Something about the centrifugal force, pulls the bubbles from the inside of the can and
stops it from exploding.
Down goes Hamlin!
It’s over!
He’s done!
He is done!
Tight!
Tight, tight!
Tight, yeah!
Whoa!
Take it easy.
I ain’t exactly Quasimodo over here.
Turns out poor Howard didn’t provide any real resistance at all.
He fell for the elaborate scheme of Kimmy Corleone hook, line, and sinker.
The experience points of seeing them pull this exact type of scam on Chuck provided
no value whatsoever to Howard.
He knew he was being scammed, but he never realized he was being duped by his own PI,
which in itself required an elaborate pre-heist hoax in its own right.
Kim wins.
Again!
Truth is, she doesn’t lose too often.
Even when Goodman played Kim and made her the sucker, she still got what she ultimately
wanted.
And just when she was threatening to break up with him, she instead got him to marry
her.
Kimmy has since proven to be a master con artist in her own right, superior to her mentor
who had awakened the Slippin’ Kimmy inside her, where she is now on the fast road to
truly becoming Kimmy Corleone.
It was all fun and games until poor Howie got killed.
Had Kim kept driving down that road, all of her dreams could have come true, but like
Walter White before her, or I guess after her, Kim feels alive when running a hustle.
The thrill makes her feel more alive than she would ever otherwise feel, and that’s
why she turned around.
She likes it.
She’s good at it.
Kim and Goodman giggle like a couple of sophomoric idiots as they hear Howard falling victim
to their plan.
Howard knew he was being played, but he didn’t have the foresight to see the trap before
him - even though he had seen this type of thing before.
On the other hand, Lalo did see the trap before him, and he was able to use that to his advantage.
By taking detail off the softer targets following Salamanca’s misdirect threat, Lalo was able
to waltz right in on Howard calling out the scumbag scheming couple for the soulless miserable
creatures they are.
Lalo waltzed right in there, and even Howie had enough street smarts to quickly realize
something serious was going down, and he was unwittingly stuck in the middle.
Nacho got to go out on his own terms where he found some degree of redemption in sacrificing
his own life with the intention of keeping his old man out of harm’s way.
But this wasn’t the case with Howard.
Nacho knew he was willingly marching to his own death, whereas Howard certainly expected
to leave Jimmy and Kim’s alive and well.
But unlike Nacho, unless some whopper of a reveal about his past is forthcoming, Howard
never really needed redemption.
Even right to the end, he was ready to get as down and dirty as he gets to fend off Kimmy
and Goodman, but he still never did anything truly underhanded.
He simply hired a PI, who was a plant for Kim and Jimmy.
The Cheryl factor should come back into play.
Howard warned her that she may hear or see something.
Surely Howard not coming home might set off an alarm bell or two.
And then there is the fact Howard shook a few hands and had his paws all over the wheelchair.
So someone having a bad reaction to the drug residue from Howard’s hand could still come
into play.
This circles back to Kim taking a bad choice road, where her reckless behavior resulted
in unintended consequences that potentially put others in danger.
This was the opposite of young Kim, when she made a good choice rejecting her drunken mother
and marching home three miles with her cello.
But Kim’s bad choice road here had a precedent, dating back to when she first visited Salamanca
in prison.
As Mike told Saul, she’s in the game now.
Speaking of Mike, I’m beginning to believe his showdown with Tyrus they’ve been hinting
at is going to play out differently than I once expected.
With Mike and his main guys guarding Gus in his decoy house, and Tyrus in charge of overseeing
the laundry mat, it feels like this will be the playing field, where I suspect Tyrus will
fail where Mike ultimately succeeds.
I’m now expecting Lalo to get the best of Tyrus, and Mike in turn to ultimately get
the best of yet another Salamanca.
Lalo is undoubtedly looking to use Kim and Jimmy as pawns in his designs for Fring.
And with Howard now out of the picture, the two big unknown fates, at least in the prequel
timeline, are Lalo and Wexler.
And now their worlds are once again directly intertwined.
Given the fact that Lalo has a blend of Gus and Mike, adding Kim into the equation seems
like it could tip the scales in favor of Salamanca.
Lalo has the strategic intelligence of Gus, and he likewise has the formidable aptitude
of Mike.
Lalo spends a lot of time thinking like Gus, and he spends a lot of time waiting and watching
like Mike.
Lalo is always well prepared.
Even the scene with the 1 hour power nap, that was just Lalo being overly prepared.
His mind and body are in perfect harmony with his mission, and he was awake before the alarm
even went off..
Coercing a master con artist like Kimmy Corleone to help with the effort should surely make
Lalo Salamanca even more imposing.
I’m beginning to wonder if Lalo and Wexler both don’t survive into the Breaking Bad
timeline, and if one or both of them may still have a role to play in Gene’s story.
I for one was actively rooting for Howard in this one like I was watching a Yankees
game.
I’ve been rooting for Howard for awhile now, so watching him get bested every step
of the way, and quickly realizing his doom was inevitable, as Kimmy and Goodman were
giggling like school children - he stayed true to himself.
I said earlier that based on everything we know, Howard’s character never really needed
redemption.
I stand by that, and all the same, Howard exuded redeeming qualities throughout his
final episode.
He showed kindness to a new employee who was terrified of him, and now we know that Chuck
always suspected his scumbag kid brother of shaking up his soda cans.
Howard tried defending against Kimmy and Goodman the best he could, without resorting to any
shady underhanded actions.
He ultimately got to the bottom of how he was bested with the planted PI and the drugs,
and he knew he had lost.
But in the very end, Howard did get a big win!
He confronted the scheming duo, and he called them out for being the soulless scumbags they
are, and he was ready and willing to persevere!
Howard knew he would land on his feet, he knew he’d get past this, and right to the
very end, Howard remained classy.
He never resorted to any of the many disgusting tactics implemented by Corleone and Goodman.
His spirit was never broken!
Howard was a born fighter, and he was ready to fight another day.
And throughout the show, Howard was always trying to make things right - offering Jimmy
a job, trying to make amends with Kim, and trying to make amends in his troubled marriage.
Howard didn’t deserve to go out how he did, and regardless of this being a completely
unintended consequence, the totality of their scheming ways brought this ill fate on poor
Howie.
But unlike many if not most characters in the Breaking Bad universe, Howard stayed true
to his core principles, and in fact, he was always trying to evolve and improve in every
facet of his life, always eager and willing to make amends for any mistakes he made along
the way.
Poor Howard!
This was a hell of a way to keep us hanging!
I for one thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the final season, and I can’t wait to
see the second half.
Midway through things have been tight!
Tight, tight!
Tight, yeah!
Thank you very much for watching everyone, I hope you enjoyed, and have a wonderful night.
I don’t know any Joe Dawg or Tugboat, so we can end this right now.
We ain’t leaving without our cash money.
Something about the centrifugal force, pulls the bubbles from the inside of the can and
stops it from exploding.
I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but the truth is you’ve never mattered all that
much to me.
He used to do it out of habit, anytime he opened a can almost unconsciously.
I asked him about it once.
Stealing them blind!
And he gets to be a lawyer!
What a sick joke!
I should have stopped him when I had the chance!
Just his way for being prepared for anything, accidental or otherwise.
Charles McGill, the “M” in HHM.
You can get so caught up in the idea of winning, that you forget to listen to your heart.
At the end of it he might never be able to practice law again.
No.
He doesn’t deserve that.
I’ve worked my way through worse: debt, depression, my marriage falling apart.
You get back in the car, bust the speed limit and you’ll still make that lunch.
Jimmy, this is where I need to be.
I liked it.
I was good at it.
Screw the money!
You did it for pfun!
You get off on it!
You’re like Leopold and Loeb, two sociopaths.
Alright!
That’s enough!
I think it’s getting worse.
In fact it’s possible you might hear or see something.
What is this?
That my friend is Albuquerque's public enemy #1.
You know, Quasimodo predicted all of this.
In the end you’re going to hurt everyone around you.
You can’t help it.
So stop apologizing and accept it!
I think I’m in the middle of something.
There’s really no need to.
Oh!
Oh shit!
You’re done!
You are done!