and while Skylar may not be as bad as Walt she is by no means a good, innocent person. She aided and abetted Walt’s criminal empire by the end (why do you think she refused to cooperate with Hank)
Ted paying his taxes kinda made sense to me. Bro was committing fraud that could've put the company in big trouble. It is fucked up to send two random dudes who aren't with the IRS in to get some guy to pay his taxes, even if the outcome of Ted crippling himself wasn't planned.
@@chrisrockett5897 I agree but here’s the issue you could say the same about a lot Walt’s choices too imo. He did the wrong thing for the right reasons so to speak!
All I’m saying is keep the same energy. To your point Skylar isn’t a murderer so she didn’t go that far but she was definitely corrupted by the end of the series!
@@loganerb3952 Fr. She was actively complicit in Walt's crimes by the end of the series, even if she did it to protect the family from the feds, but not telling Marie and Hank earlier did more harm than good.
I agree with the finale to a degree. I always thought that Walts plan seemed a bit lucky/fortunate that it went off successfully, compared to some of his other plans.
🅱️ure 🅱️ino
🅱️ure 🅱️ino
🅱️reaking 🅱️alls
“I prefer option 🅱️”
-Prob Walt
Bravo Bince
Walter's decline in career makes a whole lot more sense today than when the show first came out
Especially when you consider that the creator of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, the show that launched Adult Swim into what it is today, now works as an Amazon delivery driver who has to go to conventions to supplement his income. Now Walt's problems are all of his own doing, which is what the show really is all about, but it ages better over time tbh
also Mike is not supposed to be a "good guy" he's just the hardened criminal Walter thinks and wishes he was. Mike is a threat to Walter's ego and that comes to a head when Walt kills him.
can't wait to see a Kim's feet hot topic in video about BCS
We can only hope
I think BCS is better than breaking bad up to the 4th seaon. The relationship between Jimmy and Chuck is what ultimately makes the show for me.
100% agree with that, chuck and jimmy is what drove the drama and story of the show and once chuck was gone it all felt like clean up to get the characters where they are during BB.
But its still great after chuck dies, to me it serves as a point of freedom for the series, jimmy can go out and do all of his crazy antics from this point forward without the watchful eye and ridicule of chuck. This makes for a more exciting experience because now anything could happen, theres nothing holding him back from this point forward.
Love this video format. My hot take would be I just dislike all of season 5 as a whole. After gus the nazis and co were so uninteresting to me and a huge step down from season 4.
Agreed. After binging the series, I poked around Reddit to get a feel for others’ opinions and theories about the series, and I was FLOORED to see so many people claim season 5 as the best. Its final 4 episodes are amazing, but as a whole, season 5 is dead last in my book.
Yeah it does start to feel a little disjointed at times, but ultimately all these elements come together to make for a perfect ending in my opinion
@@ButterscotchCloudCome on Gliding over all was great.
@@ButterscotchCloudI sorta agree. Most of it was "oh shit, Gus is gone. Now what?"
Completely agree with your Skyler take, I thought it was really weird how passionate some people were about hating her and just as weird how some people now are trying to make her into the only innocent victim of the show. It also always rubbed me the wrong way how condescending and passive-aggressive she often is in her interactions with "the working class", even though a lack of empathy for those worse off than you is kind of a big theme for a lot of characters in the show.
And this should go without saying, but anyone who hates a character on a show enough to harass the actor playing them needs to seriously reconsider their relationship with the media they consume because normal, well-adjusted people don't do stuff like that.
twenty videos he won't do better call saul logs; all of a sudden he's the world's foremost authority!
Yeah the ending stops me from rewatching the show sometimes just coz I don’t like it and know that Walt kinda wins and it irks me
I wouldnt say that wins by any means. Sure he dies and doesnt fave punishment for his actions, but his entire family hate him, he has no friends, and he tries to claw back the smallest bit of friendship he has left by rescuing jesse(who still ultimately hates him).
@@DoctorDeadMothMinutes before he saved Jesse, ain't Walt even admit to Jack that he flatout wanted him dead so he couldn't put out the meth?
Mike’s final scene in breaking bad was always meant to be hypocritical. He’s fully aware that he isn’t innocent, the only reason he’s mad at Walt is because now he has to skip town and abandon his family thanks to Gus’ death. He’s completely right about Walt’s ego, he’s simply trying to win the argument since there’s nothing else he can do in his situation. In hindsight, it is weird that he doesn’t really comment on Tomás’ murder, but at the same time he likely sees betraying Gus as too big of a risk for both him and his family. Not to mention that he has become very desensitised to everything, and has given up attempting to fix/change anything, as we see with the nacho plotline in BCS. Mike’s death is where we finally see the cracks in his stone-cold persona come to fruition. It shows us that he and Walt are even more alike than we thought. After all, Mike is the last thing standing in Walt’s way to become a real Meth kingpin and thus able to retire with $80 million, at least until Hank finds out.
Nope, the point of that scene was to condemn Walter and show how right Mike is about him.
However, the reaction of that scene went too far to the point that the audience side with Mike no matter what and think that Mike is a good guy so the showrunners had to make a “course correction” with Better Call Saul to show the audience that
“Hey, actually, Mike is a bad guy all along”
(Which they still ended up shooting on their own feet with the last 3 episodes when they chose to have an easy way out by blaming everything on Jimmy and let Mike, and everyone else, off the hook).
Also love the second take as I fully agree this discourse around Skylar is borderline gaslighting 😂. She was written as basically an antagonist to walt and extremely annoying. She is your typical middle aged Karen. No one is saying she is evil but was absolutely written to be one of Walts foils in the story and we are here to see a dying science teacher become a drug kingpin lol.
Right but wouldn't you be pissed if your husband started cooking meth with one of his dropouts
Annoying because she was against her husband who thinks meth making is somehow a good way to secure their family's fortune? Aight. I agree with her being a foil, but definitely not an antagonist. She was complicit in Walt's schemes despite disagreeing with them. Remember the time she said she wasn't gonna flatout divorce Walt and the lady from the divorce office called her stupid for not wanting to? Or the time Marie begged her to tell her side of the story to get more dirt on Walt, but she declined and Marie smacked her for it?
I miss that time of my life so much. Not to mention the show itself went out before it got stale
My position on the Skyler thing is extremely similar to yours. The majority of viewers understand on an objective level that she is a more moral figure than Walt, even in the earlier seasons when Walt isn't that bad. But it doesn't change the fact that for most of the show she acts as a fundamental meta-antagonist to the entire narrative. Her character is constantly threatening to end the plot, to end the show, to end the entertainment.
Combined with the facts that Walter is mostly fairly sympathetic in seasons 1 and 2, and the knowledge that most people tend to kind of project themselves as being the main character in the film/TV/literature they engage with, and it makes sense! The show *does* set you up to if not outright dislike Skyler, than at least be frustrated by her activities.
And as per the people who like to jerk themselves off over their "media literacy" (i.e., being smart enough to realize that the character who does not poison children is probably a better person than the one who does), it ultimately ends up reflecting their own inability to understand extremely fundamental aspects of regular human psychology. Is it really so impossible to comprehend why people are biased against a character that is trying to stop the protagonist? It's thousand of years of storytelling programmed into our brains.
It all just reeks of someone going "Wow, I can't believe they missed the point by idolizing him..." when they see an extremely tongue-in-cheek sigma Patrick Bateman edit.
Hating Skyler for ending the plot never made sense to me. I always liked her, but her main issue to me is being pseudo-complicit to Walt's scheme, even though she doesn't fuck with him ever since she found out he was a meth maker.
Now that I think about it, this deadass reminds of AOT fan discourse around the time the timeskip came around revolving around Eren's character.
Skylar had her moments, but I don't have issue with her. She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. She had her own internal battle with Walt's actions. Now if we are gonna talk about crappy wives... Lori Grimes haha!
Real.
You should definitely check out Rescue me. The show perfectly blends comedy and drama and doesn’t get as much recognition as it deserves.
Loved your points about Media Literacy. It's just a buzzword that certain people use to shame people who find enjoyment in something in ways those people don't like.
There's a thin line between viewing the show the way you want to and going into full headcanon territory.
We we had a good thing going. We were herding cows
The opinion on Walt's Backstory at 10:40 is really interesting, but I won't lie, I do slightly disagree that it doesn't work or make sense.
In my personal opinion, Breaking Bad paints a picture of a man who is deeply insecure due to extremely high sense of pride. His entire character hums an underlying and building hubris, where any times he might be successful, he creates his own pitfalls by avoiding anything that damages that pride. He has a deep need to be seen as strong, capable, and powerful but through avoiding things that would make him look lesser such as leaving Gretchen for fear of his upbringing vs. hers, he's landed himself in what he views as a truly shameful life. He left Gretchen, took the pay put, was supposed to have a temporary job as a teacher, but as his son was disabled, he suddenly was limited by financial needs to care for him medically and otherwise and his resume was lacking before he could go anywhere else, and he resigned himself to his life as a teacher too stressed about leaving that stability for another harder hit to his pride. Part if this came from his father and him viewing his own dad as weak in the face of illness and him wanting to be a strong, masculine figure that is remembered as such even when he dies. Overall, his pride and ego is what led him to fearing taking another shameful step and trapping him in his mundane life as a teacher. So, the slightest taste of power in meth making and being free of these burdens through his inevitable death is freeing. He can take those steps, he can ride those highs, because the consequences he once feared has an end to them.
He's a well regarded character because of those real perplexing mix of who he is. He does love his family, but he can't stop chasing the high of power, so his reasoning behind making Meth is a convoluted mix of both until it slowly becomes not for his family. He's a manipulative, egotistical man who would turn meek or feign weakness for fear of consequences to him and the people around him. The doubt of not succeeding and the pride inside that looks down on himself for failing keeps him frozen until he no longer has pride for dying and finds himself already in the middle of the road when he no longer is going to die.
Not my personal videos or plugs, but I love love love sharing videos I enjoy on similar topics and I've been enjoying your Breaking Bad videos so far. I think you might like these two! If not, no worries, I just like talking about things haha.
th-cam.com/video/S3Znvb39kQI/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/PawBjDGGOCQ/w-d-xo.html
Walt fuckin’ Whitman ovah here
I love how you talk out the infestation of "intellectuals" who bring down content to only be viewed in their way. Makes me think of one guy who said dune is all about toxic moasculinity. Love you dislike those taoes as well kino!
Have you ever done a follow up vid on Sopranos lost media? Someone found that Lebron recruitment video
My hot take is that Andrea shouldn't have died. It was horrible the way they killed her in front of Jesse, and makes the whole show much more depressing in rewatches for Jesse, Andrea and Brock's storylines. It came out of nowhere and affected nothing, it was the only thing in Breaking Bad done purely for shock value
I honestly thought it worked. It wasn’t completely out of the blue, it’s made pretty clear early on how Walt put Andrea and Brock in the firing zone when he used them to lure out Jesse and like everything else in the series it has lasting consequences.
Andreas death makes Jesses possibility of escape impossible, he completely gives up after it which I think was important because his ending was beautiful BECAUSE he is a shell of a man.
He has nothing out there in the world anymore but he no longer has to suffer. I feel like if he were to go back to Andrea and live happily ever after it would be too much of a fairytale.
Maybe it’s a little harsh but it really did cement Jesse in his place and it made Walt’s final shoot down of Jacks gang even more satisfying lol
Terrible take. Gangs do shit like this in real life. If the art makes you uncomfortable its doing its job well. Grueling moments like this one is core to Jesses character and the theme of characters breaking bad in the show
@@anakinskywalker70 Gangs also rape people irl, but that doesn't mean I want to see the Salamancas or Jack's gang sexually assault anyone in Breaking Bad. Just because stuff happens in real life sometimes doesn't mean it automatically needs to be in the show
@@TAG152gaming you a weirdo nugget head
Nah, it works for me despite my sadness over her death. It put emphasis on how fucked of a situation Walt put Jesse in as well as how ruthless Jack and his crew is.
Wow, a video where you don't defend and lament Adriana from Sopranos. I am surprised Mr. Kino.
I don't like when people constantly try to compare BB and BCS, I think the're just as good and most people like both.
There's nothing proving that Gus did order the hit on Tomas,
The only possibility that would allow Gus to even consider putting a hit out on Thomas is if the drug dealers told Gus: "Yo, so we had this kid doing some of our work fo us an' yea we made him blast a cornerboy fo us an--"
Gus: "Excuse me. What did you make this child do?"
If gus didn't directly order it I still doubt he woulda have cared/felt bad that it happened and even approved of it in some ways. The dude is running a drug empire totally fueled by vengeance and hate. That empire is negatively affecting thousands if not millions, the point is to show how evil he and that empire is.
Yeah there is, Gus did it because it removes Tomas being a future problem and would prompt Jesse to seek out revenge and probably getting shot down in the process.
Hey Kino, I’m not sure if you’re a sports fan but it relates to Sopranos content big time.Apparently, in 2010 when Lebron James was a free agent the Knicks pitched him the chance to come to New York and their pitch video was Tony and Carmela in witsec figuring out where Lebron should reside in New York and then ultimately choosing Madison Square Garden(The Arena where the Knicks play).Despite being a weird recruitment, it could prove that Tony lived after the series finale(if canon.)
I talked about that in my Sopranos lost media video!
@@PureKinooh shoot I have to watch that then, thanks!
Fly is the best episode in retrospective but at the time of release it was very controversial because the audience had to wait an entire week after the fly episode for actual action to happen. Similar to the better call Saul episode nippy.
I have three hot takes:
1) Jesse routinely shows himself to be kind of awful, and like Mike, complicit in terrible, terrible things. Jesse gets kind of a pass by most fans because he's just simply surrounded by people who are so much worse. When pretty much every major character in the criminal side of the show seems eager to kill kids, or unwilling to protect them, Jesse seems like kind of an oasis in comparison. It also certainly does not hurt that he's handsome and often used for comic relief. I feel like a lot of fans think of him as a bit like a puppy.
2) Secondly, Gus has never done much for me. I went years hearing about how Gus was one of the greatest villains of all time. When I finally watched BB for the first time a few years ago, he didn't strike me as particularly rich in characterization. The reserved, calculated villain is not exactly an unexplored trope in fiction. And by no means do I think a character has to be novel to be engaging, but I honestly found Gus a little cartoonish. Things like slitting Victor's throat for kind of nebulous reasons were just huge shark jumps for me that took me out of the show.
And while a character like Lalo revels in and embraces his cartoonishness, it feels like the show is telling you you're supposed to take Gus super seriously, when (in my eyes) he's really just one more side of the same extreme. Before I watched BB, I assumed Gus would be the main antagonist of the entire series, when in reality he's only hostile to Walt for one full season. Hank is really more the overarching antagonist of the show, even if he is a more heroic character than Walter.
3) Hank actually is a hero. It's become kind of popular to say he isn't, but I've never followed the logic. I know his hands aren't totally clean, but are anyone's? I think the few immoral things he done are entirely forgivable given the context they occur. He's a flawed person, but he consistently does the right thing more times than not in the series. He has dedicated his life to taking down a despicable operation that results in hundreds of deaths and thousands of ruined lives. Meth is bad and the people who sell it are bad. I don't understand why it seems like sometimes he's given more criticism than Jesse.
Dude I was rewatching BB and Jesse sees how his product negatively effects the lives of innocents with that one kid in spooge's house and there really is no problem for him afterwards, I mean yea he seems down but it seems to stem more from witnessing a brutal death. Jesse doesn't even really seem to care about the kid much after the initial sympathy and empathy when he was there and just continues to be apart of this horrible drug business.
Also about Hank I totally agree, I do agree with some people saying Hank isn't 100% a good person and that it seems more ego driven when going after walt but I mean come on, the dude is trying to stop his insane evil brother by marriage. Within the show he def is the hero, the show just puts a more "everyone has something bad about them" spin to the hero thing.
Well Hank is more of an ass than Jesse towards those close to him, and beating Jesse half to death was really bad, especially since he's a law enforcement officer and federal agent. He also treats Marie unforgivably after he is shot and recovering when she does everything she can to help and support him. Had his friend from the force not given Hank Gale's notebook to get him back to work, he would have presumably just treated her like that for months or years more, maybe the rest of their marriage. He talks down to Walt and makes jokes at his expense to all of Walt's family and friends at Walt's own 50th birthday party, before taking over the party and making himself the center of attention by showing off how he was on the news for just doing his job. He was also totally willing to get Jesse killed near the end of the series if it meant catching Walt on tape killing him.
On the other hand, I feel the same way towards Jesse that you do towards Hank, that "the few immoral things he did are forgivable given the context they occur." The only unforgivable thing I believe he did was selling meth to addicts in rehab
I agree with your first take. I have the same feelings with Kim in Better Call Saul.
As much as I love Jesse, I deadass agree as much as it pains me.
I fel like between the start of the series and the time Walt left Grey Matter, he probably did go on to work at another business but ended up being impossible to work with and found himself blacklisted. This is my headcannon but I feel like there are moments throughout the show that I feel are supposed to run parallel to how he ended up as a "weak beta male guy".
I can see the positive qualities for Felina but when we got to the point where it was the highest rated episode of any show on IMDb because it satisfied a bunch of walt apologists that's when my brain broke (Yes I'm aware that Ozymandias is higher now)
THIS. Even I kinda felt manipulated into sorta liking Walt by the end despite me feeling the opposite way for a good chunk of season 5.
I just farted so hard my back cracked
Awesome
Any witnesses?!😂
I think the "media literacy" phenomenon is just a subcategory of gatekeeping. You could replace "You missed the entire point" with "You're not a real fan, unless" and the sentence would ultimately be the same, in terms of content. I've always belonged in the radical camp of "All art is subjective, and even the creator has absolutely no say in what something is supposed to mean." because all information is ultimately processed through the lens of your own biases, and there's no way for you to, perfectly, see something from the point of view of someone else. This ultimately means that Breaking Bad has a slightly different meaning for everyone who watches it, and if only Vince's interpretation is correct, then literally no one understands the true point, because only Vince is Vince, and only Vince knows what Vince was thinking when some particular scene was written.
I don't care, I still hate Skylar. It's not about who was taking the right or wrong actions. It's the characters. Hank is directly opposed to Walter. Yet somehow we like both. It's because they both have character traits that make them relatable and to some degree likeable.
Skylar is just awful. Even if she's innocent. Even if she's right. Still awful.
Yeah, even very early on in the show before Walt has done anything heinous she’s still giving him a hard time. It’s weird people actually think she’s not a b*tch. Not like Carmella Soprano, she seemed like a much more supportive, less naggy wife.
@@quagmoe7879carm knew exactly who she was marrying.. she knew what tony did and she still married him… skylar didn’t know walt had this monster inside him.. obviously she’d be a little angry when her husband randomly starts trapping 😂
@@quagmoe7879She thought she was marrying someone with ambition who was going somewhere not someone who would always let his ego get in the way of a good thing at every turn. Walt is a far worse person even in the beginning than people give him credit for
@@mr.dr.prof.patrick7284 Why did she throw a fit about Walt smoking pot? That doesn’t seem like a supportive wife to me. Pick your battles.
@@TheThreatenedSwan I disagree completely, before Walt gets fully into the meth business he’s done nothing wrong, and yet he still has her ire from the jump. She’s a nag.
People missunderstand felina. The show is abt Walter wanting to live life the way he wants it but he is unable to admit to himself who he is. When he says ‘’i did it for me’’ he finally faces that he gets to die on his own terms
the biggest problem with felina imo is the gretchen and elliot stuff
Really? Nah, I think it's kinda nice that they brought them back and that we got to see Walt get salty over Greymatter's success again.
When are you gonna make The Wire logs?
Idk why you make a dichotomy between having fun with the show and being able to pick up on the not at all subtle theme and central storyline of the show. You don't need to deeply analyze the show to realize that Walt isn't a hero that you should root for.
Same thing for Skyler, she's not "making the show boring" by confronting Walt, her opposition to Walt is a part of the tension of the story. The show would be boring if everything is just going smoothly for him. Also she's not the only character that tries to stop Walt or make his pursuit more difficult, yet she's the one a large chunk of the audience vehemently hates.
FUCKING THANK YOU!!
"Felina" is a good episode, but the ending is bad because it misses the point of "crime doesn't pay" and gives Walt his happy ending, which he didn't deserved. Better call Saul did the ending much much better, The Shield did better, The Sopranos did better, even the two terrible finales for Dexter did better as a conclusion than Breaking Bad. I agree that "Face-off" would have been a bad ending, and that's why i think "Granite state" would been a better ending with Walt dying or being arrested at the ending of the episode.
Completely disagree. Felina was a perfect ending and possibly the greatest ending of all time. Yes Walt got what he wanted but he got in the absolute worst way possible which is what makes his ending satisfying. You think he wanted to win like this? Hell no. Having him arrested or just randomly die in Granite State would’ve been a horrible ending because then everything that happened in the show up to that point would ultimately be for nothing. An ending like that would’ve ruined 5 seasons of legendary television
@@jakethesnake7917 No, it wouldn't. The Shield has one of the greatest endings in television and is exactly like that, everything Vic Mackey did was for nothing, the bad guy didn't get what he wanted.
Breaking Bad is a show where the villain wins. I'll correct my previous statement, Granite State didn't need to be the final episode, if Felina was only about getting revenge on Jack and freeing Jesse, that would be fine.
@@funkyreapercat5280 Okay but that doesn’t mean a good ending has to be just like the shield. The villain doesn’t have to lose for it to be a good ending. Take Infinity War for example. Breaking Bad’s ending was perfect for a whole different reason. Yes Walt got what he wanted but from the audiences perspective he was the anti-hero since we followed his story from the beginning. By admitting that he did it for his own selfish reasons and still finding a way to help his family in the process that didn’t deserve any of this in the first place is the perfect wrap up to his arc. It’s a man who finally admits he’s evil but he can still right some wrongs before his final moments. It doesn’t get better than that
@@jakethesnake7917naw, Walter was an anti-hero up until he raped Skyler…which is when i stopped rooting for him. I heavily dislike Skyler but she didn’t deserve that
23:56 hey thats me
Kim and Nacho are just side characters in the Jimmy and Mike show.
Awesome video, love your breakdown of all these takes you really have a cool opinion on all of them
If Ted just payed his taxes everything would be okay and Skyler and Walt would have lived happily in New Hampshire
"Machismo" isn't pronounced like "machisimo;" i dont know why you continue to say it like that.
Libery instead of library
Sherbert instead of sherbet
You should make another one of these. And you should make a Better Call Saul one if you weren't already planning on it
Kino have you seen Six Feet Under? Fantastic show that I just finished, highly recommend!
"they got pregnant"
Wow! Walt MPREG!!!
Walt did not ein a Nobel Prize. He helped in the research that led to someone else winning it.
15:47 mike BB we had gas
Anyone with a Nobel Prize can get a cushy job for life at a university. To fail must mean that he fucked up in a shameful or criminal way.
Walt didn't have a Nobel Prize. He worked on a team under people who actually won the Nobel Prize. The award in his house was just a memento created by the university to thank him for his work- they probably went out to people who did major research but were not included in the award citation, or it could have gone to people who washed out the test tubes as well. This is probably a reference to the Hauptman/Karle Nobel of 1985 for the study of crystalline structures. Working on teams that helped these two scientists complete their research is not necessarily a career boost. Indeed, being associated with studying Nobel-winning crystal structures means that many universities feel that the topic has been played out, and you can be passed over for jobs and grants for people in newer, less-explored fields.
The Skyler conflict is good, but I think the pacing is off. It takes less than a season for her to kind of like Walt again.
I just found you and im very glad cuz of this
Nice video! (Apart of this one thing u said about Lalo, how dare you, i guess i must check your vid about him)
Good job 👍
I liked the whole show. From beginning to end. Better than ‘Saul’. Though I liked ‘Saul’ especially Mike. Saul dragged a bit.
Idc what anyone says saul gone>>>> felina
you sound like beige frequency when you do the patreon name read, is that on purpose?
My hot take is the show should've ended with "I Won." iirc season 4 was the original ending and was written as a potential finale just incase. The production company almost stopped season 5 from happening and that would've been fine imo. Also Vince Gilligan told on himself by writing Kim as an actually likeable wife character. If his comments about Skylar always being meant as the hero were true he would've written Kim to be much more like Skylar.
My hot take is I like Better Call Saul more than Breaking bad Im kinda indifferent on walt as a protagonist, but Saul is always interesting and entertaining, which just makes for a better show to me. Not the BB is a bad show solid 8.5 but BCS hits like a 9 for me
I like fly cuz of the humor and neurosis involved. It could easily be done on Broadway imho.
This is why you are one of the best guys around Kino. I wholeheartedly agree on all of these points. It seems to me many of the people who jump to Skyler Whites defense are people who forget that these are actually fictional characters and they don’t need you to defend them lol. At the same time people who hate Skyler and extend that hate to the actress are equally as cringe but I feel that’s an extremely small portion of the community. The media literacy people are just awful in general.
Videos nice and spicy, huh
Media literacy is when you agree with me
I do feel like the women get the short end of the stick in this series; they aren’t involved in the cool action scenes or the main machinations of plans and plots, and are very often more obstacles and barriers to the Men doing more cool action stuff. So when Skylar gets hate, I do think it partially falls on the writers for not really allowing women to participate in the Cool factor of the show. Even Lydia isn’t some great master manipulator, she comes off as more of a stick in the mud and anal than other drug kingpins.
Walt did not win the nobel prize.
18:42 I guess you could call that a take
Terrible Lalo take. Best villain over Gus easy.
My name is Skyler white yo. Don’t sell my husband weed yo
Lalo is awesome!
Interesting discussion but I like the term "media literacy"
Like The Matrix is an anarchist Trans Allegory and the real red pill is estrogen
Yeah I disagree about BCS but thanks.
Goat TH-camr
Not as good as Sopranos, but nothing is
Badabing badaboom
Breaking Bad's Finale is pretty MID, as a whole, especially the final Antagonists being a nobody like Tom n some Hicks
I do agree Todd, Jack, and Jack’s crew were incredibly weak antagonists.
I like the commentary but i disagree with his ego backstory. It's realisitic that he retreats into meekness while being inside a highly egotistical person. The meekness is false, a put-on face, with underlying arrogance. It is with the drug-running that he can finally express it again, which is why he slips into it so naturally.
I blame the pacing issues of better call Saul on El caminos hands. El Camino is cool and all, but all I remember from that movie is Aaron Paul's receding hairline.
What does El Camino have to do with the pacing of BCS other than we had to wait 2 years for season 5?
@@TAG152gaming I was bored.
I agree. I think Granite State was a better episode than Felina. I think the problem with breaking bad is that they killed Gus off too early and magically brought in Nazi bad guys from stage left. Also, BCS was better. Thats not a hot take.
I disagree I think Felina is a far better ending for the show but respect
@@jakethesnake7917 I enjoyed Walt being isolated and miserable and actually having to reflect on his actions more than the episode where he literally can get into Skyler's house without a key and with cops watching, magically stealing the first car with a set of keys in the visor, and using a machine gun to literally mow down all of the Nazi bad guys except the one Jesse has a problem with. I prefer the "all is lost" wintery solitary confinement ending to the saccharine Disney "the princess gets everything she wanted in the end" version of the breaking bad ending.
@@AnneHathawayRules You mean the house that has been abandoned and destroyed for months on end with 0 cops watching and an actual coincidence that real life everyday people do leave their keys in their visor especially when it’s in such a remote area with next to zero criminals and car thrives like in the show.
You see I think you’re missing the point entirely, this is not Dinsey happy ever after ending. Almost everyone we know and love die at the cost of not only Walt’s but their own actions as well. Walt is an evil man who knows his fate is inevitable but can at least acknowledge that at this point in time and still right some wrongs for the benefit of others before his ultimate demise. Now tell me how that ending is a “princess gets everything she wanted and lives happily ever after” type ending.
We needed this last episode because it has very important turning points and character moments that make the show come full circle. It isn’t about characters getting exactly what they do or do not deserve, it’s about sensibility and completeness. Without Felina the whole show would’ve been a complete waste of time and just another amazing show that butchered its ending.
@@jakethesnake7917 I'm not talking about that house I'm talking about Skyler's house, where Walt is able to just walk in and out while two cops are staked out in front of it. But that's not the point here, Walt did get everything he wanted and it was a pretty princess ending. His family got the money, he got away with it because he died 6 seconds before the cops got there, he got revenge on Lydia and all the cartoonishly evil Nazi bad guys, except for Todd of course because Jesse needed his revenge.
You don't think the misery and the metaphor for karma wouldn't have been amazing had he have died knowing how much his own son hated his guts, isolated and miserable in some cabin knowing that "one of these days you're going to come up here and I'll be dead" and none of this cash will go to his family?
I don't like happy endings though that's just me. And he didn't deserve one. But people wanted that I guess because they cheered for him the whole time when he was clearly a major if not the main villain of the show.
@@jakethesnake7917 and I want to know what they cleared up in the finale that they couldn't have cleared up in granite state other than "muh revenge fantasy" because sometimes life just doesn't get wrapped up. It would have been awesome knowing that he didn't get anything he wanted and that Jesse was a prisoner because of him for the rest of his life until he wasn't useful anymore.
people who think bcs is better then breaking bad are INSANE
I just don't agree that Breaking Bad is an action serie.
Plays baby blue
I agree completely with your BCS take btw - on rewatch, I watched seasons 1-4, then just episodes 9 and 10 of season 5, then jump to the timeskip at the end of S6 right after Kim leaves (where Jimmy has gone full Saul, he's not Gene yet). Filling in the blanks based off Jimmy attracting Lalo to their personal life is better than having to endure that cartel plot again, as entertaining as Lalo is. BCS had a stronger finale than BB after all that too IMO.
I feel like the Skyler hate is justified. She’s a straight up bad person.
She cheats on her husband, then steals all of the family’s money to give it to the guy she is cheating on her husband with. Then later in in the show, when Walt and Saul have the money laundering plan already figured out, she forces herself into the plan by making herself the chief money launderer only to complain About having to launder the money like two episodes later.
Skyler makes similar shitty choices as Walt. We all agree Walt is a bad guy. Idk how the person committing tax fraud, volunteering to join a criminal enterprise, and cheating on their spouse is supposed to be the moral compass of the show.
For me, Skyler is the worst part of the show, because of the squandered opportunity. If she was an actual good person dealing with this monster in her home it would be so much more compelling. Instead it’s just a contest over who can act shitter and who can propagandize the kids better. I feel it was a missed opportunity.
She didn't cheat nor did she steal money to bail out Ted, she did it so the IRS investigation wouldn't lead to an investigation into Skyler and Walt's own finances. And the reason why Skyler got involved in the first place (her role was fairly minor in the grand scheme of things) was because of Hank's medical bills.
@@unclekarl5219 Skyler 100% cheated on her husband. Idk what show you’re watching.
She also did steal that money to bail out Ted. She took the money, gave it to the guy she was cheating on her husband with, for him to give to the IRS to help him with his legal troubles.
It’s funny, when Walt says he is doing this for his family, everyone sees through it. But when Skyler says the same thing she’s taken at face value.
It’s a show about bad people.
@@gangsta8929she didn’t cheat on Walt. They weren’t together at that time.
And again, Ted being investigated by the IRS would mean Skyler and Walt also getting investigated by the IRS.
Sure maybe there was an ego involved in skyler’s involvement but there was never a moment where someone offered Skyler the money to solve all her problems and she refused, like there was with Walter
@@unclekarl5219 I’m not saying Walt was a good guy. Walt was a bad guy, and Skyler was a second also bad guy (gal?).
I see the reasoning a lot and it really baffles me. Skyler is a good person, because Walt did bad things? Isn’t there room for more than one bad person in the world?
Yea, Walt’s a bad guy that did a list of shitty things, including murder, that Skyler didn’t do, but that doesn’t set the bar. If I knew Skyler irl she’s not a person I would want to associate with.
@@gangsta8929I’m just saying the reasons why skyler became a criminal are a lot more subtle. There are signs she suffers from feelings of inferiority but they’re less blatant than Walter. It seems her reasons for it (such as Hank’s medical bills) were a lot more genuine
I like how half of the comments are just memes
Reminds me of the good times of Theneedledrop, before he went cuck after that TheFader article
Tbh after what u said ab Lalo everything you say is invalid lol
I thought Fly is great.
sopranos no entertainment value
off marone
Gabbagool? Ovah here!
My favourite hot take is that El Camino is worse than Many Saints
why did i watch this
I like beans
How do you know he got the money to his family? Really think Elliot wouldn’t have just gone to the cops? So in the last episode Walter doesn’t get everything he wants. And even if he does you are left to wonder as the camera pans up from his dead body if any of it was worth it. And apparently you answered that with yes😂bad take
I think it’s okay that whether Walt actually got what he wanted or “if any of it was worth it” is left ambiguous. The ending already feels too good to be true, and if anything those questions lend more nuance to Walt’s “victory”.
@@coralsprite that was my point, and if you thought the ending was Walt getting everything he wanted you really missed the point of the show
@@camcam8995 I never said the point of the ending was Walt getting it all, nor did Kino suggest it was about being worth it. Kino’s point is: from a filmmaking and narrative view, the finale is presented as a ““good”” or at least satisfactory outcome for Walt, despite the immense suffering he’s inflicted on his family and so many people. This dissonance bothers a lot of viewers, and maybe Kino too. It sounds like you’re just trying hard to dunk on others’ viewpoints without understanding them.
35 seconds ago is crazy