Breaking Bad is my single tradition upheld since day one of the show. It's the only thing that I actually set aside time for, sit down on Sunday, and watch the premiere of each episode. To be at this point now in the show.... to just know that we've come to this from the point where it was a chemistry teacher taking off his pants to cook in an RV is chilling. Season 4 was the single greatest season of television I've ever seen, with special notice for Crawl Space, and I have no doubts in my mind that by the time this is over, the entirety of season 5 will match or surpass that. It's great also seeing the scene in the new episode where he walks into his house and it's revealed that the world knows what he's done. I want to see him crushed, because there's no longer any humanity left in him at all; Walt is truly a person of absolute evil. Yet when he stands in front of the spray-painted 'Heisenberg', you can't help but feel a tinge of sympathy behind the hatred. I mean he's been through some awful shit and, while I can't call him human anymore, he's something resembling it, and once was a human. Jesse is going to be the most important factor in the end. He's the only moral character left, and he's clearly going mad from it. I don't know what part he's going to play in it all, but sadly he's most likely going to end up dead. From an artistic standpoint as well, the episode was staggering. The cinematography from the first scene with the kids on the skateboards in his pool, to the shot of Walt in front of the Heisenberg tag, to Jesse at the Dog Pound, to the last scene, with the garage door closing and Hank and Walt's eyes burning at each other was flawless. I'm loving as the seasons progress as well, the subtle color coding for the characters gets more and more blatant, more revealed. At this point, every aspect of the colors is prevalent at all times, as if everything is at its maximum saturation. It's really gives you the feeling that this is the endgame and every from here is collapse.
I just read that they are one step closer to green lighting "Better Call Saul," a prequel to the Breaking Bad series that focuses on Saul Goodman's character. I'm excited for it, Bob Odenkirk is hilarious.
The fact that you mention hating Walt is interesting. I don't hate him, and I don't think my flatmate does, either. I think I knew from the start, as most people did, that he was going to get to this point, going to get this bad, and that has had an influence on me and how I interpret his character: the horrible things he does doesn't leave me thinking "wow, how horrible", but rather "holy shit, that was fantastic, look at how terrible he's getting". There was a while during which I really hated his character, but it wasn't because of horrible things he had done, but more smaller things, like the way he acted and treated other people - really minor stuff compared to murder et cetera. I'd be interested to see how other people feel about his character. Thoughts, b_b, onehunna? (I'll refrain from tagging TNG and MK in case they haven't seen it yet).
I hate Walter. He's pretty much gone full antagonist for me at this point. Dude is a despicable human being--how could anyone even argue otherwise? He's consistently shown that he will commit any atrocity to save his own ass. He lets his own pride and ego get in the way constantly. I think the major turning point from 'relatable character in a desperate situation' to 'total villain' was when he made the choice to poison Brock with the Lilly of the Valley. After that he went from Walt the dying high school chemistry teacher turned meth cook into Heisenberg, straight up. To me, Jesse is 'the protagonist' of the show--he's the one I'm rooting for. Walt can eat a dick.
See, I'm not sure how or why but I think I've developed a disconnect of sort from Walt and his actions. I think it probably stems from the fact that I first started watching Breaking Bad as a study in a media studies class, so spent ages analysing the show and his character - something that I still do (it's probably actually my favourite part of the show). The one thing that stuck in my mind was an interview with Vince in which he said something about the entire series essentially being an experiment of sorts into how long it would take him to transform Mr Chips into Tony Montana. I think because of this I've always approached the terrible things he's done in this nearly comic way. I think if I didn't have this view, I'd probably hate Walt much more. As it is, I just love seeing how terrible he can get. Jesse is my favourite, though, definitely the protagonist in many ways. He's done some pretty bad stuff, too, but he has a conscience, he's the one who has grown the most throughout the show (whereas Walt has less grown and more self-corrupted).
I completely agree that the Brock poisoning was Heisenberg's real coming out party. After that it was obvious that Walt no longer cared about anything beside being the king, not people, not friends, not even money anymore. Money, his original motivator, is now completely inconsequential to his goal, which I think is to shit on the world that sleighted him. Although the look on Walt's face when he shot Mike still was one of horror.
You almost get the sense that Jesse and Skylar are going to come to the realization that their only out is to turn themselves in. At the very least, Jesse seems to understand that if wants to stay alive, he has no choice but to play Walt's game. His only other option would be to go to the Feds, but but that could get him killed in a heartbeat, too. To me, Jesse is both the most sympathetic and most interesting character.