Spoiler Alert! The following review contains major plot points from the series finale episode of “Breaking Bad.” Do not read any further if you haven’t seen it but hope to!
AMC’s television series “Breaking Bad” has been serving up drama episode after episode since 2008. The show follows the meteoric rise and fall of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a high school chemistry teacher turned meth cook. Diagnosed with cancer, he takes up “slinging crystal” with a former druggie student Jesse Pinkman (the surprisingly crush-worthy Aaron Paul) to pay for his chemo. Tailed throughout the series by a DEA brother in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), and questioned constantly by wife Skyler (Anna Gunn), Walter struggles to keep his two lives separate before they eventually come crashing headlong into each other. All in all, the series was ultimately the perfect formula for the award winning drama it became.
The series finale has naturally been the most highly anticipated episode since the second half of season five debuted in August. It opened with Walt paying a little visit to Gretchen and Elliot Schwartz, his old partners from the Grey Matter Company, to ensure they safely deliver to his family $10 million of the drug money he saved up. When they needed a little convincing, the tracker beams of two hidden “snipers” helped convince them. This enabled the nostalgic reappearance of Badger and Skinny Pete, the comic relief of the earlier seasons, and a welcome throwback to simpler times.
Then we meet up with Lydia and Todd in her usual café, and watch as Walt slips the ricin poison into her usual tea through her usual Stevia sweetener. While in town, Walt also stops by Skyler’s new place to give her his old lottery ticket, the one containing the coordinates where Hank is buried. This is his way of saying goodbye, and offering her vital information she can use now with the attorneys for a plea bargain.
Then came the moment of truth: Walt arrives at the compound of the gang that murdered Hank, and comes face to face with Jesse for the first time in a long time. The gang members expect a fight from Walt and Jesse, but instead, Walt tackles him to the floor, getting both of them out of harm’s way. He hits the remote starter on his car keys, popping open the trunk of the vehicle and triggering the start of an automatic machine gun, riddling bullets through the compound’s windows and into the bodies of anyone still standing. Jesse chokes Todd to death with his handcuffs after Todd managed to hit the floor in time to be spared by the gunfire. And Walt finishes off a bleeding-out Jack in true Heisenberg fashion.
With just the two of them still alive, Walt tells Jesse to go ahead and shoot him, but Jesse, upon seeing Walt’s been injured by gunfire, tells him to do it himself. Jesse flees the scene in a car, speeding and laughing and crying. Walt stumbles into the gang’s meth lab, lovingly reminiscing on his glory days as the prominent meth king of the industry before succumbing to his injuries as the police arrive.
Before the finale’s premiere, the fate of each character was subject to much rumor and speculation. There were many ideas as to what would happen, but many viewers were unsure about what to hope would happen. There are those who despise Walt at this point for all the evil things he has done (poisoning kids is never cool), but then again, he’s a character who’s been with us for so long. You don’t want to just give up on him (He has cancer! He did it for his family!). Walt was the kind of character you love to hate or hate to love. Yet, whatever your stance on his morals and ethics are, the true “Breaking Bad” fan would have to admit that the King died the way he would have wanted to go: on his own terms, at his own hands, in the empire he created.
This episode marked the end of an era, and it did it well. As they said, “all bad things must come to an end” – for those “Breaking Bad” fans out there, Sunday nights at nine just got a little emptier.