Face off. Wow – Aptly titled. Tonight’s episode started off right where last week’s ended – with Walt having failed in his attempt to blow up Gus and Jessie still hanging around the hospital. As the episode progresses Walt learns about the relationship between Gus and Hector and heads to the retirement home.
Hank and the family are still under protection and Saul is scrambling for his life. I’m not gonna recap the whole episode, because those are everywhere. BUT – I will give you the goods here:
And let’s all thank Warming Glow for this: (MAJOR SPOILER)
This week we focus on the worst of this season’s storylines – Juice being half-black. Is this really an issue? I understand that it might not be openly endorsed by the club, but it’s not like Happy or the members of the Tuscon charter are white as rice or anything. They’ve worked with Black and Mexican gangs, I can’t see the Sheriff outing him as being worse than stealing drugs from the cartel. Oh, by the way, Juice steals a brick. Hence the title.
Sunday night we saw the 2nd to last episode of the season, and despite the ending, it was still the calm before the storm, and overall, not a great episode. As we start we see the fallout of Walt’s actions last week. The DEA has been warned of a threat on Hank’s life and the whole family is being put into protective custody. The whole family minus Walt, who is holed up in his house with a gun waiting to be executed.
While in protective custody, Hank convincing Gomey to take a look at the laundry, to which Steve begrudgingly agrees. While there Gomez has no idea that Pinkman is right below him cooking meth. Gus’ laundry disguise for the meth lab worked perfectly despite Hank’s insistence – they found nothing.
The biggest development however is the way in which Gus decides to deal with Walt. Since Jessie won’t ok the hit, Gus has to figure a way to change Jessie’s mind. One method is to make Jessie think it’s his own idea, which is why Brock suddenly gets sick. It becomes apparent pretty quickly that Brock has been poisoned with RICIN!!! DUN DUH!!!
Pinkman freaks out, and think back to his earlier conversation with Saul, deduces (incorrectly) that Walt is responsible. This is the desired effect Gus was shooting for and Jessie heads over to Walt’s. Once there he easily obtains Walt’s gun and confronts him for (not actually) poisoning Brock.
Once Jessie calms down, Walt is able to convince him Gus must be responsible for the ricin, and they plot to finally handle Gus once and for all. So the plan is that Jessie will skip the cook and wait at the hospital, luring Gus there. This works perfectly. While Gus is inside, Walt wires Gus’ dorkmobile to explode. Problem is, Gus, as usual, is a few steps ahead of the game, and does not re-enter his car.
So Gus’ apparent 6th sense has saved his live. This is how the episode ends, with Walt utterly defeated again. Like I said, I didn’t think the was a great episode, but that is in no way an indication that I thought it sucked, it’s just simply further setup for this upcoming Sunday night. I’d say 3/5.
As for what’s in store this week, I think Hank is gonna get to play hero again. I was kind of hoping Gus would just kill Walt’s whole family and then we could see Walt explode and rampage his way through the organization. Also, I’ll be curious to see what kind of role, if any, Mike plays in the finale…
Arrested Development is an anomaly of sorts. I’ve never seen a show talked about so little while it was on, and then so much after it was canceled. Simply put – the show was great, and like so many great shows, it garnered no widespread appreciation until it was gone. Despite letter writing and widespread begging by the small, but loyal fan base, FOX canceled the show midway through its 3rd season.
Back in July we talked about Django Unchained and how Kevin Costner was set to appear. And that was accurate until recently when he dropped out and was upgraded to replaced by Kurt Russell. Russell of course worked with QT before when he played ‘Stuntman Mike’ back in 2007…
So Russell will play ‘Ace’ the sadistic whipmaster on DiCaprio’s plantation. Sound good to me. While I have nothing against Costner, I am more of a Russell fan. I mean come on –The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Tombstone, Escape from New York...guy is a badass.
As far as the movie – Django Unchained – this is as stoked as I’ve been about a QT movie since walking out of Kill Bill and knowing I still had another 6 months till the 2nd part came out…
You get 1 point for picking the favorite correctly, and 2 points for an upset win or a pick’em game. Our picks will be in BOLD and upset picks are denoted by a *
So, here are the scores headed into Week 3…
Kaiser Kronner
14 9
And our picks for Week 4:
Rev. Kaiser
Carolina @ Chicago(Vegas Line – Bears by 6.5) Minnesota @ Kansas City (Vegas Line – Viks by 1.5) *Tennessee @ Cleveland (Vegas Line – Browns by 1)
San Francisco @ Philly(Vegas Line – Eagles by 7.5) N’Orleans @ Jacksonville (Vegas Line – Saints by 7) NY Giants @ Arizona (Vegas Line – Giants by 1.5)
Denver @ Green Bay(Vegas Line – Packers by 13)
NY Jets @ Baltimore(Vegas Line – Ravens by 3.5)
Kaiser can get up to 9 points this week.
Dr. Kronner
*Detroit @ Dallas (Vegas Line – Cowboys by 1) Buffalo @ Cincinnati (Vegas Line – Bills by 3) *Washington @ St. Louis(Vegas Line – Pick’em/Line is 0)
Pittsburgh @ Houston(Vegas Line – Texans by 4) Atlanta @ Seattle (Vegas Line – Falcons by 4.5) New England @ Oakland (Vegas Line – Pats by 4.5)
Miami @ San Diego(Vegas Line – Chargers by 7)
Indianapolis @ Tampa Bay(Vegas Line – Bucs by 10)
Kronner can get up to 10 points this week.
So there we have it, check back next week to see how the grudge match it working itself out…
Feel free to post your own picks in the comment section below…
Hank and the family are still under protection and Saul is scrambling for his life. I’m not gonna recap the whole episode, because those are everywhere. BUT – I will give you the goods here:
Grizzly Bomb 