WARNING: This review contains spoilers
Don't make me put my watch down.
The series finale, written and directed by showrunner/creator Vince Gilligan, had the dubious task of tying up loose ends and providing a satisficing valediction to the world of television. And he had 75 minutes to accomplish this. He succeeded.
Breaking Bad is the story of a high school chemistry teacher. The teacher discovers he has lung cancer, so he decides to use his knowledge of chemistry and science to make methamphetamine to secure his family's finance. Only a strange thing happens along the way. He discovers he's very good at it. And that he enjoys it. But the cost to achieve success in this underworld is steep, and the price demands a complete transformation. In order to transform from Walter White, teacher-husband-father, to Heisenberg, drug lord-liar-murderer, he must shelve his moral compass. No half-measures allowed.
Chaos theory suggests that minor perturbations in a system grow exponentially over time. Because of the random nature of dynamical systems, only one future state can result from the present state. In other words, random things happening will coalesce into only one possible result. Walter White, protagonist-turned-antagonist, puts in motion a chain reaction of events that lead to tragic results. And he asks us, the audience, to reserve judgement on his actions. Because he's doing this for his family. But we know better.
With the story coming to an end, Walt finally admits to Skylar (and us), "I did it for me. I liked it and I was good at it. I was alive!"
In "Granite State," Walter is on the run, dying from his disease and lack of proper medical care, and living alone in a one-room cabin in the cold mountains of New Hampshire. The once great Heisenberg has been reduced to a fugitive and a tragic shell of a man. He has reached the top of his illicit trade, crashed and burned, and destroyed everything and everyone that made the mistake of being close to him. He did all of this for nothing, and will be dead soon. So Walt, desperate for human contact, decides to walk to the nearest bar, call the DEA, and turn himself in. And we, the audience, know this is the how this story should end. As a morality tale.
Last episode, we got the ending we deserved.
This episode, Walter hires Badger and Skinny Pete to help him with his plan to ensure that his money gets to his family via an irrevocable trust from Gretchen and Elliot Schwartz.
Skinny Pete represents the audience, when he says:
"The whole thing felt kinda shady, you know? Morality-wise?"
So Walt hands them (and us) some cash. He buys us off, and we get the ending we wanted. We want to see the 21st Century Scarface extract revenge on people we don't like, and provide security and safety for the people we do like. All Walt asks is that we take the money and come along for a ride. And we won't be coming back.
This ending is a flashback to the flash-forward at the beginning of Season 5.
The ricin, a loose thread from the fourth season, finds a victim in Lydia, the Louboutin-wearing Heisenberg-wannabe. Flynn gets the money when he turns 18 years old. Skylar gets her sister back and a "get out of jail free" card with the lottery ticket GPS coordinates to Hank and Gomie's bodies. Uncle Jack and his merry band of the worst of mankind get their just desserts. And psychologically and physically scarred Jesse gets away from this life of misery, but not before he takes care of that polite sociopath, Todd.
And what does Walt get? Walt, in his transformation into Heisenberg, has stumbled, fumbled, and had to rely on luck to get to this point in the story. He has relied on his cunning and manipulative skills to get to the top of the meth business, but things have rarely gone smoothly or according to plan. This time, however, everything works in his favor, and his plan works flawlessly. After neutralizing all threats, he gets a victory lap of sorts and shows us that he did it for the chemistry. His baby blue.
Its over.
Random Thoughts:
- RJ Mitte's name in the credits is the symbol Te, tellurium. Which is 52 on the periodic table.
- Walt's never been religious, but he prays when he can't get the car started, then the keys fall into his lap. I'm fine with that scene, the writers have earned it.
- The show, in my opinion, had 3 different endings. 1) "Face Off"; 2) "Granite State"; and 3) "Felina."
- The scene where Jesse imagines he's making the wooden box was a nice callback to "Kafkaesque" S3 E9, where Jesse tells the NA meeting folks that he made a wooden box out of Peruvian walnut once in shop class, but traded it for drugs.
- Is Huell still sitting on his sofa?
What did you think of Breaking Bad - Selina?
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