I started watching Breaking Bad after its brief first season aired and before the start of season two. I was hooked and fascinated and intrigued. And now it’s over. Another series to be deleted from the DVR. Quelle tristesse. Probably the best TV series that has ever aired. The bar against which others will be measured.
And it ended well. Very well. Some might say perfectly, but perfection is unattainable. As good as most viewers might have hoped, let’s say. It hit the marks, didn’t get bogged down with diversions and contained a few surprises.
Surprise #1: Walt’s visit with Gretchen and Elliott. Based on the way the previous episode ended, a lot of people, myself included, thought that he was mad at them and planned to do them harm. In a sense, he did do them harm by entering their private sanctum and terrorizing them, but he had an ulterior motive and the perfect solution to his money problem. Funniest line of the episode: You’re going to need a bigger knife. Gretchen once had an affair with Walt, so she must be wondering a little about her choices in men. Did Elliott ever know? I can’t remember. When the two red dots showed up, I guessed “two kids with laser pointers” and I wasn’t far off. Skinny Pete and Badger’s curtain call.
Then we link up with an abridged version of the flash-forward from the beginning of the season. Why did Walt leave his watch on the pay phone (and what rare magic does he possess that he can find a working pay phone when he needs one?)? Two reasons: One, Walt wasn’t wearing a watch in the flash-forward, so he had to get rid of the one he was wearing at the cabin and two, it came from Jesse, who wasn’t his favorite guy at the moment.
The great scene of the episode was Walt’s visit to Skyler’s dreary apartment. She’s dead inside. Chain smoking and staring into space. I guess it never crossed her mind that lung cancer was what started this ball rolling. Oh, no, wait: It was actually Hank who started it by inviting Walt on a ridealong. One of those unimportant moments, not even a decision, that changes the future forever. But Walt finally took his lumps and admitted that he enjoyed what he had been doing, that it was really for him, and that he felt alive when it was happening. No more subterfuge or manipulation. He was being as straight up honest as he was capable of being and, for a moment, I think, Skyler saw a trace of the man she once loved. She understood how unsatisfied he’d been in life as a teacher, so his confession resonated. (Neat “behind the scenes” factoid: You can see Skyler’s face reflected in the microwave, but that was unintentional and Gilligan didn’t even notice it until the editor commented on it.) And then he handed her a get-out-of-jail free card, of sorts.
A few people guessed what Walt was going to do with the ricin. Todd’s ringtone was hilarious. It was good seeing how Walt poisoned her and, as a bonus, see her realize what had been done to her. Predictability was her downfall.
Then came the Scarface scene. How much do you hint at and how much do you spring as a surprise? I think Gilligan found a good balance. We already knew Walt had the machine gun, and they showed the turntable without explaining exactly what it was. Then there was the bit of choreography where Walt parked. Finally, there was obvious importance to the key chain. I think most people could put the clues together, but seeing it happen. Wow. The bit with the guy on the motorized bed was hilarious, his body still moving after he was dead.
And then Todd got his comeuppance in one of the most satisfying scenes ever. Jesse got to strike back at the guy who’d turned him into a slave for months. Cue neck-breaking sound. Yay! And Uncle Jack thought he still held some cards, but his blood ended up splashing all over the camera.
I think that Walt went there intending that everyone would die, including himself and Jesse. Once he found out what had befallen Jesse, though, he had a last-minute change of heart and rescued him. I don’t think he had a fallback plan for what would happen to him, but a lucky ricochet took care of that question. He gave Jesse the option of deciding whether to kill him or let nature take its course. Jesse’s redemption is complete when he walks away and then drives away, screaming like a madman. What’s the future hold for him? The last two years of his life have been sucked up by this crazy situation, but now he has the chance to start fresh somewhere. No one is looking for him. He doesn’t have any resources to speak of, but he’s not chained up any more. There’s a little boy out there without any family, and maybe a wood shop somewhere in his future.
In the end, Walt was probably still proud of what he’d achieved. He touched the lab equipment lovingly. Like Dexter, he destroyed just about everyone who came into contact with him, but his mission was accomplished. People revered his skills as a chemist, the legend of Heisenberg will live on, and he left a nest egg for his family. Not quite happily ever after, but as close as anyone could hope to get to that.
It’s funny how much the final shot resembled the overhead shot of Jack from Lost’s finale. Poor Damon Lindelof took a beating on Twitter last night as a steady stream of people told him “that’s how an ending is done.” To his credit, he retweeted many of them.
