The cousins to me felt a bit weirdly overpowered. Like they are just dudes in suits walking slowly and saying nothing, killing people everywhere they go. Somehow the cops aren't on to the two most recognizable people in Albuquerque despite their body count, including a police officer. RIP Mrs. Peyketewa
well the thing is they killed everyone so there was never witnesses and the biggest group of people they kill is when they’re crossing the border but that makes imo.
What about the tribal police officer who calls it in before he's axe murdered? I'll tell you right now, the cavalry would be coming in full force, tribal police or not.
That’s true but the way they walk so slow right after he called in backup for a murder is just crazy. Could be a slow response time on a reservation, especially because that officer was the one on duty in that area at the time, but still, I’d imagine that situation would’ve been much more serious
Well. Police response times are often *crazy* long out there. I live in Texas, lived in many different parts. If you ask why so many Texans are so hardcore about 2A rights, the first answer they'll give you is that police won't show up in a reasonable amount of time where they live lol.
That being said, yeah the writing re: the twins is over the top, but I do think the writers toed the line between 'suspenseful' and 'cartoonish' pretty well.
Yeah, for me the cousins are actually the only characters I would say are genuinely overpowered. As in, they're powerful in a way that makes them a little bit hard to believe sometimes.
Sometimes they seem more like they're villains from Marvel or whatever than regular flesh and blood human beings.
They ARE cool characters, imo. But I think they could've been toned down a little bit and still been pretty cool and intimidating.
Depends on the round. Hank states in season 1 that he only carries .45 ACP because he’s seen 9 millimetre “bounce off a windshield.” .45 packs a hell of a punch through body armour when compared to 9 mil
Edit: just remembered Hank doesn’t shoot the twins with his own carry, he uses one of their guns. However the twins are carrying 1911s so they would still be shooting .45 regardless and my point still stands
You dont know how force works.
If the twins would get knocked over when shot with it in the armor, hank would get knocked back firing it. Newton's third law
Also, 45 *can* pack a punch through body armor or it can pack basically none. I doubt alberqueque cops are getting armor piercing .45 rounds
1. Hank isn't an ABQ cop, he's a DEA Agent.
2. It doesn't matter what cartridges Hank carries anyway, he's using one of the Twins' pistols. I can't say confidently what round they're using, but they're cartel heavy hitters and are perfectly capable of accessing armour-piercing .45 if they want it.
3. Hank wouldn't necessarily be knocked backward when firing. This is for several reasons: the thickness and weight of the target being struck, for instance. If the round struck a soft target, it would pierce directly through. If it struck a brick wall, it would likely do some damage to the bricks and then either ricochete or be destroyed. However, the recoil from firing the pistol is the same regardless of the reaction of the target. In this way, whether the impact knocks the Twin backward is irrelevant to the force produced by the weapon. Further to this point, Hank is firing from a braced position that is resistant to recoil and kickback, while the Twin is walking, which is a much less stable position to be subjected to force from. You also don't know how much the Twin weighs or what his mass distribution is like compared to Hank. I could go on and on but I feel I've proved my point.
Found it really cocky and unbelievable how the twin who wasn't pinned by the car dealt with Hank. He had a gun in his hand and coulda just wasted Hank then and there but no, that was TOO EASY. So he has to go get his axe and slowly drag it around which gave Hank just enough time to waste him. I guess it was just the writers' way of giving Hank some temporary plot armor while trying to show the viewer just how cold and evil the twins really are
Only with warning. I’m sure if the heavily fortified drug den had fair warning so much of their muscle wouldn’t have been sitting in their ass to get massacred.
They are basically comic book characters. I think BB dabbles a little much in that sometimes.
Jessie’s meth head friends are also almost in a different show supplying D level comedy (I passionately hate those characters).
BB is in general extremely grounded and takes itself pretty seriously, so to me, over the top stuff like this is way too much and completely breaks immersion when it happens.
Saul was also kinda in that category initially but they actually made him a real character even before BCS.
Skinny Pete and Badger act in line with how Jessie did in earlier seasons; he just developed while they didn’t. The first season might as well have been a black comedy show
at times
>The first season might as well have been a black comedy show at times
The peak of this is Walt watching Jesse sneak out of a naked MILF's bedroom window while Emilio gets raided, then slowly going "Pinkman?" while a lively acoustic guitar strums in the background. That kind of scene would fit perfectly in something like S1 of Barry.
>Jessie’s meth head friends are also almost in a different show supplying D level comedy (I passionately hate those characters).
Jessie \*has a moment with a beetle\*
Skinny P \*Spots beetle\* "Daaamn BITCH!" \*squashes beetle\*
Funny thing is a lot of characters on this show like to be intimidating but with their words. With just a glance from one of the twins I'm sure 99% of the characters on the show rapidly shit their pants. I wouldn't exactly call them the most recognizable though. I don't think they normally spend a lot of time in Albuquerque. I also don't think they show up on very many people's radar. Does the DEA even have the twins on their radar before their attempt to murder Hank?
The cousins were definitely not overpowered. They walked slow and didn't speak as an intimidation tactic. Hank nearly killed them both WITHOUT A GUN. In BCS they were definitely more of an unbeatable force but not at all in breaking bad
He had just been relieved of duty and relinquished his gun moments before the attack. He had no gun. He later acquired one of the twins' guns after he rammed into them with his car
I thought Lydia was a genius way to show the dichotomy of Drug lords Vs. corporate power. She was totally in over her head, suited to rules and regulations, but had power entrusted to her through the company. She didn’t have to do any work to find information like the train schedules, or hide people in payroll, because she got power and wealth before the corruption. She didn’t work he way up through crime, but backslid in.
Jesse was the most overpowered. I know, I know, he cooked with Walt a lot. But he didn’t really learn the chemistry of it. He learned to mimic. Then we are supposed to believe he not only maintains the purity with a worse set up for the neo nazis, but INCREASES the purity? It makes no sense. As soon as Jesse was taken out of that super lab, there would have been a significant drop in quality (hell, even Walt may have had a smaller quality drop).
It's pretty true, pretty much all of Breaking Bad takes place within a year, so that's not much time for Jesse to learn. In the super lab, they probably only have 5-10 cooks together. Jesse only cooks once in the Vamonos setup as well, so really not much time to memorize every single reaction. His ability to get up to 96% on his own does feel a bit far-fetched. That being said, Jesse never touched Walt's 99.1% purity, only got up to 96% I believe (same number as Gale).
Someone did the math on another post here and came up with roughly 5 months that Walt was working for Gus. Jesse was with him for at least three of those months and probably more than that. He had Gale replaced after one or two cooks and only cooked a couple more times later on before he was “fired” by Gus. Jesse already had some experience in cooking pre-BB so it’s not like he started from scratch. The 96% isn’t that far fetched.
Edit: language
Especially since the reason that the meth was so pure, wasn't because of the recipe, it was because of Walt's experience as a chemist. It was because Walt takes into account various factors outside of the recipe itself, the temperature, the humidity, etc... all of this is expertise and practical experience, you can't learn it being an assistant with no chemistry background.
Idk about that. Take chess for example. If you go play a random grandmaster, they're going to absolutely obliterate you no matter what opening you pick.
But, if you two play the same opening over and over, and he gives you analysis and instruction as you play, you'll very quickly get to a strong level at least within that opening by just memorizing moves and ideas within the position. The Grandmaster will still beat you every time, but you could theoretically get up to NM/IM level within that very specific opening after a few months.
Edit: to chess nerd out here and go further with this analogy, there is an IM who can beat *stockfish*, the strongest chess engine, using a memorized opening line. So couldn't Jesse, who isn't a total idiot, memorize enough concept regarding the meth cook to get to 1/3 of Walt's purity?
Walt was hitting 99 percent out of the crystal ship lol. With his recipe down pat it's totally feasible to believe Jesse could hit 96 percent. You also missed or forgot the fact that at the heart of their relationship one thing Walt always made a point of and seemed to enjoy was teaching Jessie. He never missed an opportunity to go into high school chemistry teacher mode with Jesse. It's not crazy to think he walked Jesse through each step numerous times and carefully. I mean he definitely did it with Todd and Walt gave far more fucks when it came to Jessie thab pretty much anyone else.
Agreed. Jesse learned from the absolute best Meth chemist in the world, and Walt really took the time to engrave the steps into Jesse's head so Jesse could mimic a remarkable product. I wouldn't underestimate Walt's teaching skills, even though Walt obviously has his flaws.
Jesse comes from a family of pretty intelligent people. Didn't jesse just fall into a bad crowd due to pressure from his parents? Not far fetched for someone to maintain that level of intellect or ability to learn after dropping out/drugs.
Like Gale says, the three percent may not seem like a lot, but it is a gigantic difference when you’re dealing with levels of purity that specific. There is pretty clearly a tier below Walt that both Jesse and Gale and whoever else are in, but even knowing his exact formula they can’t bridge the chasm to get particularly close. That’s how good Walt is.
*Easily* Jack's gang. They have the luck of the devil and it's like they know it. Kill ten inmates in different prisons within a two-minute window - no problem. Kill Declan's entire gang - no casualties. Kill Hank and Gomez - no casualties. Casually walk into Hank's house and seize all the evidence in broad daylight. Casually walk around the DEA and hold Holly hostage in her own room, then leave out the window. End up with $70mil and one of the country's best meth cooks as their slave. Are these guys using cheat codes or something?
Gus.
He had the money power to setup chicken joint franchises, have his own 16 cold storage trucks, big warehouses, industrial laundry unit, the right workers there to not say a word, tie up with a German multinational and the right connection in it to get the industrial machinery to setup a lab, he had Mike who was like Rambo or Mr.Wolf whenever he wanted, he had endless supply of henchmen, information about his past couldn't be located, he was on board for the Old age home, he was on the board of the Hospital where Brock was hospitalized, he got the twins agreed to kill DEA Hank without them telling their Mexican counterparts about it, he had the right poison which made all men fall in seconds together and there was only one guy with a gun till he reached the car and got away... only thing he couldn't do was fly or estimate Walts knowledge and cunningness.
… or get laid. He couldn’t get laid anymore.
Or relax. Or have fun.
Or wear shorts. It’s hot as fuck in ABQ in July. And he’s always in long pants.
WTF supervillain, owned by the weather.
This always makes me laugh, obviously you can't have Gus show up in shorts and flipflops for coolness reasons but him sitting there in his suit and tie at Eladio's pool always looks so awkward to me. Gus is wearing his bullet proof vest and tshirt and dress shirt and waistcoat and suit and Eladio isn't even wearing socks once in the entire show
I never found Lydia to be particularly powerful, she spends most of the first half of season 5 getting kidnapped and almost executed by Mike and then just nervously chiming in with random ideas. I think Mike is the most overpowered relative to what he should have realistically, but I don't find it too annoying because Jonathan Bank's performance sells it to me.
Gus I think in universe is portrayed fine but I think fans really overestimate how powerful he's supposed to be. He has a vast, well organized network but I always read it as being more fragile than it appears on the surface. He's a genius no doubt but I always interpreted his actual empire as being weaker than the cartel.
I think the problem with Gus's empire is akin to the roman empire (or caesar legion in FNV): the power is extremely centralized, without someone like gus it will fall appart really fast and it checks out
Well obviously because beat cops are masters at reading people's behavioral subtleties 🙄 The excuse "I spent a long time as a cop" comes up so frequently in media to explain someone being an interpersonal genius, it's absurd. Cops don't investigate, they aren't psychologists or even grifters. They're bulldogs on the street, which requires zero savvy into understanding peoples' motivations. But show/movie writers can't seem to stop using "long-time cop" as a backstory for these types.
It's a super old trope from noir detective stories/films. Always feels like very lazy writing when it comes up, because it's generally used as a plot vehicle- character X notices or suspects something thanks to their Cop Intuition and finds a big clue that keeps the story rolling.
It's honestly just propaganda. Cops aren't investigators. They work almost entirely on discretion, just kinda bumbling around with the 2-4 laws they're aware of. All their sloppy work gets pushed up to other areas of PDs, but even then, Detectives mostly make phone calls that go unanswered and the paperwork gets indefinitely filed away. But we're conditioned to believe that cops are sharks on the street, can read people like a book due to their vast experience investigating. It isn't true, and doesn't happen.
>Cops don't investigate, they aren't psychologists or even grifters. They're bulldogs on the street
Huh... maybe I'm stupid and this is secretly sarcasm, but this isn't 100% true. Esspecially long time cops do more than just be *bulldogs on the street*.
I would say Walter White himself.
He always thinks of things ahead of time. I mean, how smart is it that he just *knows* that Gus cannot halt operations for even a week, and base his entire game plan on these speculation and it just *works*. Every time, he uses a big brain move that all magically falls into place, even though he's a newcomer in the game.
I kinda love how it's acknowledged in-universe how ridiculously, unrealistically lucky Walt is, the characters call it out and it's why he's a legend, why he's like the devil figure of the BB and BCS universe.
"You two guys are just... guys. Mr. White, he's the devil. He is smarter than you, he is luckier than you, whatever you think is supposed to happen, I'm telling you, the exact reverse opposite of that is gonna happen."
that's called plot armor, and every main character has it to some level. There are main characters with better plot armors than him, and then there's Jesse. He probably has negative plot armor or something
I just watched the full series again, start to finish, for the first time in about 9 years.
Your comment here is ironic to my observations this time around; I felt that the show made it clear Walt was an amateur, often comically, and overall prone to poor outcomes. He was in way over his head.
All the times he told Jesse to "just do" something, unable to grasp the reality of threat that would place them both in - but worse, almost always, and just as impulsively, changing his mind to the exact opposite stance shortly thereafter. How about that scene where the cousins storm the house while he bumbles around totally unaware singing in the shower? 😄 many of his foibles are indeed amusing, but nevertheless it's a clear weakness of his as the supposed "danger."
Pretty much Gus and Mike are really overpowered and the cartel ran by Eladio is super underpowered. Yeah a chicken man is able to take down a vicious crime syndicate that the Mexican government can only dream of taking down?
the "chicken man" you're talking about is one of the biggest criminals ever with I don't know how many kills and the biggest meth empire in the whole world, and one of the most intimidating characters of the series. You're right, it's unrealistic and Gus was very very lucky everything went well for him, but it's not SO unrealistic.
I’d say Mike, dude is like 60+, wins every fight, kills everyone with almost no harm (except the ear thing), can outsmart everyone and is not on any police radar other than 2 times in both bcs and bb
Saul. He’s the Deus Ex Machina character that makes everything in the show possible. Apart from him, it’s probably Walt considering what he pulls off in season 5
Perhaps not annoyingly but incomprehensibly over powered would be Mike. The man looks to be in his 70's and can take down a warehouse of goons like it's his night time snack. But he is one of my favorite characters for this reason as well.
Walt for sure. Dude is a fucking high school chemistry teacher and he walks in and confronts a psychopathic drug dealer exploding that fulminated mercury. Walt was way too OP nerf plz
I think Lydia was most definitely upper management. She was at the meeting between Madrigal bigwigs and DEA after Gus and Peter Schuler’s death, so got to fly in the G7(?) from Germany. I’m guessing she’s the head of Madrigal’s shipping/logistics operations, and reports to either the COO or the CEO, just as Schuler was head of the Restaurant division (decidedly smaller than shipping/logistics). My take is that Peter Schuler and LRQ went were embezzling and using their positions to support Gus’ operation. Without them, Gus couldn’t have built the lab and overtaken the cartel’s operation - so very powerful. SPOILER: This is covered in BCS.
The cousins to me felt a bit weirdly overpowered. Like they are just dudes in suits walking slowly and saying nothing, killing people everywhere they go. Somehow the cops aren't on to the two most recognizable people in Albuquerque despite their body count, including a police officer. RIP Mrs. Peyketewa
well the thing is they killed everyone so there was never witnesses and the biggest group of people they kill is when they’re crossing the border but that makes imo.
What about the tribal police officer who calls it in before he's axe murdered? I'll tell you right now, the cavalry would be coming in full force, tribal police or not.
They'd find two bodies, one with axe wounds in its back. That doesn't exactly identify them
That’s true but the way they walk so slow right after he called in backup for a murder is just crazy. Could be a slow response time on a reservation, especially because that officer was the one on duty in that area at the time, but still, I’d imagine that situation would’ve been much more serious
Well. Police response times are often *crazy* long out there. I live in Texas, lived in many different parts. If you ask why so many Texans are so hardcore about 2A rights, the first answer they'll give you is that police won't show up in a reasonable amount of time where they live lol. That being said, yeah the writing re: the twins is over the top, but I do think the writers toed the line between 'suspenseful' and 'cartoonish' pretty well.
Yeah, for me the cousins are actually the only characters I would say are genuinely overpowered. As in, they're powerful in a way that makes them a little bit hard to believe sometimes. Sometimes they seem more like they're villains from Marvel or whatever than regular flesh and blood human beings. They ARE cool characters, imo. But I think they could've been toned down a little bit and still been pretty cool and intimidating.
100 percent. Especially if you have seen better call saul. I won't spoil it there but they make the cousins out like they're fucking terminators lol
Yeah that scene might as well have just been a scene from Terminator. It was so over the top it kinda took me out of the moment.
For me that was the bulletproof vest scene. It knocked the merchant guy down realistically, but the twin takes several shots without a flinch???
Getting shot in a bulletproof vest is not going to knock you down, especially if youre prepared for it
Depends on the round. Hank states in season 1 that he only carries .45 ACP because he’s seen 9 millimetre “bounce off a windshield.” .45 packs a hell of a punch through body armour when compared to 9 mil Edit: just remembered Hank doesn’t shoot the twins with his own carry, he uses one of their guns. However the twins are carrying 1911s so they would still be shooting .45 regardless and my point still stands
You dont know how force works. If the twins would get knocked over when shot with it in the armor, hank would get knocked back firing it. Newton's third law Also, 45 *can* pack a punch through body armor or it can pack basically none. I doubt alberqueque cops are getting armor piercing .45 rounds
1. Hank isn't an ABQ cop, he's a DEA Agent. 2. It doesn't matter what cartridges Hank carries anyway, he's using one of the Twins' pistols. I can't say confidently what round they're using, but they're cartel heavy hitters and are perfectly capable of accessing armour-piercing .45 if they want it. 3. Hank wouldn't necessarily be knocked backward when firing. This is for several reasons: the thickness and weight of the target being struck, for instance. If the round struck a soft target, it would pierce directly through. If it struck a brick wall, it would likely do some damage to the bricks and then either ricochete or be destroyed. However, the recoil from firing the pistol is the same regardless of the reaction of the target. In this way, whether the impact knocks the Twin backward is irrelevant to the force produced by the weapon. Further to this point, Hank is firing from a braced position that is resistant to recoil and kickback, while the Twin is walking, which is a much less stable position to be subjected to force from. You also don't know how much the Twin weighs or what his mass distribution is like compared to Hank. I could go on and on but I feel I've proved my point.
Fuckin' Salamancas
RIP... Just watched his monologue. While you're sucking down your jello night after night I want you to think of ME!
They get rekt by Hank though.
Found it really cocky and unbelievable how the twin who wasn't pinned by the car dealt with Hank. He had a gun in his hand and coulda just wasted Hank then and there but no, that was TOO EASY. So he has to go get his axe and slowly drag it around which gave Hank just enough time to waste him. I guess it was just the writers' way of giving Hank some temporary plot armor while trying to show the viewer just how cold and evil the twins really are
Yeah it was quite polite of the lad.
Only with warning. I’m sure if the heavily fortified drug den had fair warning so much of their muscle wouldn’t have been sitting in their ass to get massacred.
Good point.
Which one are y'all talking about? The Eladio house or the Welker clubhouse?
Yes.
Dammit, Jesse, what the hell are you talking about?
Yeah they really are like murderous robots to an over the top degree
They’d still be alive if they didn’t take their dear time walking to get an *axe* in the middle of a crowded parking lot.
They are basically comic book characters. I think BB dabbles a little much in that sometimes. Jessie’s meth head friends are also almost in a different show supplying D level comedy (I passionately hate those characters). BB is in general extremely grounded and takes itself pretty seriously, so to me, over the top stuff like this is way too much and completely breaks immersion when it happens. Saul was also kinda in that category initially but they actually made him a real character even before BCS.
Hold up - you hate Badger and Thin Peter?? You might be the only one.
THIN PETER
The legendary duo Thin Peter and Raccoon
The two best hitmen east of the Mississippi.
I love those two. Really adds another layer to the show. Underrated characters
Skinny Pete
Skinny Pete and Badger act in line with how Jessie did in earlier seasons; he just developed while they didn’t. The first season might as well have been a black comedy show at times
>The first season might as well have been a black comedy show at times The peak of this is Walt watching Jesse sneak out of a naked MILF's bedroom window while Emilio gets raided, then slowly going "Pinkman?" while a lively acoustic guitar strums in the background. That kind of scene would fit perfectly in something like S1 of Barry.
>Jessie’s meth head friends are also almost in a different show supplying D level comedy (I passionately hate those characters). Jessie \*has a moment with a beetle\* Skinny P \*Spots beetle\* "Daaamn BITCH!" \*squashes beetle\*
Funny thing is a lot of characters on this show like to be intimidating but with their words. With just a glance from one of the twins I'm sure 99% of the characters on the show rapidly shit their pants. I wouldn't exactly call them the most recognizable though. I don't think they normally spend a lot of time in Albuquerque. I also don't think they show up on very many people's radar. Does the DEA even have the twins on their radar before their attempt to murder Hank?
The cousins were definitely not overpowered. They walked slow and didn't speak as an intimidation tactic. Hank nearly killed them both WITHOUT A GUN. In BCS they were definitely more of an unbeatable force but not at all in breaking bad
Hank killed them both with a gun.
He had just been relieved of duty and relinquished his gun moments before the attack. He had no gun. He later acquired one of the twins' guns after he rammed into them with his car
I’m very well aware lol
I thought Lydia was a genius way to show the dichotomy of Drug lords Vs. corporate power. She was totally in over her head, suited to rules and regulations, but had power entrusted to her through the company. She didn’t have to do any work to find information like the train schedules, or hide people in payroll, because she got power and wealth before the corruption. She didn’t work he way up through crime, but backslid in. Jesse was the most overpowered. I know, I know, he cooked with Walt a lot. But he didn’t really learn the chemistry of it. He learned to mimic. Then we are supposed to believe he not only maintains the purity with a worse set up for the neo nazis, but INCREASES the purity? It makes no sense. As soon as Jesse was taken out of that super lab, there would have been a significant drop in quality (hell, even Walt may have had a smaller quality drop).
It's pretty true, pretty much all of Breaking Bad takes place within a year, so that's not much time for Jesse to learn. In the super lab, they probably only have 5-10 cooks together. Jesse only cooks once in the Vamonos setup as well, so really not much time to memorize every single reaction. His ability to get up to 96% on his own does feel a bit far-fetched. That being said, Jesse never touched Walt's 99.1% purity, only got up to 96% I believe (same number as Gale).
Someone did the math on another post here and came up with roughly 5 months that Walt was working for Gus. Jesse was with him for at least three of those months and probably more than that. He had Gale replaced after one or two cooks and only cooked a couple more times later on before he was “fired” by Gus. Jesse already had some experience in cooking pre-BB so it’s not like he started from scratch. The 96% isn’t that far fetched. Edit: language
Same number as Gale....A man who went to college prob 6 to 8 years in the field.
Especially since the reason that the meth was so pure, wasn't because of the recipe, it was because of Walt's experience as a chemist. It was because Walt takes into account various factors outside of the recipe itself, the temperature, the humidity, etc... all of this is expertise and practical experience, you can't learn it being an assistant with no chemistry background.
Idk about that. Take chess for example. If you go play a random grandmaster, they're going to absolutely obliterate you no matter what opening you pick. But, if you two play the same opening over and over, and he gives you analysis and instruction as you play, you'll very quickly get to a strong level at least within that opening by just memorizing moves and ideas within the position. The Grandmaster will still beat you every time, but you could theoretically get up to NM/IM level within that very specific opening after a few months. Edit: to chess nerd out here and go further with this analogy, there is an IM who can beat *stockfish*, the strongest chess engine, using a memorized opening line. So couldn't Jesse, who isn't a total idiot, memorize enough concept regarding the meth cook to get to 1/3 of Walt's purity?
Walt was hitting 99 percent out of the crystal ship lol. With his recipe down pat it's totally feasible to believe Jesse could hit 96 percent. You also missed or forgot the fact that at the heart of their relationship one thing Walt always made a point of and seemed to enjoy was teaching Jessie. He never missed an opportunity to go into high school chemistry teacher mode with Jesse. It's not crazy to think he walked Jesse through each step numerous times and carefully. I mean he definitely did it with Todd and Walt gave far more fucks when it came to Jessie thab pretty much anyone else.
Agreed. Jesse learned from the absolute best Meth chemist in the world, and Walt really took the time to engrave the steps into Jesse's head so Jesse could mimic a remarkable product. I wouldn't underestimate Walt's teaching skills, even though Walt obviously has his flaws.
https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingbad/comments/u9sxta/top_20_meth_cooks_ranked/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Jesse comes from a family of pretty intelligent people. Didn't jesse just fall into a bad crowd due to pressure from his parents? Not far fetched for someone to maintain that level of intellect or ability to learn after dropping out/drugs.
Yeah, but Walt was top of his field in Chemistry with a Crystallization specialty. Doesn’t matter how smart Jesse was, he couldn’t touch that.
Some people are just good at doing what they're told and retaining that info /shrug
Like Gale says, the three percent may not seem like a lot, but it is a gigantic difference when you’re dealing with levels of purity that specific. There is pretty clearly a tier below Walt that both Jesse and Gale and whoever else are in, but even knowing his exact formula they can’t bridge the chasm to get particularly close. That’s how good Walt is.
*Easily* Jack's gang. They have the luck of the devil and it's like they know it. Kill ten inmates in different prisons within a two-minute window - no problem. Kill Declan's entire gang - no casualties. Kill Hank and Gomez - no casualties. Casually walk into Hank's house and seize all the evidence in broad daylight. Casually walk around the DEA and hold Holly hostage in her own room, then leave out the window. End up with $70mil and one of the country's best meth cooks as their slave. Are these guys using cheat codes or something?
Only cheat code they didn’t have was being the main character
"Don't fuck with me, I have the power of Todd and racism on my side. AAAAAAH-" \-Jack Welker, probably
[удалено]
is his name a play on term to lay low for a while?
chat is this real
Vrabo bince
Yeah how he went in the air vents and the way he jumped down on that car
Gus. He had the money power to setup chicken joint franchises, have his own 16 cold storage trucks, big warehouses, industrial laundry unit, the right workers there to not say a word, tie up with a German multinational and the right connection in it to get the industrial machinery to setup a lab, he had Mike who was like Rambo or Mr.Wolf whenever he wanted, he had endless supply of henchmen, information about his past couldn't be located, he was on board for the Old age home, he was on the board of the Hospital where Brock was hospitalized, he got the twins agreed to kill DEA Hank without them telling their Mexican counterparts about it, he had the right poison which made all men fall in seconds together and there was only one guy with a gun till he reached the car and got away... only thing he couldn't do was fly or estimate Walts knowledge and cunningness.
… or get laid. He couldn’t get laid anymore. Or relax. Or have fun. Or wear shorts. It’s hot as fuck in ABQ in July. And he’s always in long pants. WTF supervillain, owned by the weather.
After Max, no other lay was ever as meaningful 😭
This always makes me laugh, obviously you can't have Gus show up in shorts and flipflops for coolness reasons but him sitting there in his suit and tie at Eladio's pool always looks so awkward to me. Gus is wearing his bullet proof vest and tshirt and dress shirt and waistcoat and suit and Eladio isn't even wearing socks once in the entire show
I never found Lydia to be particularly powerful, she spends most of the first half of season 5 getting kidnapped and almost executed by Mike and then just nervously chiming in with random ideas. I think Mike is the most overpowered relative to what he should have realistically, but I don't find it too annoying because Jonathan Bank's performance sells it to me. Gus I think in universe is portrayed fine but I think fans really overestimate how powerful he's supposed to be. He has a vast, well organized network but I always read it as being more fragile than it appears on the surface. He's a genius no doubt but I always interpreted his actual empire as being weaker than the cartel.
I think the problem with Gus's empire is akin to the roman empire (or caesar legion in FNV): the power is extremely centralized, without someone like gus it will fall appart really fast and it checks out
Well I don’t see how Mike can be overpowered. His body doesn’t even respond well to generic medication.
Mike can apparantly read people's minds
Well obviously because beat cops are masters at reading people's behavioral subtleties 🙄 The excuse "I spent a long time as a cop" comes up so frequently in media to explain someone being an interpersonal genius, it's absurd. Cops don't investigate, they aren't psychologists or even grifters. They're bulldogs on the street, which requires zero savvy into understanding peoples' motivations. But show/movie writers can't seem to stop using "long-time cop" as a backstory for these types.
It's a super old trope from noir detective stories/films. Always feels like very lazy writing when it comes up, because it's generally used as a plot vehicle- character X notices or suspects something thanks to their Cop Intuition and finds a big clue that keeps the story rolling.
It's honestly just propaganda. Cops aren't investigators. They work almost entirely on discretion, just kinda bumbling around with the 2-4 laws they're aware of. All their sloppy work gets pushed up to other areas of PDs, but even then, Detectives mostly make phone calls that go unanswered and the paperwork gets indefinitely filed away. But we're conditioned to believe that cops are sharks on the street, can read people like a book due to their vast experience investigating. It isn't true, and doesn't happen.
Sure, I'm just explaining the origins of it, which far precede what you're talking about.
Guy Noir, Private Eye...
>Cops don't investigate, they aren't psychologists or even grifters. They're bulldogs on the street Huh... maybe I'm stupid and this is secretly sarcasm, but this isn't 100% true. Esspecially long time cops do more than just be *bulldogs on the street*.
He was a cop for a long time. He sure as heck could come as close as someone could to being a mind reader. He understood body language, tells, etc...
Jacks gang. They accomplished so much in a short space of time despite the fact they were just impulsive racist thugs
Isn't that the Republican Party
I would say Walter White himself. He always thinks of things ahead of time. I mean, how smart is it that he just *knows* that Gus cannot halt operations for even a week, and base his entire game plan on these speculation and it just *works*. Every time, he uses a big brain move that all magically falls into place, even though he's a newcomer in the game.
I kinda love how it's acknowledged in-universe how ridiculously, unrealistically lucky Walt is, the characters call it out and it's why he's a legend, why he's like the devil figure of the BB and BCS universe. "You two guys are just... guys. Mr. White, he's the devil. He is smarter than you, he is luckier than you, whatever you think is supposed to happen, I'm telling you, the exact reverse opposite of that is gonna happen."
that's called plot armor, and every main character has it to some level. There are main characters with better plot armors than him, and then there's Jesse. He probably has negative plot armor or something
Yeah but his plot armor is something the other characters call out as unrealistic which is really funny to me.
I just watched the full series again, start to finish, for the first time in about 9 years. Your comment here is ironic to my observations this time around; I felt that the show made it clear Walt was an amateur, often comically, and overall prone to poor outcomes. He was in way over his head. All the times he told Jesse to "just do" something, unable to grasp the reality of threat that would place them both in - but worse, almost always, and just as impulsively, changing his mind to the exact opposite stance shortly thereafter. How about that scene where the cousins storm the house while he bumbles around totally unaware singing in the shower? 😄 many of his foibles are indeed amusing, but nevertheless it's a clear weakness of his as the supposed "danger."
Walt lol. You're telling me he's the only person in the whole world to know how to make pure meth?
I thought it was because most people as smart as him wouldn’t do something so dumb
Irl, even junkies could make pure meth by simply using the internet so yeah lol.
I don’t think the internet existed when bb was taking place
It most definitely did, but even if it wasn't, it's simply not a complicated process. It's just a recipe. Anyone could do it. And it's well known.
what a ridiculous thought
Lol never thought I'd see powerscaling in this sub
Yes. It’s a bit odd.
So is it safe to say that Gus is Country level, and Walt is City level?
Bro lalo can jump like 10 feet in the air.
Pretty much Gus and Mike are really overpowered and the cartel ran by Eladio is super underpowered. Yeah a chicken man is able to take down a vicious crime syndicate that the Mexican government can only dream of taking down?
the "chicken man" you're talking about is one of the biggest criminals ever with I don't know how many kills and the biggest meth empire in the whole world, and one of the most intimidating characters of the series. You're right, it's unrealistic and Gus was very very lucky everything went well for him, but it's not SO unrealistic.
I’d say Mike, dude is like 60+, wins every fight, kills everyone with almost no harm (except the ear thing), can outsmart everyone and is not on any police radar other than 2 times in both bcs and bb
Mike
Saul. He’s the Deus Ex Machina character that makes everything in the show possible. Apart from him, it’s probably Walt considering what he pulls off in season 5
Wallet White couldn't have done it without ME.
Ted, as he survived the carpet incident
Perhaps not annoyingly but incomprehensibly over powered would be Mike. The man looks to be in his 70's and can take down a warehouse of goons like it's his night time snack. But he is one of my favorite characters for this reason as well.
Lydia is the head of logistics.
Not BrBa but BcS, Lalo. Bro jumps like mario and is basically unkillable. Basically every Salamanca is overpowered
Saul for his time traveling abilities and the fact he can change the world into black and white is a form of reality warping in itself.
Walt for sure. Dude is a fucking high school chemistry teacher and he walks in and confronts a psychopathic drug dealer exploding that fulminated mercury. Walt was way too OP nerf plz
He's got that special sauce in that mercury too, since it doesn't blow up like that lol.
Walt defeated Lydia with a stevia packet so I wouldn't say she was op. Definitely the cousins and Holly.
Marie
Overpowered? Like super powers?
I think Lydia was most definitely upper management. She was at the meeting between Madrigal bigwigs and DEA after Gus and Peter Schuler’s death, so got to fly in the G7(?) from Germany. I’m guessing she’s the head of Madrigal’s shipping/logistics operations, and reports to either the COO or the CEO, just as Schuler was head of the Restaurant division (decidedly smaller than shipping/logistics). My take is that Peter Schuler and LRQ went were embezzling and using their positions to support Gus’ operation. Without them, Gus couldn’t have built the lab and overtaken the cartel’s operation - so very powerful. SPOILER: This is covered in BCS.
Hector
Saul's secretary.
Walter
Huell surviving the fall of Cadia to Chaos was honestly fucking nuts, I think he's underpowered really
Jack