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

Tuomas, what you wish you'd seen would have made for such shitty television and shitty storytelling.

just saw it. brilliant. liked the "we all had some fucking fun tho didn't we guys?" feel of the final minute. sort of wonder years-esque.

What would you do
If I sold all this blue

scary to think that jesse is as close as there is to someone who's life wasn't made considerably worse by Walt.

(well, badger and skinny pete probably had more cash in the long run)

better to have loved twice and lost twice then to have never loved twice at all

xpost yeah even the damn janitor's life he ruined

thought cranston was amazing in this last ep, like he found some new depth to the character.

I feel like they could have had exactly the same ending but actually executed it better. For example, Walt giving Lydia the Stevia was fine but the way the scene played out was pretty weird and over the top. Especially considering how subtle they were with, like, Huell stealing the cigarette.

putting this on again right now. One thing that pissed me off is that the video feed from Bright House corrupted, leaving me momentarily scared that I'd miss the final ep.

Tuomas, what you wish you'd seen would have made for such shitty television and shitty storytelling.

How is acknowledging that the show had other characters too, and giving them some sort of ending of their own (not necessary closure, but at least some ending) bad storytelling?

You can't fit everything into one episode and the show spent a lot of time on the other characters in the prev two

its trite as hell for one

xp

cos we didn't need the entire cast of Breaking Bad on screen at the same time singing Goodnight, Saigon

Elliott and Gretchen convo so delightfully otm banal

I don't think constantly strawmanning my points makes for a good argument, but whatever.

I wish one of the flash forward scenes would have been Walt handing laser pens to Badger & Skinny Pete, that would have been a headfuck for theorists.

What I'm wondering is why he wanted them back?!

That was pretty satisfying all round - no major leftfield turns, but I don't think the story really needed any at this point. I reckon 5X14 was the real climax of the story, and the last two episodes were a kind of extended epilogue.

Everything in the Nazi compound was incredibly well done, and had a weirdly elegiac tone for all the ultraviolence. Loved Walt looking on calmly and almost paternally as Jesse strangled Todd.

And what happened to the pointers afterwards? were they left in the car? Did they find good homes with a family with a good backstory?!

You can't fit everything into one episode and the show spent a lot of time on the other characters in the prev two

Did it really? Like I said before, we don't really get too anything of what happens to Skyler or Marie and Jr. after Walt runs off. In fact, Marie and Skyler barely appear in Granite State... After Saul's scene in the beginning, it's pretty much just Walt and the new identity guy, with one scene of Jr. at the end.

Elliott totally has ears for days

we don't really get too anything of what happens to Skyler or Marie and Jr. after Walt runs off.

We know enough. They're all having a horrible time.

lol at how unsteadily they hold the laser pointers

I think you get a pretty solid idea of what the rest of Skylar's life is going to be like.

yeah exactly - this bizarre need for some kind of fair share storytelling hasn't got anything to do with entertainment.

Like I said before, we don't really get too anything of what happens to Skyler or Marie and Jr. after Walt runs off.

The show is centered around two years in the life of Walt, and what happens to Skyler, Marie, and Jr. after Walt runs off still hasn't really happened yet. They're still paying for Walt's choices, bogged down in the police investigation and the court system, and will still be paying for it for some time. Resolving their characters doesn't fit into the timeline unless you want Animal House-style "Walt Jr. is a US Senator and still loves breakfast" chyrons.

"I wanted to know more about what happened to supporting characters" is a pretty good complaint to inspire, as opposed to "then what was the deal with..." complaints most drama finales raise.

enjoyed this - how could anyone not - but agree with nussbaum ultimately

false binary between high ideas and low pulp upthread does a terrible disservice to both

could have used one of those protracted EPILOGUE scenes with stock white text telling what happened to everybody in the future

"oooh I could have two more seasons of a Jesse spin-off!" vs "wait, did they ever explain the bees"

didn't feel the need for anything to be spelled out at all - there was plenty there about how completely fucked they all were in this episode and the five seasons that led up to it

God the look on Walt's face after his flashback in the old house is so morose.

ahhhh, Lydia's legs

If anything I thought it was almost too "let's get one last scene with everyone" to involve the Schwartzes and Skinny Pete/Badger, although I have no problem w/ how they were involved in the story.

"Badger And Skinny Pete took Walt's money and moved to Hollywood. They now have a development deal with AMC."

nussbaum kinda wearing thin in general imo. i agree with her about a lot of the far-fetched stuff but there's a generally jaded air of someone who has to think something novel about tv too often for money.

"Huell is still waiting for someone to get back in contact with him. It is 2035. He does not know Heisenberg is dead."

I love the acting Walt does to sell himself as a battered-down ex-mastermind to convince Lydia+Todd that he'll be an easy takedown.

and the "theory" that "i like to think it was all a dream" is incredibly self-indulgent.

Nussbaum rules even when she's wrong

While it sucks people have to write knee-jerk reactions, nussbaum admitted it was one, and described that kind of initial underwhelming as well as anyone could.

the badger & skinny pete scene was pure fan service, I thought

Totally forgot that they fixated extra long on the Stevia exiting the packet and entering the tea.

When Breaking Bad began the title meant two things. Obviously, it referred to Walther White going down an evil road, but it was also en expression taken from chemistry, referring to when an experiment didn't turn out the way it was intended. Throughout the show, these two interpretations has somewhat battled against each other. Sometimes, the show has been about chaos and the unknown; how even the best-laid plans would inevitably lead to even more complications down the line, and the imposibility of Walt to accurately understand the depth of the meth-game and the massive reach of the cartel. Other times, a moralistic cause-and-effect has taken over and kept everything in line, from failure to save Jane -> fiery plane-crash, and with an omniprescent God at hand to tell you which way you should go through divine coin-toss. I love the first show, and don't really care for the second. What annoyed me about the finale, the finale of a show called Breaking Bad, is that nothing broke bad. Everything turned out exactly as planned, all the evil was punished, and the longest-suffering sorta-good-guy was released from his shackles. Not only is it way too neat, but it does somewhat cheapen the previous seasons. If really Walt could go from having nothing to getting everything he wanted in a day and a half, then he looks stupid for the rest of the show. And are there now no more bad people in Albuqurque, waiting to take over the meth trade? Yeah, it undercuts a significant part of the show, the best part of the show in my opinion, if in the end the world was a closed and controllable system anyway.

I hated the last episode of the wire because there were no wires in it

'What annoyed me about the finale, the finale of a show called Breaking Bad, is that nothing broke bad. Everything turned out exactly as planned, all the evil was punished, and the longest-suffering sorta-good-guy was released from his shackles.'

can you really say 'everything turned out exactly as planned', esp in the context of the entire show?

she hasn't got great competition in the tv episode recap game

xpost the minute walt said "two of the finest hitmen" or whatever you just knew...

xxxpost the stevia reveal was v heavily done. feel like walt taking back the lasers was also heavy-handed.

i really like the dream-like feel to the episode - it was more to do with walt gaining a form of closure - admitting he did do it all for himself, and facing up to his death.

i think I didn't notice the Stevia because it was right around the time the DVR started corrupting and I was focused on that

There were a shitload of methaphorical wires in The Wire finale. Uhm, spoiler-warning, I guess.