Shall we anticipate the FIFTH SEASON of the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

gunn looked real pretty in the last couple eps i thought

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/breaking-bad-finale_opt.jpg

"Did you ever audition for Lorne? I was there in '96. Couple years after the Comedy Store."

Also, I don't think BB gets bonus points for the originality of it's premise in a world where Weeds exists...

come on, bb is more different from weeds than the wire is from every other cop procedural ever.

Plus the premise isn't really just "chemistry teacher breaks bad and enters the meth cooking business". That's just the TV Guide summary.

I think what's really unique about BB is that Walt is a nerd criminal who loves the life of crime because he loves nerding out on the logistics of it all. He doesn't even ever enjoy the fruits of his success like Scarface or most other fictional crime bosses do. He's just in it for the fun of it. Which works really well for the genre because it mirrors the audience's love for the mechanics of a caper.

I mean the story is really "dying man retires from work and spends his last two years of life doing what he loves."

I love that he made 80 mil and they never even went on vacation or bought a new couch or anything

new hot water unit tho

i had no real serious issues with Walt's fantastical return to ABQ/nazi decimation/grey matter trust fund et al. we've been treated to some pretty badass McGyverisms and cunning on his part, and i would have been let down if the final ep didn't throw us some of that.

but i am kinda sympathetic to Nussbaum's take (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/09/breaking-bad-finale-reviewed.html?utm_source=tny&utm_campaign=generalsocial&utm_medium=facebook). it would have been a little easier to swallow if 1) Walt had disguised himself a little better & 2) he'd spent a little time back in NH plotting his return, rather than it being a snap decision after he'd already tipped off the authorities

(http://www.newyorker.com

going no further

Yeah, they played it relatively fast & loose with believability during this last season. I don't have a problem with that in and of itself but it felt a little disjointed when compared to how airtight and thought through a lot of stuff felt in earlier seasons.

i get nussbaum's criticisms, but her "hey, wouldn't have been better if it actually was all a dream and Walt froze to death in the first scene?" take is dopey - people would have had pitchforks and torches out if "it was all a dream" entered into the finale at all

xpost

I think they played a lot more with thematic relevance during this last stretch, though. Like, I came around with respect to the barely-believable luck of pulling off the train heist when it occurred to me that that whole bit wasn't about all of the things that miraculously went right so much as it was about the one thing that went horribly wrong.

he really shouldve worn a disguise is a criticism more worthy of a plain txt message board than the nyer

crumple that shit up and throw it in the garbage, get yrself together nussbaum

idk with these types of shows, I mean, the characters and their connection are really the important thing to me. That doesn't mean I'd be ok with Walt shooting people while driving a car flying off of a cliff like theatrics, but just that the elements, even the more fantastical ones, are part of a cohesive narrative.

it wouldn't be fair to eschew some of these criticisms altogether, as plot development was a huge part of Breaking Bad, but people tuned in just as much for the more resolute, character driven episodes (ie Skyler saying "we'll wait until the cancer comes back").

I was worried for a second that Walt would cook one last batch before he died. Glad that didn't happen.

yeah I mean what's the point of wearing a disguise? People who are wanted and on the run are able to elude authorities all the time, and given that he only spent a (mostly) quite day back in NM, it's not that farfetched that he didn't get caught.

idk that wearing a Groucho mask woulda been more believable.

He was already wearing a hobo disguise anyway.

its just a trivial complaint grapple w some themes ffs whatre we paying you for

xxxpost in no way do i think a dream sequence would have been preferable. just that some of her criticisms are otm

Yeah, this show was at least 75% about the character development/interaction for me. The fun and excitement were fun and exciting no doubt, but BB was masterful when it came to character. That's a pretty essential element of all of my favorite shows, and I think serialized fiction is ideally the perfect vehicle for character development above all else.

xpost missed opportunity for a Springsteen song cameo

do we, or are we planning on having a poll for favorite Breaking Bad season? convential wisdom tells me it has to be 3, 4, or 5 (I'm torn between 4 and 5, mostly because "Ozymandias" was one of the most amazing episodes ever).

cars. several cars.

xpost to whoever said they never bought much

Nussbaum's central point - that it was all too easy and plays out like his revenge fantasy - is totally fair, but he does end up dead and alone, and it doesn't take long to start tallying up the lives he's ruined. Poor Saul's running a Cinnabon in Omaha for christ's sakes

also suggesting that Badger and Skinny Pete would've snitched is crazy talk

I wonder if Team Walt folks sat at the screen screaming "JUDAS!" when Walt said "I did it for me"

cars. several cars.

xpost to whoever said they never bought much

nah, they got those free as a promotional consideration

didn't Skyfall make them take back the cars?

Junior certainly didn't have his hot rod anymore

Walt spent most of his fortune on the newest and greatest video game systems so he could lure Brock to his house to feed him Lily of the Valley.

can a long episodic narrative ever have a truly knockout ending to rival the greatest movie endings? the structure of the format requires that the writers come up with a good ending for every episode and then a great ending for each season finale, not to mention smaller pauses at commercial breaks, all while keeping some kind of forward momentum going. then people put way too much pressure on the series finale, even though it's a type of ending that's totally different than every ending the writers have been practicing for the past several years. I thought this ending was at least as good as most movie endings, and way more difficult to pull off. I guess I was setting the bar pretty low because as far as I'm concerned all they had to do was make an ending that didn't totally suck and ruin everything that came before.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/ec547949c9ae57e48e9eca5cdcd18c28/tumblr_mjb9qxMf9v1qevsfko1_500.jpg

Always thought holly's nap acting was a bit mechanical. It's a nap goddamnit! Not a sandwich!

part of why it might feel pat or tidy for some is that the show was exceptionally tidy on the whole - one story over five seasons, everything else just subplots. since the bummed are merely just bummed, not particularly resentful, i think it will hold up once people get over the "Greatest Show Ever? (Y/N)" bullshit.

Satisfyingly low key ending. I can't imagine anything radically different working.

yeah, the trick isn't whether you ended the show going "YES! SECOND BEST SHOW EVER BEHIND THE WIRE OR DEADWOOD OR SOMETHING! 1ST TIER!" but whether the show sticks with you later. And I think an eerily calm, pseudo-victory has a far bigger chance of that then Walt finally fucking up and failing.

keen to fill the gap with some more tightly-written non-corny tv drama i might have missed - any suggestions? (on the lines of wire, soprnaos, 6 ft under, etc). never seen the shield, is that up there? tried first ep of prison break but that was some dumb corny schlock.

http://i.breakingbadcomicmaker.com/6472d.JPG

http://i.breakingbadcomicmaker.com/4c7f6.JPG

the longer i leave the more i feel faintly dissatisfied by this final episode. wasn't as gripping as the previous two, for obvious reasons - but for better or worse walt got what he wanted, no 'good' guy died (in this episode). seems a bit too neat, tidy and pandering to the viewer - something this show had never done before. feel the ending of the sopranos was much better in this sense. first inclination that maybe it wasn't the mind-blowing legendary episode everyone wanted was coming on here a few hours after it'd been aired and instead of everyone poring over the minutiae it was 'balls' waffling on about fucking 'deadwood' for an age.

did anyone come near to predicting it right btw? avoided all the threads and '10 ways bb could end' articles - because y'know, it's not x factor, but interesting to see if anyone came close

If you haven't rewatched BB, I'd recommend it. I got a hell of a lot of new stuff out of a rewatch. Lots of subtleties I missed on a first viewing, particularly when you already know where certain things are heading.

yeah idg the "low-to-no rewatchability" criticism. I didn't even watch 1st 2 seasons after 3rd had aired, but I've already rewatched all the ep's through season 4. It's a fun and well-made show with lots of great moments, the "oh shit what's gonna happen next"ness of it is awesome, major draw but so much to it beyond that.

yeah I've seen Season 4 twice, and those high-tension episodes with Gus never get old. the best is, you can watch in whatever order you want.

like the episode where he poisoned Don Eladio, I could watch on repeat

xp didn't watch 1st 2 seasons UNTIL after 3rd had aired, is what I meant to say

xp otm have watched that scene like 4 times, classic

and the infamous "Run" episode, I've seen many times, but I will only watch it with Breaking Bad newbs, so I can watch them gasp at the ending.

did anyone come near to predicting it right btw?

folks in this thread came close (perhaps jokingly) when speculating that Walt was gonna buy shares in Grey Matter in Flynn's name or some such. loads of people predicted machine gun for nazis/ricin for lydia/confront Jesse/Jesse would kill Todd

one thing that made me chuckle on rewatching Season 5 was when Walt and Walt Jr were watching Scarface, knowing how many Scarface alum were on the show.

I have to agree with the criticism that everything in the episode went down a bit too neatly. I don't think they should've revealed it all to be a dream, but I thought it was a bit weird that at the beginning Walt was praying for a miracle, and by the end of the episode everyting had miraculously happened exactly as Walt planned, even though the running theme of the whole series has been that even the best laid plans can go horribly wrong because of some small unexpected errors. It's as if that whole praying -> keys falling down scene was the writer's way of admitting he'd written what could almost be considered a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

And sure, there were little reminders there of how badly Walt had fucked up: the wonderful kitchen scene with Skyler, Walt touching Holly for the last time, him realizing he can't even talk to his son before dying... But I felt the biggest problem was how the whole episode (as well as most of season 5B) was so focused on Walt at the expense of all the other characters. If at the end it felt like Walt had "won", it wasn't just because his final plan worked so perfectly, but also because we didn't really get see the damage the whole Heisenberg enterprise had inflicted on others. After Hank's death Marie is only seen in a couple of brief scenes, we don't really get to see her mourning; similarly, Skyler's and Flynn's troubles after the law found out out about Walt were only alluded to; Brock and Lydia's kid growing up as orphans isn't even mentioned, etc.

Also, the focus on Walt means Jesse and Skyler, who at one point were pretty important characters with their own arcs (Jesse was practically the co-lead until this season), were reduced to existing only in relation to Walt's character; they essentially became little more than cogs in the Grand Story of Walt. And yeah, they both had awesome final scenes where they finally told Walt to eat his bullshit, but again those scenes were mostly all about Walt. I usually hate "where are they now" type of endings, but I would've loved to see something, just something, of their post-Walt life.

So yeah: in my opinion the finale was well executed for what it was, and it had some great individual scenes, but it felt too thin to be the conclusion a grand series like this. There was too much final polishing for Walt's character and too little of anything else.

what's funny about the "too tidy" complaint is that it's far less tidy than walt getting shot in the head by the nazis or dying in the car would have been. While it might have felt tidy in the immediate aftermath, Walt has to win on some level to leave open the debate of whether or not he won. If he blatantly lost, and failed to make any redemptive gestures, the show would be far less ambiguous for it.