JUST TAKE ME HOME: Again, there's far better analysis of Breaking Bad elsewhere than that which I can provide. I thought it was going to end in a giant revenge play. But Walter White stayed in character and figured out how to solve his biggest problem, namely providing for his children. I'm not sure any cosmic justice was dispensed to Walter White but -- wow -- that really was the most entertaining show I've ever watched.
I thought it a terrific ending.
Spoilers. http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/series-finale-review-breaking-bad-felina-its-all-over-now-baby-blue#~oiV1R4XI4QErwV I liked the ending as cathartic, but it doesn't hold up well. No one noticed Walt's stolen car in a 2000-mile drive? The billionaires have that little security, and nobody notices Walt skulking up to the guarded Skyler household? The Nazis play the "let me explain everything to the hero" card instead of just shooting Walt in the head before he even steps inside? The happy ending depends on believing that the DEA will forgive Skyler, that Lydia can't successfully rush to the hospital for treatment, and that the Elliotts don't contact lawyers for the question of how to handle the $9.7 million block of cash. The series made its mark by refusing to shy away from realistic outcomes: Hank dies when he is outgunned rather than making a TV victory; Andrea is killed in retaliation for Jesse's cleverness. To set that up and end it with a MacGuyver TV victory that the show had repeatedly disclaimed was satisfying in the moment, but dishonest to the show.
ReplyDeleteI loved the gradual shedding of Heisenberg by Walt, through things like leaving behind the Rolex Jess gave him or finally admitting his true motivation to Skyler.
ReplyDeleteThe laser-pointer moments, both reveals, were awesomesauce.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I also noticed no mention of Holly. However, even at the pricy U. at which I teach, that money would cover two educations.
ReplyDeleteI could not have laughed harder at those two jumping into the car.
ReplyDeleteI'm okay with the "MacGyver victory" because Walt had already won as soon as he arranged for the police to show up at the Nazi compound looking for Heisenberg. If Walt is lucky, he gets to kill everyone with a super-cool robot gun and get found dead by the police. If Walt is unlucky, he gets shot, the cops show up and arrest everyone, and he gets found dead by the police. So the dramatic license of having Walt's plan work isn't a big deal.
ReplyDeleteDid he arrange for them to arrive, or did neighbors report hearing all the shooting? You can't exactly make appointments for a battalion of police cars to arrive.
ReplyDeleteMy amended ending. The final crane shot of Walt on the floor of the meth lab fades/merges into Walt dying/laying on the floor of the NH cabin. He never left. Everything from the last episode and a half was just a dying man's revenge fantasy.
ReplyDeleteThat's similar to the Emily Nussbaum/Norm MacDonald theory, which had Walt dying in the car in the snow in New Hampshire. But that theory would require that Walt's subconscious be aware of things that Walt did not know. I can't remember if he was ever at the Nazi compound (or if he just met Uncle Jack on neutral turf), but he certainly didn't know that Jesse had been kept alive and forced to cook, particularly under the dehumanizing conditions that were apparent in that final scene.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to buy anything along these lines, and I don't, then I would roll it all the way back to the fourth-season shot of Walt looking up from under the floorboards in his bathroom (the shot to which the final shot is a callback). If Walt died there, then you wouldn't have to posit a reason why Walt's subconscious was able to dream up scenarios that perfectly matched the reality that we saw but of which Walt was unaware. The matching shots of Walt splayed out like a dead body, smiling and happy, while the camera floats upward, would be plausible as a way of connecting those two moments.
But it would be pretty unsatisfying to think that the last two (half-) seasons didn't actually exist, and therefore that they depicted neither actions nor consequences, so I'm not buying into any of the speculation that anything that happened in the show was other than canon.
I hereby amend my ending to the MacDonald/Nussbaum theory. I hadn't read their stuff until you pointed it out. I came to my theory via the ending of "Brazil", substituting the lost mind on a torture table to Walt's lost mind as he succumbs to his cancer. Things went WAY too easy for Walt from the point that the keys feel into his lap. He didn't switch stolen cars and made it 2500 miles across country without getting caught. He got past the police supposedly watching Skyler. He got through Elliot and Gretchen's security? The recoil on the machine gun would have destroyed the trunk robot immediately. And as we all know from Judge John Hodgman, machine guns are not robots.
ReplyDeleteMacDonald's defending his theory on twitter tonight. I now agree that Walt probably needed to find out about the blue meth being made again and see Gretchen & Elliott on Charlie Rose for the pieces of the fadeout fantasy to come together.
Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation and this theory is kinda out there. The finale was amazing in whatever context you take it in.