if the writers wanted jesse to douse that house with methlamine, all they would have to do is write it in and we would all be going wow, what a great scene.

we are talking about an over-the-top show, it's not out of the question. while doubtful, but certainly not far-fetched. jesse's not the most critical of thinkers, which was another glitch in the brainiac scene where he figured out the ricin ciggs, i don't have a prob with it, but he had to have used both of his brain cells to make that logic leap.

One of the best shows on TV.

Ricin is made from Castor beans.

Jesse pretty much had it figured out the first time when Huell switched the cigarette packs out, he just couldn't put together how Mr. White had access to Brock to poison him. When Saul is trying to get Jesse to give up the marijuana and tells him that if he shows up to the spot high it's 'both our asses'. You can tell Jesse thinks it's weird that Saul said that but doesn't really think much about it right then. Then when he realized that Huell took his weed off of him he puts it together that Huell did lift the ricin cigarette, like he had thought previously, but that it wasn't Mr. White that poisoned Brock it was actually Saul.

these are not my words and shit, i just c&p'ed it all here for this thread:::::::::::::


much of the crucial action of the back story concerning Jesse’s revelation about Walter poisoning Brock takes place off camera at the end of season four. Here’s a step by step explanation of what happened in 511, and the Season 4 events leading up to it.

A recap of the confusing action at the end of Episode 511:

At around the 48-minute mark of the episode, we see Jesse is standing on that very creepy corner with the blocks that look like tombstones, waiting for Saul Goodman’s vacuum cleaner guy to “disappear” him.

Jesse is fidgeting, and suddenly begins frantically searching all his pockets.
He’s looking for the bag of weed that Saul had tried, unsuccessfully, to grab from him in Saul’s office.

The weed is missing.

Jesse finds his cigarettes instead.

Looking at the cigarette pack and thinking about the missing weed, Jesse has an epiphany.

Jesse thinks back to the action of Episode 412 and 413 , when he thought that his girlfriend Andrea’s young son Brock was poisoned by the Ricin cigarette that Walt had made and gave Jesse to poison Gus Fring.

Jesse now realizes that he didn’t just misplace the weed.

Jesse figures out that Saul’s very large bodyguard, Huell had pickpocketed it from him. Just as he had lifted the pack containing the Ricin cigarette in Season 4. (You can actually see Huell lift the weed from Jesse just before Jesse leaves the office, and Huell says “Excuse me.”

Jesse now realizes that Walter White had actually poisoned Brock, returns to Saul’s office, and generally raises hell.


Huh?

The chunk of backstory you’d need to make this leap of logic can be found in Episode 412 and 413. This off-camera action was discussed at great length’s on Breaking Bad discussion groups, but not fully explained within the show itself.

At the 27:00 mark of Episode 412, Jesse comes over to Walt’s house and confronts him, accusing him of poisoning Brock. At gunpoint. You can see a bit of that confrontation starting at 2:03 in the video below.



Crucially, Jesse, while pointing a gun at Walt, lays out the complicated scenario.


Walt: “You said it yourself. You had [the Ricin cigarette] this morning. When could I have possibly…?”
Jesse: “You had Saul do it. I went to his office. He called me and just had to see me today. His big Man Mountain body guard patted me down and that’s when he must have stole it off of me, right? Was that the plan?”

Yes, that was the plan. Jesse had it perfectly right down to the last detail, but Walt convinces him–and us–that he couldn’t have done it. “Jesse,” Walt argues. “Why would I poison a child?”

Fast forward to the very end of Episode 413. Walt has already killed Gus. Jesse tells Walt that Brock is going to recover.
Jesse: “They’re still saying it wasn’t the ricin.”
Walt: “What was it?”
Jesse: “They’re saying it was a flower called Lily of the Valley.”

The very last shot of Episode 413 and indeed the last shot of the season shows the Lily of the Valley Plant in Walter’s yard, revealing to us that Walter had, indeed, poisoned Brock

But how exactly did Walt poison Brock?

The complete timeline goes something like this:

Walt is sitting in his yard with the gun, waiting for Gus’s men to kill him. He sees the Lily of the Valley plant on the patio. (5:30 into Episode 512)
Off camera, Walt crushes up some of the poison from the Lily of the Valley plant and injects it into a juice box.
Also off camera, Walt delivers the juice box to Brock’s school. (Having seen Brock the day before at Jesse and Andrea’s place.)
Walt puts the juice box in Brock’s lunch. (Again off camera)
Walt calls Saul, and has Huell lift the pack of cigarettes from Jesse. (More off camera)
Huell, Saul’s bodyguard, lifts the pack with the Ricin cig from Jesse, and replaces it with a clean pack with one cigarette missing. (This can be seen in Episode 412 if you know what you’re looking for)
Walt lies to Jesse about all this in Episode 412 about this and Jesse believes him and is now willing to help him kill Gus.
(For his part, Bryan Cranston hadn’t read the Episode 413 script so he, too, believed that Walt was telling the truth, making it easier to give a convincing performance.)
“The way we worked it out, [Walt] had just enough time to do it but it would have been very tricky indeed. It was improbable perhaps, but not impossible,” said Gilligan about the missing backstory. “But he was a very motivated individual at that point.”

(Reader Andrea Ball BLL -0.97% reminded me of this scene below from Epside 502. In the aftermath of Brock’s near poisoning, Jesse is freaking out, wondering what happened to the ricin cigarette, worrying that someone else will get poisoned with it. Walt comes over to “help Jesse look.” But before arriving at Jesse’s, Walt makes a dummy ricin capsule out of salt, stashes the real ricin behind the switchplate–where it stays until the flash forward scene in the beginning of episode 509. Walt “finds” the Ricin in the Roomba and helps Jesse dispose of it, easing his mind, while further manipulating him.)

this is a badass scene too!!!




It was pretty clear that the writers wouldn’t find it dramatically satisfying to put Jesse on a bus to Alaska. Which sets up the inevitable climactic confrontation with Walt.

At the end of 511, we see Jesse splash gasoline all over the White household, but the flash forward in Episode 509 reveals no fire damage to the house.

Who stops Jesse? The smart money seems to be on Walt, Jr, in a face off between Walt’s real son and his surrogate son that reveals to Flynn just what Mom and Dad have been up to this last year.

Does rampaging Jesse give Hank the actual evidence he needs to go after Walt?
Let’s not forget about Todd and Uncle Jack moving the meth operation from Arizona to New Mexico.

Nice find.

I was always under the impression that it was Saul who actually delivered the poison that Walt had made using the Lily of the Valley to Brock. It just didn't seem like Walt had enough time to do it himself, plus Saul seemed to be friendly with the kid as well.

Yeah, they discussed it all on Charlie Rose... and admitted it was one of the tighter timeline stretches of the series...

it certainly squared-away on the progression but it leaves my "jesse's 2 brain cells" comment hanging out there. and tbh, maybe his character is the one i've grappled with the most of all (i always thought it was skyler), but he obviously have enough brains to figure out ww's plans pretty quickly, even if he then buys into ww's manipulative speeches following. maybe that's confusing to me for some reason. but also, even in the early seasons, with jesse saying "bitch!" every other word to this last season throwing drug moneys out the window, it's hard to reconcile the unthinking acts with the ones where he does logically sort shit out. not to mention the emotional outbursts or blank stare into space times.

not that that is a flaw in the character or writing, in fact, i think it prolly most mimics reality right? i know very few people that easily fit into pre-conceived labels when it comes right down to it.

I agree entirely, I felt it was very cheap for him to magically make this connection. I thought it was a cheap set up to HAVE to lift the pot off him to give him a chance to figure it out as well, as if they'd bother, really rather than straight up demanding it from him pretending for a moment it was really that important. I just don't see how a near catatonic Jesse works it all out to be that sure. I mean they "found" the salt cigarette. Honestly I don't even know why he's still alive given the trouble he could cause.

Dyna mo - why was jesse freaking out at the end? he realized his cigs were poisioned? Im just a casual watcher so I got a little lost there

that could have been the best episode yet.

he realized his ciggs from a couple of seasons ago where poisoned, yes. i'm a pretty serious watcher and i got a lot lost! :1orglaugh

in fact, after getting sorted out on how jesse figured it out, i then got confused about why walt poisoned brock to begin with! :1orglaugh

but he did it to make jesse think gus poisoned the kid so jesse would kill gus.




/

Which is even more interesting... because Jessie didn't kill Gus.

So W.W. went from likable character to hated one in one episode?

Not really, Walter White just has another person/former associate who wants him dead now.

Jessie starts the show as a lazy, underachieving, drug using bum and through his experiences with Walter White and Gus Fringe he finally realizes his potential.

i.e. His ability to cook meth to the same quality as Walt can

Lets put this into perspective, Jessie can cook meth on his own better than

1) Gale Boetticher - Gale holds an MS degree in organic chemistry and is a specialist in X-ray crystallography
2) English Meth Cook - From the Mexican drug cartels Meth lab in Season 4
3) Much much better meth than the current guys that Lydia is involved with

Jesse is the second/equal best meth cook that exists on the planet, along with his experiences with Gus Fringe in season 4 he's proven to be quite a reliable and resourceful person.

Unlike Walter White, Jesse is not a sociopath and the things he's done and the sheer number of lives that have been destroyed mainly through Walts actions has resulted in Jesse finding it impossible to live with what he's been involved with, this is someone truly on the edge.

There is no coming back for Jesse now, the guilt is tormenting him!

I thought there was a strong possibility that Jesse was going to commit suicide in episode 511, the guy has been used, abused and he can't take anymore. He's emotionally spent!

So Jesse is actually a very very intelligent guy, he just can't live with what he's done any longer.

Breaking Bad is hands down the best show ever made! You just can't predict what's going to happen! And the use of music and the sound effects to convey emotions is just outstanding!

I can't think of any other TV show that uses sounds so effectively to describe emotions & moods in important scenes

The only other director I can think of who uses sound effects this way is Darren Aronofsky in Requiem For A Dream & Black Swan

As an interesting side-note, Mark Margolis (Hector Salamanka on BB) was pretty much discovered by Aronofsky and has appeared in several of his films. So there is a creative synergy for sure, even if not a direct connection between the show and his movies. :2 cents:

Yeah he's an excellent actor and was fantastic in Breaking Bad, his inspiration for the part was his mother in law who had a stroke. He has mentioned in an interview that he stole some of her facial movements for his role as Hector Salamanka.

Pretty disgusting move to make a tape like that. Not sure what kind of person would not like a character like that.

Calm down it's just a TV show :)

Vince Gilligan has said numerous times that Bryan Cranston was his choice for Walter White because he needed an actor that could play a bad guy but yet remain at least a little sympathetic to the audience.

Here's what he said:

"That's interesting. It's super important to me that people stay interested in Walt. It's not quite as important to me that people continue to root for him. That may sound kind of like splitting hairs, but this show is something of an experiment in that we're taking our good guy and turning him into a bad guy throughout the course of the series. To that end, if we're going to be truthful to that mandate ... and we're going to be courageous about it, then what we need to do is continue to travel that path regardless of the outcome, regardless of the consequences.

"It seems to me that our fans are not monolithic; they don't think with one group mind. They all have different thresholds of tolerance for Walt's bad behavior. And probably a few folks here and there -- knock on wood, I hope not too many -- but a few have probably tuned out already. They say, 'I can't get behind this guy anymore, I can't root for him.' But other folks hopefully still can root for him, and still others I hope would say, 'You know what? He's kind of a real bastard now, and he threatens to get worse still, but he's still interesting.' All that really matters to me at the end of the day is that he remains interesting, remains an interesting character study. So that's what I'm hoping."

What I find fascinating about it is Walt finds himself time after time backed into a corner and every single time he manages to pull a rabbit out of a hat and completely flip the tables on his opponent with a moment of genius, he does it in every season and it's very interesting and entertaining to watch! :thumbsup

Best part of the show is watching him and Jessie fail upwards. Every time they get in a corner and screw something up, they come out higher up the ladder somehow... and it always seems reasonable.