Granite State: Walt Goes Off to Die, Then Goes Off to Kill People

Granite State was Breaking Bad's line-up behind the eight ball.  Walter White is now on his way back to New Mexico for his final showdown with Jack and Todd, and the lives of Brock, Jesse, and the rest of the White family hang in the balance.

Last night's episode was by far the bleakest and slowest paced of any of the new season.  Walt's cancer appears to be back with a vengeance, and as he wastes away on a cot in a cabin in New Hampshire, he realizes that unless he can get his money to his family, all of his crimes have been for nothing.  But his family wants nothing to do with him, and, for a minute, Walt gives up, calling the police to give away his position.

But everything that appears in Breaking Bad is guaranteed to reappear, even if it takes whole seasons for that to happen (see: ricin, the bear with the missing eye, Ted Benecke, etc), and, true to form, Gretchen and Elliot made a final appearance in tonight's show.  Elliot's underestimation of Walt was the inciting action for the entire story, and, though we haven't seen the Schwartz family for four seasons, was partially the fuel for Walt's hubris and need to prove himself by cooking blue sky meth.  To see Elliot once again dismiss him on television was the motivation Walt needed to return to New Mexico; Walt has always been underestimated, always suspected of being incapable of properly caring for his family, and his pride requires him to upend these assumptions in the final days of his life.

So what is the unfinished business Walt still has in ABQ?  Since Saul has disappeared into hiding for good, Walt's left with no hit men, and will have to take on Jack and Todd himself.  We know from the flash-forwards at the beginning and midpoint of season 5 that Walt goes back to Albuquerque with a gun, a car, and some ricin.  We assume the gun is to kill Jack and Todd, and hopefully to free Jesse.  Brock, now an orphan, deserves some restoration at the hands of the man who nearly killed him.  We'll hope that one of Walt's final acts will be to reunite Brock and Jesse for good.  And of course, Walt has to get his money back and return it to his family, or find some other way of providing for them.  Then, seeing as Walt has no one left to surreptitiously kill, perhaps the vial of ricin is for his own suicide.

Walter, after all, owes his family a complete and final exit from their lives.  Before he does, though, he-- and the audience-- need some assurance that they will get the money Walt has called "their birthright," even if Walt Jr. and Holly have both rejected him as their father.  Gustavo Fring's monologue at the beginning of season three, that a man should provide for his family, regardless of whether he is respected or loved by them, seems apt in the final moments of the show.  This is the driving ethic behind all of Walt's actions thus far, and will be the morality at play in next weeks' season finale.

Well, Now We Know What Walt's Giant Gun Is For

Killing Nazis and saving Jesse, amiright?

What else are guns good for?

Seriously, though -- we know that Walt is going to end up in New Jersey, and he's not coming back until he comes to get his ricin cigarette and his machine gun. What happens to Skyler, Holly, Marie, and Walt Jr. is anyone's guess. Frankly, I wouldn't put it past Marie to use that mysterious untraceable poison against Skyler in revenge for Hank, but maybe I'm being melodramatic. And after such an unrelentingly grim episode (probably the darkest in the whole series). it's pretty clear that the Breaking Bad team is actually going to let Mr. White try to redeem himself.

Walt tried very, very hard to save the day in "Ozymandias" on a few occasions - And it was awful watching a monster like Walt realize that he just had enough human left in him to get his heart broken. He tried, and failed, to save Hank from execution and he tried, and succeeded, to free Skyler from the police by pretending to be even more of a manipulative monster than he really is. After sacrificing himself for his wife and son, and leaving Holly Jr. in the fire engine, it looks like Walt's finally learned how to be a real man from his brother-in-law. Too bad it's too late to save himself and his family.

It looks, then, that in these last two shows, Walt is going to return to ABQ once more to save Jesse from Todd. He'll be taking his ricin with him, too, so I'll  bet he takes Marie's advice and kills himself after the mission. What will happen to Skyler and Marie? I can't say for sure, but I worry that Marie is just enough of a loose cannon to take some serious revenge against her sister. She loves the kids too much to hurt them, but I worry that the blood isn't done flowing after Hank.

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It's All Fun and Games Until Redneck Skinheads Start Firing Semiautomatic Handguns

Well, it looks like we got our answer to the question about whether or not Walt actually cares about Jesse -- "yes, but not as much as he loves himself."

Last night was mostly a slow burner with the notable exception of the last psychotic thirty seconds, but among the many standout scenes was Walt wrestling with himself as he finally orders the hit on Jesse. He's at pains to make sure that Jesse's death will be quick and easy - but of course, he's not at pains enough to call the whole thing off, even as Todd and co. demand their price. Heisenberg will cook again - maybe. Everything's up for grabs after the end, including who will be joining us for the next episode.

Maybe we'll also have fewer long shots of bald men glowering at each other in the desert.

Jesse and Hank, meanwhile, was Heisenberging for the force of good last night all over the place. True to Saul's warnings, Jesse's pretty bright when you put him in a bind, and with the help of Hank he's able to a) dodge Todd's first attempted hit and b) actually get Walt to give away the money and get himself arrested in the desert. I had mixed feelings, actually, watching Walt get handcuffed in the desert. On one hand it was satisfying to watch Hank finally beat Walt and read him his Miranda rights, but on the other hand, it would have been profoundly disappointing to watch Walt spend his life in prison. I want him to burn out a bit more spectacularly than that.

Also, there's no way you can fire that many bullets and have everyone walk away. Who's it gonna be who dies first? Hank? Gomez? Todd? Todd's Nazi uncle? Even Jesse?

I'm going to be out of town next weekend so if anyone ruins the ending of Ozymandias, I will murder you in your beds. Sleep tight.

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Everyone is Going to Get Murdered

Oh boy. Ohhhhhh boy. We are fixin' to have us a murder party here on Breaking Bad. 

Pictured: A Breaking Bad murder party

Everyone, and I mean everyone, on Breaking Bad is now ready to shed blood. And that means blood is going to be shed, in gallons. The questions is just who, by whom, and when. We've always known that Walt was willing to kill, but for the first time he's now ready to do in his own partner, Jesse. Skyler is fine with killing Jesse and doesn't even think it's the worse thing they've done. Hank was happy to let Walt murder Jesse for the videocamera, and, most disconcerting of all, Marie is thinking of doing in Walt herself.

With all these characters suddenly getting pushed to their limits, it's safe to say that with four episodes down and four to go, the trigger has been pulled, the die is in the air, and we're ready for a serious Shakespeare-esque denouement. Marie's scenes in particular seem to be setting us up for a major disaster. She's thinking of using an untraceable poison to off Walt, and since Hank now knows about the ricin cigarette, it's only a matter of time until Marie discovers ricin herself. Maybe we'll get a Hamlet scene where Marie tries to poison Walt, only to accidentally poison Skyler, Walt Jr., or even Holly?

Either way, someone's gonna get Ricined. 

Furthermore, Jesse's announced plans to get Walt "where he really lives." Where is that? Walt's family? It seems a little cold for Jesse to target Walt's wife and kids, especially since he was so horrified that Walt would harm an innocent kid himself. What's more, if Jesse is going to work with Hank (which he doesn't seem particularly keen on, but he may have a lot of options), Hank isn't going to let Jesse set fires, kill women, or steal money. Not yet, at any rate. We'll see what happens to Marie.

The reemergence of loose cannon Todd is also disconcerting. Walt's bringing him on to finish off Jesse, but we already know Todd is pretty casual about collateral damage. The deaths are going to start soon -- probably not next week, but maybe the week after -- and I'm ready to bet that once the heads start rolling, they'll be heard to stop.

For more Beth and Louise, follow us on Twitter at @BandLHateMovies or subscribe to the podcast. Give us a rating and leave a comment on iTunes!

Fun with Jerks: Why Other People's Pain Is Hilarious

Sometimes it's fun to watch awful people suffer. In movies, at least. In real life it's no fun at all but on the screen it's hilarious.

Sometimes.

As case studies, I submit two black comedies: one the recently-released apocalypse comedy (one of four this year, actually) It's a Disaster and the other Diablo Cody's most tolerable movie to date, 2011's Young Adult. Both feature good writing, solid performances, reprehensible behavior, tons of despair, and, yes, truly despicable characters for the leading roles.

One of these movies is funny.


For those of you unfamiliar with this little indie gem, It's a Disaster is about four couples meeting up for their monthly couples' brunch, a ritual none of them seem to look forward to and a few of them actively despise. On the guest list is Tracy (Julia Stiles) and her new(set) boyfriend, Glen (David Cross). While Glen struggles to mesh his own awkward self into this group of garden-variety, brittle suburban sociopaths (who are also, apparently, insatiable cheaters), a massive terrorist attack in nearby New York City isolates the group from the outside world. Trapped inside with only hours to live before they succumb to the grisly symptoms of nerve gas, the group struggles to come to terms with their impending deaths and make the most of their last moments, mostly through orgies and meth. If this scenario sounds like a barrel of laughs, I'm afraid you're almost as sick as I am.

Young Adult, a bit more widely known than Disaster but not nearly as well known as Cody's nerve-grating Juno, is about a former high school beauty queen Mavis (Charlize Theron) who goes back to her rural hometown to reconnect with her high school sweetheart. The one wrinkle in Mavis' plan is that Mavis' ex Buddy (Patrick Wilson) has already married another lady and has an infant daughter. Completely unfazed by this discovery, Mavis sets out to destroy her ex's marriage, win her man back, and regain her status as queen bee in her hometown. Oh yeah, and she's an unemployed alcoholic and she sleeps with a guy played by Patton Oswalt whose, uh, plumbing doesn't work because he was the victim of a particularly brutal hate crime. And it's a comedy.

Yes, yes, it's very sad. Don't worry, though, this is as low as the camera ever pans.

No one is getting out of the above scenarios with destroying a couple of lives, or at the very least, going out on a sour note once nerve gas has already destroyed what was left of their lives. But the first movie, Disaster, is significantly funnier than the second, because while both movies feature deeply unlikeable people, it's much, much funnier to watch terrible people punish each other rather than take it out on everyone else.

Although David Cross' character is at least a little sympathetic -- he keeps his head and tries to comfort characters who are scared and panicking -- most of the characters in Disaster are selfish jerks. They're punishing each other with their petty, narcissistic actions as well as getting punished in return, and it's as funny and satisfying as hell. It's funny to watch these people bicker and argue while, outside, the bodies of their neighbors get eaten by vultures, because we think they deserve it. They're mean-spirited, immature, shallow, and, hilarious, so watching them go out on a bad note feels like vindication. They're going to die from nerve gas, but it's funny because we think they have it coming.

Beth and Louise fully endorse the deaths of all these people.

Young Adult, on the other hand, still features strong dialogue and performances, but because it's such an amoral film it's not as satisfying. Mavis is in a downward spiral of alcoholism and depression, but she's taking everyone down wit her. And "everyone," in this case, includes her fundamentally good friends and neighbors, who seem to want nothing but the best for her. She ruins special occasions, embarrasses herself and her ex by flirting openly and publicly with him, and blows off the attention of the only people who seem to have any genuine compassion for her.

An unlikable heroine (or even a morally reprehensible but sympathetic one, as Mavis occasionally can

be) isn't necessarily a fatal flaw in a film. But the problem is that Diablo Cody, who penned this script, doesn't seem to understand how rotten Mavis can be -- especially compared to the other characters. Buddy and his wife are happily married with a beautiful daughter, and Patton Oswalt's character Matt is capable of far more kindness and sensitivity than Mavis ever shows. What is puzzling, though, is that Cody apparently agrees with Mavis, in that Mavis is better than everyone around her. In a late, triumphant monologue in the movie, Mavis "discovers" that everyone in her hometown is fat and uneducated, while Mavis is beautiful, lives in the city, and publishes books. Mavis can then do better than her ex, because she is in a class above him. Never mind that Buddy has a good family, good job, good life, and good heart. Mavis is superior because looks like Charlize Theron and has a college degree.

The moral universe of It's a Disaster, then - lousy people being lousy to other lousy people - allows it to be funnier than Young Adult - lousy people preying on decent people while the screenwriter remains oblivious to all the lousiness. If you're going to have fun with jerks on Netflix tonight -- and that's the best kind of fun, really -- it's more fun to watch jerks be jerks and die rather than be jerks and get vindicated.

So give It's a Disaster a few hours. It'll be more fun than couples' brunch, I'm sure.

For more Beth and Louise, follow us on Twitter at @BandLHateMovies or subscribe to the podcast. Give us a rating and leave a comment on iTunes!

Walt's Got 99 Problems and a Meth Cook Seeking Redemption Is Definitely One

Walt, you manipulative sonofabitch, I hope Jesse burns your house straight to the ground. Except I know he doesn't, because the Whites' house is still there in the flash-forwards on Walt's birthday.

The thing about Walt is he can always get worse, and last night he was pretty awful. He was at the top of his manipulative faux-paternal game last night with Walt Jr. and Jesse -- playing Walt Jr. with his returning cancer to keep Jr. away from Marie, then twisting Jesse into leaving town so Walt, apparently, won't have to kill him. And of course, there was the jaw-dropping scene when Walt reveals what his "confession" really is -- a story that fits the evidence remarkably well and pins the lion's share of the blame for Walt's crimes on Hank himself.

Obviously, after an hour or so of Walt behaving badly I was ready for someone to give Walt his due, and it looks like Jesse is more than up for the task. Armed with a gun, a gallon of gasoline, and the truth about what Walt did to Brock, he set off to go set Walt's house on fire (where is Holly while her parents are at work, guys?) and lay down some sweet Jesse-style revenge.

After two episodes where Jesse was nearly catatonic with guilt and misery, it's great to see this sucker punch of a character springing back into action. More than anyone else in this episode, Jesse was ready to call Walt out for his crimes. He sees Walt's proposal of a fresh start for Jesse for what it really is (namely, Walt's first choice before plan B, shooting Jesse in the head). Furthermore, while Hank is apparently neutered by the discovery that he took nearly two-hundred thousand in drug money, Jesse takes Walt head-on and bringing the fight to Walt's house.

Jesse is not the one who knocks. He is the one who kicks down doors.

By the way -- I'm sure we haven't seen the last of Hank but I was pretty disappointed by his lukewarm reaction to the tape. Hank has not come this close to bringing down Heisenberg himself to be foiled by this little trick. Maybe he needs another week to get his nerve up, but the Hank I know would be willing to sacrifice even his reputation at the D.E.A. to bring Walt to justice. I think this video complicates things (he will need some hard evidence against Walt), but Walt hasn't stopped his brother-in-law as much as he's slowed him down.

Great cinematography in this episode -- I particularly liked the shot of Jesse on the side of the road with what looked like gravestones behind him when he learned the truth about Brock. Also, I'm throwing this questions to the readers: do you think Walt cares about Jesse? I'll be the first to say that Walt cares about Walt more (he's headed for Jesse with a gun in hand, after all) but I was actually touched by that awkward hug in the desert. Does Walt feel a bit of fatherly affection for his troubled partner, or was that all part of the act? Tell me what you think.

For more Beth and Louise, follow us on Twitter at @BandLHateMovies or subscribe to the podcast. Give us a rating and leave a comment on iTunes!

Long-range Vocalizations and Why I'll Never Go Back to SeaWorld

We're sneaking up on the 100th anniversary of the death of Murderous Mary, whose life has become a cautionary tale on the abuse of animals for entertainment.  If you don't know the story, here it goes: Mary was an circus elephant who, after years in captivity, flew into a rage and crushed a handler.  The details of the death are vague, but in the days following the "murder" people in the nearby eastern Tennessee towns demanded her execution.  After attempting to shoot Mary, and seeing that the bullets had no effect on her massive body, the circus owner realized it's hard to kill a six-ton elephant.  He and the other handlers brainstormed numerous inventive and gruesome ways to kill Mary, finally settling on a public hanging with an industrial crane.  After breaking the first chain, Mary was successfully executed by hanging on September 13, 1916.

I thought about Mary last night as I left the Tennessee movie theater close to my house and seven hours from the place of her death.  I was there to see Blackfish, which tells the story of Tilikum, a 12,000 pound bull orca whale who was captured off the coast of Washington in the 1980s, and since has spent his entire life in captivity, most of it at Florida's SeaWorld.  Since then, he has been involved in the deaths of three people, most recently an experienced SeaWorld trainer in 2010.  Tilikum is not a murderous monster, but rather the product of industry that has damaged him physically and psychologically, rendering him dangerous.  After all, Tilikum is not the only orca in captivity known to be unpredictable.  The film describes some of the 33 other recorded incidents of orcas acting violently toward humans in zoos, yet there is no record of these whales doing intentional harm in the wild.  By the end of the film, the message is clear: orcas are brilliant, complicated creatures with full emotional and relational lives we do not understand, and to keep them in captivity is physical and psychological abuse.


According to Blackfish, one of the consequences of commodifying orca whales is the breakup of their family units, which have unique languages and cultures when left intact in the wild.  This film shows two scenes of baby whales being taken from their parents, and they are as gut-wrenching and disturbing as if it had shown a human child separated from her mother.  During Tilikum's capture from the wild, drag nets pull him and three other baby whales into a pen away from their mothers, where cranes then hoist them into boats.  The whole excruciating process is captured on camera, while the mother whales wait in a line on the other side of the drag net, their heads out of the water, screaming back and forth to the babies trapped in the nets.  The sound of grief and terror transcends all languages; even the boat's crew members cry in interviews years later when they recount the event.  The whole incident leaves three of the baby orcas dead, whose bodies are cut open, filled with rocks, and sunk to the bottom of the ocean.  Apparently this brutal separation of families takes place in captivity as well.  Years later, when Florida's SeaWorld sells one of Tilikum's offspring to another park, the mother whale goes into mourning for her child.  She goes to the corner of her pool, refusing to eat or move, and then begins screaming.  When SeaWorld calls on a marine biologist to explain the cries, she reports the whale is making "long-range vocalizations," trying to get in touch with her lost child, wherever she was.

I watched both of these scenes with open-mouthed horror.  One of the critiques I've read about this movie is that it is one-sided, and at times emotionally manipulative, but this isn't a movie that is trying to give you both sides of a debate on animals in captivity.  This is a movie that wants to leave you in awe of the mind and power of these animals, and in awe of the evil we do against them when we act in ignorance and motivated by profit.  And does Blackfish ever accomplish this goal.  In another scene, an orca attacks his trainer by pulling him under water for as deep and as long as his body can withstand, then releases him to the surface, only to pull him back again.  Two things jarred me in this scene.  First, the whale seemed to know exactly how long he could show his frustration without killing the trainer, and second, that all the trainers left on shore did nothing.  This isn't to their shame.  After all, what could they do?  How do you stop a 12,000 pound orca whale from doing anything?  Could you even kill it if you wanted to?  These are the images that bring Murderous Mary to mind, another intelligent, relational animal whose story leaves us wondering what to do when you've captured and damaged an animal you can't control.

Go see this movie.  Yes, it's content is political; this is a movie with a clear platform against the captivity of orca whales and it makes no attempt to balance that message.  But it's also a cautionary tale that is deeply resonate in the years of the global warming debate: what happens when humans insist on asserting their dominance over nature, in all its complexity and intricacy that we do not understand and for which we lack the proper reverence.

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Fix Your Screenplay with Brain Worms: The Tree of Life and Upstream Color

I really, really hate to criticize The Tree of Life. I really do.

As an evangelical Christian as well as a rabid fan of cinema, it's pretty rare that I get to see a movie that both 1) authentically communicates the Christian story and worldview and 2) doesn't suck. The Tree of Life (2011, directed by Terrence Malick) one such movie. The Exorcist is a second, and I can't think of a third. For that reason, I want to say that The Tree of Life is a peerless cinematic triumph, it should have gotten every Oscar, and everyone ought to own a copy and watch it twice a year.

But it's not perfect, and I can't pretend that it is. I love this movie but I know it's flawed. Primarily, this movie suffers from the fact that, between moments of poignant character interactions and wide, sweeping pan shots of staggering beauty, there are also extended sequences of gratuitous voiceovers coupled with the characters behaving in ways that I have never seen a human being act. People tell their children to love every leaf, flower, and ray of sunshine. They stare contemplatively at votive candles. They show astounding awareness of their own emotional motivations, and explain them spontaneously with the clarity of an essayist.

They are, if I may coin a phrase, suffering from acute Terrence Malick syndrome.

The Tree of Life is a highly allegorical movie and its aims are nothing short of cosmic. It meditates on the tragedies of one family and sets those tragedies in the context of the Christian story of the universe -- the beauty and brokenness that exist side-by-side in creation, which culminate in the redemption of the whole world and the end of pain and suffering. It's telling an archetypical, ancient story that literally spans from the beginning of the universe to the end of it, and the fact that Malick takes missteps in the execution is probably inevitable. The problem is that, in using grand, abstract words and images to tell the grand, abstract story of the universe, the individual characters (whom the story is ostensibly supposed to be about) become grand and abstract themselves. They lose their relatability as they increasingly become the voices and tools of the director. As the camera swoons and sweeps around them in the beatifically-shot Southern home, their dialogue resembles not the conversations between real people but the sound effects of Terrence Malick's worldview, underpinning the imagery. They aren't real, and they couldn't exist in the real world. If people -- especially women, like Jessica Chastain's character -- acted like they do in The Tree of Life (commune with nature, look beatific, teach life lessons, etc.), no one would be able to hold a job, raise children, or manage responsibilities.

She's sitting in the yard because her house was repossessed. 

A movie without real characters, I would argue, is a movie divorced from reality and is truly incomplete. What The Tree of Life needs are more scenes with brain parasites.

Now, before you all start lining up outside my door so I can fix your screenplays (really, Mr. Sorkin, this is getting embarrassing), allow me to back myself up with a movie that is ultimately better, and no less ambitious, than The Tree of Life: Upstream Color (2013, written and directed by Shane Carruth). The phenomenon that Upstream Color explores is no less grand and mysterious than the coexistence of beauty and evil that consumes The Tree of Life: how do we explain the process by which two people meet, connect, and love each other? Where does chemistry come from?

The answer, according to Upstream Color, is a strange parasitic organism that lives in orchid roots,

then worms, then people, then pigs, then back to orchid roots, and connects every being through which it creeps. When Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Shane Carruth, doing triple duty with writing and directing credits) are both infected, the worm that has burrowed deep into both of their bodies links them inseparably.

As a narrative conceit, the parasitic worm of Upstream Color is genius. For one thing, it literalizes something that everyone who has ever fallen in love (and by "love" I'm including its romantic, friendly, and familial incarnations) can confirm. The worm links the psyches of those it infects so thoroughly that they trust each other before they have a reason to, love each other before it's rational, and feel each other's pain so deeply that suffering for one is equal suffering for the other. The idea of the parasite provides a way to explore aspects human relationships that everyone knows experientially to be true. On the other hand, the worm gives Carruth permission to use a style similar to Terrence Malick's, but with better reason. The characters act like no one you've ever met because they have a brain parasite that makes them act like lunatics. The voiceovers in Upstream Color are more appropriate because Kris and Jeff are so inextricably linked that they think each other's thoughts instead of talking. They take long, contemplative looks at beautiful scenery not because the director likes it, but because their consciousness has been so radically reconstructed that they can barely do anything else. And the swooning, hypnotic look of the cinematography isn't just pretty; it communicates the disconcerting fact that something powerful and foreign has taken hold of Jeff and Kris' senses.

A lot of people saw and liked The Tree of Life, and I don't think they're wrong. But Upstream Color takes the look and style of a Terrence Malick movie and puts it to work. A light dose of genre conventions (especially body horror -- there are some gnarly worm-under-skin moments) adds energy and dynamism to Upstream Color that Malick just can't pull off. It's as lovely, mysterious, and contemplative as The Tree of Life, but while The Tree of Life stumbles in and out of pretense, Upstream Color's cruises to soaring altitude and stays there. It pulls from many genres and breaks the boundaries of all of them. If you ever wondered what the love child of a David Cronenberg and Terrence Malick movie would look like, wonder no more, because it's astounding. And if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go watch Primer, because I want to know what else Carruth's been cooking.

For more Beth and Louise, follow us on Twitter at @BandLHateMovies or subscribe to the podcast. Give us a rating and leave a comment on iTunes!