haven’t used this blog in a while. found a poll in my drafts called ‘cousins night hotness ranking’ for the salamancas. serious posts for serious shows
i hate walter as much as the next guy. but man he is such an interesting character. like he really isnt that machiavellian, i feel like thats mostly the fanbase talking. he is pretty much only really really good at cooking meth. gus is the machiavellian one, the one who is willing to put in his dues, to wait, to bide his time, to manipulate. walts solution to LITERALLY EVERYTHING is to either kill it or blow it up. (or both). Like every time he "makes a move" it is just him ordering other people to kill people or him blowing stuff up. he sucks at manipulating, he couldnt do it w. skyler she saw through his bullshit sooo early in the series, bc he is SO BAD at lying, and when she does work with him its not because she suddenly loves him again or whatever, its more pragmatic for her. he failed so hard at manipulating mike/gus/etc. the only person he actually successfully manipulated was his 24 year old junkie former student. not exactly the most difficult catch. also because he isn't machiavellian hes way more fun to watch -- he doesnt just do things because they're the best move, like gus. gus would more more boring a protagonist bc his moves are predictable, always optimal. but walts moves are also driven by his family and keeping up his lie and stuff. and sometimes he just does shit because he is a human being who cares about things. like when he ran over the dealers who were gonna kill jesse with his car. that move did not benefit him at all, like why did he do it?? I mean i know why he did it, hes obsessed w jesse and expresses "love" (devotion? loyalty?) through violence, but i think theres a lot of reddit bros who would be genuinely at a loss to explain his motivations in that scene. professionally walts a failure. for most of the series in the criminal underground he is also a failure. he can only get off on killing people and chemistry. he lives in the suburbs. his wife is 12 years younger than him. hes psychosexually obsessed w his former high school student. he drives a 2004 Pontiac Aztek. if he didnt get lung cancer he probably would just continue to be a shitty person in secret until his death. hes having a baby. albuquerque new mexico is a fantasy world and he is the chosen one. he gave a speech about how there were so many worse plane crashes to a building of people mourning a plane crash. hes a retail worker. the first thing he does as a criminal is come up with a cool fake name to sell drugs with. his solution to being missing is to get naked in a grocery store and it works for, like, a significant amount of time. he kills the big boss by blowing half his face off. when his making-meth assistant acts too cheerful he gets him fired and brings back the junkie former high school student instead. crazy guy!!
my biggest ‘she would not fucking say that’ moment for kim was when she said “i’m not tearing down a cop :(“ referring to the cop who had a history of misconduct and a DUI, hassled jimmy unfairly as a way of taking out his anger, and then (it is heavily implied) pushed the court / suzanne erickson to go after huell as aggressively as possible for payback