definitely the latter, good observation

it absolutely serviced a purpose

I personally would’ve minimized their cameos/made them more subtle

but calling it out of place is just wrong

flashback?

tbh same thing could've been accomplished by just having the scene of mike telling him to stay away from walt / saul going to the school

maybe I'm missing something, what context?

besides the banter between Walt and Jesse, only thing that happened in that scene was Saul found out they cook meth, which was already assumed in the BB episode

Nah the Black and white cinematography of Gene life in hiding
To me it represents how cold (literally speaking) and broken he is. I think if him and Kim meet again face to face then it will go to colour to represent his happiness with Kim

Saul saw himself as a string-puller, he didn't get pulled into this by Walt - in his mind, at least, he set out to basically use Walt.

Also Jesse looking way older than Walt :koolaid: Walt looks exactly the same :whew:

so cool how he nailed season 2 walt so well

yeah this was eye opening to
me, made me look at the scene where he shows up at walt’s school way differently

jessie in that episode

Bob talking about Jesse and Walt

"The truth is, it was just the start. There's more of them. And the scenes that come up are powerful. I love that... Everybody thinks they're going to show up, then they see them, and they go Great! We saw them again! You never know what's going to come next. So don't be so sure you haven't seen the last, I'm telling you, you haven't.

Cant stop thinking about him going full Heisenberg with 'Jeffie" by his side

When he shaves his head next episode

“You know how many pills I took to keep my hair”

The ending where it mirrors him going thru the door is excellent. The first time is out of seeing potential and partnership and the second time in Gene timeline is for resentment and bitterness that was informed by the prior experience.

Gene Heisenberg

next two episodes will not be seen in advance by critics

that van scene is also about the moment he sits with them in silence when the van is down. how often you see that with Jimmy? think theyve emphasized that to say that this is when saul gets a gut feeling about Walt (which he comes to regret/feel guilty over in the present) etc. so idk if the mike scene is enough to convey the effect of walt on saul and how that relates to gene's present actions.

in that sense that scene wasn't for nothing, even though i had no reaction to seeing them two return so lowkey a plus that they didnt try to set it up in some grand way and kept it pretty unremarkable.

although i really like how they treated the van's interior

really dug the ep tbh. the intercuts made me feel like gene was trying to relive petty crime jimmy, saul, mike, walt all at once

the way he was muscling the two dudes around

He lost it

I don’t get people like u ngl

what does this even mean

Why would u skip through the episode you probably missed some subtle key moments

Big "Do you listen to the music or just skim through it" Energy