Breaking Bad Final Half Season Finale

Well, it had to happen.   After staying just out of narc brother-in-law Hank's field of vision as a master meth maker for years, Walter's luck looks like it finally ran out.   In the last scene of last night's show, Hank, picking up a book of Walt Whitman's poetry on the throne, realizes that the "W. W." is not Whitman or Woodrow Wilson, but Walter White.  No joke.

And so the stage is set for the ultimate confrontation.  Hank was always Walt's greatest danger, because you can only hide effectively for so long in plain sight.   Hank of course is not a threat to literally kill Walter - as Walter's past opponents have been - but he is threat to kill all the benefits Walter has received from his new way of life these past few years.  And because Hank is not threatening to literally take Walter out, he is a much more serious threat.  One which Walter is not really prepared for.

Walter has taken Hank seriously only sometimes, and not always completely.  In fact, this season, Walter effortlessly bugged Hank's office, as Hank easily fell for Walt's crybaby routine.

There are a variety of possibilities here.  Is there any chance that Hank might leave the Feds and happily take some of Walter's money?  Not very likely, even though Hank does have his frustrations with the job.  Skyler may well come to Walter's support now, seeing as how he apparently left the business.  But what good can she really do?   Walter can also count now on Jesse's support, having given Jesse his fair share.   But what good can Jesse do Walter now?

Walter is no less brilliant now than before.   He thinks very quickly on his feet.  If Hank doesn't directly confront Walter with what Hank thinks he has realized, but Walter gets wind of it, Walter may find a way to twist the threads into one last complex, confusing knot to make Hank unsure in his suspicion of Walter.

Should be a great second half of the final season in store.

See also Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere: Riveting Entropy ... Breaking Bad 5.3: Deal with the Devil ... Breaking Bad 5.7: Exit Mike

And see also My Prediction about Breaking Bad ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Debuts ... Breaking Bad 4.2: Gun and Question ... Breaking Bad 4.11: Tightening Vice ... Breaking Bad 4.12: King vs. King ... Breaking Bad Season 4 Finale: Deceptive Flowers





"As a genre-bending blend of police procedural and science fiction, The Silk Code delivers on its promises." -- Gerald Jonas, The New York Times Book Review

New Amsterdam 4: Poetry and Parenthesis

One of the things I really like about New Amsterdam is the way that poetry weaves through almost every episode ... Omar Khayyam, Walt Whitman, and, tonight, John quotes the famous parenthesis line from e. e. cummings, "life's not a paragraph. And death I think is no parenthesis." Hey, when was the last time you heard cummings quoted (he spelled his name in small letters) in a prime time show on Fox...

John quotes this line as he and Sara walk in the New York evening, and draw ever closer. The line, of course, has an especially profound meaning for John, which Sara doesn't know. John's life, going on four centuries, is surely not a paragraph. It's an epic. And close calls with death have not only been no parenthesis, but barely a dot on John's page.

John's been struck by swords, accidents, and gunshot dots, of which we saw one tonight. Back in the Bronx in 1813, John challenges his arrogant aristocratic boss to a duel. The boss takes what he pleases with women, including impregnating someone John loves. John takes a non-fatal shot in the duel - all shots presumably would be - then gets up and calmly puts the boss down for good.

Honor plays a role in the 2008 story as well, and there are some good parallels between the mistreatment of women, then and now. But the strength of this series, so far, is in its historical interludes, and their meshing into John's present.

So far, the most interesting element in that present is not the police work, but John's apparently finding his truest love, in Sara.

Except ... I think it's proceeding a little too smoothly ... I'm guessing sooner or later there'll be something more than a parenthesis which gets in its way.

See also New Amsterdam, 1,2,3 ... 5. Meets Mad Men ... 6. The DNA of Art ... 7. What Kept John from Dying? ... 8. New Amsterdam Bows: Lessons in Cons and Backsides

---

winner of the Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction novel of 1999

"delivers on its promises" - The New York Times

Silk Code trailer

New Amstersdam, 1, 2, 3...

You know how devoted I am to time travel - Journeyman, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the time travel in Lost, and my most recent novel, The Plot to Save Socrates. New Amsterdam on Fox isn't quite time travel, but its story of an immortal in New York City has a lot of classic time travel elements in a hero who's been in town, since before it was a town, and continuously since 1642. In the first three episodes, we've already seen some erudite scenes in the Civil War and 1940s - as well as in the present.

I'm also partial to detective fiction - I just finished reviewing The Wire here on Sunday, and, yeah, I've written science fiction detective novels, too, including The Silk Code, The Consciousness Plague, and The Pixel Eye. So much the better, then, that John Amsterdam - the immortal in New Amsterdam - is a smart-talking detective in New York, New York. He's not only sharp, but has, of course, a great and pinpoint accurate historical knowledge. In his centuries he's a been a surgeon in the Civil War, a lawyer and then a soldier in the 1940s, and he also said something about being a history prof at Columbia University.

It's nice touches like this that make New Amsterdam a delight for the intellect. The series also isn't afraid to shock us with details like his old friend, in his 60s, is really John's son, from a woman he loved deeply in the 1940s...

John became immortal when he saved an Native American woman in New York in 1642, was run through with a sword, and she saved his life and blew some substance of immortality into him. John will live forever at age 35, or until he meets his true love, at which point he will start to age normally with the love of his long life.

If this sounds corny, it isn't at all in New Amsterdam. The series has a wisdom as well as a slight bit of CSI slickness, and the mix so far in the first three episodes looks to be just right.

The show also has a poetry - Walt Whitman and the verses of Omar Khayyam have already played roles in the series.

And Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is just right for John Amsterdam, with an off-English accent which is just what you'd expect of someone who has been around three and a half centuries. Zuleikha Robinson (who played Gaia opposite Ray Stevenson's Pullo in Rome!) as his attractive partner Eva, Stephen Henderson as his 65-year-old son Omar, and Alexie Gilmore as ER-doc Sara, who may be the love of his life, are fine, too.

I'm expecting to stay with New Amsterdam a long time...

See also 4. Poetry and Parenthesis ... 5. Meets Mad Men ... 6. The DNA of Art ... 7. What Kept John from Dying? ... 8. New Amsterdam Bows: Lessons in Cons and Backsides

---

winner of the Locus Award for Best First Science Fiction novel of 1999

"delivers on its promises" - The New York Times

Silk Code trailer