Miller can be accused of "preaching to the choir" only because the libertines have their hands firmly jammed up against their ears.

But we never *saw* how the gunfight at Declan's lab played out. We don't know if it was a just frontal assault from a fixed position using superior numbers — IOW, a brute force attack which could be countered with sufficient strategy.

The commentary said there were 10 actors in the shoot-out. Subtract the 4 actors who were already in the scene before the neo-Nazis arrive and…

No, we don't need no stinking Badgers.

Thanks for the reminder that Todd has been out of the lab for awhile. I'd forgotten that Declan had replaced Todd. Which was probably the (chemistry pun, comin' up) catalyst for Uncle Jack getting involved with Lydia and the Czechs in the first place.

Hopefully this role will lead to better ones for RJ Mitte. Because even though he can act up a storm when he has, y'know, actual dialogue, BB has mainly used Mitte only as set dressing.

If you think that Walt was thinking about his family while he was careening toward his stash, you didn't understand the scene. Jesse said he knew how to hurt Walt. But Jesse plan didn't endanger Walt's *family*: Jesse was pretending to threaten Walt's *money*.

Actually Walt didn't see smoke. What Walt actually saw as he sat on the rocks was the dust from the SUV Jesse, Hank, and Gomez were riding in.

So long has Todd been doing the cook with out Walt? If he's already been doing it for months and he still can't get it right, maybe Todd just doesn't have the skill to reach higher than 70% purity.

1. Dude, the man's 50+ years old. He likely memorized the numbers only long enough to buy the tickets so that he wouldn't have to rely on his memory ever again. Also, in the state he was as he was racing out to the desert, there was no way he was going to hold those numbers in his head, so that's why he was carrying…

Sort of like the minstrel in "Monty Python's Holy Grail"?

The cold open was, once again, hilarious. Lydia and Todd the only two people in the lab suited up… Uncle Jack insisting that the meth was blue "or bluish"… Todd putting his best moves on Lydia… So much comedy, and without a laugh track.

Red noses are funny
When you're a clown

This continuing elevation of Walt to a heroic stature baffles me.

So Walt's problems started with Jesse, not the other way around? I beg to differ: Walt's problems started in the pilot when Walt thought he could simply dabble in crime.

Your point can't be made enough, so I want to amplify it. "Good" is *not* synonymous with "perfect" and "moral" is *not* synonymous with "flawlessly ethical".

Except that Hank now knows the gambling story was a lie. And the gambling story was specifically linked to poker as a game of skill. Playing "lucky numbers" in the lotto is outside of the scope of the lie.

Buying lotto tickets to disguise the numbers only works if the Whites have had a previous pattern of buying lotto tickets.

Walt could have pointed the DEA toward Fring after Hank was shot. Instead, he deliberately withheld the info, choosing his contract with Fring over his family obligations. So even if Hank & Marie never find out that Fring sent the Cousins after Hank, they can certainly hold Walt responsible for his lies of omission.

Just to add to your musings, up until Fring's murder Lydia was in the comparatively safe environs of a corporate office, far from the front lines of the drug trade. She might have stayed involved because of the money. But she was also vulnerable once Fring was exposed. She might well have thought that the best way to…