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Breaking Bad recap: Madrigal
07-23-2012

In last week's recap I didn't bother to look up Mike's last name. I won't make that mistake again, er, Mike? Michael? "Mr. Ehrmantraut." Yes, sir. Whatever you say, Mr. Ehrmantraut. I don't want to face the aftermath of what happens after I'm distracted by a wind-up bunny in front of my peephole...

Ocean's
Pretty darn bad day for Mike, but I believe he will have more bad, and probably even worse, days in the future. He's also on a list, a list which was probably good to be on at one point - a list of people who had nice little tropical rainy day funds courtesy of Gus and Los Pollos Hermanos down in the Caymans. However, these tides have turned. Now this list, which I will dub Ehrmantraut's 11, is basically a hit list. Not only is his life in danger (which Mike has to be used to by now), but also his and his granddaughter Kaylee's monies have been swept over to the Bermuda Triangle that is the DEA. Mike has shown less emotion getting shot than he did disavowing that $2 million.

Let's start to put together this Ehrmantraut's 11 already:

Mike (After all, Danny Ocean was part of his own tally. Also, the electromagnet constructed last week reminded me of the "pinch" that Basher secured in Ocean's 11.)
Lydia (maybe, but we'll come back to her)
Dennis ("from the laundry")
Chow (deceased)
Herr Schuler (probably, but he is deceased as well)

Is there a blank spot under "chemist"? Lydia did mention something about not knowing who the chemist was. But you'd think he/she would earn a slot as well. What about Chris, the world's worst hit man? AMC's Breaking Bad sync showed that he drove Gus to the retirement home to visit Tio. In any case, I think we have a good start to this list.

And what an end for Schuler. Not exactly my choice for a last meal, sampling sauces for chicken bites (which looked more like tater tots, a feast fit for Napoleon Dynamite). But to each his own. The other thing that struck me about his demise is that Germans and Japanese sure have a flair for matter-of-factly killing zemselves, no? I don't want to elicit the name of another famous German who killed himself so as to keep this a light-hearted blog, but Schuler's suicide surroundings seemed very bunker-like to me. All that was missing was his wife/cousin by his side...

(toilet flush)

Do Germans really call french dressing "French' like Americans do? Just wondering.

Back to the 11, you really have to feel for Mike in this episode. Suddenly it seems like he and Gus were the only two calm, sophisticated individuals in this whole crime ring. Lydia is positively not cut out for participation in anything illegal, including jay-walking. She's more tense than Elmo Blatch. Chow was on the verge of caving. And Chris barely squeezed a couple rounds into Chow before Mike got to him. Not to mention our other pals Mike has been dealing with - the rag-tag gang of Walt, Jesse, and Saul. This isn't the calmest group of people I've ever met.

Oh Gus, who did you really trust your empire to? Your associates are ruining your legacy as a calculating, thorough business man.

Ads
And now for something you're not going to get from the other Breaking Bad blogs - a quick commercial break. Some fancy pantses are able to watch these episodes in advance. Not me. I watch live. My reward was finding a couple of well-placed ads. In the commercial break after Schuler offed himself, there was an ad for Volkswagen, which touted "the power of German engineering." Later on, after Mike's fortune is lost to the DEA, there is an ad for eTrade, which promises their tools will show you "where your money is and what it's doing...LIVE!" Eat your heart out, Harry Crane!!

Why are there crayons at Jesse's place? Did he have all sorts of art supplies on hand when the crackhead partygoers transformed his house into the world's shittiest indoor mural?

Crime Doesn't Pay
I was shocked to find that Mike had only $2 million in his off-shore bank account. You'd think that duties like freezing your ass off in a truck full of drugs and chicken batter, waiting to be shot at, would pay more, no? And of course, doing background checks on pimple-faced fry cooks... From his reaction leaving his questioning from bad cop-super cop, it sure seemed like that was all Mike had to retire on. And from the looks of his house, he's not currently living in luxury. (Same for Chow.)

The ones really making the money? The DEA! They confiscated $64,000 in cash from Jesse, a bunch from the seizure that planted the seed in Walt's head to try his crystallographic hand at meth in the first place, and now they stand to capture maybe $10M from Gus's unlucky 11, plus whatever Gus had in the bank. If ASAC Merkert is taking the fall for having an epic-sized meth plant right under his nose, he should at least go out with a big severance package!

Another criminal going bankrupt: Walter White. Here is some insight into the cash Walt should have made so far. Not bad. (If that link doesn't work, it recapped how Walt/Jesse were splitting a cool $15M per year from Gus/LPH.) But in between listens to "Horse with No Name," he must have been playing Antoine Walker's audiobook for how to mismanage a fortune. In this episode, he claims to be $40K in the hole.

Unfortunately...
1) Lydia is still alive, according to the Breaking Bad sync. A few things kept her breathing: Mike being a softie. Walt refusing to cook with pseudoephedrine. Mike needing money. If just one of those elements isn't around, she's a goner.

2) The ricin survives! When someone tells me they are going to childproof their outlets because they have a baby, I picture them sticking those plastic fillers in them; not loading them with poison. But Walt hasn't been up for Father of the Year since possibly the first couple episodes of Season 1.

It's too bad that Walt wants/needs the methylamine so badly to cook with. He's never been out among the end-users of his product like Jesse has. (Think Spooge, his wife, and their Opie-like son from "Peekaboo". The contents of these people's butts would go for higher prices than half the lockers on Storage Wars.) He doesn't realize that these people don't crave quality. After all, Jesse used chili powder in his recipe. And there's this story about how a simple 20 oz plastic bottle will do just fine! Super lab? Who needs a stinking Super Lab?

He also seems to think that they can set up another lab in town just a couple days after the lid was literally blown off of Gus's place. None of Jesse, Saul, or Mike addressed that issue.

Still in play...(Super Cop edition)
We're due for a good Schraderbrau episode soon. One loose end was that Hank said he snuck a look at Gus's laptop before it went to the evidence room. While he did say the information was encrypted, he didn't say if he saw anything, copied anything, switched the laptop or has ABQ's best geek working 24/7 trying to un-encrypt a few files he swiped. Stay tuned.

One much more obvious moment was when Merkert was talking about how a sea bass-toting Gus had been over for a cookout once upon a time. Merkert thought Gus was "someone else completely" and had such a big operation going on "right under my nose." Someone took notice of that. Someone named Hank Schrader. Look out, brother-in-law.

Don't be a bitch, yo! Tune in next week to the show... and my blog!
-T


tony@monstercards.net