What about the closing shot of the episode, the poisonous plant growing ominously in Walt’s backyard. Is it meant to suggest the possibility that he might have poisoned Brock, or is it meant to say he definitely did it?
A.
To me it is fairly definitive. But there’s the old Billy Wilder quote, which I am going to misquote, that if you give the audience 2 plus 2 and let them add it up to 4 themselves, they’ll love you forever. I abide by that. The audience is plenty smart, and I like giving them as little as possible, and letting them do the math themselves. It’s such a shocking moment, that you find out the full badness, if you will, of Walter White, and you learn, truly, what he’s capable of: these monstrous acts, up to and including poisoning a child to further his and his family’s survival. To me, a moment like that is best told delicately. It’s best to not hit the audience over the head with it but to let them do the math themselves.