What an episode!
I definitely agree that Walt's treatment of Skyler was designed to get her off the hook and, more importantly, leave his children with at least one parent they could still love and respect. He had to cast her as the victim and himself as the monster to make that work.
She comes as close to saying goodbye as she can when she says "I'm sorry". I found it poignant how badly he wanted to respond but had to play the rest of the call as pure Heisenberg.
Just an amazing scene all the way around.
And yeah, I don't think that the kidnapping was premeditated. I think you can tell this because he whispers to Holly about getting her a "brand new car seat". It seems to me that when Holly started asking for "Mama" was when he realized that he had to leave his family completely in Skyler's hands. That meant doing whatever it took to keep the blame off of her and on him.
MediumTex wrote:
I don't know how you sort this all out in two episodes and get Walt with a full head of hair to the coffee shop with the .50 caliber in his trunk.
I don't think that his cancer ever returned. I think that he has been dying, but not of that.
It'll be fun to see how we get there. Especially because at this point I have complete faith in this shows writers to do it right.
What do you think that Walt's been dying of?