I had originally thought that Walt changed a lot over the course of
Seasons 3 and 4, as if his transformation from good person doing bad things to
bad person was gradual over that time period, but really he's been
pretty lousy from the start. He got that janitor fired when the lab
stuff went missing, he constantly…

I caught my breath when he appeared right in front of Walter at Pollos, but can you imagine if the Come At Me was the first time we'd seen him since the box cutter? It would totally ruin the season's arc, but man…

Also it hasn't been a year in BB time. More like a couple of months.