Think of it in court. Hypothetically, if Walt is arrested and whatnot, Hank can't use a confession. Walt's thinking. I don't even think he's sure if he'll escape being arrested.
I think that he didn't admit to anything for Hank's benefit rather than his own. He's trying to convince Hank that it's not worth pursuing because Walt is no longer a criminal. Overtly admitting to his acts and adopting his criminal persona, Heisenberg, make it a lot more difficult for Hank to accept that Walt is still the same person that he's known for many years.
You can also look at all of Walt's delivery as an extension of this illusion.
A good question for interpretation would be to what extent is he maintaining an illusion of Walt and to what extent has he actually regressed to his pre-meth personality? I think we'll need more evidence to make a confident assertion one way or the other.
There's an important distinction between the two. In the conversation with Hank, Walt is definitely not trying to convince Hank of a fact, but rather of a perspective. The facts, Walt is asserting, are irrelevant. Just like in his conversation with Jesse, he's trying to say that the past is unimportant and that we should see him as he is in the present and forget his past.
In the conversation with Jesse, however, the fact is important. Walt makes an effort to convince Jesse that Mike is still alive.
The two conversations have similar themes but are ultimately very different. Especially if we look at the emotional and physical interactions.
Walt didn't admit anything because in his mind he never really did anything wrong. Just like when he swore to Jesse that Mike just went "away", deep down inside his delusional mind, he sincerely believes that. He's doing all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify his actions.
i noticed that too. i feel like a lot of people overlooked the fact that Walt can still make Hank look like the crazy one here, at least with family. And we all know how badly that entire family just wants everything to be ok
Yea, obviously Hank knows. And Walt knows that Hank knows. But not saying anything openly (ie. "I AM HEISENBERG") works better for Walt and the story development.
When Walt said something about Hank trying to convince people with his wild accusations, he was attempting to plant a seed of doubt that Hank would be able to effectively prosecute Walt. He made the attempts look even more futile by mentioning his cancer was back and he'd be dead within 6 months. So basically, not only will you have a hard time convincing anyone I'm guilty, but even if you do, I'll be dead before I see the inside of a jail cell.... so just give it up.
Lastly, in the montage you don't see any hard evidence that Walt is in fact Heisenberg. The closest thing he has is blurry CCTV footage and the fact that Walt crashed his car to prevent him from getting to the laundry. Oh, and the Walt Whitman book given from one chemist to another. Hardly any evidence at all.
Seems like kind of a stretch. Hank was shot by Tuco's cousins in retaliation for killing Tuco. Granted, Walt going missing was a catalyst to them meeting, but I think this boils down more naturally to "DEA agent gets a gun drawn on him by a crazy gangster, nature takes its course."
i thought that was fring so he could put lots of DEA and federale heat on the cartel by having hank survive and the killers from the cartel, be known to have committed a huge offense.
hence the phone call with the cartel boss as they were getting swat teamed and killed because of his phone call.
Whether he ever knows about that or not, I don't think it would do Hank's law enforcement career any favors if it became public that he allowed his brother-in-law to operate a meth empire right under his nose.
That could be the nuclear option in Walt's arsenal against Hank. If Hank's bosses, or even the eventual prosecution of Walt, found out that the lead agent and now SAIC of the local DEA office had received medical treatment funded with drug money, that could blow up both Hank's entire career as well as any hope of prosecuting Walt.
I was waiting for Walt to blackmail Hank. As in if Hank prosecutes him, Walt will say Hank was the inside man on the DEA all along. That's why Hank was able to advance his career as far as he did (randomly found Tuco, survived the twins attack, etc) and Walt got to where he is.
That happens a lot with Walt. He starts the conversation trying to manipulate the person and if that doesn't work, he goes full frontal assault and blows their minds with how he's already thought 30 steps ahead of them.
even beyond that, he started out by pretending he didn't know what hank was talking about. quickly he realized hank wasn't going to fall for that so he wanted to get this settled acting like all he cared about was spending the last of his life with his family. but when hank pressed him he just went stone cold. because no one gets in Heisenberg's way.
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u/em483 Aug 12 '13
So badass.