The Glade 4.0

I liked it.

1. I don't believe Walt's "out." I can't believe that for a second. I think the whole purpose of Walt giving the cash to Jessie was to get him cooking for him again, while Walt takes the true "head honcho" seat by being 100% hands-off.

2. I'm a little disappointed that Hank's first big clue was one he stumbled upon blindly. I was hoping for a little more Batman-ish detective work and deductive reasoning, not by him stubbing his toe on Walt's massive screw-up in the crapper. I guess I liked the idea that Walt could have been as careful as he possibly could be, and Hank still would get him in the end. But then, I hate the whole Harry Potter trope of "He wins by sheer dumb luck."

Either way, it was good.

I think the polarizing part will be Walter dying. He's the main character of the show, so there are many fans out there who don't want to see him die. For me, I've always viewed it as an inevitable conclusion from the first episode (which I began watching when I heard the show was about watching the man descend into evil).

But then that got me thinking about how he would die. One of the most logical conclusions is Jesse being the one to ultimately do him in. It would be more poetic, but I don't see Walter as the kind of guy who would let anything happen to him that isn't on his own terms. But then that got me thinking about the first episode.

My prediction is that Walter will die from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, in a similar circumstance that he attempted to commit suicide from Day 1 (but the gun was out of bullets and the sirens weren't actually meant for him). But this time, the scenario will be exactly what he thought the scenario was in Episode 1. Bring it full circle.

We begin with a loud noise that sounds like an airplane engine, but is revealed to be the sound of skateboards as we see some teenagers skating in the swimming pool of an abandoned house. As we cut to the street outside, something becomes clear… We are at Walter and Skyler’s house, but clearly no one has lived in it for a long time. There is a chained gate in front and the house looks terrible.

Sitting in a car out front is Walt, appearing as he did in the Season 5 flash-forward, with a full head of hair and a beard, looking very disheveled, with a stained shirt. He gets out of the car and opens the trunk, where we see the gun he got in that same premiere episode. He ignores the gun and take a tire iron. He manages to squeeze through the small space where the gate is chained and uses the tire iron to break the lock on the front door, going inside. As Walter closes the door behind him, he lets out a small cough.

The house looks terrible inside. People have tagged the walls and flies fill the kitchen, indicating food was left behind – and that the occupants of the house didn’t have time to prepare for their departure. But the most notable thing is the giant word “Heisenberg” spray-painted on the wall of the living room.

Walt looks at the word and then hears the kids skating in the pool, pausing to glance through the blinds at them. He then goes down the hall to the bedroom, where he unscrews a certain wall socket plate… and retrieves the ricin he hid there. As Walt exists the house and goes back to his car, his neighbor has just parked and is taking a bag of groceries from her car.

She sees Walt and suddenly freezes, mouth agape. “Hello, Carol” says Walt, as Carol drops the grocery bag to the ground in shock.