Breaking Bad “Felina” Review: The end is nigh

Walt looks old on Breaking Bad

Photo Credit: AMC TV 

A review of the series finale of Breaking Bad coming up right after I blow up city hall…

“I did it for me… I liked it. I was good at it really… I was alive.”

-Walt

We can breathe again, it stuck the landing…

Not that there was any doubt going into the final chapter of this great show, but just for anyone who was worried, or hasn’t watched the end yet (which in this case you probably shouldn’t be reading this) Vince Gilligan and his marvelous band of brothers did it in a spectacular fashion. Now that we’ve gotten the generalities out of the way (and if people who still haven’t watched this episode are still for some reason reading) let’s get right down to the nitty gritty of this finale, and the series as a whole…

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering *Full Spoilers Ahead* you have been warned….

Perhaps the best thing about Breaking Bad’s spectacular finale and perhaps the biggest strength of Gilligan as a writer in this episode is how everything, every theme, every tone, every cog, every little speck of this show he had been making for six all to short years all came together in perfect harmony. “Felina” was the anti ambiguous finale tying all its themes together into one bundle and showing us true resolution while staying true to everything (and by that I mean pretty much everything) that the series had done over all these years. There was humor, darkness, sadness, happiness, redemption, and loss. It was a representation of the show and everything it had stood for over the last six years, and as a resolution, that’s fantastic.

Let’s start at the last shot and just how beautifully it summed up Walt, and all that had brought him to his final moments. As he said to Skyler earlier in the finale the meth cooking was in fact for him (I do believe this is the first time in the entire series that he comes to terms with that fact, he’s finally gotten rid of the lie he’s told himself and everyone else over all these years that this was for his family and his family only) and him specifically wanting to die in the meth lab at the end of the episode was a perfect representation of that final fact. Even in his final minutes Walt looks at the lab equipment and feels at home completely contempt in every way. The meth lab is his home, not his own home where he resided as a underachieving chemistry teacher, but in the meth lab where he was a powerful figure with a name and people who both feared and respected him.

The last shot summed up Walt’s journey so perfectly, so entirely. It felt like exactly where he was destined to go from the opening shot of the entire show. Walt’s death scene was appropriately Breaking Bad and was everything that the journey had been leading to. From the blood smear on the steal of the large container to the flicking of the thermometer, it was so very perfect. Walt gets to die with his reputation however damaged and dark it may be, and to him, even if in a grand context it’s a pathetic and non ideal end (he’s lost everyone), it’s as close to perfect as it could possibly be.

The episode around that final shot, was almost all Breaking Bad fan service, at times borderline pandering (for goodness sake Marie and Skyler have a conversation about Becky and Carol) ; and yet I loved every last second of it. Gilligan has always seemed conscious of the fans and this episode was a huge nod to them. To start the episode begins with a big final nod to the Gretchen and Elliot and the Gray Matter arc. The entire sequence was marvelously hilarious and tense in every way. Walt sneaks past them with master stealth skills while classical music blasts in the background and Gretchen and Elliot grab glasses of wine. When Gretchen turns around and finds them the dance between the two parties begins. From the marvelous sequence where Elliot draws a tiny knife in unison with a crescendo in the music, to Gretchen grabbing hold of him in dramatic fashion right after he draws it, to Walt uttering “you’re gonna need a bigger knife” it drew a perfect line of comedy and tension. The result of the confrontation was a great round up to Walt’s relationship with Gretchen and Elliot, as he gives them the money to eventually (secretly) give to his wife and kids.

There was also the resolution to Walt and Skyler’s relationship and all that came from it. What a fantastic sequence between the two of them, a wonderful summation of their lost love and how it’s been destroyed by what has happened over Walt’s meth cooking period. The near emotionless look on both their faces, the pain of their conversation, and the emotional impact of Walt’s final moments with Holly were all so powerful in so many ways. It was a perfect resolution and summation of a relationship that has been destroyed over the run of this show.

There was also that machine gun and ricin issue. While it may have felt like a simple issue, and ultimately juvenile within the complexities of the show, it was fun to guess and ultimately find out how the machine gun and ricin would come into play. The final results were satisfying in every way, even if I saw the sequence coming every step of the way. The machine gun of course went to the Nazis but entirely for different reasons than I thought initially.  The machine gun was never for the money, or really about revenge, it was entirely about Walt’s reputation and how his story would end. Walt’s lost everything else now but at least he could have control about how he lost his life. The machine gun sequence worked very well and it was a great way to get rid of the despicable characters that were the neo-Nazis and managed to put perfect resolution to where exactly the machine gun was in play.

If there was one thing that the episode skims over, just slightly, it was Jessie, and even then I was satisfied with his ultimate end. Jessie gets the semi redemptive end that it seemed that he would get all season long. Jessie also got the satisfaction of freaking strangling Todd to death with his chain unchaining (Djangooooo) himself from the shackles of his captors and ending the life of his slave driver. Jessie also gets to tell Walt off as well getting to tell him to kill himself instead of pinning that responsibility on himself. Even so Walt and Jessie do still get to exchange a final head nod at the end of the episode and acknowledge where they have come from and, that, no matter how awful the journey has been they still have a love and respect for each other. The final shot that Jessie gets of him driving and yelling victoriously in his car free from the life that has systematically been destroyed was fantastic and emotionally satisfying despite Jessie’s minimal involvement in the episode.

So the final question just how well did this show come to an end? To me it very much stuck the landing, no problems. Ultimately to me the all time classic episode of this final half season will always be its climactic one Ozymandias, but the last two episodes, essentially the denouement of the series, were perfect ways to wrap the series up. In that regard the series was smart, sure we didn’t get the surprises that many people would have wanted from the finale but we got a resolution that took its time to get thing right. There are no trip ups or big misses in these final two episodes and the ending didn’t feel frustratingly like the climax of the series. It all felt expertly plotted in a fantastic end of novel like fashion. Even if the last two episodes weren’t technically “as good” as Ozymandias that’s to be expected after the climax of the series happens, the climax is suppose to be the best part of the series. It’s hard to ultimately judge the finale itself without judging it in the context of the whole final series, and it also is ultimately not fair. Ultimately the finale was a near perfect final chapter that didn’t need to provide any additional surprises. All it needed to do was wrap up this beautiful series in a satisfying fashion, and it did that quite expertly.

So goodbye Breaking Bad one of the all time greatest television shows. Few shows have ever and ultimately will ever be better than this show at any stage even at its lower points. Few shows carried the same emotional turmoil and weight that Breaking Bad did. No other show didn’t allow me to breath over the course of as many hours, and ultimately pound me in the gut with a ton of suspense. No other show (even the Shield and the Wire of whom I thought had very good/great final seasons) had as fantastic a final run as this show has put on, one that will go down in history as the example of a great way to end a show.

We can breathe now, Gilligan and company stuck the landing…

Goodbye Breaking Bad, you will be missed a tremendous amount…

Some other musings:

• Todd has the best ringtones ever!

• The truly great Breaking Bad spinoff would be the one where Carol and Becky have a battle to the death. It’s a gladiator duel staring Breaking Bad’s best female neighbors!

• Before we leave the show we have to talk about how the two year split worked. Personally I’m still not a big fan of the two eight episode split despite these final eight episodes being as amazing as they were. It still seems like the show needed time to breathe last year in its first few hours and that it suffered a bit because of the amount of episodes it had. It wasn’t that big of a deal ultimately, as again most of the episodes that came in this large final season were very good to great, but sometimes the first half felt a little weaker just due to the structure of Breaking Bad in general. I love this show though and am glad that it stayed on the air as long as it did and I’m glad that Gilligan got the time to really get the last eight right. Unfortunately for AMC’s other split show Mad Men Weiner will have to produce all the episodes at once not allowing for the meticulous care that went into these final eight.

• I laughed out loud at when the “assassins” turned out to be Badger and Skinny Pete with laser pointers. The car ride away from Gretchen and Elliot’s place was truly hilarious as the dynamic duo had brief moral thoughts about the situation… Before succumbing to the power of Walt’s money.

• On that point this episode did provide the most laughs of any episode this season while still being super tense in almost every way.

• Oh yeah and Jessie sports the Pete Campbell look!

• The finale did seem at times a little too tightly resolved maybe at times, but ultimately it worked and felt very much like a final chapter of a book, in the same way that the Wire finale felt like that as well, full of resolution without the need for contrivances.
• Great closing song with Badfinger's "Baby Blue"

Ok so no matter how much I write about this finale I’m going to feel there is something missing. So here is my final statement:

I love this show so much and am very sad that it’s gone for good…

Glad I got that off of my chest…

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?

Prisoners Review

Jake Gyllenhall has a word with a suspect in Prisoners

Photo Credit: Warner Brothers Picutres

Prisoners

A

A Review by Frederick Cholowski

Lately, most of the police procedural “Whodunit” genre has been reserved for long form TV serials, ones that drag out the story for a variety of hours. It’s been a while since a police procedural been a feature length, shorter form film, despite the genre seeming best fit for the shorter experience. Prisoners, the first film of the fall Oscar crop, aims to rectify this by putting the dark and moody police procedural back on the big screen again. The result is a dazzling and emotionally draining film and easily one of the best films of the year.

Prisoners opens following two suburban families whose youngest members (Erin Gerasimovich and Kyla Drew Simmons), two young daughters go missing during a get together on Thanksgiving. Of course mad panic ensues as everyone assumes it to be a kidnapping especially after an RV was spotter earlier. This sends everyone into chaos and Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) pushed by his wife Grace (Maria Bello) tries to take matters in his own hands and refuses to follow direction of the driven detective put on the case detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhall). The two have a back and forth battle throughout the case especially in regards to the man who drives the RV Alex Jones (Paul Dano). Loki believes the man is innocent but Dover has different theories and thinks that the best way to solve it may be through some nastier methods.

Prisoners may seem like a generic mystery thriller on the surface, which in a way may be true, but that can be ignored simply on how well the film is executed. Every level of this film is near flawless. The script behind this film tells a straight forward story with a few twists here and there that aren’t all that surprising. Where it shines though is in the main characters. Both Keller, and Loki are fantastic three dimensional that are constantly evolving as the film goes on. As the events get darker and darker the characters keep getting deeper and more complicating each doing unexpected things whole still keeping in their respective characters. The film feels very smart with its characters and never seems like it’s pulling contrivances or twists for the sake of twists. That in this day of the thriller is quite fantastic.

The other part of the script that is fantastic is just how intense the goings ons of this film are. Every sequence of the film is filled with a level of darkness and intensity that can be at times brutal to watch. The darkness and brutality just gives the film energy of which to run off of, and that energy is propelled throughout the entire film.

It helps that the performances contained in this film are all spectacular. This is a beautifully star studded cast with most everyone having either been nominated or have won an Oscar at one point in their careers. Hugh Jackman is fantastically intense and nuanced in this film. This is easily Jackman’s best performance to date, even better than his virtuosic performance in Les Miserables last year. Jake Gyllenhall has climbed yet another acting level in this film. His cold yet completely involved detective Loki is amazing. He has a cool to him but at the same time it seems that he is always ready to burst at any point and that it may only take a small thing to knock him off his rocker. The rest of the cast is also spectacular; Terrance Howard and Viola Davis are nearly just as brilliant in their on screen time as the parents of the other little girl. Their constant unease with everything that’s going on with the Dovers adds an extra level of unease for the audience. Maria Bello is fantastic in the few scenes that she gets, as she is great at one of the most unforgiving roles the emotional mother who’s lost a child. Melissa Leo show’s up as Alex Jones’ aunt and despite the, let’s call it interesting, old person makeup she seems at the top of her game in her appearances.

Even better though is the direction and cinematography. Every scene in this film oozes atmosphere and director Denis Villeneuve (a French Canadian director who directed the fantastic little film Incendies) directs the heck out of this film. Every shot feels so well crafted and moody and beautiful. It helps to have arguably the best cinematographer working today Roger Denkins on your side as it seems that past moody films that he has worked on such as his beautifully haunting work in Fargo have great influence on this film. There are so many great shots including shots of the streets on rainy nights to shots through opaque windows to shots that allow for a sense of a scary amount of openness one second and others that are claustrophobic and all to close within the next scene. The score works well too as it’s quiet when it is what it needs to be at all times, whether nearly nonexistent one moment to nearly unbearably loud the next. Overall this film is just a marvel of atmosphere and tension, magnified by its beautiful direction, cinematography, and score.

Prisoners is a beautifully executed thriller in every way. It’s smart, wonderfully acted and hauntingly atmospheric. It’s everything one could want in this kind of intelligent thriller, making it easily one of the best films this year has seen as well as being a fantastic way to kick off Oscar season.

Breaking Bad “Granite State” Review: Walt on the Run

 Jessie in need of escape on Breaking Bad

A review of the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad right after I watch Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium…

“Why are you still alive?!”

-Walter Jr.

Gretchen and Elliot, that’s why.

It’s always Gretchen and Elliot isn’t it? One of the main catalysts early one in this series (and a representation of Walt’s past failures) was Gretchen and Elliot’s ever growing richness due to Grey Matter the business that Walt helped create and then sold his shares before it got big. It’s also what’s going to propel Walt into grabbing that machine gun and the ricin that he’s going to use to gain some sort of revenge. After what’s looking to be the climax of the series happening last week “Granite State” begins the long denouement Breaking Bad, and what an explosive denouement that this is going to be.

Most of “Granite State” has Walt looking like a week, sad, and hopeless old man. From the very beginning of this episode where Walt try’s and massively fails to intimidate Saul to come with him on his runaway trip we see that Heisenberg has become a shadow of his former self. So he ends up alone in the snowy woods of New Hampshire, essentially waiting to die. He tries to escape the first day he’s in his snowy fort, he even sports the Heisenberg hat (and gets the awesome Heisenberg music) but he can’t do it and he tells himself that he’ll do it tomorrow.

Well it turns out that that doesn’t happen either as the show flashes forward (as I was predicting this week that there had to be a flash forward of some sort) to Walt being even more old and sad. Walt’s on death’s door and he’s lonely and sad. He has to pay Mr. Fixup man (who we get to see for the first time) to stay with him after he gets kimo delivered to him. Walt can’t stand living like this and after a fit fearing the worst he packs up a bunch of his money and leaves the reservation, in all his oldness and sadness.

Turns out Walt wants to give some of the money back to the family, but his son will have none of it. In a spectacular turn from RJ Mitte Flinn tells his father that he should just die and that he won’t take his money because of all that Walt has done. It seems to be the final straw for Walt who at that moment finally seems ready to die. So he calls the cops and essentially dares them to come and find him (well in a sad close to death Walter White way) it seems that Walt is finally defeated, done for as he just sits there with a drink waiting for the cops to come. Then Gretchen and Elliot have to come onto the television, and Walt finds that final energy to try and go for revenge.

The whole Walt arc is the slowest the show has been in a long time, yet it’s so marvelous watching Walt fall that it doesn’t really matter; watching Cranston act as Walt in his state of near death is a treat. The beauty of the show also is that it spends time on the fall of Walter as this isn’t a story of the triumphs of Walt doing awful things it’s about his ultimate fall. Walt was never the genius or criminal mastermind he claimed to be, he was ultimately just built up ego inside a dying man’s body. Strip away the pride, and the ego and all you have is an empty shell of a dying old man who really has nothing left. Isn’t the glorious end that Heisenberg was talking to Saul about at the beginning of the episode. It’s sad but ultimately seeing Walt this low is a brilliant part of the series, that it never protects its characters nor does it glorify them. Walt is a sad dying man and that’s exactly how Vince Gilligan and company portray him.

On the other side of “Granite State” we have poor Jessie who is off cooking in Hell. Todd and the gang have trapped him and are now laughing at his confession video (calling the emotionally devastated Jessie a crying pussy). Hey at least he gets ice cream for his 93% purity efforts. Jessie tries to make a dramatic escape only to be trapped again by Todd and Jack. Instead of being killed though Jessie gets a fate much worse, as Andrea is killed right in front of him. It’s a truly devastating moment that makes Jessie closer to Walt, an empty shell of a man who is forced to live in captivity. Unlike Walt it’s not of his own choosing though it’s that of his captors.

Ultimately put side by side Walt and Jessie’s arcs in “Granite State” are all about how neither man can escape their situation. Walt is trapped in the body of a dying old man, one who still can’t let go of the dream of the empire. Jessie is trapped inside hell on earth, as he’s forced to cook for men who have neither morals nor a happy end in mind for him. It’s cold, hard reality that these characters as well as us the audience have to face. These characters have in many ways made their own beds and that as the end reaches near it’s going to be harder and harder for these characters to escape it.

There is hope for revenge though in the form of Gretchen and Elliot’s idiotic business speech. Walt hasn’t been one to let people denounce his work before and he won’t allow it again it seems. It’s the final little bit of energy that should propel Walt to the tragic ending that Gilligan has in store for us. “Granite State” itself was much more than just an episode to propel us to the finale though, it was one about hopelessness in all its forms and how Walt and the rest of these characters can’t quite get out of it.

Or at least not cleanly… There’s still a machine gun and ricin that have to come into play

Only one final episode left of this amazing show. It’s a week from being over.

Can you believe it?

Some other musings:

• Todd gets to be creepy and quite ruthless in the same hour. His work with making Skyler not talk and killing Andrea in front of Jessie was pure ruthlessness and insanity at its finest. Then there was the scene with Lydia where he’s picking the hair off of her jacket, and in general being super creepy. As we near towards the finale next week it’s clear that no matter how awful Walt is, that we can’t let Todd survive the end of this series. That would be overly gut wrenching.

• Poor Skyler getting abandoned by Walt and will now have to face the noise of all of his actions.

• Speaking of Skyler congratulations to Anna Gunn for winning best supporting actor in a drama at the Emmys tonight! Oh and the series won best drama! Good night for the show indeed!

• Goodbye Saul it’s been a pleasure!

Next week it’s probably going to take me all night to write a review because of the fact that I have one of the series that I’ve been following for a long time coming to an end. I may split the finale review and a series reflection over two days so that I can get sleep but either way it’s most likely going to be a long review next week. Can’t wait.

This is going to be the longest week ever…

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?

Mad Men Gets the Breaking Bad Treatment

 We're going to have to wait two years for Mad Men to come to a close

Photo Credit: AMC TV

Some brief thoughts about Mad Men’s final season being split over two years right after I make a Bob Benson spin off….

So this was a surprise that shouldn’t have been all that surprising. After the smash success of extending Breaking Bad’s final season over two years (the last episode, the fantastic “Ozymandias,” pulled in close to 7 million viewers) AMC announced that the upcoming final season of Mad Men will be 14 episodes split over two seven episode runs in spring of 2014 (named “The Beginning”) and spring of 2015 (Named “The End of an Era”). “This approach has worked well for many programs across multiple networks, and, most recently for us with Breaking Bad which attracted nearly double the number of viewers to its second half premiere than had watched any previous episode,” AMC president Charlie Collier states in the press release, “We are determined to bring Mad Men a similar showcase. In an era where high-end content is savored and analyzed, and catch-up time is used well to drive back to live events, we believe this is the best way to release the now 14 episodes that remain of this iconic series.”

My thoughts? Well as with Breaking Bad I would have been happier had this been one extended season instead of two shorter ones but after Breaking Bad’s success I can see why AMC is doing this. Mad Men has never been the highest rated show on the network by any stretch of the imagination but it is the one that pulls in both the critical acclaim and the Emmys (like its soon ending partner Breaking Bad) something that no other show on the station (other than Breaking Bad) does. It’s their last great show so it makes sense that they would milk it as much as possible.

Creatively it seems like an okay move for the show as well or at least in my opinion. Mad Men doesn’t require the meticulous pacing and suspense element of Breaking Bad so the split probably won’t evoke any pacing or plotting issues. It seems good for the show to have some time to breath as well, as it allows creator Mathew Weiner and crew to make the show go out as grandly as possible. Weiner comments on the split by saying this, “We plan to take advantage of this chance to have a more elaborate story told in two parts, which can resonate a little bit longer in the minds of our audience,” “The writers, cast and other artists welcome this unique manner of ending this unique experience.” It may not be overly unique as Weiner describes it but it does provide time for the show to breath and while again I would have liked to have seen it all in one go, the split seems to make much more sense for this show than it ever did with Breaking Bad.

So we’ve got two more years of Mad Men coming. Sure it’s not the way everyone envisioned it going out, but it’s going out on a bang regardless. On the positive side we get two more essentially seasons of one of the greatest television shows ever even if we have to wait a year extra for the proceedings to end. I have faith in this show and if the show can match the amazing finish that Breaking Bad is having it’s going to be well worth the two year wait.