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?
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