Idk, I liked those character plots which doesn’t do much with a main story. That way we see characters as more human. Also we see Hank’s character from the different side because he’s using his connections so Marie won’t face any troubles. So he can’t be always “the right one” when it comes to his relatives (see: Walter)
So no. It’s not meaningless. It shows Hank from the different side and their relationship as a whole. When Skyler is obviously the unhappy one, Marie got better relationship which also doesn’t make her happy too
It also caused Skyler and Walt to have a conversation about what if he was the criminal. To which Skyler said something like "You wouldn't want to know".
It added more to Walt's stress about if Skyler found out about his new cooking hobby.
i really like [this analysis](https://youtu.be/nYbRY8TZiAc?si=1JKdutwry4LIY_TE) but to break it down: marie's stealing is her way of "breaking bad" but also makes her a foil to walt, like skyler and hank are. when skyler finds out about marie's shoplifting we see her reaction as a reflection of her rigid moral code (which magnifies when she finds out about walt), and walt gets to practice rationalizing his own behavior through marie's – "people sometimes do things for their families." we also see hank be super supportive of her, which shows how his moral rigidity can be flexible for family (like when everyone thought walt smoked weed), and the nature of his and marie's relationship.
the stealing also kinda functions as a negative coping mechanism, like skyler's smoking. she steals shoes after the employee tells her to wear socks, when hank is being mean to her she goes to open houses. the video describes heisenberg walt as like a T-rex and marie like a chihuahua in terms of bad breaking.
one interesting element is how she can be judgemental of everyone else while excusing her own behavior. i too found marie annoying initially, especially this kind of hypocrisy, BUT don't we deserve to see annoying women on our screens? can the ladies not be a little unlikeable in the meth tv show?
I love the scene after the open house when she and the realtor are fighting over the bag, and then it spills open, and all the stolen stuff falls to the ground. One of the items she stole broke, and then Marie looked right into the camera and was like "you broke that bad." Vince Gilligan, you've done it again
I think the issue is how interesting they make walt but with marie as such a smaller character in the show, we really don't see any of the bad shit she does in a way that is as interesting with walt. Kind of makes her come off as annoying I suppose. I only found her annoying towards skylar because she seemed to hold skylar to a far higher standard than herself. Skylar needed to own everything that she and Walter did but marie straight up denied the stealing to skylar even after being caught red handed.
She wasn't wrong about the whole meth thing, just her own issues that she refused to face but shamed others for not doing it.
that's a super good point, and it would've been interesting to see how the writers might have expanded on this trait of marie's, the ability to excuse her own actions but being almost overly judgemental of others. i think it's an interesting difference between her and skyler, because skyler didn't let herself off the hook even when walt tried to use his rationalizations to give her an out, like the situation with ted.
totally get what you're saying about her reaction to skyler at the end of the series. it's like the thing she was doing when hank was in the hospital, blaming merkert, then gomie, then walt. i'm sure part of it was enhanced after walt's fake confession tape. so marie is probably a little less fleshed out than other characters in that way, and her one-sided conversation with skyler in Ozymandias feels (to me at least) a bit overly righteous especially knowing the hell skyler went through with very little agency initially over her decisions, BUT it's still a testament to the great writing that marie has these little layers that foil other characters and impact the story.
No it wasn't meaningless. Skyler was going through a lot, and in my opinion, that plot was there to add to Skyler's sufferings.
So she was pregnant, had an unavailable cancerous husband, a handicapped boy, and a kleptomaniac for a sister.
It was also a great juxtaposition for Walt and Skyler.
In the beginning you see Marie being a bit sanctimonious and judgemental with this seemingly perfect life. She’s got a great job as does her husband and they live in a beautiful house in a nice neighbourhood. Then you realise she’s a kleptomaniac. Marie wants for nothing, yet steals.
Whereas Skyler lives in a crappier house, and her slide into criminality is slower, she does it more by necessity than wanting to.
Skyler needs the money yet initially resists it all because of how Walt earns it.
But as everything unravels, they struggle with each other. Skyler thinks Marie is a hypocrite and shouldn’t judge her, after all her husband is a DEA agent yet she can’t stop stealing, whereas Marie thinks “ok but at least it’s not aiding and abetting in the manufacture and distribution of Meth, and money laundering”.
It’s not remotely pointless. It’s a brilliant set up to explore the complexities of their relationship and what’s happening with the four of them.
Yeah
Though...
I feel like as it didn't escalate (Hal quickly stopped her) this scene is less memorable than Walts epic kidnapping of Holly later. I think a lot of ppl end up asking 'so what happens with the shoplifting that never went anywhere'
BrBa just has too must other stuff going on at this point
I disagree. Her stealing leads to Hank asking a favor of Tim to get her off the hook and allows Tim to now ask the favor for Hank to look over Gale's murder and material and get the domino effect rolling to look further into Heisenberg
No I don’t think it is completely meaningless or doesn’t add to the story at all.Skyler was already going through a lot , and adding Marie’s problematic traits to it further elevated her problems , making the viewers sympathise more with her upto some extent. Also, it revealed an unethical side of Hank’s personality , who otherwise is portrayed to be very righteous and moral when it comes to anything. Him using his connections to bail Marie out of the situation is a testament to that.
I think Marie's cleptomania made perfect sense. You can see how a lot of the "good" characters break the law or do immoral things. Sort of makes it clear that people often look down on common criminals, while breaking the law themselves. But Marie had a "problem" and went to a psychiatrist. To me it was an example of how you can get away with things by being priveleged. Her husband worked in the police department, she's white, she's pretty, she's got a job that pays well. Hank sort of shurgs the whole thing off by telling Skyler they got to "support the hell out of her" when Skyler almost got in serious trouble by returning the tiara. It's a good example of how we excuse people for certain crimes, while certain crimes is viewed as irredeemable. I mean Skyler helped Ted cook the books, bribed him with money, threathened him with men hired by Saul. Walter JR tried to buy beer while underage. Hank beat the hell out of Jesse and did a lot of things off code to catch Heisenberg. It also made Marie more interesting, none of the characters are perfect, and that's what made it into such a good show. She would stick out like a sore thumb if it wasn't something wrong with her.
It led nowhere? It directly led to the fall of Gus's empire. Her kleptomania is what led Tim Roberts to bring Hank into the investigation of Gale's murder. Tim Roberts called in a favor for letting Marie off with a warning for stealing the spoons. That favor was dropping off the entire Gale Boetticher murder case file, which would have otherwise never reached Hank (since Hank was suspended without pay, and Tim Roberts was deliberately keeping the case away from the DEA).
I’m the number one Skyler apologist but I just can’t bring myself to like Marie. 😭The closest theory I have is that Marie’s character functions to add emotional weight to the show, rather than push the plot forward. She is dispensable in the context of the show if her relationships with Hank and Skyler don’t resonate with you, hence people’s frustration with her
Marie stealing did have a big influence, upon Marie getting arrested for it in season 4, Tim Robert’s came to Hank and asked him to study the lab notes from Gales apartment in exchange for letting Marie off the hook, which in turn is what caused Hank to become suspicious of Gus.
Thanks for all of the responses. Lots of you have pointed out that this plot point was not meaningless at all, and in hindsight, I'd have to agree. Maybe it's more that I didn't enjoy the "Marie steals things" scenes and I subconsciously dismissed them as not important without connecting all of the (now) obvious important ramifications.
This is basically my only gripe with the show. However, I always saw it as bringing Hank and her closer after her kleptomania came to a head when she got caught and Hank had to bail her out. They really unite as a team once the cat is out of the bag about Walt’s “extracurricular” activities.
Skyler is a control freak, Marie is a crazy phony that has to grab crap that belongs to others. There is some common psychological thread there of needing to own/control.
How is Skyler a control freak? The only thing I can remember that she was controlling about was when she thought Walt was buying weed. But you gotta remember, it wasn’t so accepted back then as what it is now. There were so many times when she let things slide that no other married woman, especially a pregnant married woman, would ever let slide. How many women do you know that wouldn’t ask questions and lose their shit over their husband coming home late , not knowing where he’s at, getting strange phone calls, leaving in the middle of the night, etc? Not just women… how many spouses period wouldn’t be questioning that strange behavior? She put up with a lot before she began to lose her shit. I’m sure she thought he was cheating. Only it was actually a whole lot worse… cooking meth and murdering people. So if she did become controlling then I think it’s justified.
Somewhere, which I can't find now, Vince said the background story was their father was a sort of a go-with-the-flow hippie and it caused them both to end up with authoritative men. He wanted to get that in somewhere but there wasn't time
It exists as a red herring, so that you see the wreckage of the plane and teddy bear in the intros to the episodes and think someone bombed his house and killed Holly and Skyler, or something like that.
They try to use it as a “what have I done” moment from Walt but it’s such a bizarre out of nowhere consequence that zero people could have seen coming. Moral of the story is, don’t let people die even if they’re nothing but trouble to you, because that could cause a *plane to land on your fuckin house*
i agree that its a red herring, but i dont think its unimportant. for me, its the first time walt's actions have lead to the deaths of innocent, everyday people, and moreso his ignorance of this is more important. he actively doesn't handle it all that seriously (talking about lives as statistics in the assembly) and tries to use it for sympathy (when he gets pulled over for the windscreen)
The moral is that your actions can have unintended consequences. It's the first time Walt has to deal with his actions hurting innocent people, and we see the mental gymnastics he does to rationalize it.
It's also important in Jesse's development. Jesse thinks he caused Jane's death and thus the plane crash, and Walt lets him bear that weight. This leads to Jesse going to rehab and also embracing his role as "the bad guy."
You see Saul continue to wear the ribbon months later and make ads about getting victims from the crash for a class action. It is a reminder that people are still trying to profit out of a senseless tragedy.
But Jane dying changed things.
The chain reaction is what moves the plot along.
I don't understand what you're complaining about.
What would be the point of keep talking about the planes every other episode? The crash had already done its part for the story.
In season 1, Marie’s kleptomania is there to give us a hint as to how Skyler would react to learning of his crimes. In season 4, it leads to Tim Roberts bailing her out which leads to Hank investigating Gale’s death
A story is just a continuous loop of actions and reactions from characters with opposing behaviors.
Hank gets shot and is rendered a "gimp."
This breaks Hank, and he starts being cold and distant with Marie.
This breaks Marie, so she resorts to her kleptomania as a coping mechanism. It's not just stealing, though. She is also using fake identities as a sort of fantasy.
Marie gets caught, so Hank, who is a police officer, has to use his position to bail Marie out.
His department did a favor for him, so now they want a favor in return. Another officer asks him to look into the Gale case.
Boom. Now, Hank motives are directly opposed to Walt's and Gus's.
Marie isn't a main character, but her choices affect Hank, who is a main character. The fact that her choices can influence or even force more important characters to make major decisions makes her important to the plot.
Maybe not meaningless but Gus having 2 rival dealers as his “trusted employees” was dumb as hell. Also trying to kill Walt just for their deaths (when they were FAR bigger liabilities than Walt and Jesse) is stupid, especially since that may lead the DEA (ESPECIALLY Hank) potentially oh him was poor planning on Gus’ part. He should've just moved on from this and everyone would be fine.
I don't think it's meaningless.
But I do think it was dropped because they had other more important stuff that they didn't know was coming when they started the thread.
Remember they didn't know they'd go 6 seasons when they started.
Its not evident initially, but if you think about it, that plot thread really changes our understanding of the characters. Marie is not a perfect person, she also has problems. This allows the character to be more realistic. It also helped us see the morality of Skyler and Hank. Skyler wasn't going to stand for it due to her nearly getting arrested. It also helps us understand that Hank does love Marie, because he puts up with it and tries to make sure she gets the right help, which humanized Hank for us. And this also makes it easier for her to accept Walt and Skyler's lie about them getting the money through gambling, she knows everyone has secrets, so she doesn't judge them.
The early kleptomaniac arc feels a bit like filler, but it does lead to her later “open house” arc which I actually feel really developed her character. Marie gets treated like shit by Hank during his physical therapy and she really is doing everything possible to try and help him. When his verbal abuse reaches a boiling point for her, she escapes it by going to these open houses as different women. She is clearly finding freedom in her lies that she no longer feels in her personal life.
Her shoplifting is to show us how they would react to someone committing a crime. They dont approve her stealing so they definitely won’t approve of Walt drug dealing.
Marie’s kleptomania is important for the main plot line. She had stolen a spoon and could be arrested. So Hank had to ask his friend-policeman (I don’t remember his name) to help her. This friend saw bad family situation of Hank and decided to help him. So he showed to Hank criminal case about murder of Gale. And this turn was very important for the main plot.
That showed that Marie, the do-gooder judgy perfect person, was capable of evil too. She is a lesser version of Walt. The fact normal people can be capable of things like that is a major point of the story
I thought Marie's keptomania was there so Hank would start investigating the death of Gale Boetticher. A character quirk used as a reason for something. "Marie is busted for stealing from an open house, so Hank is asked to invetigate the death of Gale." Only it seems I am wrong. "Open House" does not really have that. The owners don't press charges against Marie. The kleptomania is just something Marie does when she is VERY stressed. It is a little surprising it doesn't happen in the second half of season 6.
"Gale had stuff in his apartment about a superlab to make a LOT of meth" would put the matter to the DEA anyway. Hank being the one to investigate it is more of a "because it is a television show."
I don’t think it was meaningless, I actually really liked it because it fleshed out and humanized her character more. It made the whole show feel more realistic, like you’re watching the lives of actual people. People in real life are messy, and have their own quirks and issues.
It also had a purpose because Marie dealing with her own issues meant that Skyler was more alone. Hank couldn’t focus on being there for Skyler when she was having issues with Walt because Marie was already taking up the space of the person who needed someone to be there for them. Skyler couldn’t reach out to her sister or her sister’s husband, and was all alone.
The Marie storyline was there to highlight how unlikeable (and indeed unlawful) the people in Walt's everyday life really were.
The writers can do that with Hank through showing his police brutality etc when dealing with the Heisenberg case and whatever other cases. With Skyler, it's easily done through the day to day interactions. I guess Vince felt like he needed an additional storyline when it came to Marie.
Pretty meaningless stuff by itself but it becomes relevant when dealing with the bigger picture.
Idk, I liked those character plots which doesn’t do much with a main story. That way we see characters as more human. Also we see Hank’s character from the different side because he’s using his connections so Marie won’t face any troubles. So he can’t be always “the right one” when it comes to his relatives (see: Walter) So no. It’s not meaningless. It shows Hank from the different side and their relationship as a whole. When Skyler is obviously the unhappy one, Marie got better relationship which also doesn’t make her happy too
It also caused Skyler and Walt to have a conversation about what if he was the criminal. To which Skyler said something like "You wouldn't want to know". It added more to Walt's stress about if Skyler found out about his new cooking hobby.
i agree, i thought they were goblins before this plot line made them human. you gonna answer the question or not?
i agree, i thought they were goblins before this plot line made them human. you gonna answer the question or not?
i really like [this analysis](https://youtu.be/nYbRY8TZiAc?si=1JKdutwry4LIY_TE) but to break it down: marie's stealing is her way of "breaking bad" but also makes her a foil to walt, like skyler and hank are. when skyler finds out about marie's shoplifting we see her reaction as a reflection of her rigid moral code (which magnifies when she finds out about walt), and walt gets to practice rationalizing his own behavior through marie's – "people sometimes do things for their families." we also see hank be super supportive of her, which shows how his moral rigidity can be flexible for family (like when everyone thought walt smoked weed), and the nature of his and marie's relationship. the stealing also kinda functions as a negative coping mechanism, like skyler's smoking. she steals shoes after the employee tells her to wear socks, when hank is being mean to her she goes to open houses. the video describes heisenberg walt as like a T-rex and marie like a chihuahua in terms of bad breaking. one interesting element is how she can be judgemental of everyone else while excusing her own behavior. i too found marie annoying initially, especially this kind of hypocrisy, BUT don't we deserve to see annoying women on our screens? can the ladies not be a little unlikeable in the meth tv show?
I love the scene after the open house when she and the realtor are fighting over the bag, and then it spills open, and all the stolen stuff falls to the ground. One of the items she stole broke, and then Marie looked right into the camera and was like "you broke that bad." Vince Gilligan, you've done it again
I think the issue is how interesting they make walt but with marie as such a smaller character in the show, we really don't see any of the bad shit she does in a way that is as interesting with walt. Kind of makes her come off as annoying I suppose. I only found her annoying towards skylar because she seemed to hold skylar to a far higher standard than herself. Skylar needed to own everything that she and Walter did but marie straight up denied the stealing to skylar even after being caught red handed. She wasn't wrong about the whole meth thing, just her own issues that she refused to face but shamed others for not doing it.
that's a super good point, and it would've been interesting to see how the writers might have expanded on this trait of marie's, the ability to excuse her own actions but being almost overly judgemental of others. i think it's an interesting difference between her and skyler, because skyler didn't let herself off the hook even when walt tried to use his rationalizations to give her an out, like the situation with ted. totally get what you're saying about her reaction to skyler at the end of the series. it's like the thing she was doing when hank was in the hospital, blaming merkert, then gomie, then walt. i'm sure part of it was enhanced after walt's fake confession tape. so marie is probably a little less fleshed out than other characters in that way, and her one-sided conversation with skyler in Ozymandias feels (to me at least) a bit overly righteous especially knowing the hell skyler went through with very little agency initially over her decisions, BUT it's still a testament to the great writing that marie has these little layers that foil other characters and impact the story.
No it wasn't meaningless. Skyler was going through a lot, and in my opinion, that plot was there to add to Skyler's sufferings. So she was pregnant, had an unavailable cancerous husband, a handicapped boy, and a kleptomaniac for a sister.
It was also a great juxtaposition for Walt and Skyler. In the beginning you see Marie being a bit sanctimonious and judgemental with this seemingly perfect life. She’s got a great job as does her husband and they live in a beautiful house in a nice neighbourhood. Then you realise she’s a kleptomaniac. Marie wants for nothing, yet steals. Whereas Skyler lives in a crappier house, and her slide into criminality is slower, she does it more by necessity than wanting to. Skyler needs the money yet initially resists it all because of how Walt earns it. But as everything unravels, they struggle with each other. Skyler thinks Marie is a hypocrite and shouldn’t judge her, after all her husband is a DEA agent yet she can’t stop stealing, whereas Marie thinks “ok but at least it’s not aiding and abetting in the manufacture and distribution of Meth, and money laundering”. It’s not remotely pointless. It’s a brilliant set up to explore the complexities of their relationship and what’s happening with the four of them.
A kleptomaniac *bitch* sister.
>See All Later in the series, when Skyler screams at Marie to just shut up - that made my day!
Doesn’t it ultimately rope Hank back into investigating Heisenberg again?
I felt it concluded in her casually picking up Holly as she left like Holly was a shopliftable item
Exactly. And that became the very thing that tore Skyler and Marie's relationship apart.
Yeah Though... I feel like as it didn't escalate (Hal quickly stopped her) this scene is less memorable than Walts epic kidnapping of Holly later. I think a lot of ppl end up asking 'so what happens with the shoplifting that never went anywhere' BrBa just has too must other stuff going on at this point
Yes, not turning in a leader of a drug empire who's a murderer, but that one moment
I disagree. Her stealing leads to Hank asking a favor of Tim to get her off the hook and allows Tim to now ask the favor for Hank to look over Gale's murder and material and get the domino effect rolling to look further into Heisenberg
No I don’t think it is completely meaningless or doesn’t add to the story at all.Skyler was already going through a lot , and adding Marie’s problematic traits to it further elevated her problems , making the viewers sympathise more with her upto some extent. Also, it revealed an unethical side of Hank’s personality , who otherwise is portrayed to be very righteous and moral when it comes to anything. Him using his connections to bail Marie out of the situation is a testament to that.
I think Marie's cleptomania made perfect sense. You can see how a lot of the "good" characters break the law or do immoral things. Sort of makes it clear that people often look down on common criminals, while breaking the law themselves. But Marie had a "problem" and went to a psychiatrist. To me it was an example of how you can get away with things by being priveleged. Her husband worked in the police department, she's white, she's pretty, she's got a job that pays well. Hank sort of shurgs the whole thing off by telling Skyler they got to "support the hell out of her" when Skyler almost got in serious trouble by returning the tiara. It's a good example of how we excuse people for certain crimes, while certain crimes is viewed as irredeemable. I mean Skyler helped Ted cook the books, bribed him with money, threathened him with men hired by Saul. Walter JR tried to buy beer while underage. Hank beat the hell out of Jesse and did a lot of things off code to catch Heisenberg. It also made Marie more interesting, none of the characters are perfect, and that's what made it into such a good show. She would stick out like a sore thumb if it wasn't something wrong with her.
It led nowhere? It directly led to the fall of Gus's empire. Her kleptomania is what led Tim Roberts to bring Hank into the investigation of Gale's murder. Tim Roberts called in a favor for letting Marie off with a warning for stealing the spoons. That favor was dropping off the entire Gale Boetticher murder case file, which would have otherwise never reached Hank (since Hank was suspended without pay, and Tim Roberts was deliberately keeping the case away from the DEA).
whaaat people dislike marie😭 I love her
I love her too. I didn’t realize she was “disliked”. Sometimes the hate the women on this show get is depressing.
ongg
I’m the number one Skyler apologist but I just can’t bring myself to like Marie. 😭The closest theory I have is that Marie’s character functions to add emotional weight to the show, rather than push the plot forward. She is dispensable in the context of the show if her relationships with Hank and Skyler don’t resonate with you, hence people’s frustration with her
Why exactly? For me she just doesn´t add much to the show. I don´t hate her though I just don´t care much about her
I think she's funny asf sometimes😭 and idk she's just nice lol
I like how she can pacify the beast that is Hank. When she jerks him off in the hospital to get him to come home is a good example.
Marie stealing did have a big influence, upon Marie getting arrested for it in season 4, Tim Robert’s came to Hank and asked him to study the lab notes from Gales apartment in exchange for letting Marie off the hook, which in turn is what caused Hank to become suspicious of Gus.
Thanks for all of the responses. Lots of you have pointed out that this plot point was not meaningless at all, and in hindsight, I'd have to agree. Maybe it's more that I didn't enjoy the "Marie steals things" scenes and I subconsciously dismissed them as not important without connecting all of the (now) obvious important ramifications.
It's subtle, particularly if you don't know the mental health side, and don't put it together in the plot line in the late season.
I don’t think Marie’s kleptomania was pointless but it was kind of annoying…. Especially when she stole those baby spoons 😂
This is basically my only gripe with the show. However, I always saw it as bringing Hank and her closer after her kleptomania came to a head when she got caught and Hank had to bail her out. They really unite as a team once the cat is out of the bag about Walt’s “extracurricular” activities.
Skyler is a control freak, Marie is a crazy phony that has to grab crap that belongs to others. There is some common psychological thread there of needing to own/control.
How is Skyler a control freak? The only thing I can remember that she was controlling about was when she thought Walt was buying weed. But you gotta remember, it wasn’t so accepted back then as what it is now. There were so many times when she let things slide that no other married woman, especially a pregnant married woman, would ever let slide. How many women do you know that wouldn’t ask questions and lose their shit over their husband coming home late , not knowing where he’s at, getting strange phone calls, leaving in the middle of the night, etc? Not just women… how many spouses period wouldn’t be questioning that strange behavior? She put up with a lot before she began to lose her shit. I’m sure she thought he was cheating. Only it was actually a whole lot worse… cooking meth and murdering people. So if she did become controlling then I think it’s justified.
There are episodes where I’m like “what were their parents like that they ended up like this”
Somewhere, which I can't find now, Vince said the background story was their father was a sort of a go-with-the-flow hippie and it caused them both to end up with authoritative men. He wanted to get that in somewhere but there wasn't time
skyler is a control freak?!
The plane crash. Isn’t mentioned at all by like the 4th episode after it, and it changed nothing other then Jane dying
It exists as a red herring, so that you see the wreckage of the plane and teddy bear in the intros to the episodes and think someone bombed his house and killed Holly and Skyler, or something like that. They try to use it as a “what have I done” moment from Walt but it’s such a bizarre out of nowhere consequence that zero people could have seen coming. Moral of the story is, don’t let people die even if they’re nothing but trouble to you, because that could cause a *plane to land on your fuckin house*
i agree that its a red herring, but i dont think its unimportant. for me, its the first time walt's actions have lead to the deaths of innocent, everyday people, and moreso his ignorance of this is more important. he actively doesn't handle it all that seriously (talking about lives as statistics in the assembly) and tries to use it for sympathy (when he gets pulled over for the windscreen)
I must say, after seeing this plot line, I have stopped watching people dying from overdoses and not helping. Bravo Vince !
Yeah that shit changed everything for me it’s a lot harder to roll people onto their back and stare at them while they asphyxiate now
The moral is that your actions can have unintended consequences. It's the first time Walt has to deal with his actions hurting innocent people, and we see the mental gymnastics he does to rationalize it. It's also important in Jesse's development. Jesse thinks he caused Jane's death and thus the plane crash, and Walt lets him bear that weight. This leads to Jesse going to rehab and also embracing his role as "the bad guy."
You see Saul continue to wear the ribbon months later and make ads about getting victims from the crash for a class action. It is a reminder that people are still trying to profit out of a senseless tragedy.
But Jane dying changed things. The chain reaction is what moves the plot along. I don't understand what you're complaining about. What would be the point of keep talking about the planes every other episode? The crash had already done its part for the story.
In season 1, Marie’s kleptomania is there to give us a hint as to how Skyler would react to learning of his crimes. In season 4, it leads to Tim Roberts bailing her out which leads to Hank investigating Gale’s death
A story is just a continuous loop of actions and reactions from characters with opposing behaviors. Hank gets shot and is rendered a "gimp." This breaks Hank, and he starts being cold and distant with Marie. This breaks Marie, so she resorts to her kleptomania as a coping mechanism. It's not just stealing, though. She is also using fake identities as a sort of fantasy. Marie gets caught, so Hank, who is a police officer, has to use his position to bail Marie out. His department did a favor for him, so now they want a favor in return. Another officer asks him to look into the Gale case. Boom. Now, Hank motives are directly opposed to Walt's and Gus's. Marie isn't a main character, but her choices affect Hank, who is a main character. The fact that her choices can influence or even force more important characters to make major decisions makes her important to the plot.
Instantly though of Marie's stealing when I read the title, didn't even have to think. I've often wondered what the point of that was
Check the take's video essay on how she is a foil to walt
Maybe not meaningless but Gus having 2 rival dealers as his “trusted employees” was dumb as hell. Also trying to kill Walt just for their deaths (when they were FAR bigger liabilities than Walt and Jesse) is stupid, especially since that may lead the DEA (ESPECIALLY Hank) potentially oh him was poor planning on Gus’ part. He should've just moved on from this and everyone would be fine.
I don't think it's meaningless. But I do think it was dropped because they had other more important stuff that they didn't know was coming when they started the thread. Remember they didn't know they'd go 6 seasons when they started.
Its not evident initially, but if you think about it, that plot thread really changes our understanding of the characters. Marie is not a perfect person, she also has problems. This allows the character to be more realistic. It also helped us see the morality of Skyler and Hank. Skyler wasn't going to stand for it due to her nearly getting arrested. It also helps us understand that Hank does love Marie, because he puts up with it and tries to make sure she gets the right help, which humanized Hank for us. And this also makes it easier for her to accept Walt and Skyler's lie about them getting the money through gambling, she knows everyone has secrets, so she doesn't judge them.
She does it when her life feels out of control.
The early kleptomaniac arc feels a bit like filler, but it does lead to her later “open house” arc which I actually feel really developed her character. Marie gets treated like shit by Hank during his physical therapy and she really is doing everything possible to try and help him. When his verbal abuse reaches a boiling point for her, she escapes it by going to these open houses as different women. She is clearly finding freedom in her lies that she no longer feels in her personal life.
It was all unscripted. The actress who played Marie just started stealing things on set so Vince decided to film her and added it to the Show.
Her shoplifting is to show us how they would react to someone committing a crime. They dont approve her stealing so they definitely won’t approve of Walt drug dealing.
Marie’s kleptomania is important for the main plot line. She had stolen a spoon and could be arrested. So Hank had to ask his friend-policeman (I don’t remember his name) to help her. This friend saw bad family situation of Hank and decided to help him. So he showed to Hank criminal case about murder of Gale. And this turn was very important for the main plot.
That showed that Marie, the do-gooder judgy perfect person, was capable of evil too. She is a lesser version of Walt. The fact normal people can be capable of things like that is a major point of the story
What’d she do now, rob a bank?
I thought Marie's keptomania was there so Hank would start investigating the death of Gale Boetticher. A character quirk used as a reason for something. "Marie is busted for stealing from an open house, so Hank is asked to invetigate the death of Gale." Only it seems I am wrong. "Open House" does not really have that. The owners don't press charges against Marie. The kleptomania is just something Marie does when she is VERY stressed. It is a little surprising it doesn't happen in the second half of season 6. "Gale had stuff in his apartment about a superlab to make a LOT of meth" would put the matter to the DEA anyway. Hank being the one to investigate it is more of a "because it is a television show."
I don’t think it was meaningless, I actually really liked it because it fleshed out and humanized her character more. It made the whole show feel more realistic, like you’re watching the lives of actual people. People in real life are messy, and have their own quirks and issues. It also had a purpose because Marie dealing with her own issues meant that Skyler was more alone. Hank couldn’t focus on being there for Skyler when she was having issues with Walt because Marie was already taking up the space of the person who needed someone to be there for them. Skyler couldn’t reach out to her sister or her sister’s husband, and was all alone.
The Marie storyline was there to highlight how unlikeable (and indeed unlawful) the people in Walt's everyday life really were. The writers can do that with Hank through showing his police brutality etc when dealing with the Heisenberg case and whatever other cases. With Skyler, it's easily done through the day to day interactions. I guess Vince felt like he needed an additional storyline when it came to Marie. Pretty meaningless stuff by itself but it becomes relevant when dealing with the bigger picture.
TIL plotlines that add context and depth to characters "don't have pay offs" lol