Revelations: Why Does Walter White Love Wine So Much?

"There is power in the blood..."

Seriously...that's what this post is going to be about. I think the answer to the question is pretty important. Don't believe me...? Here are splattering of sources that are slightly more sacrosanct that my usual schizophrenic syntax.

• Sources: 
• Da Bible (specifically Revelations 14, New King James Version)
• Da GOOGLE; Deus Ex Machina (specifically Youtube, as of 8-27-2013 2:00pm Eastern Time)
• Practically every quote here, http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Bible-Verses-About-Drinking-Wine/

You thought meth was bad, and corresponded with sin and corruption? Child's play; in the universe of Breaking Bad, boozums break the deepest.

Even when sober, Walt often acts like a belligerent asshole. 

The previous supercut, edited masterfully by NY Mag's Vulture, makes me wonder why we haven't seen Walt wearing a "wife beater" before...

He even comes across like someone being pulled over for a DUI, though someone with a buzz wouldn't be as big as bastard as someone bugged by bad faith...

What seems to be the officer, problem?

You do pick up on some good libations; it's a family affair...  

...until it's not; merry libations lead to nasty vibrations.

Even something as light as beer has him make "sterling decisions..."

 One of the many rock-bottoms in White's life of pushing limits to the excess

There are many examples of Walt's favorite and most self-destructive liquid refreshement, wine, but I think this single icon encapsulates the score quite nicely...

Heisen-Walt at the end of 4x05 "Shotgun" looks like he is ready to make sweet tongue love to the rim of Hank and Marie's fancy wine glass. You devil, you!

 Skylar loves wine too. Jesse likes juice and water.

So....why is wine an even more viscous signifier of White's vicious streak? More than the tequila, scotch, or beers. More than his own product, meth, which he never touches.

Gilligan would never tell, so let's use some secondary gospel.

•  And another angel followed, saying, “Babylon[f] is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name (Revelation 14: 8-11)

....Ooooooh, this likely unravels the meaning of the show's maniacal dipsomania...kind of sobers ya up from all the free wheelin' fun we were having...

What does this mean for those in Walt's world of inebriated inertia? Well, as the someone that has direct experience with the effects of literal alcoholism on family and community, I think--everybody knows by now--they're fucked...

• And another angel came out from the altar, who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, “Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.” So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs" (Revelation 14:18-19)
• "Hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it (Isiah 5:14)

There's only one clip I can think of that responds to these wine and brimstone revelations....

Let's turn attentions to the "lighter side;" there's a craft beer coming out inspired by Walter White, Drink up!

Final Shot of the Series (i.e. tick, tick, tick...boom; or...tick...tick...tick...whimper...whimper...end?)

Travel like a king
Listen to the inner voice
A higher wisdom is at work for you
Conqering the stumbling blocks come easier
When the conqueror is in tune with the infinite
Every ending is a new beginning
Life is an endless unfoldment
Change your mind, and you change your relation to time
You can find the answer
The solution lies within the problem
The answer is in every question
...
Dig it?
-Funkadelic, "Good Thoughts / Bad Thoughts," Standing on the Verge of Getting it On

Why say goodbye?

We are born again when we died, but

We will never leave our lives

Everything that ever will be always has

Been and everything that ever has been always will be

-Apollo Sunshine, "We Are Born When We Die," from 4x12 "End Times"

What's it gonna be, then, Gilligan?

The last episode of Breaking Bad will be one of the most unique and cathartic experiences of my life so far; I'm as confident in that as I am in saying that the sun will rise tomorrow (yeah...I could die before either happens and the infrastructure of civilization could collapse, but I'm trying my best to avoid failing airplane debris and  hell-fire).

What will the final shot be? I still think Saul may get the last "word," but we may get to see Walt mumbling out different reiterations of number before he collapses.

I think the final image will be an obscure symbol, in the vein of the pink teddy bear, it's eyeball, Tortuga's head on un tortuga, the fly, the roach, the tarantula. It will be a microcosm of the show's entire structure, a rubix cube that may seem impenetrable at first; but that reveals profound pathos once it is unlocked.

A "finale" clue likely lies in the "Ozymandias" promo. See a previous post for more information, or rewatch the clip, and look and listen carefully....

Based on "Buried," and its scenes with Walt burying the cash in the desert (and it's heavily stylistic and emotional undertow and aftermath), I think I know where Gilligan and crew are going (or at least, where they-want-you-to-think, they're going)...

We won't see Walt die, but he'll be dying (either from Ricin, bullet wounds, cancer; from a heart that has finally broke for good, after his soul broke bad).

Since the show took extra care to show that Walt memorized the numbers of the latitude and longitude of where he stored the cash, (the entire sequence is full of shots that echo Walt's most pivotal sequences in the show, so it's clearly one of the most important scenes of the final season...so far. I'll return with details and some shot by shot comparisons later this weekend...promises!), clearly its setting up for a "douche chill" moment where he can't even remember something as easy as a few numbers. 

For a man so reliant on words to construct reality and avoid responsibility  his intellectual vanity and basic recall of truth must be what fails him last. Language goeth after the pride goeth, after the fall, and before the complete collapse.

If he loses everything, and is in even more of an exile than the one we see him in the "No-Where-Man" flash-forwards, than that giant symbol of an-idealistic-america-dream-turned-existential-nightmare (I'm talking about cold, hard, cash here) will be the illusory windmill he seeks.

The final image may be one that has occurred and reoccurred  an extreme long shot of the desert. Walter White, a former human capable of doing right and being a father, made to appear as a speck amidst and bare and boundless desert. The show's universe in a grain of sand....

The sorrow.

The fury.

The sound.

The thunder.

The joy.

The pity.

Signifying nothing...?
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 

The lone and level sands stretch far away."
...No; perhaps everything.

Or maybe it'll be Huell and Bogdon riding a flying shark over the city of Albuquerque...

Until then, how do you think the show will end; and also, how do you think it should end? Or maybe, like the energies of life...will it ever really end...?

Twisted Roads: The Shield's Influence on Breaking Bad

Inspired by the fact that Hank finally became a serious embodiment of the character he was initially a parody of. For christ's sake, he was even wearing an almost exact replica of the suit Mackey wore in his final scenes on the series...

Unraveling 5x10, "Buried" (i.e."My Head is Spinning")

Funny story, I didn't get to this BB until 8-21-13. What kind of junkie of I, afterall?  EXISTENTIAL CRISIS OF REPRIORITIZING!!!!

Deja Vu all over again, all over again, all over again

Primary Tao: Where the full circle starts to close in on itself

• Taos: 
• Breaking Bad is like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The "Blood Money" represents the all-powerful and all-consuming precious. Jesse may be Frodo/Golum.
• Profound photography reifies the concept of Ying-Yang 
• Light is Wrong, Dark is Right; inversed equation also rings true
• Aside from the myriad shades of gray, every vibrant color of the rainbow speaks powerfully to a truth; as they always have
• The tenth episode of every season (expect for the 1 that didn't have more than 7) is a pivotal turning point, of narrative and style.
• The men were frail and conflicted Macbeth's and Hamlet's; the women were the controlling Ladies
• Michelle MacLaren is one of the finest directors that ever directed anything; as important to the show's product as Gilligan and writing crew, Slovis, and Cranston.
• ..maybe more important
• Vince Gilligan had a cameo! Hitchcock it up, buddy; you've earned it!
• 
  

...more to come...

Sorry!

The Shanking of the Rats; Mind-Messing Montage #1

Shot for shot, sound for sound, motion for motion, lighting for lighting, atmosphere for atmosphere, context for subtext....this is the finest montage ever assembled on the show (...as of 5x09, that is)....I'll explain later. Check it out yourselves, first.

Mirror the; the mirror!: Reflections of Being and Nothingness

Since I am crept in favour with myself,
Will maintain it with some little cost.
But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;
And then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
-Richard III, William Shakespeare's Richard III

Letting the images speak for themselves

My Lap-top...I also meant to have this pic break from the blog column. Holy Obnoxious Fourth-Wall-Breaking Serendipity Batman!!! 

The Show Reveals that Hank Schrader Might Kill Himself in the End

Red Herrings...or Threads in A Loom-ing Doom and Gloom...?

Think of the old cliché about quote the 

mind being an 

excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually 

expresses a great and terrible truth.It is not the least bit coincidental that 

adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves 

in: the head. They shoot the terrible master.And the truth is that most of 

these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

-David Foster Wallace

Ocular proof to follow; followed by brief unraveling...

In the spirit of my current aesthetic engagement with the show, I'm going to cast back, from 5x11, all the snippets that tell me that Hank's journey will end with a self-directed bullet

Beginning with the Most Blatant Clue

Watch this clip from episode 5x07, "Say My Name" (you know, the one where Walt kills Mike and any last chance Mr. White had at regaining a sense of logical purpose)...

This scene is full of so many literal and symbolic fore-shadowing, that a part of me suspects foul play on the set-up. 

Just watch it, and see how obvious it is. Keep in mind that there's also a "meta-text" that gives away Mike's death. And that the foreboding fourth-wall breaking scene immediately cuts to a person seen prepping for more evil machinations (or the meth-aphorical variety); this person being Walt, the downfall of his bald-brothers (they were better men and fathers to both his surrogate and his real son, so of course his ego would drive him to eradicate their presence, whether directly or indirectly).

An alternative theory to Hank actually committing suicide, is that someone[...who knocks...] will do the dirty deed, and then set it up so that it looks like suicide; this would be a terribly act, disgracing Hank's legacy and being a dramatic apotheosis