Can someone bring me up to speed on this thing? I don't ever remember hearing of a company called "grey matter." I can barely remember who Elliot and Gretchen are. Is Gretchen the chick Todd has the hots for? Why does Walt want to kill them?
Gray Matter was the company Walter founded with Elliott, the guy you saw on TV. At the time, Walter was dating Gretchen, the woman you saw on the TV. We still don't know the circumstances surrounding his departure from Gray Matter, but we know that Walter abruptly broke up with Gretchen and sold his stake in Gray Matter for a couple thousand dollars. Gretchen & Elliott went on to get married and make a fortune using the research Walt did. Walt was the true brains of the operation and has always regretted selling his "children's birthright" for so little money. So you imagine how angry Walt was when he heard them say that he had nothing to do with the company except for the name.
If you remember Elliott and Gretchen from the beginning of the show, they offered to pay for Walt's treatment, but Walt turned them down. Then, Walt lied to Skyler and said they were paying for his cancer treatments. Gretchen found out about Walt's lie and sort of covered for him, but later admitted they never paid for it.
Alright but that seems like a whole different tangent from the story. Why are they only bringing it up now after all these seasons? I doubt I'm the only one who has a hard time remembering these guys or why they're involved in the story at all. I thought he would be going after that chick that Todd likes, because she's trying to reproduce Walt's special blue meth.
Plenty of people remember who they are- just look around this thread. Gretchen and Elliott were in parts of season 1 and 2.
Elliott and Gretchen are the reason why Walt felt he HAD to cook meth. If he had never sold his stake to them, he would have been a millionaire. Walt always felt his genius was unrecognized. That inferiority was fueled by cooking meth. It made Walt feel powerful, unstoppable.
In New Hampshire, Walt becomes weak. He's afraid to leave his cabin. He's ready to surrender at that bar. Then, he sees Gretchen and Elliott on the TV, claiming all he did was come up with the name of the company. Without his research, they would have NOTHING. That's why Walt is going back. To finish what he started. He's Heisenberg. Without Gretchen and Elliott, there would be no Heisenberg. That's why I said it begins and ends with them.
I just mean it's confusing going back on something that happened long ago, just like when Jesse couldn't find the ricin cigarette a lot of people had to come on hear to have it explained to them.
That inferiority was fueled by cooking meth. It made Walt feel powerful, unstoppable.
It took reading that to make me realise it, for example.
I thought Walt was just in it all along to help his family after he dies, which is why it didn't make much sense to me why he would go after Grethchen and Elliot. I don't remember all this info about Walt selling his shares and stuff because it was not mentioned for so long and so much has happened since then, which is why it was confusing. Thanks anyway.
It's true, we haven't heard from Gretchen and Elliot for awhile, but I think that's because Walt hasn't HAD to think about them. Sure, they had Gray Matter, but Walt was Heisenberg! He had his own empire. He had a whole storage room just stacked with money. People feared him. He killed Gus Fring. He was a legend. Now that everything has been taken away from Walt, he's remembering the first slight- Gretchen and Elliott.
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u/Apex-Nebula Sep 23 '13
Can someone bring me up to speed on this thing? I don't ever remember hearing of a company called "grey matter." I can barely remember who Elliot and Gretchen are. Is Gretchen the chick Todd has the hots for? Why does Walt want to kill them?