He assumed he had to sell drugs so his wife and kids would be taken care of after he had passed. But his wife had a decent job with a pension and unbeknownst to him was willing to cheat on him. She could have easily remarried after he died. Everyone would have been ''okay''. The shows entire events are redundant.
shareWalt’s pride was a huge motivator. His old friend and colleague offered to fund his medical costs, which would have prevented any of the chaos that followed, but Walt insisted on being ‘the provider’ at all costs.
Yeah, even by the final episode Walt admitted he did it for himself. The dude was just prideful.
shareThe great thing about the series is that he was always a repressed little man with massive hidden potential, and his cancer forces him to self-actualise, but what gets unleashed in the process is an arch criminal.
All of his murders and bad behaviour are necessary for his survival, so even though his sins rack up we’re still rooting for him because the alternative is his death, or the death of his friends and family.
The series did a great job of making all of his choices understandable, and in most cases justified - while I don’t approve of his foolish pride early on, I did want to see him shed his skin and become SuperWalt.
He wasn't always a repressed little man. In flashbacks, we see a much more confident and powerful - and well-adjusted - Walt. I'm thinking of the one where he and Gretchen are breaking down the "stuff" of a person.
To me, it's really clear that Walt, Elliott, and Gretchen were working together and everything was more-or-less okay. Then, something bad happened that shattered that; Walt left Gray Matter, and he started a cycle of bitter repression that lead to where we see him at the start of the show.
My theory is that Walt and Elliott founded Gray Matter. Gretchen works with them at the company, or co-founds it maybe, but she's there in the early phases. Walt definitely likes her, and I think they were together. She leaves Walt for Elliott at some point and that's what makes Walt freak out and leave. He feels immasculated. He's too too angry to stay with the company and proud to go back and say he made a mistake, so he just takes the buyout and walks away. Meanwhile, Gretchen and Elliott take his research and turn it into a multi-billion dollar company and Walt never lets that go. Maybe he does a little, from time-to-time, but it always comes back and it's never completely gone.
I don't think Skyler knows the full truth, either. She probably knows the broadstrokes, but Walt likely embellished how wronged he was. He also probably lied to himself that without him the company would founder and go under. When it didn't, he got angrier still.
OK, he was a repressed little man at the point that we meet him at the start of the series, but prior to that it seems he had more self-esteem and success, making him feel even worse as a shell of his former self.
Of course, we don't realise this until we get into the show a little bit. I wonder how much they knew going into it. It's possible they shot the pilot just thinking, "Well, he's a weak guy who can't get a break. Let's give him the weirdest break we possibly can..."
share16 years of putting up with Skyler is what broke Walt.
shareI thought in one of the final Gretchen episodes, she says that it was actually Walt who rejected her?
shareI don't specifically remember, but I'll take your word for it.
It's still a bit murky, though, because Gretchen and Walt might remember things very differently, especially because of what we know about Walt. It could have been an Othello-type situation where Walt thought something was going on and just go jealous and possessive; he certainly demonstrates an abundance those traits.
Maybe it was Walt who rejected Gretchen, but I bet he still blames Elliot and Gretchen for his leaving. He clearly resents them, so whatever happened between the three of them, that's details. Big picture: Walt left and it's been rankling him ever since.
For the record, it was an early episode, first or second season, where Gretchen has discovered Walt is lying to Skyler about taking their money. Walt goes to meet her and have a talk, and she brings up how after she brought Walt on a trip with her family so he could meet all of them, he left her without a word before the trip was over. He left her, she's the one that's butt hurt. (Well, she was, before she was married to a gazillionaire.) And going by Walt's behavior vis a vis Elliot's birthday party, he didn't seem all that butt hurt toward Elliot, either. But yes, he left Gray Matter because of the situation with Gretchen and he obviously very much regrets that.
I appreciate the clarification; that unmuddies a lot of waters.
Going on that, Walt probably got arrogant or jealous of his business partners and suspicious of Elliot and Gretchen (with or without cause), and left Gretchen.
Of course, that's assuming Gretchen is telling the truth. Then again, if she were lying, or if Walt thought she was lying, he probably would have chewed her out for it.
As to the party, while he does seem relaxed around Elliot, that could be a facade. Walt dedicates to lies. Then again, his mastery over his demeanour during bouts of dishonesty has never been great, so for him to appear that relaxed is probably mostly true.
Is any reason given as to why Walt upped and left Gretchen while on a trip to meet her family..?
The issue was definitely Walt's pride once again, he couldn't stand being around her rich high class family, made him feel like a loser. But I don't remember how much of that was stated outright vs being left to the viewer to infer based on what's been shown of Walt's pride issues by that point in the show.
shareSo no reason given, understood.
shareReason given, but not spelled out slowly one flashing neon letter at a time for small children or simpletons.
shareThe show doesn’t give a reason, you just pulled some assumptions out of your ass and are trying to pretend they’re the same thing. They’re not.
shareThe reason is plain as day to anyone with at least two brain cells to rub together.
And like I said, the show might have been pretty up front and clear about why he left during that trip. I just don't recall.
Well, best find out if you’re going to contribute, rather than pull assumptions from your ass and proclaim them as the ‘reasons’.
shareGREAT COMMENT...
sharePension? Don’t think so.
shareWhat a stupid, annoying bitch. I hated her.
shareRemember the finale ... he said he did it for himself.
shareSkyler was a nagging shrew who couldn’t even appreciate what her terminally ill husband was doing for her. All she ever did was nag and bitch. I was hoping she’d die
shareSkyler is one of the worst TV wives I have ever seen. Walt should have manned up and stripped her naked, put her in a barrel and then slowly sliced her skin off while pouring HF on the wounds and I know he would know how much to dilute it to cause the maximum amount of pain while not sending her into shock. And all the while assuring her that the pain is not going to stop, there is nothing she can do about it and that she needs to calm down and accept the fact that she is going to receive a slow, painful torture.
shareI think her character could have evolved to be more useful if the show didn't end so soon. Instead of Walt dying and before that being found out by hank they could have expanded the story more into another season or two with Skyler taking over more aspects of Walts business deals. She was an absolute bitch but quite good at planning and perhaps closing deals. I really think she had more potential as a character.
shareGiven how hated her character is, I doubt a lot of viewers would have watched.
shareShe had a decent job? I'm assuming you mean the one where she was cooking the books, got caught and most likely would have went to jail if she hadn't had Walt's money to buy her way out of it. Agreed though, he definitely underestimated her.
shareWell, Walt admitted at the end that his life was for him. I guess he did not want to die without having lived in some way according to his dreams/fantasies, the opposite of himself in real life.
share