Re: "Breaking Bad" season opener
Vince Gilligan doesn't want me to spill the beans on this one because that's the sort of mystery that keeps you watching, but I think the M60 buy is a flash-forward.
His storylines are full of nonsequiturs, like in the episode of the airliner crash. It starts with a shot of the teddybear's eyeball floating in Walt's pool, but Walt hasn't yet set into motion the events that indirectly lead to the midair collision. Along that same line, there were snippets of scenes in the "previews" leading up to the season opener that weren't in the season opener itself. So after S5E1, you're left still wanting to see the scenes they teased you with.
There are a number of clues in S5E1 that it's been a relatively short period of time since the end of the action in Season 4. Like Mike hasn't yet tracked down Walt and killed him for his killing of Gus, and Hank is just getting around to visiting the investigation of Gus's burned-out meth lab, which still is ongoing. Yet in the opening scene, Walt is sporting a several months growth of hair. So the reason we don't yet know why he felt he needed the M60 probably is that we've not yet seen the events that led to him buying it.
Walt is at a crossroads. He's in a position where he conceivably could walk away from his criminal life, but his conversation in the car with Mike after the visit to the evidence room is a clue that that ain't gonna happen. And if this is to be the last season, I think it's a given that Walt either has to be rehabilitated ...or killed off. So I look for the remainder of the season to be full of seemingly random jumpcuts revealing more seemingly unrelated details. Like Heller's <span style="font-style: italic">Catch 22</span>, the connections don't become evident until he's ready to call it a wrap. All intended to keep us from guessing where he's actually headed.
And S5E1 was full of attempts to further obfuscate what path Walt might choose. He's adopted a very malevolent tone with Mike, and with Skylar for that matter. And did you see her eyes when Walt told her, "I forgive you."? I couldn't begin to guess what that expression was supposed to convey.
Maybe there was something pivotal in that opening scene. After his friendly neighborhood illegal NFA salesman had left him in the Denny's bathroom, Walt took a pill. Is this a foreshadowing that his cancer has returned?
So at any rate, fasten your safety belt, it's going to be a bum-py flight.