More on Breaking Bad, was thinking about something Schad said the other day...
[nsfw]You said that Walter's phone call to Skyler was about him desperately trying to influence the game in any way he can. While we could get into his conversation with Saul saying maybe his family's interests weren't 100% up to him etc, I thought that his card game with the vacuum guy was very interesting.
"Would you like to cut the deck?"
"...no."
It wasn't a no of authority, it was weak and defeated. It was literally turning down a chance to influence the cards he'd been dealt - which shows that Walter had given up on the view you had of him, as someone desperate to influence everything. Of course, with the end of the episode, we've seen that change, but I thought that was very interesting at the time.[/nsfw]