MovieChat Forums > Breaking Bad (2008) Discussion > Walt’s last noble moment?

Walt’s last noble moment?

posted 7 years ago by SlackerInc (1121)
5 replies | jump to latest

Some might say it’s when he leaves the baby in the fire station and calls Skyler with a fake rant about how he made her do everything, to try to get her off the hook. Or maybe even the finale, when he arranges for his son to get his money. I can see that perspective, but I have a hard time calling anything he did “noble” by that point in the series, because he had also sexually terrorized Skyler.

Others might similarly argue that nothing he did after killing Jane (and he did kill her: he didn’t just “let her die”, because he overcame her careful preparation of lying on her side by violently shaking Jesse and knocking her on her back, then not intervening when she started choking on her vomit) can be considered noble or redeeming, especially since that also led to two planeloads of people dying.

But I would nominate a moment in between: the beginning of episode 4.12, when Skyler is going to Hank and Marie’s to join them in being protected by the DEA and Walt refuses to go along. He had intended to protect the whole family by having them relocated by the vacuum repair guy (later, we learned, played by Robert Forster). But Skyler had given the money to Beneke to pay back the IRS, so there was not enough.

Instead of raging against Skyler for having doomed them by giving his money to the guy she slept with (and cruelly threw in Walt’s face “I.F.T.”), he told her that it was all his fault, they would never be safe as long as he was there, and he should be the one to bear the brunt.

Would you pick one of the other inflection points I mentioned, or a different point altogether? I suppose you could go way back to when he refused to take his ex-partner’s offer to pay for his medical care (and maybe implictly, to take care of Skyler and his kids after he died).

[–] Swolbach (13) 7 years ago

I wouldn't necessarily say that someone can't do something noble, because they've previously done bad things...so wouldn't rule anything out later in the series, due to letting Jane die, etc. But a noble act is defined as doing something based on high morals.

So, working backwards, the Finale acts were pretty much driven by revenge and directing his millions to his family - wouldn't call that moral. Same with changing plans and saving Jessie - that's pretty much common decency, not so much moral.

Giving back Holly and the Skyler phone call may be the most moral thing, working back from the end of the show, but again, he was just saving Skyler and had nothing to loose in the process.

Working all the way back to S5E6, he didn't have many moral moments, after his Empire speech to Jessie. At this point, he was well beyond "doing it for the family", and this is where he explains his position. If anything in Season 5, maybe his discussion with Skyler in the motel, where he tries to talk her out of her request to have Jessie killed...

Think I might go all the way back to Salud (S4E10), to the talk he had with Junior about his sickly father. A conversation may not be considered so much a "noble act", but it is one of few times, later in the show, where he wasn't covering up with lies or doing something for the sole purpose of building his empire. This seemed like the real Walt, talking to his son. Unfortunately for Walt, he didn't want Junior to remember him that way, but to his disappointment, Junior let him know he preferred seeing him that way, to the lying father he had been over the last year. Priceless expression on Walt's face when he hears this. In Walt's eyes, he's been noble all the time he's been covering up all his acts, for his family (and himself), but in Juniors eyes, he is only noble in this short conversation.

[–] SlackerInc (1121) 7 years ago

Great points. After he handed Jesse over to the Nazis, that kind of made me forget how long he insisted on protecting his surrogate son, even after ordinarily non-murderous people like Saul and Skyler were arguing to have him killed.

[–] AP (5295) 7 years ago

That's a good point.

[–] TaRaNRoD (1579) 7 years ago

"I wouldn't necessarily say that someone can't do something noble, because they've previously done bad things..."

Even though I tend to agree with that... Some people had done such horrible things that honestly they lost their possibility to any kind of redemption. First, because at that point you can't know for sure if the intention was clearly set on doing the right thing rather than an opportunity to look good. Second, what had been donne can't really be undone, forgotten and forgiven. You can act like nothing happened, but you'll always remember that this person had done unforgivable things.

Walt reached a point where his "good" actions couldn't overshadow his terrible actions. Yeah there were moments when I could appreciate his behavior (like the scene when Hank is killed and he tries everything to avoid it). But then I remembered that it's his selfish decisions that led to all this in the first place.

This been said, I was kinda siding with him everytime Skyler or Marie were present on screen. Talk about two arrogant, hypocritical and irrational bitches.

[–] Swolbach (13) 7 years ago

Agree - One noble act doesn't make someone a noble person. Walt was far from noble as the show went on. But he may have made a couple noble acts - even acts that aren't just "acting" but are honest, like the conversation with Junior.