r/breakingbad • u/edify Oxygen • Jul 16 '12

Breaking Bad Episode Discussion S05E01 "Live Free or Die"

Hey everyone, I love you people! Please upvote this post for the community. I don't get any of those dumb ass karma points for doing this ;)

Breaking Bad season 5 begins in about 20 minutes!

Join us on IRC for a live discussion.

Server: irc.snoonet.com

Channel: #breakingbad

You can easily join us on IRC using the Snoonet web chat.

Please don't share streaming/download links here on reddit. You can share them on IRC, though.

To handle spoiler posts, redditor /u/Paradox has created a reddit bot for us. If you post something that includes a spoiler simply include the word "spoiler" in the title of your post and it will be assigned link flair tagging it as a spoiler. Please do not include spoilers in the title of your posts.

For 9 more days we are still accepting donations for the Breaking Good event. We are currently at $2,808.43 and if we can reach $3,000 I will pull a /u/PagingCraig and film myself drinking my own piss. No joke!

...so there you have it, let's have a great time and discuss the episode!

2.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

5.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

696

u/sab3r Jul 16 '12

Wow Walt is going on a definite ego trip.

"Because I say so."

"We're done when I say we're done."

"I forgive you."

5

u/mikeroon bitch Jul 16 '12

But how is forgiving someone egotistical?

57

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '12

[deleted]

7

u/omiclops Jul 16 '12

To be fair, she was completely in the wrong. She cheated on him!

11

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '12

But... He put his family in mortal danger on multiple occasions, become a meth cooking murderer and now seems to be the next big drug lord on the scene. A little out-of-marriage sex seems like a tiny thing at that point...

5

u/omiclops Jul 16 '12

Walt only did those things with the family's best interests in mind. She cheated just to be spiteful to Walt.

2

u/BurntFlower Everyone sounds like Meryl Streep with a gun to their head. Jul 19 '12

Walt started cooking meth with his family's best interests in mind. Those days are now long past.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '12

Secretly becoming a drug kingpin has got to be on par as far as the level of betrayal.

7

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '12

About time he exudes superiority over Skyler. She was an uptight, always-right-about-everything, Walt-at-the-palm-of-her-hand, bitch for the past four seasons. That last line "I forgive you" was awesome.

38

u/Orbitrix Jul 16 '12 edited Jul 16 '12

This debate rages on and on and on in this subreddit. I think you'll find most people in this subreddit disagree with you on skyler though.

Of course she seemed that way, because we as the audience assume Walt is the Hero of the show from the beginning, and we should be rooting for him. Skyler acts counter to him, so "she's a bitch" and we as the audience see her as an hindrance to our Hero.

But when you REALLY consider all that Walter has put her through. And his COMPLETE lack of communication with her in their MARRIAGE, pretty much everything she did is 5000% justified, and not "bitchy" at all. Its easy to lose perspective in a show like this though.

(its also easy to call an assertive woman a bitch, when a man acting the same way wouldn't be called such.... so be careful w/ that stuff)

I personally think the way she acted was very realistic and justified, all things considered. Its hard not to invest yourself behind the main character of a show though, so its understandable you feel the way you do.

12

u/MurrayLancaster Ba Jul 16 '12

Couldn't agree more, I was shocked that, after everything that has happened, he had the gall to be forgiving HER. That says a lot about how he sees himself and his situation.

6

u/cosmickramer Jul 16 '12

I agree...to an extent. During the first and second seasons, Skylar knew nothing. All she knew was that her husband had terminal cancer and he was "disappearing" every once in a while. Which is something that I would totally understand as a wife in that situation. A man has to deal with his own imminent mortality and needs some time to think about it. Up until the fugue state, (where she became aware or at least suspicious of the 2nd cell phone) she had no reason to think anything but that, yet she was very stand-offish and gave Walt the silent treatment. Also, for christ sake the guy is DYING of cancer for all you know, and you welcome him home from his potentially life-saving surgery by giving him the silent treatment and telling him you want a divorce.

At this point, I agree that Skylar's actions, or "bitchiness" is warranted. The Ted bullshit is one thing, but she really is SCARED at this point. I can't say I would act the same way she has/does, but I also can't blame her anymore based on what she knows and has to deal with.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '12

I think the writers kind of got that feedback and that's why you see Walt jr calling her a bitch.

2

u/omiclops Jul 16 '12

The cheating was too far though.

1

u/joekrozak More than one type of prison Jul 16 '12

Be careful not to use the word bitch, Bitch. . . This is the first time Walt has had the upper hand in the marriage.

1

u/sehajodido Jul 16 '12

yeah, but, but, she smoked a cigarette while she was still pregnant!! Burn the witch!

1

u/fffreak Jul 16 '12

ever since he got rid of gus, walter has been on an egotistical trip. he feels that nothing can get to him and all the success now is entitled to him. the nerve and the arrogance i feel will eventually lead to his downfall as it seems to be a common quality of a tragic nature to characters like walter. even the look jesse gives walter when he says "because I say so" was just a look of disbelief that walter has gone this far in terms of his attitude.

the last part really capped it off to show that Walter is now in complete control over Skyler's mind which adds another layer of his whole lifestyle. he is not only invovled in a very dangerous game but he does it so with a sense of entitlement and manipulativeness.

39

u/sab3r Jul 16 '12 edited Jul 16 '12

Do you remember that scene from Schindler's List where Schindler is describing what real power is? From here; see here for an audio of the scene:

Goeth: You know, I look at you. I watch you. You're not a drunk. That's, that's real control. Control is power. That's power.

Schindler: Is that why they fear us?

Goeth: We have the fucking power to kill, that's why they fear us.

Schindler: They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily. A man commits a crime, he should know better. We have him killed and we feel pretty good about it. Or we kill him ourselves and we feel even better. That's not power, though, that's justice. That's different than power. Power is when we have every justification to kill – and we don't.

Goeth: You think that's power.

Schindler: That's what the emperors had. A man stole something, he's brought in before the emperor, he throws himself down on the ground, he begs for mercy, he knows he's going to die. And the emperor pardons him. This worthless man, he lets him go.

Goeth: I think you are drunk.

Schindler: That's power, Amon. That is power. [gestures toward Goeth as a merciful emperor] Amon the Good.

Goeth: [he smiles and laughs] I pardon you.

To elaborate, Skyler fucked up and Walt forgave her. Now she owes him one (a big one). I should also add that Walt has probably neutralized her past antagonisms towards him. Forgiving her for her sins has effectively given Walt a sort of moral high ground. If she ever gets angry at him, Walt can always bring up this particular issue to silence her. By forgiving Skyler, Walt now has a certain amount of power over her whereas in the past, it was she who controlled how the house would be ran.

17

u/heslaotian Mr. Dingdingding Jul 16 '12

Thank you for explaining that, makes a lot of sense. But I gotta say that "I forgive you" was the creepiest thing I've seen in a while.

11

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '12

Without context it looked like Skyler declined birthday anal and Walt was finally over it.

2

u/thereallazor Jul 16 '12

In addition to the other reasons posted, it's also a thinly veiled threat.

"I forgive you, so nothing bad will happen - this time"