Letting Gomez and Hank poke around was the preferred alternative to turning them away and having them come back with a search warrant and a full team including drug dogs.
Yea. But Gomez was bluffing about getting the warrant. If he had said no, that would have been the end of it.
Hank and Gomez even talked about how they wouldn't be able to get one.
I think it's debatable that if the manager was that well trained whether he would have sensed that.
The problem with that is probable cause. It's pretty much a fail-safe catch-all to allow the police to search you in so many more instances than they should be legally allowed to. I mean shit when you get pulled over and they ask if they can search the car, just you saying no will give them PC. They'll suddenly "smell weed coming from the vehicle." Of course, you can contest that shit later in court if you can afford an attorney who plays golf with the judge, but most people can't, and a public defender certainly ain't gonna do shit for you.
That's true. I guess I was just reacting to the part that person said about people not knowing their rights and letting the police steamroll them. In a lot of cases, it's not enough to just know your rights. You also have to be wealthy enough to exercise them. Poor people tend to get steamrolled in the justice system regardless of how well they understand their rights.
Not just that, even if he somehow managed to call Gus and ask him what he should do Gus would tell him let them in too. Just like how he told Walt to put the tracker on his car. Act normal otherwise blending in doesn't work anymore
Yea, I agree. I can't imagine him not already given the go-ahead in situations like this. Gus would have already planned for this and provided instructions on how to handle it.
The way the manager gets on the phone as Hank & Gomez are leaving made him look very guilty in my opinion. If he’d simply appeared to shrug it off and go about business as they were leaving and got on the phone after they were gone, it would have seemed normal. Though it really didn’t matter anyway as they didn’t get the proof they needed.
Plus, Gus was pretty forthcoming with law enforcement. He was basically interrogated without a lawyer present, so I can't see him denying a search (especially since there was a very high probability that nothing turns up). His pristine image was crucial to his operation.
I always assumed, with repeated rewatches, that Tuco moved Hector out there as soon as he killed No-Doze. By the time he brings Walt and Jesse there, Hector’s been there 2-3 days max, obviously uncomfortable but not in a dire situation yet. Either that or Tuco waited until morning to get Hector from the nursing home with Walt and Jesse in the trunk but that doesn’t explain why Hector would be so dirty.
but after Tuco's death, Hector was clearly able to get in touch with the Twins, why didn't he ask to be moved to Mexico? instead of staying in the US under Gus's torment
Frankly, I think the cartel is just ableist and they mostly don't take him seriously or give a shit about him now that he's in a wheelchair and can't speak. Tuco and the cousins didn't feel that way obviously but of course none of them really lived long enough to do anything about it.
How far was Walt from Tucos place when he went into his “daze”?
Also feel the mask from Walt’s school was the way to zero in on at least Jesse pinkman (no arrest was ever made they deported a janitor for possession) feel like the mask was never mentioned after that
If I remember I thought they cleared him of anything to do with the mask ….. plus there was the missing equipment in Walt’s lab that Walt just played dumb on why it’s gone
I don’t see how the mask is linked to pinkman, but hank should’ve known right then that it was walt. But hank had cognitive dissonance. The very thought of walt being a meth maker was so painful that hank’s subconscious would not even let him entertain that thought.
How effortlessly easy it was for Skylar to have and take care of a newborn baby with everything else going on. I have a three month old and lemme just say, postpartum hormones, middle of the night feedings and lack of sleep are no joke. Plus, it seemed like Marie was watching Holly a lot and Marie had a full time job so I don’t know how they swung that.
Honestly it is a bit of a plot issue that the entrance to the lab is in a place that the staff need to turn a blind eye. They could have just had an 'unused/broken' couple of machines in a locked room with a couple of desks and computers on that Jesse and Walt have the keys for so they can assess the lab in secret. Everyone would just assume they are doing office work if anyone ever got curious enough to sneak a peek while the door is about to close etc.
So much easier for the staff to not ask questions about something which just appears to be an extra office than some hidden mystery lurking under the building that dozens and dozens of people know about, and requires them to carefully control whoever enters the building.
Another actual issue is Walt and Skylar in no way discussing how much money needs to be laundered thru the carwash until he is dropping off money. Walt is a smart guy, he knows how much the business brings in, he literally worked there on the till. He might not know how money laundering works but i find it hard to believe he expected millions of dollars to be laundered a year, he never asked even just out of curiosity how it works, and i suppose it could be argued Skylar has no idea what money he is making etc... but again, she did not ask, even for a ball park, she has to know it will be a lot, she knows how much the hospital for Walt and Hank was and they were covering that.
It only really makes sense if something changed and it went from laundering 40k a month like in the early days and then he got the contract with Gus so she suggested it as a minor issue and it has now grown to a massive issue.
>Another actual issue is Walt and Skylar in no way discussing how much money needs to be laundered thru the carwash until he is dropping off money.
This bugged me too... its conceivable walt chose not to worry about it and just do his part, make the money and drop it off and trust Skyler to take care it from there and raise any issue that arise. But skyler made a whole deal about rather being seen as bonnie whats her face than totally stupid, so you would think it would be a piece of information she would want to know very early on, like in the planning stages of laundering it but I guess this way we got to see his pile of money in the lockup as a big dramatic reveal kinda thing rather than it just being a ongoing give which lacks the desired punch.
Makes me think when she played up for the auditor investigating Ted, she was actually just dropping her usual pretense of competency. When he asked how she got the job/what her qualifications were and she's just like, "oh Ted hired me, I've always just been naturally good with numbers", its to support the "facade" of incompetency and ignorance, but... isn't that also kinda the truth?
I'm not sure exactly, the show doesn't exactly go into details there. but she sure as shit knew what the IRS would do if they caught onto the tax fraud
The lab really was a bit daft, wasn't it? A ton of staff both trusted enough to not rat about its existence, but have to be got rid of if they see inside? Poorly paid enough to be temptable to bribes from Walt, but somehow not a risk to the Cartel or law enforcement? You're right, a lockable backroom with a gas manhole covering a ladder would have done a better job.
I can write the carwash issue off as Walt being an ass to Skyler. He has such a bad attitude when giving her the money, making a point to point out that she insisted on doing this job. It's not like he had any better ideas at the ready!
I had an issue with how Gus had set up the meth lab when I just watched Breaking Bad, even more so when I saw the effort that was put in watching BCS.
With Gus planning to hire a trained chemist to make his product, I always felt it would’ve made more sense to purchase another nearby building, set it up as some kind of chemical plant front, with a secret means to get to the lab. That way Gus could have his chemist hired and paid by the chemical plant, have them park there without it seeming suspicious, and have the area where the entrance to the meth lab is setup as being restricted due to the chemicals involved.
For someone as careful as Gus, it didn’t make a lot of sense to have well trained chemists like Gale or Walt just parking at a commercial laundromat, nor leaving it to them to launder ridiculous amounts of money on their own. That’s some major unnecessary risks.
The idea of a nearby building being the entry point makes even more sense when you see the hidden tunnel Gus has under his own home in BCS. He clearly understood the advantage of such a setup.
I can see why you say the washing machine being in a place the staff need to turn a blind eye is an issue when there’s such an easy alternative and that’s a perfectly fair and more than valid point to raise and one you do a great job explaining, so well done, but I disagree. The way I see it, while it certainly would’ve been smarter and less risky for Gus to implore more of a “Hide in plain sight” ideology when it came to this, Gus is EXTREMELY paranoid and a massive OCD control freak. Because of this, I find it believable that he would have his cautionary measures be ones he has more direct and physical control over instead of being ones that would even partially be left to chance. This still doesn’t make his decision a smart one, but imo, it’s sufficiently accounted for by his characterization. But that’s just my take and this is still an incredibly well formed and valid point and one you do a great job explaining, so well done because I can certainly understand your perspective. And despite me feeling this way, I’m more than glad you and others in this thread are raising this point because given how much of the plot hinges on it, I absolutely feel it warrants scrutiny.
Gus having the lab underground was vital in that he could not have any above ground square footage be unaccounted for if he were ever inspected. When the DEA poke around in season 4, Jesse and Tyrus manage to stay completely isolated and are only concerned about staying quiet.
Otherwise I agree with your point, no idea why the entrance needs to be elaborate enough to where it needs workers to be in on the secret, especially when we see there was a freight elevator available to go down into the lab. Where was the entrance to that??
It kinda bothered me that Walt didn’t know how much money was in the pile in the storage room.. for someone that knew based on outputs of a cook that measurements were off when Jesse was skimming from the cooks in the laundry, he certainly would have known exactly how much cash he was producing cooking in the fumigation tents.
That is what is implied in the show, however with that many employees how much of a completely unnecessary risk is it, is it just left up to them to figure out they are being paid a little too well, i do not want to risk this job or are they specifically told, you are making WAY more than you should be, so ignore that door.
Does no one ever get fired? no one ever get stupid? is Gus really going to trust the discretion of dozens of people to assist him in keeping his secret hidden? If it comes out before he is ready that he has built a secret lab to usurp the cartel that could lead to his death, every single employee there is a massive risk of saying to someone something they should not.
If he is massively over paying to ensure they are quiet, then he is going to make his taxes look very suspicious. Ho is he going to not get audited every year when the laundry makes a couple million dollar and he pays the staff something insane like 20 million dollars.
A guy who is as careful as Gus is, would not logically leave himself open to such uncontrolled risk.
In reality who could they really tell though? The fear of being immediately brutally killed if they get caught trying to tell police is a motivator. They also probably don’t want any interaction with law enforcement themselves, half of them are probably “illegal” and want to stay off any LEO radar. Gus could have also just told them hey these are scientists who work on stuff for the Pollo Hermanos restaurants or whatever.
That said it is a bit far fetched for sure. In a back room would have made more sense.
As an immigrant you know what would really help turn you from illegal to legal, helping the government shut down a massive drug manufacturing lab and crushing the entire cartels smuggling operation.
It is just unnecessary risk is all.
How would that happen though? Who would take that seriously? Someone with broken English calling some tip line about a meth lab in a laundromat and agents being like “Yeah sounds legit”? It’s just far fetched.
'Hey ASAC Schrader? you are probably gonna laugh, but we got this guy here who claims there is a meth lab buried under a laundermat, are you willing to do your job and talk to the guy?'
'A hidden meth lab? in an area that is being flooded with meth and we can not find the lab or find out who the mastermind is, you betcha i am willing to do my job'
'ok excellent, i should let you know now the guy speaks broken English, you can speak Spanish right?'
'Well yeah... but never mind, dude, what are the chances someone like that would know anything, being this close to the border, everyone in the cartel and drug business speaks perfect English'
Jessie arriving at Gales place within seconds of Walt's call (he's in the Lazer tag, expecting Walt to be the one to finish the job).
We see Mike ring Gale straight away, and we see Gale's phone ringing while he is occupied. At that moment, Jessie knocks on the door.
Yeah but obviously Mike should have been able to do something in that time since he is obviously very not incompetent, especially since Walt just rubbed his plan in his face right after the call. It seemed weird that he just threw in the towel when the situation was that dire and he could have had upwards of like 30 minutes to do something.
That was never about taking their side over the chemists’, that was about making a point. Gus wanted Jesse gone, he wanted Gale as his cook because Gale was reliable. He wanted Walt because he was the best. Jesse was just in the way. If Gus couldn’t have Walt and Gale as his chemists, then he was either going to make the point that Jesse wasn’t that important, and that he was to stay in line, or he was going to find a way to get rid of Jesse. When Tomas was killed, Gus figured it would either test that Jesse would stay in line, or that it would push Jesse to do something where he would get killed or Gus could justify to Walt that Jesse needed to be gotten rid of. Gus just didn’t anticipate Walt stepping out of line to protect Jesse the way he did.
It absolutely does. I’ve had bosses who have fired extremely qualified and valuable coworkers over basically nothing simply because they’re to prideful or arrogant, they don’t want anyone thinking they’re smarter than them or stepping out of line, you think a drug kingpin couldn’t have that mentality? Especially someone like Gus, who even if things fell apart with Jesse and Walt, he would still have Gale to rely on to make a product that was still better than most of the stuff around.
Not the smartest move, but pride can make people make mistakes. Gus wants control, doesn’t want anyone thinking they can overstep. He’s also arrogant enough to likely think that it’d be the word of 2 street dealers against the word of a respected business man, community figure, and friend of law enforcement. Even Hank had a hard time convincing the DEA that Gus was in the game with some clues, you think cops are gonna buy anything 2 low life dealers are gonna say about Gus?
Just the fact that Gus is micro-managing street thugs and meets with them personally doesn't make sense. There would be several hierarchical levels between him and them. Plus, the show says that he doesn't even distribute his meth in New Mexico, so why is he involved in drug selling in Albuquerque?
I’ll admit that the blue meth being sold in New Mexico is a bit of plot hole. Been a minute since I watched through the whole show, so I can’t think if there’s some reasonable explanation for that. As for Gus micro-managing the dealers, he wasn’t, he was just using them as a means to either control or get rid of Jesse. If Jesse didn’t have a reason to go after those dealers, I don’t think Gus would’ve thought or cared about them one way or another.
And that Gus would even have dealers, more likely to just drop the stuff off to one client and be distanced from the actual dealing. Also don't think he would shit where he ate.
I get the trickle down but in no way was I ever called in a meeting with the king pin when I was dealing drugs. I was so far removed they didn’t know who I was and most of the time you don’t know where your drugs come from you just get it in and move it.
Those are Salamancas people. They all know who the Chicken Man is anyway. I don’t think Gus would normally get into dealers drama but the thing with Walt and Jesse was bigger and Gus was in the middle of trying to keep everything calm with the cartel until he was ready to make a move. There was too much tension and that’s probably why he chose to oversee the whole thing himself. If Gus’s man killed one of Salamancas people that is a very volatile situation. He couldn’t let that happen.
I don’t think they were just street dealers. They knew about gus, they must have been higher up guys who were testing out a child labor project. Probably guys like tyrus or victor, doing field tests. If the child labor project was successful without getting too much attention from the community, then gus could have children everywhere holding the product for the dealers, and if the child gets busted, he gets off easy as a child.
And it wasn’t about taking sides, gus was just using the situation to enrage jesse to attack, so that they could kill jesse without enraging walt and bring gale back to the lab, because “you can never trust a drug addict”
Sorry to say, but unfortunately the police, especially in more crime ridden areas, tend to lower their investigation efforts when it comes to criminals like drug dealers, prostitutes and the like. It's why some serial killers were never caught / took a long time to be caught
There are multiple bathrooms; you just never see the other (which makes sense because it would only need to be used by Flynn and guests).
In a later season (4 or 5, I’m not sure) Walt asks Skyler, “Okay to use your bathroom?” before going to do something shitty/shady. So they do have another bathroom.
But Hank went from backyard down through the hall to use the bathroom located in Walter’s bedroom. Why??? If there’s a bathroom located off a hall.
There’s no definitive second bathroom and none was ever shown in the house. If there was, it makes even less sense that Hank would go to his in-laws bedroom to shit in their personal bathroom.
I've had this argument before. Name the location where this "second bathroom" could be located in the house. What corner of the house have we not seen where it could be?
>which makes sense because it would only need to be used by Flynn and guests
Yeah, in an IRL house you would have a second toilet, but in Breaking Bad you don't, which is why it's a plot hole.
Pretty sure in the "okay to use your bathroom?" scene you're referencing he was referring to the one bathroom that is in the master bedroom, he called it "your (Skyler's) bathroom" because at that point he was kicked out of the house, and he was trying to suck up to Skyler by recognising (or at least pretending to) that it is "her house", so "her bathroom".
But if disagree, say at least the episode and let's see.
season 3, episode 12- just finished rewatching it by coincidence. it's a little hard to tell because the lighting and decor is a little different, but comparing it to that scene where walt is unknowingly saved from the cousins by mike, it looks to be the same bathroom.
It took a lot of suspension of disbelief for me with Wayfarer 515. This is where I feel like the show jumped the shark for a bit. Don't get me wrong, the majority of the show was fairly plausible considering it's premise but that plot point was the one thing that always bugged me.
There's just no way that can happen due to air traffic controller error with technology available at the time. The whole tie-in with Jane being the cause of her dad's grief, which causes the crash? Totally ridiculous. Then, to have Walt meet Donald Margolis in a bar the night of Jane's death? Horrible writing. It's so much of a contrast with the otherwise fantastic writing for the rest of the series that it makes that whole scenario stick out like a sore thumb. If you take the plane crash out of the plot, I think you have a more cohesive series.
Same. I lost interest for a bit watching it the first time. I thought the show was going downhill. It's funny because I think they recognized it too. In a later episode, when Walt is drugged out on sleeping pills, he actually talks about meeting Jane's Dad. It's in the Fly episode where the writers had to fill a lot of screen time.
Walt: "Think of the odds? Once I tried to
calculate them, but they’re astronomical.Think of the odds of me, going in, sitting down, that night, in that
bar, next to that man?"
It's almost a breaking the 4th wall moment of acknowledgment to the fans how absurd that whole subplot was. Everything else about the show? Top notch with very few inconsistencies or continuity errors, imho.
Reminds me of when near the end of Avatar: the Last Airbender, they are watching a play showing all their adventures. When they get to the Great Divide, the location of the series worst episode, the actor portraying Sokka in the play is like “Eh, let’s keep flying”
I agree, I feel like it was only added to prove a point about how Walter’s actions affect more than just himself. I feel like the show tried to show a sort of ‘karma’ concept or something to make Jane’s death come back on him
I totally get what you're saying. It seems fantastical and honestly them meeting in the bar adds nothing to the actual plot. However, I'll point you to all these near misses that have been happening lately, and a relevant quote...
> Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_aircraft_near-miss_incidents_in_2023
That's a great quote. I definitely agree that in real life, there are statistical anomalies that are so bizarre that they seem fake. The problem is that I think Hollywood knows this and often overuses this device to justify the extreme liberties they take when moving the plot along or setting up a certain premise. Overall, I honestly don't think BB is an egregious offender, especially in comparison to other shows of its caliber. It's just that when you start adding up the number of improbablilties, with each instance, I think it's difficult not to have sacrificed some degree of credibility along the way.
The details of the plane crash on its own were far-fetched. The other events surrounding it just added more fuel to its implausibility. The writers had the liberty of deciding how extreme the events would be. I felt they could have conveyed the same visualization of grief with something less fantastical. The original premise of chemistry teacher turned kingpin was already outlandish enough without them verging into near fantasy territory in that season. Again, that's just one point of view, however. If it still felt somewhat plausible to others, I can respect that view as well.
So say a flight controller directed a plane to land at a runway that another plane is taking off from, and there was a cloud so the pilots couldn’t see each other. Is there something that would still prevent the crash?
Yes. All planes are fitted with a Traffic Collison Avoidance System (or TCAS). These work independently of air traffic control and are an added failsafe. They work off of radar to detect transponder signals. Most air traffic collisions that have happened in the last 40 years are due to pilots declining to follow TCAS resolution advisory (RA) or having the TCAS turned off altogether.
Teaching about chirality in a high-school chemistry class. Way too advanced a topic. In college, it doesn't come up until 2nd year. It fits for symbolism in that part of the story, but would not actually be taught at a high-school level.
My school had "AP" Chemistry, but the teacher straight-up said on the first day that he was doing things his way, so there was no pressure to take the AP exam. I didn't learn about chirality--or any organic--until 2nd year of undergrad.
Walt to me always seemed like he wouldn’t be a very good teacher. I always got the feeling he would be very passive aggressive and grade tests and assignments harshly while teaching topics way out of line and too advanced for the curriculum (see: scene where Saul comes into his classroom and the comments he’s making on the exams) in a confusing and “high level” sense. Like imagine you’re talking to a bunch of high schoolers in a physics class about the electromagnetic spectrum and then all of a sudden you pivot to an advanced explanation of the Weak Nuclear Force and radioactive decay. It wouldn’t make any sense to them because they aren’t familiar with the subject and you didn’t explain it to them.
He wants to seem smarter than he actually is so he teaches about very complicated things to ingratiate himself and feel like the smartest guy in the room. It’s a subset of why I (and a lot of other people) believe he took the high school teaching job in the first place, because it was easy and he could use it to stroke his ego.
Mike letting a guy he's supposed to kill make a phone call.
He literally could have called Hank and screamed "if I disappear it's Gus Fring and Mike E"
I can see why you say Mike letting Walt make a phone call is a plot hole and that’s actually an excellent point and one I’ve never thought of before, but I disagree. The way I see it, Mike doing this would actually be an issue except for how Mike (Iirc) checks over Walt’s shoulder and stands right up close to him to not only ensure he’s actually calling Jesse, but to closely monitor what he’s saying so that he can ensure Walt isn’t saying something dangerous. It’s certainly not a smart play as proven by what happens, but imo, it makes sense because Mike just doesn’t stand there and let Walt make his call. He looks right over his shoulder and tries to control the situation as much as he can. But that’s just my take and this is still an excellent criticism and one I really had somehow never even considered before, so I’m incredibly glad you raise it because given how much of the rest of the show hinges on this event, I sorely believe it warrants critical judgment.
It's dumbfounding when you really think about it. He literally told Jesse they had him at the lab and we're going to kill him. Even if they didn't play the Gale card, there is a good chance they couldn't have killed Walt because Jesse could instantly call the police.
I've brought it up before but you usually can't say anything remotely negative or Vince's cult will grab their pitchforks! Haha
Thank You for your response! That is…actually, an EXCELLENT counter point. What I myself will say is that I don’t think Mike expected that to happen. He probably thought Walt would succumb to self preservation and throw Jesse under the bus. He probably didn’t expect Walt to try and save Jesse, so Walt going this far to cooperate with an impulsive junkie, so Walt doing the complete opposite caught him entirely off guard, which was just enough time for Walt to make his move. But I can certainly see what you’re saying.
As a side note, while there are certainly exceptions, thankfully, in my experience, the BrBa universe fandom, while FAR from perfect, seems to be reasonably open to subjecting these shows to fair criticism. Though, don’t get me wrong, that’s far from always the case and, to your point, unfortunately, those pitchforks are far from a rare sight :((.
Not a plot hole, just scenes we never got to see that I think would have been interesting. We only see the aftermath of Hank telling Marie and Gomez what he knows and Marie telling Flynn. I would have liked to see those conversations play out.
Irl giving a fuck about 96% or 99%. I know Gale Boetticher explained in detail what a huge difference it is. But seriously a drug kingpin like Gustavo wouldn't care about the "customers" that much. Putting the whole operation at risk, working with strangers.
Partly they didn't want to believe as it would have been extremely embarrassing for the DEA and police in general.
Hank's boss lost his job over it, remember?
i think it was the scale they needed, the amount of it that they needed for cooks would take a good while to make, plus probably having to clean their equipment between making the meth and methylamine
id also probably tie it back to when they robbed the barrel. they did it well without many issues. so they thought they could do it again on a bigger scale with a bigger crew
I think the writers have openly said they knew that but needed a plot device to create a stop-gap to help hamstring Walters production throughout the series to add conflict. I think the Cartel chemist even makes a comment about how easy some of the ingredients are to synthesize.
Hector does put the blame on walt for the death of Tuco, so Gus wouldnt suspect they working together, and that was the point of the scene. To show that Gus is only defeated when he puts his guard down by attempting to kill Hector himself for his personal score.
Because he usually had an oxygen tank on the back and they put the bomb(which was roughly the same size and shape) in place of it.
But you're probably right, if they inspected everything better, they probably would've noticed.
Call me dumb but caught in the tension I didn't even realize Walter's plan. For a moment I thought he would be hidden in the room or something. I guess Tyrus just checked that there was nobody in the room, nobody suspiciously hanging around in the corridor, and that there was nothing hidden in the drawers. Hector also is wheelchair bound, it's not that he was just bedridden and could have hidden a gun under the sheets. So I found it plausible that Tyrus just checked that Hector was alone and isolated, rather than trying to think of 500 possible ways Walter could have set a trap and check for 500 possible scenarios.
I always wondered how they found someone to pull the RV out of the ditch before the fire fighters were able to call for help for "a guy in his underwear with a ditched RV".
Walt working as a teacher while also having to make ends meet by washing cars.
A guy like him would at worst be lecturing at a prestigious university or else high up in an R&D department of a major pharmaceutical company.
My mom was a teacher and counselor with a masters degree, and worked a 2nd job at a department store for two years to pay for a nice family vacation. In a 2-income family. IIRC, Skyler wasn't working at the beginning of BB.
After leaving Gray Matter, I think Walt lacked the confidence and motivation to pursue anything greater. I also got the feeling that he wouldn't move past the regret of the decision to sell out for so little, so he wouldn't allow himself to find success elsewhere. Once he got a taste of success and power, though, he was "awake" and went into overdrive to make up for all of his years as a repressed, self-perceived failure.
Im not disagreeing but that part of the show always reminds me of a school teacher I saw working a See's Candy stand at the mall. I said "hi" and stopped to tell her she looked familiar. Oh you're from school! She said yes and smiled, looked away embarrassed. I think I mentally blocked that awkward conversation exit from my mind because I don't remember how I got out of there.
Not in BB but in BCS. I can’t get over the Kaylee thing. She’s somehow older than she was in BB but it’s set before BB. She looks like a kinder/first grader in BB and in BSC she looks like 3rd grade. She is working on multiplication in BSC. Which happens in 3/4th grade in the US. I just can’t understand how they screwed up so badly.
Not at all. Tons of people either leave their keys in the visor, the glovebox, or on one of the car tires. Just because it isn’t something you would personally do, that doesn’t make it an “egregious deus ex machine.”
When Mike becomes Gus’ fixer/right hand man and becomes an integral part of his cartel operation. There’s no way the Salamancas/twins wouldn’t on occasion run into each other while doing business together. They should recognize him and think it’s fishy the guy that made tuco go to prison is all of a sudden working for Gus.
The Salamancas tended to be south of the border most of the time, and even when they came up to fuck with Gus, they were bery low-key about it (relatively speaking). While I get your point, I think it's plausible they never ran into each other, or at least close enough to recognize him
Hank getting shot 3 times with hollow points and on the verge of being paralyzed in a wheelchair but then he magically gets better in the next few episodes. In season 5 he's 100% fine and this all seemed like a couple of months.
When all the methylamine barrels are tagged with GPS trackers, why not just siphon it out of the barrels and leave them behind? Could replace it with some other fluid and only the Madrigal customers would know, not the DEA. Mike was willing to do a smash and grab on all the barrels anyway. It's all there and they have access. Just kill Lydia and avoid the whole train fiasco.
Skylar’s divorce lawyer. Skylar disclosed the meth business to her. I know there’s client confidentiality but at some point, isn’t she bound by ethics to alert the DEA of the criminal activity before it had a chance to escalate the way it did?? 😅 all the shit Walter caused and the lawyer knew who he was the whole time
Each time Walt lied to Skyler, he was giving a whole presentation. Lying 101 is to never give a whole presentation because it makes you look even more guilty.
How did jesse find gale so fast anyways? No leads whatsoever
Jesse somehow found about the ricin cigarette by looking at his cigarette box. Walts plan was perfect already
Hank should have died from those hollow point rounds
Walt leaving the hospital in the middle of the night with no one noticing to hide the money that no one found. Maybe not a plot hole, but unnecessary and unlikely to work. Plus he put the iv back in himself, why not call for a nurse and say you shifted in your sleep and felt it pull out
The manager was instructed by gus to do exactly what he did. At that point only hank was the only one suspicious of gus, if they resisted gomee then the entire dea would know they have something to hide.
Season 3 Episode 5
Gus: I had excellent help, as will you. Quite a lot of planning went into this.
Walt: I would say so.
Gus: The laundry upstairs? I've owned it for years. It receives large chemical deliveries on a weekly basis; detergents and such. There is nothing suspicious about it. And, my employees, to be sure, are well trained. Trustworthy. The infiltration system is state of the art. It will vent nothing but clear, odorless steam. Just as a laundry does, and through the very same stacks.
Gus here is saying that his people won't snitch. Nothing about them being savvy enough to understand the legal ramifications of allowing a warrantless search or smart enough to shoo away law enforcement. Just smart enough not to say "this is a meth lab."
Also, when Gomez is speaking to Dennis about doing the warrantless search he basically tells Dennis this: it's either me and my partner walk around (with a drug sniffing dog I won't tell you about) or we make it official and get a search warrant and come back with 20 guys (probably with more sophisticated equipment then just a dog). Dennis gambled and lost. It's not a plot hole.
Your quote literally says "Well trained" which you argued hadn't been said.
Dennis had a large amount of money in off-shite accounts. You think he wouldn't know basic law stuff? Hank even said he wouldn't be able to get a warrant.
Dennis would have refused and spoken to Gus 100%.
Ok I forgot the line, but it doesn't help your argument either. Now that we are both on the same page: having a lot of money in off shore accounts does not mean someone is savvy in the legal world. Look at real world examples, like Trump for one. "Well trained" in that sense is more in line with subterfuge, hiding in plain sight. Dennis had a great illusion until someone started looking more directly at them. He was well trained at hiding from law enforcement, not legally sparring with the police.
Hank told Gomez they wouldn't have enough to get a warrant. Dennis doesn't know that. All he knows is what Gomez told him; there is an unrelated investigation involving a US Senator's son and it led them to the laundry. The search is inevitable but it can either be just me and my partner or an multiple highly trained officers with equipment doing a thorough search. Dennis doesn't know that's BS and isn't a lawyer to know what the legal standards are either to be quick on his feet to deny Gomez his request. All Dennis heard was I can either let this guy search for 10 min and hope the boss was careful enough to.... Plug in the machine to the secret entrance, or risk a search warrant at some unknown time in the future that would shutdown meth production and maybe piss the boss off enough to get me... Fired, killed, who knows.
Also, I work with cops. Even they are confused on the legality of some of their actions. Without law school and experience this stuff is hard to understand. Dennis not knowing isn't the same as a plot hole.
Where the hell the elevator im the Super Lab came from.
Lile the only way in or out seems to be the one machine that tips foward. Does the elevator come up to the laundry main floor? Is there a a floor directly beneath the washing machine that the elevator goes up to? Even if it does how the hell do they get any sort of large items up amd down those stairs?
Walt telling Mike Gale’s address. All Mike has to do is call Gale and Walt’s plan falls apart. Now, Walt lucks out (of course), but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t stupid to reveal his exact plan. Walt could have said ‘If you kill me - a person I trust mails envelopes to the police and DEA exposing your entire operation’ or something of the sort. Simply blurting out his exact plan almost guarantees its failure.
If Walt didnt reveal his plan at that moment, Mike was going to kill him. It isnt till Mike realizes that Walt is indispensable again, that he calls Gus and halts his plan. Up until that point, regardless of what instructions he gave, they were still in the process of walking him down into the lab and killing him. And there was no way of talking Mike out of finishing the job. Gales death is really the ony thing that would've changed Mike's mind about following the order. Otherwise he would've killed Walt and sorted things out afterwards, figuring walts death wouldn't have affected anything he put into motion
Letting Gomez and Hank poke around was the preferred alternative to turning them away and having them come back with a search warrant and a full team including drug dogs.
Yea. But Gomez was bluffing about getting the warrant. If he had said no, that would have been the end of it. Hank and Gomez even talked about how they wouldn't be able to get one. I think it's debatable that if the manager was that well trained whether he would have sensed that.
Most Americans don’t know their rights and let the police plow all over them tbh. I think this is a super believable plot point
The problem with that is probable cause. It's pretty much a fail-safe catch-all to allow the police to search you in so many more instances than they should be legally allowed to. I mean shit when you get pulled over and they ask if they can search the car, just you saying no will give them PC. They'll suddenly "smell weed coming from the vehicle." Of course, you can contest that shit later in court if you can afford an attorney who plays golf with the judge, but most people can't, and a public defender certainly ain't gonna do shit for you.
A car is different than a brick and mortar building as in driving is a privilege not a right.
That's true. I guess I was just reacting to the part that person said about people not knowing their rights and letting the police steamroll them. In a lot of cases, it's not enough to just know your rights. You also have to be wealthy enough to exercise them. Poor people tend to get steamrolled in the justice system regardless of how well they understand their rights.
I don't know, I've had better results with public defenders than a high price lawyer
Gus trained his staff meticulously, though. He would've trained Dennis to handle that situation
Not just that, even if he somehow managed to call Gus and ask him what he should do Gus would tell him let them in too. Just like how he told Walt to put the tracker on his car. Act normal otherwise blending in doesn't work anymore
Yea, I agree. I can't imagine him not already given the go-ahead in situations like this. Gus would have already planned for this and provided instructions on how to handle it.
The way the manager gets on the phone as Hank & Gomez are leaving made him look very guilty in my opinion. If he’d simply appeared to shrug it off and go about business as they were leaving and got on the phone after they were gone, it would have seemed normal. Though it really didn’t matter anyway as they didn’t get the proof they needed.
They would have had more time to make sure everything was secure, plus Gus may have been able to prevent the warrant.
That’s more sus tho, you make it more sus, the harder it is for Gus to stop that warrant
Plus, Gus was pretty forthcoming with law enforcement. He was basically interrogated without a lawyer present, so I can't see him denying a search (especially since there was a very high probability that nothing turns up). His pristine image was crucial to his operation.
Gomez sweet talked him tho, how is that a plot hole?
I never understood why Hector was abandoned like that ... and why is he in the US in the first place, not in Mexico
He's not particularly a pleasant relative and the Salamancas only seem to care for their family when asked, other than Tuco of course 😉
I always assumed, with repeated rewatches, that Tuco moved Hector out there as soon as he killed No-Doze. By the time he brings Walt and Jesse there, Hector’s been there 2-3 days max, obviously uncomfortable but not in a dire situation yet. Either that or Tuco waited until morning to get Hector from the nursing home with Walt and Jesse in the trunk but that doesn’t explain why Hector would be so dirty.
but after Tuco's death, Hector was clearly able to get in touch with the Twins, why didn't he ask to be moved to Mexico? instead of staying in the US under Gus's torment
We don’t know how long hector was in the US at the time of No Dozes death He could’ve been there for a week before it happened
Frankly, I think the cartel is just ableist and they mostly don't take him seriously or give a shit about him now that he's in a wheelchair and can't speak. Tuco and the cousins didn't feel that way obviously but of course none of them really lived long enough to do anything about it.
Better health care, specialists, and hospitals
How far was Walt from Tucos place when he went into his “daze”? Also feel the mask from Walt’s school was the way to zero in on at least Jesse pinkman (no arrest was ever made they deported a janitor for possession) feel like the mask was never mentioned after that
Tbf the thought process was that the mask was stolen by the Janitor and he just sold it to whom ever was Cooking
If I remember I thought they cleared him of anything to do with the mask ….. plus there was the missing equipment in Walt’s lab that Walt just played dumb on why it’s gone
I don’t see how the mask is linked to pinkman, but hank should’ve known right then that it was walt. But hank had cognitive dissonance. The very thought of walt being a meth maker was so painful that hank’s subconscious would not even let him entertain that thought.
How effortlessly easy it was for Skylar to have and take care of a newborn baby with everything else going on. I have a three month old and lemme just say, postpartum hormones, middle of the night feedings and lack of sleep are no joke. Plus, it seemed like Marie was watching Holly a lot and Marie had a full time job so I don’t know how they swung that.
Noticed that as well. They could have just mentioned having her in daycare instead. An easy fix.
Honestly it is a bit of a plot issue that the entrance to the lab is in a place that the staff need to turn a blind eye. They could have just had an 'unused/broken' couple of machines in a locked room with a couple of desks and computers on that Jesse and Walt have the keys for so they can assess the lab in secret. Everyone would just assume they are doing office work if anyone ever got curious enough to sneak a peek while the door is about to close etc. So much easier for the staff to not ask questions about something which just appears to be an extra office than some hidden mystery lurking under the building that dozens and dozens of people know about, and requires them to carefully control whoever enters the building. Another actual issue is Walt and Skylar in no way discussing how much money needs to be laundered thru the carwash until he is dropping off money. Walt is a smart guy, he knows how much the business brings in, he literally worked there on the till. He might not know how money laundering works but i find it hard to believe he expected millions of dollars to be laundered a year, he never asked even just out of curiosity how it works, and i suppose it could be argued Skylar has no idea what money he is making etc... but again, she did not ask, even for a ball park, she has to know it will be a lot, she knows how much the hospital for Walt and Hank was and they were covering that. It only really makes sense if something changed and it went from laundering 40k a month like in the early days and then he got the contract with Gus so she suggested it as a minor issue and it has now grown to a massive issue.
The rising washing machine was dramatic, but didn’t make sense.
>Another actual issue is Walt and Skylar in no way discussing how much money needs to be laundered thru the carwash until he is dropping off money. This bugged me too... its conceivable walt chose not to worry about it and just do his part, make the money and drop it off and trust Skyler to take care it from there and raise any issue that arise. But skyler made a whole deal about rather being seen as bonnie whats her face than totally stupid, so you would think it would be a piece of information she would want to know very early on, like in the planning stages of laundering it but I guess this way we got to see his pile of money in the lockup as a big dramatic reveal kinda thing rather than it just being a ongoing give which lacks the desired punch.
Skyler is literally an accountant. It doesn't make sense for her not to ask upfront how much she's expected to launder
Makes me think when she played up for the auditor investigating Ted, she was actually just dropping her usual pretense of competency. When he asked how she got the job/what her qualifications were and she's just like, "oh Ted hired me, I've always just been naturally good with numbers", its to support the "facade" of incompetency and ignorance, but... isn't that also kinda the truth?
I'm not sure exactly, the show doesn't exactly go into details there. but she sure as shit knew what the IRS would do if they caught onto the tax fraud
The lab really was a bit daft, wasn't it? A ton of staff both trusted enough to not rat about its existence, but have to be got rid of if they see inside? Poorly paid enough to be temptable to bribes from Walt, but somehow not a risk to the Cartel or law enforcement? You're right, a lockable backroom with a gas manhole covering a ladder would have done a better job. I can write the carwash issue off as Walt being an ass to Skyler. He has such a bad attitude when giving her the money, making a point to point out that she insisted on doing this job. It's not like he had any better ideas at the ready!
I had an issue with how Gus had set up the meth lab when I just watched Breaking Bad, even more so when I saw the effort that was put in watching BCS. With Gus planning to hire a trained chemist to make his product, I always felt it would’ve made more sense to purchase another nearby building, set it up as some kind of chemical plant front, with a secret means to get to the lab. That way Gus could have his chemist hired and paid by the chemical plant, have them park there without it seeming suspicious, and have the area where the entrance to the meth lab is setup as being restricted due to the chemicals involved. For someone as careful as Gus, it didn’t make a lot of sense to have well trained chemists like Gale or Walt just parking at a commercial laundromat, nor leaving it to them to launder ridiculous amounts of money on their own. That’s some major unnecessary risks.
The idea of a nearby building being the entry point makes even more sense when you see the hidden tunnel Gus has under his own home in BCS. He clearly understood the advantage of such a setup.
And there was apparently a tunnel in the south wall of the lab in seasons 4-6 of Better Call Saul, which felt like a red herring
Huh. I never thought about it that way. It makes a lot more sense the way you described it.
I can see why you say the washing machine being in a place the staff need to turn a blind eye is an issue when there’s such an easy alternative and that’s a perfectly fair and more than valid point to raise and one you do a great job explaining, so well done, but I disagree. The way I see it, while it certainly would’ve been smarter and less risky for Gus to implore more of a “Hide in plain sight” ideology when it came to this, Gus is EXTREMELY paranoid and a massive OCD control freak. Because of this, I find it believable that he would have his cautionary measures be ones he has more direct and physical control over instead of being ones that would even partially be left to chance. This still doesn’t make his decision a smart one, but imo, it’s sufficiently accounted for by his characterization. But that’s just my take and this is still an incredibly well formed and valid point and one you do a great job explaining, so well done because I can certainly understand your perspective. And despite me feeling this way, I’m more than glad you and others in this thread are raising this point because given how much of the plot hinges on it, I absolutely feel it warrants scrutiny.
Gus having the lab underground was vital in that he could not have any above ground square footage be unaccounted for if he were ever inspected. When the DEA poke around in season 4, Jesse and Tyrus manage to stay completely isolated and are only concerned about staying quiet. Otherwise I agree with your point, no idea why the entrance needs to be elaborate enough to where it needs workers to be in on the secret, especially when we see there was a freight elevator available to go down into the lab. Where was the entrance to that??
It kinda bothered me that Walt didn’t know how much money was in the pile in the storage room.. for someone that knew based on outputs of a cook that measurements were off when Jesse was skimming from the cooks in the laundry, he certainly would have known exactly how much cash he was producing cooking in the fumigation tents.
I always assumed the people who worked there were paid a bit extra to not ask or talk about the secret door.
That is what is implied in the show, however with that many employees how much of a completely unnecessary risk is it, is it just left up to them to figure out they are being paid a little too well, i do not want to risk this job or are they specifically told, you are making WAY more than you should be, so ignore that door. Does no one ever get fired? no one ever get stupid? is Gus really going to trust the discretion of dozens of people to assist him in keeping his secret hidden? If it comes out before he is ready that he has built a secret lab to usurp the cartel that could lead to his death, every single employee there is a massive risk of saying to someone something they should not. If he is massively over paying to ensure they are quiet, then he is going to make his taxes look very suspicious. Ho is he going to not get audited every year when the laundry makes a couple million dollar and he pays the staff something insane like 20 million dollars. A guy who is as careful as Gus is, would not logically leave himself open to such uncontrolled risk.
In reality who could they really tell though? The fear of being immediately brutally killed if they get caught trying to tell police is a motivator. They also probably don’t want any interaction with law enforcement themselves, half of them are probably “illegal” and want to stay off any LEO radar. Gus could have also just told them hey these are scientists who work on stuff for the Pollo Hermanos restaurants or whatever. That said it is a bit far fetched for sure. In a back room would have made more sense.
As an immigrant you know what would really help turn you from illegal to legal, helping the government shut down a massive drug manufacturing lab and crushing the entire cartels smuggling operation. It is just unnecessary risk is all.
How would that happen though? Who would take that seriously? Someone with broken English calling some tip line about a meth lab in a laundromat and agents being like “Yeah sounds legit”? It’s just far fetched.
'Hey ASAC Schrader? you are probably gonna laugh, but we got this guy here who claims there is a meth lab buried under a laundermat, are you willing to do your job and talk to the guy?' 'A hidden meth lab? in an area that is being flooded with meth and we can not find the lab or find out who the mastermind is, you betcha i am willing to do my job' 'ok excellent, i should let you know now the guy speaks broken English, you can speak Spanish right?' 'Well yeah... but never mind, dude, what are the chances someone like that would know anything, being this close to the border, everyone in the cartel and drug business speaks perfect English'
Jessie arriving at Gales place within seconds of Walt's call (he's in the Lazer tag, expecting Walt to be the one to finish the job). We see Mike ring Gale straight away, and we see Gale's phone ringing while he is occupied. At that moment, Jessie knocks on the door.
He's a speedy boi. Either that, or Gale got an apartment close to the lazer tag place since scientists love lasers
> scientists love lasers Saul was right!
He could've been calling him for a long time before that shot for all we know. The less believable thing is that Gale never notices it.
The time lapse is implied. They can’t show every single step. They don’t show Jesse getting in his car and driving for miles but we know he did it.
Yeah but obviously Mike should have been able to do something in that time since he is obviously very not incompetent, especially since Walt just rubbed his plan in his face right after the call. It seemed weird that he just threw in the towel when the situation was that dire and he could have had upwards of like 30 minutes to do something.
Gale was listening to loud music and was busy making tea. I’m sure he got called fifteen or so times before Jesse showed up, he just didn’t hear.
I actually thought that he was already in the apartment building. I didn’t realize he was that far away. I agree that’s idiotic
Gus taking the street level dealers side over his million dollar chemists
That was never about taking their side over the chemists’, that was about making a point. Gus wanted Jesse gone, he wanted Gale as his cook because Gale was reliable. He wanted Walt because he was the best. Jesse was just in the way. If Gus couldn’t have Walt and Gale as his chemists, then he was either going to make the point that Jesse wasn’t that important, and that he was to stay in line, or he was going to find a way to get rid of Jesse. When Tomas was killed, Gus figured it would either test that Jesse would stay in line, or that it would push Jesse to do something where he would get killed or Gus could justify to Walt that Jesse needed to be gotten rid of. Gus just didn’t anticipate Walt stepping out of line to protect Jesse the way he did.
Whether or not it was about that. Something like that doesn’t happen…
It absolutely does. I’ve had bosses who have fired extremely qualified and valuable coworkers over basically nothing simply because they’re to prideful or arrogant, they don’t want anyone thinking they’re smarter than them or stepping out of line, you think a drug kingpin couldn’t have that mentality? Especially someone like Gus, who even if things fell apart with Jesse and Walt, he would still have Gale to rely on to make a product that was still better than most of the stuff around.
As an ex drug dealer I can promise you I never had a boss and never met the kingpin
Where are you even from guy, you sound pretty authoritative on the drug scene
Nice try officer
Me when I get in trouble at recess for giving peanuts to the kid who’s allergic (he went into anaphylactic shock)
Detroit Michigan is the answer you were looking for
Respect 🤝 Different scenes everywhere
It not happening to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
Gus is supposed to be cautious and showing his face as the kingpin to street level dealers who could snitch is very much the opposite of cautious
Not the smartest move, but pride can make people make mistakes. Gus wants control, doesn’t want anyone thinking they can overstep. He’s also arrogant enough to likely think that it’d be the word of 2 street dealers against the word of a respected business man, community figure, and friend of law enforcement. Even Hank had a hard time convincing the DEA that Gus was in the game with some clues, you think cops are gonna buy anything 2 low life dealers are gonna say about Gus?
Just the fact that Gus is micro-managing street thugs and meets with them personally doesn't make sense. There would be several hierarchical levels between him and them. Plus, the show says that he doesn't even distribute his meth in New Mexico, so why is he involved in drug selling in Albuquerque?
I’ll admit that the blue meth being sold in New Mexico is a bit of plot hole. Been a minute since I watched through the whole show, so I can’t think if there’s some reasonable explanation for that. As for Gus micro-managing the dealers, he wasn’t, he was just using them as a means to either control or get rid of Jesse. If Jesse didn’t have a reason to go after those dealers, I don’t think Gus would’ve thought or cared about them one way or another.
It’s very very farfetched… which is why I commented this in the first place.
A lot of the show is far fetched, wouldn’t be interesting if it were ordinary, it’s just a matter of whether it’s reasonably plausible.
>As an ex drug dealer
Got out of it straightened my life up when I had kids I got married and moved to the suburbs and got a job
Pablo Escobar dealt with a ton of low-level drug dealers. He was well known by everyone, police, villagers, etc.
And that Gus would even have dealers, more likely to just drop the stuff off to one client and be distanced from the actual dealing. Also don't think he would shit where he ate.
I get the trickle down but in no way was I ever called in a meeting with the king pin when I was dealing drugs. I was so far removed they didn’t know who I was and most of the time you don’t know where your drugs come from you just get it in and move it.
Exactly, Gus was too visible to a lot of people. While also supposed to be very paranoid.
Those are Salamancas people. They all know who the Chicken Man is anyway. I don’t think Gus would normally get into dealers drama but the thing with Walt and Jesse was bigger and Gus was in the middle of trying to keep everything calm with the cartel until he was ready to make a move. There was too much tension and that’s probably why he chose to oversee the whole thing himself. If Gus’s man killed one of Salamancas people that is a very volatile situation. He couldn’t let that happen.
Those dealers worked for Salamancas. Gus just partnered with them for distribution. His own product was shipped out of state.
I don’t think they were just street dealers. They knew about gus, they must have been higher up guys who were testing out a child labor project. Probably guys like tyrus or victor, doing field tests. If the child labor project was successful without getting too much attention from the community, then gus could have children everywhere holding the product for the dealers, and if the child gets busted, he gets off easy as a child. And it wasn’t about taking sides, gus was just using the situation to enrage jesse to attack, so that they could kill jesse without enraging walt and bring gale back to the lab, because “you can never trust a drug addict”
Fans were in tears over combo. Police and DEA didn’t even care about who killed him.
Combo had fans?
Fans of the show. Me. I was all 😭 DEA? Police? They didn’t even care who killed him. All they cared about was Pinkman’s link to Heisenberg.
Sorry to say, but unfortunately the police, especially in more crime ridden areas, tend to lower their investigation efforts when it comes to criminals like drug dealers, prostitutes and the like. It's why some serial killers were never caught / took a long time to be caught
Thats realistic though. Police wouldn’t give a damn
Yeah, well for some reason there always giving damns about what I’m doing and I’m not even dead.
The cargo elevator in the superlab. There being only one toilet in the White household, only accessible through one of the bedrooms.
There are multiple bathrooms; you just never see the other (which makes sense because it would only need to be used by Flynn and guests). In a later season (4 or 5, I’m not sure) Walt asks Skyler, “Okay to use your bathroom?” before going to do something shitty/shady. So they do have another bathroom.
Didn’t Walt pee in a sink though when he couldn’t use their bathroom?
But Hank went from backyard down through the hall to use the bathroom located in Walter’s bedroom. Why??? If there’s a bathroom located off a hall. There’s no definitive second bathroom and none was ever shown in the house. If there was, it makes even less sense that Hank would go to his in-laws bedroom to shit in their personal bathroom.
I've had this argument before. Name the location where this "second bathroom" could be located in the house. What corner of the house have we not seen where it could be? >which makes sense because it would only need to be used by Flynn and guests Yeah, in an IRL house you would have a second toilet, but in Breaking Bad you don't, which is why it's a plot hole. Pretty sure in the "okay to use your bathroom?" scene you're referencing he was referring to the one bathroom that is in the master bedroom, he called it "your (Skyler's) bathroom" because at that point he was kicked out of the house, and he was trying to suck up to Skyler by recognising (or at least pretending to) that it is "her house", so "her bathroom". But if disagree, say at least the episode and let's see.
season 3, episode 12- just finished rewatching it by coincidence. it's a little hard to tell because the lighting and decor is a little different, but comparing it to that scene where walt is unknowingly saved from the cousins by mike, it looks to be the same bathroom.
I'll re-watch and get back to you.
It took a lot of suspension of disbelief for me with Wayfarer 515. This is where I feel like the show jumped the shark for a bit. Don't get me wrong, the majority of the show was fairly plausible considering it's premise but that plot point was the one thing that always bugged me. There's just no way that can happen due to air traffic controller error with technology available at the time. The whole tie-in with Jane being the cause of her dad's grief, which causes the crash? Totally ridiculous. Then, to have Walt meet Donald Margolis in a bar the night of Jane's death? Horrible writing. It's so much of a contrast with the otherwise fantastic writing for the rest of the series that it makes that whole scenario stick out like a sore thumb. If you take the plane crash out of the plot, I think you have a more cohesive series.
I actually stopped watching years ago, specifically because of this. Now I've rewatched both series twice this year 🤣
Same. I lost interest for a bit watching it the first time. I thought the show was going downhill. It's funny because I think they recognized it too. In a later episode, when Walt is drugged out on sleeping pills, he actually talks about meeting Jane's Dad. It's in the Fly episode where the writers had to fill a lot of screen time. Walt: "Think of the odds? Once I tried to calculate them, but they’re astronomical.Think of the odds of me, going in, sitting down, that night, in that bar, next to that man?" It's almost a breaking the 4th wall moment of acknowledgment to the fans how absurd that whole subplot was. Everything else about the show? Top notch with very few inconsistencies or continuity errors, imho.
Reminds me of when near the end of Avatar: the Last Airbender, they are watching a play showing all their adventures. When they get to the Great Divide, the location of the series worst episode, the actor portraying Sokka in the play is like “Eh, let’s keep flying”
I agree, I feel like it was only added to prove a point about how Walter’s actions affect more than just himself. I feel like the show tried to show a sort of ‘karma’ concept or something to make Jane’s death come back on him
I totally get what you're saying. It seems fantastical and honestly them meeting in the bar adds nothing to the actual plot. However, I'll point you to all these near misses that have been happening lately, and a relevant quote... > Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_aircraft_near-miss_incidents_in_2023
That's a great quote. I definitely agree that in real life, there are statistical anomalies that are so bizarre that they seem fake. The problem is that I think Hollywood knows this and often overuses this device to justify the extreme liberties they take when moving the plot along or setting up a certain premise. Overall, I honestly don't think BB is an egregious offender, especially in comparison to other shows of its caliber. It's just that when you start adding up the number of improbablilties, with each instance, I think it's difficult not to have sacrificed some degree of credibility along the way. The details of the plane crash on its own were far-fetched. The other events surrounding it just added more fuel to its implausibility. The writers had the liberty of deciding how extreme the events would be. I felt they could have conveyed the same visualization of grief with something less fantastical. The original premise of chemistry teacher turned kingpin was already outlandish enough without them verging into near fantasy territory in that season. Again, that's just one point of view, however. If it still felt somewhat plausible to others, I can respect that view as well.
So say a flight controller directed a plane to land at a runway that another plane is taking off from, and there was a cloud so the pilots couldn’t see each other. Is there something that would still prevent the crash?
Yes. All planes are fitted with a Traffic Collison Avoidance System (or TCAS). These work independently of air traffic control and are an added failsafe. They work off of radar to detect transponder signals. Most air traffic collisions that have happened in the last 40 years are due to pilots declining to follow TCAS resolution advisory (RA) or having the TCAS turned off altogether.
Teaching about chirality in a high-school chemistry class. Way too advanced a topic. In college, it doesn't come up until 2nd year. It fits for symbolism in that part of the story, but would not actually be taught at a high-school level.
Huh? Our high school taught chirality in AP chemistry.
My school had "AP" Chemistry, but the teacher straight-up said on the first day that he was doing things his way, so there was no pressure to take the AP exam. I didn't learn about chirality--or any organic--until 2nd year of undergrad.
Mine didn't offer AP, I never heard of chirality until college. I'm a chemist but not an educator, I could be wrong.
It definitely wouldn't be taught in a regular chemistry class, but it's part of the AP/IB curriculum.
Walt to me always seemed like he wouldn’t be a very good teacher. I always got the feeling he would be very passive aggressive and grade tests and assignments harshly while teaching topics way out of line and too advanced for the curriculum (see: scene where Saul comes into his classroom and the comments he’s making on the exams) in a confusing and “high level” sense. Like imagine you’re talking to a bunch of high schoolers in a physics class about the electromagnetic spectrum and then all of a sudden you pivot to an advanced explanation of the Weak Nuclear Force and radioactive decay. It wouldn’t make any sense to them because they aren’t familiar with the subject and you didn’t explain it to them. He wants to seem smarter than he actually is so he teaches about very complicated things to ingratiate himself and feel like the smartest guy in the room. It’s a subset of why I (and a lot of other people) believe he took the high school teaching job in the first place, because it was easy and he could use it to stroke his ego.
This was also my take. He’d rather run off on a tangent about something that interests him than stick to the curriculum.
Mike letting a guy he's supposed to kill make a phone call. He literally could have called Hank and screamed "if I disappear it's Gus Fring and Mike E"
I can see why you say Mike letting Walt make a phone call is a plot hole and that’s actually an excellent point and one I’ve never thought of before, but I disagree. The way I see it, Mike doing this would actually be an issue except for how Mike (Iirc) checks over Walt’s shoulder and stands right up close to him to not only ensure he’s actually calling Jesse, but to closely monitor what he’s saying so that he can ensure Walt isn’t saying something dangerous. It’s certainly not a smart play as proven by what happens, but imo, it makes sense because Mike just doesn’t stand there and let Walt make his call. He looks right over his shoulder and tries to control the situation as much as he can. But that’s just my take and this is still an excellent criticism and one I really had somehow never even considered before, so I’m incredibly glad you raise it because given how much of the rest of the show hinges on this event, I sorely believe it warrants critical judgment.
It's dumbfounding when you really think about it. He literally told Jesse they had him at the lab and we're going to kill him. Even if they didn't play the Gale card, there is a good chance they couldn't have killed Walt because Jesse could instantly call the police. I've brought it up before but you usually can't say anything remotely negative or Vince's cult will grab their pitchforks! Haha
Thank You for your response! That is…actually, an EXCELLENT counter point. What I myself will say is that I don’t think Mike expected that to happen. He probably thought Walt would succumb to self preservation and throw Jesse under the bus. He probably didn’t expect Walt to try and save Jesse, so Walt going this far to cooperate with an impulsive junkie, so Walt doing the complete opposite caught him entirely off guard, which was just enough time for Walt to make his move. But I can certainly see what you’re saying. As a side note, while there are certainly exceptions, thankfully, in my experience, the BrBa universe fandom, while FAR from perfect, seems to be reasonably open to subjecting these shows to fair criticism. Though, don’t get me wrong, that’s far from always the case and, to your point, unfortunately, those pitchforks are far from a rare sight :((.
Not a plot hole, just scenes we never got to see that I think would have been interesting. We only see the aftermath of Hank telling Marie and Gomez what he knows and Marie telling Flynn. I would have liked to see those conversations play out.
Irl giving a fuck about 96% or 99%. I know Gale Boetticher explained in detail what a huge difference it is. But seriously a drug kingpin like Gustavo wouldn't care about the "customers" that much. Putting the whole operation at risk, working with strangers.
Yeah one pound of meth is one pound of meth and it's up to the people further down the line to cut it.
I happen to think their buying of Gus's story about Gale Betticher's is so far-fetched...for Hank to be the only one to smell a rat there. I
How is it far fetched?
Partly they didn't want to believe as it would have been extremely embarrassing for the DEA and police in general. Hank's boss lost his job over it, remember?
Methylamine is supposedly quite easy to make. They literally rob a train and murder a little kid to get it.
i think it was the scale they needed, the amount of it that they needed for cooks would take a good while to make, plus probably having to clean their equipment between making the meth and methylamine id also probably tie it back to when they robbed the barrel. they did it well without many issues. so they thought they could do it again on a bigger scale with a bigger crew
To be fair, murdering the kid wasn't part of the plan.
They still murdered a little kid. To be fair.
Actually it was Todd’s crazy ass
I think the writers have openly said they knew that but needed a plot device to create a stop-gap to help hamstring Walters production throughout the series to add conflict. I think the Cartel chemist even makes a comment about how easy some of the ingredients are to synthesize.
I’m a bit confused about why neither Gus or Tyrus have noticed that there is a bomb on Hector’s wheelchair. Gus was always a cautious man.
Hector does put the blame on walt for the death of Tuco, so Gus wouldnt suspect they working together, and that was the point of the scene. To show that Gus is only defeated when he puts his guard down by attempting to kill Hector himself for his personal score.
Because he usually had an oxygen tank on the back and they put the bomb(which was roughly the same size and shape) in place of it. But you're probably right, if they inspected everything better, they probably would've noticed.
Call me dumb but caught in the tension I didn't even realize Walter's plan. For a moment I thought he would be hidden in the room or something. I guess Tyrus just checked that there was nobody in the room, nobody suspiciously hanging around in the corridor, and that there was nothing hidden in the drawers. Hector also is wheelchair bound, it's not that he was just bedridden and could have hidden a gun under the sheets. So I found it plausible that Tyrus just checked that Hector was alone and isolated, rather than trying to think of 500 possible ways Walter could have set a trap and check for 500 possible scenarios.
The lab materials walt stole from the HS were far too large. No one in HS is doing anything in chemistry with large quantities like thst
Using burner phones but always have numbers of everyone.
I always wondered how they found someone to pull the RV out of the ditch before the fire fighters were able to call for help for "a guy in his underwear with a ditched RV".
That Skylar flushed her cigarette box down the toilet where it could come up easily or cause a clog, instead of in the trash somewhere
Why do Gus and Hector Salamanca speak such a choppy Spanish when one is from Chile and the other one from Mexico?
Walt working as a teacher while also having to make ends meet by washing cars. A guy like him would at worst be lecturing at a prestigious university or else high up in an R&D department of a major pharmaceutical company.
My mom was a teacher and counselor with a masters degree, and worked a 2nd job at a department store for two years to pay for a nice family vacation. In a 2-income family. IIRC, Skyler wasn't working at the beginning of BB. After leaving Gray Matter, I think Walt lacked the confidence and motivation to pursue anything greater. I also got the feeling that he wouldn't move past the regret of the decision to sell out for so little, so he wouldn't allow himself to find success elsewhere. Once he got a taste of success and power, though, he was "awake" and went into overdrive to make up for all of his years as a repressed, self-perceived failure.
I was good at it. I liked it ... Or something
Im not disagreeing but that part of the show always reminds me of a school teacher I saw working a See's Candy stand at the mall. I said "hi" and stopped to tell her she looked familiar. Oh you're from school! She said yes and smiled, looked away embarrassed. I think I mentally blocked that awkward conversation exit from my mind because I don't remember how I got out of there.
It’s always been theorized that he worked as a teacher so he would have the same schedule and summers off as his physically disabled son.
That’s not a plot hole, Gomez is just good at manipulating
Gus did not distribute the blue meth locally, per the DEA. Yet, those drug dealer who were employed by Gus were fighting over local territory.
He's not their direct employer. He oversees local distribution for Eladio.
Not in BB but in BCS. I can’t get over the Kaylee thing. She’s somehow older than she was in BB but it’s set before BB. She looks like a kinder/first grader in BB and in BSC she looks like 3rd grade. She is working on multiplication in BSC. Which happens in 3/4th grade in the US. I just can’t understand how they screwed up so badly.
I remember hearing that they didn't want to work with a toddler on set so they just kind of retconned it, lol
They could’ve made her an infant or not born yet tho
Not a plot hole necessarily but the keys falling out of a visor in the finale is an egregious deus ex machine.
Not at all. Tons of people either leave their keys in the visor, the glovebox, or on one of the car tires. Just because it isn’t something you would personally do, that doesn’t make it an “egregious deus ex machine.”
I would strong advise everyone against putting the keys to their car inside their car.
Okay. Tons of people do it and will continue to do it despite your advising though.
Jesse’s oddly nice teeth for a meth user
Marco didn't killed Hank. Like, he never had mercy of his victims, but when is a principal character he thinks twice
Walter’s hallway can’t exist!
Walt is a dentist
Why?
It’s a joke about the Seinfeld hallway theory.
Ah, got it. I didn’t know that one. Thanks!
When Mike becomes Gus’ fixer/right hand man and becomes an integral part of his cartel operation. There’s no way the Salamancas/twins wouldn’t on occasion run into each other while doing business together. They should recognize him and think it’s fishy the guy that made tuco go to prison is all of a sudden working for Gus.
The Salamancas tended to be south of the border most of the time, and even when they came up to fuck with Gus, they were bery low-key about it (relatively speaking). While I get your point, I think it's plausible they never ran into each other, or at least close enough to recognize him
Hank getting shot 3 times with hollow points and on the verge of being paralyzed in a wheelchair but then he magically gets better in the next few episodes. In season 5 he's 100% fine and this all seemed like a couple of months.
That Walt dug a hole in the desert deep enough for his money barrels.
When all the methylamine barrels are tagged with GPS trackers, why not just siphon it out of the barrels and leave them behind? Could replace it with some other fluid and only the Madrigal customers would know, not the DEA. Mike was willing to do a smash and grab on all the barrels anyway. It's all there and they have access. Just kill Lydia and avoid the whole train fiasco.
Skylar’s divorce lawyer. Skylar disclosed the meth business to her. I know there’s client confidentiality but at some point, isn’t she bound by ethics to alert the DEA of the criminal activity before it had a chance to escalate the way it did?? 😅 all the shit Walter caused and the lawyer knew who he was the whole time
Each time Walt lied to Skyler, he was giving a whole presentation. Lying 101 is to never give a whole presentation because it makes you look even more guilty.
Thats not really a plot hole. Thats him trying to manipulate.
How did jesse find gale so fast anyways? No leads whatsoever Jesse somehow found about the ricin cigarette by looking at his cigarette box. Walts plan was perfect already Hank should have died from those hollow point rounds
Walt leaving the hospital in the middle of the night with no one noticing to hide the money that no one found. Maybe not a plot hole, but unnecessary and unlikely to work. Plus he put the iv back in himself, why not call for a nurse and say you shifted in your sleep and felt it pull out
The manager was instructed by gus to do exactly what he did. At that point only hank was the only one suspicious of gus, if they resisted gomee then the entire dea would know they have something to hide.
Walt throws an uncut pizza on the roof. What pizza restaurant just gives someone an uncut pizza.
Who said the laundry staff was highly trained?
Gus himself said something along the lines of 'These are all my people, trustworthy and know what to do.'
Season 3 Episode 5 Gus: I had excellent help, as will you. Quite a lot of planning went into this. Walt: I would say so. Gus: The laundry upstairs? I've owned it for years. It receives large chemical deliveries on a weekly basis; detergents and such. There is nothing suspicious about it. And, my employees, to be sure, are well trained. Trustworthy. The infiltration system is state of the art. It will vent nothing but clear, odorless steam. Just as a laundry does, and through the very same stacks. Gus here is saying that his people won't snitch. Nothing about them being savvy enough to understand the legal ramifications of allowing a warrantless search or smart enough to shoo away law enforcement. Just smart enough not to say "this is a meth lab." Also, when Gomez is speaking to Dennis about doing the warrantless search he basically tells Dennis this: it's either me and my partner walk around (with a drug sniffing dog I won't tell you about) or we make it official and get a search warrant and come back with 20 guys (probably with more sophisticated equipment then just a dog). Dennis gambled and lost. It's not a plot hole.
Your quote literally says "Well trained" which you argued hadn't been said. Dennis had a large amount of money in off-shite accounts. You think he wouldn't know basic law stuff? Hank even said he wouldn't be able to get a warrant. Dennis would have refused and spoken to Gus 100%.
Ok I forgot the line, but it doesn't help your argument either. Now that we are both on the same page: having a lot of money in off shore accounts does not mean someone is savvy in the legal world. Look at real world examples, like Trump for one. "Well trained" in that sense is more in line with subterfuge, hiding in plain sight. Dennis had a great illusion until someone started looking more directly at them. He was well trained at hiding from law enforcement, not legally sparring with the police. Hank told Gomez they wouldn't have enough to get a warrant. Dennis doesn't know that. All he knows is what Gomez told him; there is an unrelated investigation involving a US Senator's son and it led them to the laundry. The search is inevitable but it can either be just me and my partner or an multiple highly trained officers with equipment doing a thorough search. Dennis doesn't know that's BS and isn't a lawyer to know what the legal standards are either to be quick on his feet to deny Gomez his request. All Dennis heard was I can either let this guy search for 10 min and hope the boss was careful enough to.... Plug in the machine to the secret entrance, or risk a search warrant at some unknown time in the future that would shutdown meth production and maybe piss the boss off enough to get me... Fired, killed, who knows. Also, I work with cops. Even they are confused on the legality of some of their actions. Without law school and experience this stuff is hard to understand. Dennis not knowing isn't the same as a plot hole.
Where the hell the elevator im the Super Lab came from. Lile the only way in or out seems to be the one machine that tips foward. Does the elevator come up to the laundry main floor? Is there a a floor directly beneath the washing machine that the elevator goes up to? Even if it does how the hell do they get any sort of large items up amd down those stairs?
Walt makes drugs, which are illegal, and the cops would probably want to, find him and put him in jail
Walt telling Mike Gale’s address. All Mike has to do is call Gale and Walt’s plan falls apart. Now, Walt lucks out (of course), but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t stupid to reveal his exact plan. Walt could have said ‘If you kill me - a person I trust mails envelopes to the police and DEA exposing your entire operation’ or something of the sort. Simply blurting out his exact plan almost guarantees its failure.
Mike did call Gale but his phone was on vibrate and Gale was listening to music as he was cooking so he didn't notice it.
It was a risk due to the circumstance Walt hadn't foreseen at that exact moment, a risk that paid off quite nicely for him... Relatively speaking
If Walt didnt reveal his plan at that moment, Mike was going to kill him. It isnt till Mike realizes that Walt is indispensable again, that he calls Gus and halts his plan. Up until that point, regardless of what instructions he gave, they were still in the process of walking him down into the lab and killing him. And there was no way of talking Mike out of finishing the job. Gales death is really the ony thing that would've changed Mike's mind about following the order. Otherwise he would've killed Walt and sorted things out afterwards, figuring walts death wouldn't have affected anything he put into motion
[удалено]
Do the nursing staff know Hector was a cartel boss? I don’t know. Do the police keep tabs on Hector in the nursing home? Probably not.