Let me explain — the killing of Andrea was unnecessary, gratuitous, and just eye-rollingly manipulative. It’s the killing of one of the only “normal” characters on the show, one who hasn’t been a real presence on the series since the 3rd season, purely as a way to make the already-abused Jesse even more… abused? Perhaps there’s some other payoff for this move coming, but it seems intended to (1) show us that “creepy Todd” is still, surprise, creepy Todd; and (2) give Aaron Paul another scene where he has to deal with another enormous loss (as though him being imprisoned in a ludicrous Nazi meth lab isn’t enough).

I dunno, I guess I see the machinations of the 5th season plot as sapping the show of what it should be about at this stage: the conflicts between Walter and his two “families.” Instead, it seems to me like they dug themselves a hole in “Live Free or Die” by having a flashforward & Chekhov’s M60 — one they admittedly had no idea how they were going to work their way to when they wrote it — and now the last two episodes after Hank’s death and the knife conflict have to be about getting us to that point. Since it was never likely that Walter was going to go after Skyler, Marie, or Junior with the M60, we end up with moustache-twirling Nazis (really?) and Todd/Lydia, who seems just as much of a caricatures as the other Big Bads, just more polite/twitchy.

In retrospect, I wish they would have killed off Hank in 5a, like Dean Norris had requested. It would have given them more time and space for a “Fly”-like episode (great idea, Jason) for “Granite State” and given us ore of an extended denoument that focused on the characters, rather than on setting up a Scarface-like ending. I hope the finale is not what they’ve been hinting it will be, I really do, “Granite State” made the puppet strings far too visible, and now I just want it to be over rather than have to deal with more hamfisted “Hey, see how we killed off another person Jesse loves! Isn’t it just terrible?!” writing.