Ramblings about entertainment and other things
No spoilers ahead!
We’ve been watching A Game of Thrones Season 3
I’ve been very impressed with the packaging. It contains the Blu-Ray discs, regular DVDs, AND a coupon for iTunes downloads. So, we’re completely covered, no matter where we want to watch it in the house.
I’m actually seriously considering subscribing to HBO for a few months to see Season 4 while it plays live. That promises to be a very wild ride.
Brian Brushwood’s new TV show, Hacking the System, is a lot of fun. The latest episode is: Hack Your Car.
I look forward to this movie. This is an adaptation of the book:
Odd Thomas: An Odd Thomas Novel
More on this later… in the meantime:
Jack is back, May 5, 2014!
Form a perimeter! Thigh shots! Crazy Blogging with Dave Barry!
Meanwhile, watch the trailer
SPOILERS AHEAD
Well, that was an interesting episode!
The “bad guy” all season was revealed to be Charles Magnussen, an media tycoon who had a “mind palace”, in the same way that Sherlock does. Kept all his information there.
But was that really who was in charge of all this?
It was never directly shown, but I suspect that he had some connection with Moriarty. We saw at the very end that Moriarty is apparently still alive. If you recall at the end of season two, we saw Moriarty shoot himself, but the thing we did NOT see was blood. There was no blood pouring out of his head the way it should have been. Never saw his body taken away either, although that was implied.
It’s all sort of double reverse. Holmes was setting Moriarty up in Season 2, but Moriarty knew about it, went along with it and staged his death so he could turn the tables on Holmes later.
So.
Since Moriarty faked his own death, he would have stayed low, and found out pretty quickly that Sherlock was still alive. At this point Moriarty would need to “regroup”. He would let Sherlock dismantle all of his operations, since doing anything to prevent it would alert Holmes he was still alive.
While this was going on, he would stage a come back, planning revenge on Holmes. Perhaps even using Magnussen as an accomplice of sorts. Magnussen very nearly would have had both Watson and Holmes sent to jail, because he didn’t think Holmes would kill him. Probably wouldn’t have mattered to Moriarty either way, since either way, whether Magnussen lived or died, Holmes would be in jail.
Glad to see that Moriarty is back though. Definitely creepy character. Now all we have to do is wait for Series 4 of Sherlock! It can’t come soon enough.
Sherlock: Season Three
Looks like the Monty Python boys are getting back together.
SPOILERS AHEAD
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE ENTIRE SERIES OF BREAKING BAD
Kudos to my friend John for theorizing correctly that the Schwartz’ would be the ones to launder Walt’s money for him. That was spot on, and I have to hand it to Vince Gilligan and the rest of the writer’s of the show for making Skinny Pete and Badger the “hit men”. When the lasers came up, that was a great surprise.
I liked the finale a lot. I think it was one long goodbye to Walter, and he was able to resolve things as best as he could with all the people involved. I thought it was particularly good that he ended up saving Jesse at the end. Despite his intention to kill him, seeing what happened to Jesse after the parted ways in the desert, Walter realized he couldn’t go through with it.
Lydia… man oh man, she was worried about everything all the time, and Walter sure gave her something to worry about in her last hours. I caught on that the ricin was in the Stevia packet before they practically displayed the words on the screen by emphasizing the tea cup at the end of that scene.
Todd – man, that kid was ca-reep-eee. I’m glad he was taken out, and it was probably fulfilling for Jesse to be the one to do it. Even in the end, I had a soft spot in my heart for Jesse, and didn’t like to see him hurting anyone else. He’d done enough of that throughout the show.
Did it appear to anyone else that Walter’s bloody hand print at the end was in the shape of a “W”?
Tonight, my buddy Ralff (pseudonym used to protect the guilty) pointed out a couple of postings here and here.
The basic upshot of the theory is that Walt died in that car, and we’re only watching the fantasy that played out in his head. The evidence that’s cited is the red keychain that wouldn’t have been in a car like that, the fact that Walt was able to move around with relative ease despite the police looking for him, and more. Go read the article to see the rest.
While I really like the theory, I have to disagree with it. It just doesn’t fit the style of the show. If this had been LOST, then I’d agree with the theory 100%, because a lot of weird stuff happened on that show.
One thing I’d like to point out about that theory is that taken to the extreme, the whole series could have been in Walt’s head, starting from the point where he found out he had cancer. Unbelievable situations that he was able to get out of, dead men walking around with half their faces blown off, walking naked in grocery stores, people choking on their own vomit or having their skull crushed by an ATM (talk about nightmares… woooo…). The feeling of being helpless in real-life and wanting to be powerful. You could make a good case for saying the entire series was all in his head.
Like I said, I don’t believe the writers were doing anything like that. It just doesn’t fit the style of the series. Fun theory though.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Breaking Bad is coming to an end and there’s going to be a reckoning for a lot of folks. Just about everyone on this show, with the exception of Walt Jr. and Holly have done a variety of bad things, ranging from minor (Marie’s kleptomania) to really bad (just about everything Walt and Jesse have done). This won’t end up well for just about everyone, with the exceptions of Marie, Walt Jr. and Holly. At least that’s my guess. Beside being major drug dealers that have ruined many lives, Jesse and Walt have killed quite a few people. Skyler worked on laundering money not only for Walt, but cooked the books for Ted too. Todd….well, Todd…eech. Uncle Jack flat out killed Hank and Steve, along with his crew, not to mention they’re major dealers right now too.
The whole story will come full circle. Walt originally tried to figure out a way to make money to give to his kids when he died. He would have had the money in the first place, had he not been cut out of the company Gray Matter. He would have made millions. He ends up building a drug empire, again worth millions, only to be cut out of it again. He’s going back to arrange what he originally wanted: to get money to his kids. He’s going to make Gretchen and Elliott admit that they wouldn’t have the company if it wasn’t for his work.
He’s also going to make sure that the empire that he built, and that Uncle Jack and Todd (with the unwilling help of Jesse) are continuing, will go down in flames. He’s going to be sure that no one will benefit from his hard work and cut him out of it. That happened with Gray matter, and it happened again with his drug formula. No one will be left to carry on Heisenberg’s legacy.
Here are some guesses about what’s going to happen in the final episode.
1) Lydia get nervous and will kill Skyler because Skyler knows what she looks like. Walt will end up killing Lydia for that. Todd will in turn try and kill Walt.
2) Jesse will kill Todd. Jesse will end up getting killed by Uncle Jack.
3) Walt will kill Uncle Jack and the rest of his crew.
4) Walt will arrange it so that his money will go to his kids through Gretchen and Elliott. They’ll explain it away by saying it was Walt’s share of the company. (Credit to my friend John for this idea).
5) Marie will end up as guardian for Walt Jr. and Holly.
The one I think will have the best chance of being true is #4. The rest are just wild guesses.
I’m going to miss this show.
Spoilers ahead
I was talking to my friend John tonight about Breaking Bad, and how it was likely to end, and he came up with something I think is just brilliant.
So, we know that Walt is headed back to New Mexico. My previous thought about this was he was just going to gun down the people at Gray Matter and go out in a blaze of glory killing Uncle Jack, Todd, and probably Jesse. That, I think really isn’t “Breaking Bad”-style…. Well, all the shooting is, but that’s about it. And it doesn’t solve the problem of how to get money to Walt’s family.
John’s idea is basically this: He thinks that Walt is probably going to Gray Matter and talk to Gretchen and Elliot and have them launder Walt’s money in order to give it to his family after he’s gone. How he’s going to convince them to do it…. Well, no idea. But I absolutely love the idea that Walt will be able to get around the big problem of having the feds get their hands on it. It also gets around the problem of Jr. not wanting anything to do with the money either. It’s a great plan. Who better to give them money to Skyler and the kids than someone who they already know, and who can say it’s their “fair share” because it was Walt’s work in the first place.
John, if that’s not what happens to resolve the money situation, I’d be pretty surprised, because this is such a great, great idea.
As for Uncle Jack, Todd, Lydia? Oh, they’re all going down. Whether Skyler and the kids get all 80 million, or just 11 million, I think that kind of depends on how the Uncle Jack situation resolves itself.
Spoilers ahead. Don’t read if you haven’t seen “Granite State”.
So, I guess we’re not going to see any of the Czech buyers that Lydia’s been working with. They would have had to been introduced by this episode, otherwise it wouldn’t make sense. If they were shown in the finale, it would be a little too “Deus Ex Machina”, as a friend of mine put it.
So, there Walt was, sitting at the bar, after his phone call with Jr – he was ready to turn himself in. A chance sighting of the interview of Gretchen and Elliot comes on the bar’s TV. When Charlie Rose questions them both about Walt’s involvement with the company, Gray Matter Technologies, and they say the only thing he contributed was the name.
Walt being cut out of Gray Matter, never getting recognized for his contributions, is really what the whole series comes down to. Walt wanted to provide for his family, from the beginning, even before the cancer hit. He never made his millions in Gray Matter, even though they used his research to create the multi-billion dollar company. He was very resentful of this. Even more so that they’re not recognizing him as the prime person behind the entire operation.
Walt getting cut out of Gray Matter is an has an interesting parallel in his meth empire. With Walt out of the picture, someone else (Todd with the unwilling help of Jesse) is manufacturing meth using Walt’s formula. We already know that he’s very possessive of the the formula, and we’ve seen him argue with Jesse about it during one of their fights. This is the second empire that Walt built, and that he has virtually nothing to show for it.
Two empires built: One legal, one illegal. Walt left out in the cold (and in New Hampshire, literally out in the cold) in both, while others reap the benefits. That’s what makes him snap at the end of the episode.
Up until the ending of this episode, I think everyone presumed that Walt was going back to save his family and to exact revenge on Uncle Jack and crew. After seeing Walt’s reaction to the interview on TV, I think we’re going to see an act of revenge on two fronts: One against Gray Matter Technologies, and the other against Uncle Jack and his crew. I think he’ll storm the Gray Matter headquarters, kill both Gretchen and Elliot Schwartz, and then go after Uncle Jack.
