#bc even though logically i know it aired as an actual tv show over several years and a lot of people probably saw it

[united-under-skyfall]

leverage is so fucking funny. man manages to find the most mentally ill and neurodivergent group of thieves on the market + an even more mentally ill guy whose literal job description was trying to chase all of them, and forces them into a found family speed-run by trying to blow them all up. they lowkey stage a full fucking country wide coup and are like eh 🤷 just another wednesday. this might be a fun place to vacation tho i guess. sophie shows up to her own funeral twice. they're so good at convincing people of their shit that they make a guy's body start reacting to an illness he doesn't have because it isn't real. go completely out on a limb and basically hand this one guy a new password for his computer so they can get into it and he goes with it. parker and hardison have straight up just "fake it 'till you make it"d into the fbi without even attempting to cover their tracks beyond just These Two Guys. half their clients never asked to be their clients and don't know they're their clients, and the other half are random people who find them who fuckin knows how, meanwhile no government agency can track them down without selling their soul to sterling. they make a point to have a dramatic scene w a Big Bad Shadowy Government Guy who doesn't actually get caught or brought to justice or anything telling them he's going to hunt them all down, and in any other show this would probably earn at least a minor arc later on but he literally never shows up again. an entire season finale hinged on a cake and a bunch of clams. they accidentally made eliot a celebrity not once, not twice, but three times. parker blew up her foster parents' house when she was like. nine. and it's hardly a footnote. hardison is just casually an artistic prodigy but it's only ever brought up for the most background of background gags. eliot's biggest beef with parker and hardison for like two and a half seasons is that they won't stop making weird food with lasers and refuse to realize they can't make a decent beer to save their lives. sophie's immediate response to being shot is to call her shooter a wanker. there's a character who has literally killed a man with a mop and they had the audacity to only put her in one episode.

[jeffgrant4real]

Thoughts Before El Camino

Thursday, October 10, 2019  5:46 PM  Anytown, USA

So, the Breaking Bad movie comes out at 2 AM, my time. I’ll get to it probably around 6 or 7, depending on when I get up. I can see me waking up at 3 something to have to pee and just watching the thing right then and there. Yep. My morning will be a disaster but an awesome one. My anticipation level right now is so high I’ve barely considered what will happen if I just don’t like the movie. It’s strange. That’s usually a fear but knowing it was written and directed by Vince Gilligan I know, at the very least, it will be extremely interesting. I have so much faith in that guy. I feel like it’ll fly by and then it’ll just be over and I’ll be sad. I mean, I’ll be okay, it’s just funny anticipating new Breaking Bad content and knowing it’ll be over so quickly. But knowing me I’ll rewatch it several times. I watched each episode of the show usually at least twice when they’d air (and then listen to 2 or 3 podcasts about them). There was always so much to dig into and learn about so it was a satisfying thing to do.

I want to talk about my expectations before I see it. I was thinking earlier that we’re in a special place right now because after tomorrow We’ll know what happens in the movie. So all my guessing and what not won’t matter. So… what am I expecting and hoping for?

Vaguely, I think a lot of it will be Jesse going around doing something sneaky but also reflecting on the past couple years of his life. I think there will be flashbacks throughout where we’ll see old characters again. What I’m wondering about there is how those flashbacks will tie into the current story. Like, if he just remembers moments (we probably never saw) there needs to be a point to it. It won’t just be like, “Awe, I miss Mike.” It’ll be, “Awe, I miss Mike... Now where did we bury that money that one time we had a meaningful conversation about life?”

I’m curious what the actual plot of the story will be. Like is he trying to destroy evidence? Will he just turn himself in? Will he end up in jail or join the DEA as some kind of consultant because of everything he knows? He could escape using Ed the vacuum repairman but… I mean, Walt and Saul both did that. We haven’t seen anyone just straight up face the consequences, legally. But would that be interesting? Maybe somehow (no clue how) Kim Wexler could come in and be his lawyer. That doesn’t even make logical sense to me right now. Also, one of the major big cards Better Call Saul has yet to play is if she’s still around and/or alive during the Breaking Bad years. If this is revealed in the movie it would take something away from BCS. I think they’ll hold off on that, though I’d be happy to see her, of course. It would be interesting to see the “moral compasses” of both shows meeting each other.

And yeah, I’m curious what ties it will have to Better Call Saul. I’m assuming most of it will deal with the fallout from the events of Breaking Bad, but it would make sense for them to include something to tease the new season of BCS. Could Jesse track down Gene in Omaha somehow? Seems unlikely, but…?

Another thing, I don’t know why so many people seem to be wondering if Walter White is still alive. That seems like goofy speculation to me. I mean, Breaking Bad was HIS story and it ended when he died. Why would Vince Gilligan change that? It wouldn’t make sense from a character standpoint. That would lesson the show and I don’t think that’s a thing anyone would want to risk. I 100% think Bryan Cranston is in the movie and I guess it would have to be a flashback of some sort.

Oh, and another thing about the flashback thing. I’m wondering if it’ll be a thing where it’s Jesse looking off and thinking and then it cuts to the flashback, as if it’s his memory, or if it’ll just be a storytelling thing. I feel like Breaking Bad did more of the latter. It would show you some old moment, but it wouldn’t be because a character was thinking about it. It would have a relevance to whatever the current story was. I’m thinking of one example of the opposite though, in the finale when Walt is in his old house and for a second flashes back to Hank. I’m sure that happened more. I mean, Better Call Saul is pretty much entirely a character looking back and remembering an earlier time in his life. Hmm. So much to think about.

I feel like Skyler, Walt Jr. and Marie will probably be in it, though I’m not sure how it would bring them in. Well, I mean… No, it would make sense since they’d be on the side of law enforcement trying to find Jesse. I can see him wanting to somehow make amends with them, not because he was ever close with them but… They’re all dealing with the absence of Walt, which I can see being an odd bonding element. (that sounded science-y!) If anything he could tell them what happened with Hank… and also with Walt later at the compound. A lot of his value to the family, as well as law enforcement, is as a witness, though he was of course guilty of his own crimes.

Jesse is such an interesting character to explore. He’s so complicated. He really has done horrible horrible things, but he’s also a victim and many of those things wouldn’t have happened without Walter. And he’s suffered so much already, at least in the minds of the audience he’s paid for a lot of his sins. Though of course the criminal justice system is a whole other story there. And just thinking of how they would deal with him and everything he’s been through… Gosh, you could make a long, boring TV show of just law enforcement trying to parse out what kind of punishment this guy deserves.

I think about his confession tape and wonder what happened to it. If memory serves it was taken from Marie’s house by Jack’s gang and they watched it (and laughed at it) near the end of the series. I think that was in Granite State? I think they mentioned that they were going to destroy it but I don’t remember if they showed them doing that. I mean, it could very likely still exist somewhere on that compound, which is at the current moment being flooded by police. I can see them finding that and having some clarity. In fact… that would be a good storytelling device to help get the police up to speed on most of what Jesse’s been through. Like, it would be more interesting if they had a good idea of most of his situation already, if that makes sense. I feel like that tape has to play some part in the story.

What else?

There have been bits in the promotional materials at the junkyard and it seems like Jesse needs Joe to dig up something and… I really am not sure what that could be. Is the RV still there all crushed up? I can’t remember the details of that. I don’t know what object could be there that could help Jesse out. Hmm… I am excited for him to go back there though.

There are also moments in the trailer where it seems like he’s going back to the Nazi compound and… Gosh, I don’t know why in the world he’d want to go back there. Again, there would have to be something there he either needs to get back or destroy. But that is so so risky.

Hmm.

I’m trying to think in an overall way just what I’m hoping for, like since this is the new ending for this character… I guess I’m not expecting it to be “happy”. I don’t even know what a happy ending would look like for Jesse. I would be surprised if it ended with him just dying… though maybe that would put him out of his misery. It’d be a pretty hopeless ending though, and I feel like the ending will be more satisfying than that. That was the goal when they were ending the show, to make it satisfying, and I’m expecting that to be the goal for this thing. I would like to see Jesse find some peace, but I also wouldn’t mind him facing the real justice of his actions. Like, he seems to want to live an honest life at this point and I don’t know if being a fugitive on the run and living in hiding would even satisfy him.

Or!

Maybe he will use Ed and disappear and that’ll be a whole thing… but then at the very end he turns himself in anyway. Something like that would make sense. I just feel like as a character he’d want to be judged rightly somehow. Yeah. Guess we’ll find out soon enough.

Anyway, I’m about to take some sleeping pills so I can wake up at 4 in the morning to take part in an important cultural moment. What are you doing?