No. It was thematically important that both Jesse and Walt achieve freedom at the end. Jesse is free from the Nazis and Walt's control over him. Walt goes out on his own terms. Live free or die free.

I think he might think people may criticize the ending for basically letting Walter White go out on his own terms. Yeah, it was a hollow victory, ultimately, given the circumstances, but it was still a victory.

It is an F so definitive that it makes the rest of the show, even its early decent seasons, worse in retrospect.

I stopped watching the show at the beginning of this season. Is Saxon black?

Battlestar is the perfect show for this experiment. I've been rewatching BSG with someone who's new to it. The first couple of seasons were still as good as I remembered. The last was much worse. And it is so. Fucking. Long. There's like 40 episodes.

But they also have shankings and rape.

Jesse's bid for survival and freedom ended up unintentionally harming someone he deeply cares about. It was Walt's storyline in a nutshell. Right down to him being held hostage by more powerful forces (cancer and the feds, in Walt's case).

Those months in the New Hampshire woods are probably the first time in decades that he's been alone and with nothing to do. For a Type A personality, that must be hell.

Pointing out that Walt's always primarily been motivated by pride/vanity/hubris is not flattening out the character or otherwise engaging in simple-minded analysis.

Does he? I doubt it. I think seeing Gretchen and Elliot triggered a deep down lizard brain anger that has always been simmering there. I'm pretty sure he still resents them.

Victim-blaming helps people feel like they're in more control than they really are. "If only she hadn't done that, nothing bad would have happened." "If only he had been smart like me…" "If only they weren't friends with him…"

I want Jesse to live. Even after all the crap he's been through, he has demonstrated he still possesses a tenacious will to survive. Why bother trying to escape? I'm sure he could've figured out a way to kill himself if he was really that miserable and desperate.

That scene also made me wonder about the incompetence of the ABQ police. They didn't set up any kind of security around the house, just had two guys watching the front only? This, despite the fact that Walter White is the target of a massive manhunt and is known to be dangerous and extremely clever? They couldn't at…

No way. He doesn't need such heavy artillery to take out a couple of yuppies. Mratfink's connection between Greymatter and the neonazis is the key here. The interview reminded Walt of the last time he felt majorly ripped off. He's not going to let Uncle Jack's gang get away with what they did to him. The gun is for…

Watch it. It's a little gem of a show. But it needs time to develop. One episode probably isn't going to sell you on it.

@avclub-a171d9b078d8fd668b699188db001042:disqus "I don't think this is the Walter White from the pilot… this is some sort of amalgam of that Walter and Heisenberg"

Archer is far more of a weasel than Pam.

Insightful comment! The show has never been realistic so I don't know why people keep complaining about convenient coincidences, lucky breaks, etc. It's kind of like complaining about how contrived it is that Oedipus was rescued from being exposed as an infant so that he could grow up to fulfill the prophecy.

Funny coincidence, I was just reading this: http://operachic.typepad.co…

The parallels between Jesse and Skyler as Walt's abuse victims were made in previous seasons. They are his partners, the ones who have been most deeply complicit in his misdeeds, and he has manipulated, used, and destroyed both of them in almost the same way.