Interesting Modern Train Robbery on Breaking Bad

Thanks Lee. I missed it (was working), so I'll try to catch it "On Demand."

Bruce

Definitely a great episode of a great show!

And considering that it followed "Heck" on Wheels, it was a triple treat this week.

Andy

i watched a few(4) breaking bad shows the last several months.needless to say i wished i would have watched it from day one.

im hooked on it now and im not watching it anymore on satelite.i went and ordered season 1 and 2  the other day and will eventually order the remaining seasons.

one of the best shows i've seen in a long time.cant wait to see the one that lee is talking about.

terry.......

I thought the most interesting part was the blaim it on the Chinese line.

That was a brilliant touch, wasn't it?  Crime geniuses think of everything - at least on TV. 

Yeah, it's one of my favorites too.  I have watched it from the beginning.  Good show.

Isn't it funny though how the engine stops at the road crossing and the car they are robbing just manages to stop at the overpass?  I think whoever made up the train must have had a hand in the robbery.

I bet Jesse just about s*** himself when he heard those couplers clank as the slack was taken up when the train started to pull.  For those that didn't see that episode, Jesse was under the train unloading a tank car.  WHOOPS,  didn't mean to give away anything if you're planning to watch the rerun.  LOL

Rick

I have friends who watch that show and I have watched 2 episodes of breaking bad and may I say it is one of the most violent shows on TV. I thought the Sopranos were bad but this is worst. These types of TV shows do nothing to enhance the cinema.   

I view the violence as just being realistic about the drug trade near the US-Mexico border.  Not sure it's really as violent as the real world but its enough to make the point.   I think this show is headed where The Shield ended up in its final season: ultimately, crime, violence and just being evil lead to your downfall and misery: sort of like the Dark Side but without the light sabers :-).

Which network is this on?  HBO?

its on amc.

thop

This show can be violent at times, but real-world violence centered around the real drug trade is far worse.  At least the violence in this show is not gratuitous.  Everything that happens on this show is pretty crucial to telling the story.  This show is about the character of Walter White and the people surrounding him that affect his life and are in turn affected by his journey into darkness.  And it has been a fascinating journey.

It has also racked up an impressive list of awards and nominations.

Andy

I agree also. Definatly one of my favorite shows, been watching it since day one. AMC has several great shows- walking dead, the killing, mad men, etc.

jim r from bridgeboss.com

It really is fascinating to see how "the dark side' just slowly, bit by bit, takes over and consumes him.  

Agreed. You really need to see the early shows to see the change in his character. Some of those early episodes were fantastic

jim r

I just started watching the show this season,it really is intense and draws you in,but some of the train robbery seemed implausible.How did the woman have such detailed knowledge of the train route and the communication"dead zone"?How could they have known the tank car they wanted was going to be lined up in the exact spot they needed to syphon off the chemical?Wouldn't the engineers have at least tried to alert the authorities and been suspicious when they stopped the train for a truck parked on the tracks in the middle of nowhere?

Dan 

She was an executive involved in the shipping of controlled substances with the right connections and "need to know" clearance.

How could they have known the tank car they wanted was going to be lined up in the exact spot they needed to syphon off the chemical?

She apparently knew what the consist was going to be ahead of time, or she had someone that could arrange the consist to be what they needed it to be.

Wouldn't the engineers have at least tried to alert the authorities and been suspicious when they stopped the train for a truck parked on the tracks in the middle of nowhere?

They were in a "dead zone" - no radio, no cell phone, so even if they were suspicious, they couldn't alert anyone.  Also, people tend to buy into any plausible explanation they are handed, especially if the person trying to sell them on the explanation has good "social engineering" skills.  This is one of the reasons why we have a lot of identity theft, con-men, and hackers (a lot of them use social engineering to talk people into revealing passwords or other crucial info).  Also, the fact that the truck wouldn't start in the presence of the train crew did a lot to help sell the story.

Andy

I just went with the whole robbery, realizing it was a bit fanciful of a plan with some plot weaknesses - but what the hey . . .  I felt the same with Walt's "brilliant" plan for where they make the meth this season- a cool idea but full of details and holes in it actually - but hey . . . its TV!

One small point about the train sequence  that got me: as they are waiting for the train they hear it blowing its whistle while still far, far away.  It's in the middle of nowhere - why would the engineer blow the whistle?  But its a good dramatic moment - you hear the whistle and then see the exhaust smoke from the diesel and know the action is about to start.  

I just assumed that there was another crossing that the train was going through.  I figure that if they found one crossing in the middle of nowhere where they could block the train, there may have been other crossings out there as well.  Don't engineers have to sound the horn at all crossings, even little-used ones?

Andy

I suppose so, but geez, that would make for a lot of roads out in "the middle of nowhere."  Still, its more plausible than some of the other points.  But who cares.  Sure was a fun show.

Well, this particular bit of nowhere was apparently close enough to some little outpost of civilization that a child could be out riding his dirt bike alone in the desert, so the possibility of there being two crossings within train-horn-earshot of each other doesn't seem so implausible.  The other one might even be a private driveway crossing, and I've seen trains sound the horn for such crossings many times.  Like you said, who really cares about such details.  Going into such details on screen wouldn't help the flow of the story in one bit anyway. (But it is fun to discuss. )

This episode will probably go down as my favorite of the whole series (with last season's finale a close second) just because of the involvement of the train.

This show is my favorite drama on all of TV.  I can't say favorite show, as I would have a hard time deciding between it and The Big Bang Theory, which is my favorite comedy - and it occasionally has some train stuff in it, too (go figure ).  Breaking Bad does, however, occupy slot number 1 in my DVR...

Andy

Since my wife of 39 years left early this year, I don't have Cable, Dish, or Air TV.  I didn't watch too much of it anyway since I retired 3 years ago.  Ahhhhh! That's why she left.

She left because you retired? or because you don't watch TV? 

Never seen this show.  This thread has intrigued me into looking for it.