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

da croupier otm upthread

I don't think it would've been that difficult or finger-pointy to make the final episodes at bit more even-handed.

it would've required more time though, and it seems pretty clear from the pacing of this season that as it is they had to take a pretty streamlined approach to get in everything they did

I don't think anyone's saying it actually is a dream. If it really was, that'd be a terrible bait-and-switch. I took EN's idea more as a lens to view the episode's tone through.

while dealing with her immediate feelings of disappointment with the finale, she said she wished the ending was a dream, as it would have made its "everything's coming up walt" tone more explicable. It was actually her expressing that disappointment so well that made me realize the short-sightedness of it.

i think EN *is* saying that really. i know what you mean though, it's a bit reach-y but i can't help but feel the whole thing was so slick and rushed, i want it to have some extra dimension so it's more than just blam blam pulp schlock where everything goes walt's bad-ass way

i think that dimension is there, once you realize the limits of his "success" in the finale

i think it's also clearer once you take the episode as part of the whole. As a stand alone, yes, Walt did what he wanted to do. But in the context of the series, saying "Walt won" is totally blinkered.

the lack of supporting character moments actually adds to that - there are no whimsical subplots and small-scale foibles. Walt destroyed that. Allegedly, as it was at the end of previous seasons, the family has money coming. But Hank's dead. Everyone else is miserable and hates him. To provide for his family he destroyed their lives. That's all there in the finale, in between the moments where Walt pulls lucky switcheroo on someone he dislikes.

That he's not denied that switcheroo, that pulpy victory, is so much more acidic, unsettling than if he'd been left crucified to think about what a bad guy he is.

the big problem with season 5b is that it's just hard to see why he gives a shit about the nazis or Lydia. I get the idea that he wanted to stake a claim for his old empire that is running without him, but the stakes were so much higher for his Gus/Gale/Tuco machinations. They should have had a way for him to find out that they were threatening Skyler. Maybe they wrote that they killed her or Holly and then chickened out.

You're killin' it with otmness itt.
xp to da croup

people might right now be bummed walt didn't pay for his crimes more overtly (or that Team Walt didn't have them rubbed in their face), but if someone starting the show asks how things are going to turn out, you couldn't really say "he wins" or "he loses," and not because of a cheap ambiguity, but because it's too simplistic a binary.

xpost I'll totally admit that while i think the show did a great job with its overall arc, it definitely has the same problem as most shows around season 5, where they've already had and lost their coolest villains. That said, I'm not mad we met Todd or Lydia.

it's kinda challopy but I actually think I prefer 5a. Ozymandias is a top 5 episode tho.

for me it's not so much about walt winning or losing or paying for his crimes, more that up to now (in this season at least) the events mostly felt grimly believable - in terms of the bb world. but this episode didn't work like that, even in fictional terms so much depended on fluke and luck and coincidence and getting the angle of a transformerbot machinegun exactly right and a couple of billionaires having little-to-no home security. it worked entirely on walt's terms.

it was enjoyable and if i was sat in a bar watching i'd be wooping and cheering but in reality i didn't want this show to go out like that. fairly sure that gilligan & co didn't intend the sopranos-y dream explanation but hey.

some interesting stuff in here btw: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/30/breaking-bad-series-finale-tv-review

...its clean, clinical neatness seemed off. There have been plenty of gut-punch moments throughout the series – the deaths of Jane, Gale and Hank, in particular, were astoundingly awful and grim. None of this finale felt unexpected in the same way.

..

In the end, he has given Jesse freedom, Skyler innocence, Flynn money. He collapses, and the Badfinger song Baby Blue strikes up. "Guess I got what I deserved," it opens, toeing the Gilligan party line, that this is a moral fable in which nobody gets to win. But look at Bryan Cranston's face. Walter dies happy. He doesn't only get what he deserved; he gets what he wanted.

In the end, he has given Jesse freedom, Skyler innocence, Flynn money.

this is exactly what i'm talking about. these are impressive accomplishments in the context of one episode, but to go from "freeing the meth slave you originally meant to kill for snitching, keeping your wife out of jail, and hopefully leaving a trust to the son that hates you for killing his uncle" to "he gets what he wanted" really requires blinders.

exactly

yeah he dies happy and he got what he thinks he wanted - like tons of other evil motherfuckers who leave their families destroyed - the damage is done and the audience knows it, did people want a tear to roll down his face?

he dies happy... alone on the floor of a Nazi meth lab, to a love song aimed here at fucking crystal meth - not sure what really needed to be underlined about him being a bad husband or father or human being in that ending

also grimly believable? like what, taking out the entire cartel at a pool party? gus frind walking around with half his head blown off? picky eastern european meth-heads actually giving a fuck whether meth is 72% or 92% pure?

I don't get people who think Jesse is headed towards some kind of bright future, or any future really. He's a goner.

anyone notice flynn dresses like a bad kid now

sorry didn't mean that last post to sound so harsh - just seems people arguing that Walt somehow won or got off too easy are actually wishing for a greater redemption for Walt than he deserved or was capable of. he went out doing what he had a genius for - destroying - and that possibly lightened a tiny bit of the mountain of shit he dropped on jesse and his family, but that's it.

way I read it, it's a flashforward a year, walt's spent some time hiding out in NH, now he's back in town and is planning to settle some score w/ a v big gun

breakfast + the callback to E1S1/happier times indicates his family is somehow involved, mainly due to their absence

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Sunday, July 15, 2012 9:39 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

anyone notice flynn dresses like a bad kid now

noticed his ugly camo pants

I heart you Internet:

Walt just put regular unleaded into a diesel Volvo.

― pplains, Monday, September 30, 2013 10:54 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Watched this again. It's not a diesel Volvo. If it was, it would've said "diesel" on the trunk lid. Also, it appears to be an '88-'93 model, and Volvo didn't sell diesel 240s in the US those years.

GILLIGAN'S CONTINUITY RECORD REMAINS UNBLEMISHED.

Phew.

anyone notice flynn dresses like a bad kid now

― lag∞n, Monday, September 30, 2013 9:12 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Didn't even know he was a Bills fan.

The episode was a little too aware of its finality, sometimes to the point of cuteness (totally called the Badger and Pete appearance while we were watching it), but it was OK. I think the ending of "The Shield" still looms as the one to beat.

http://i.imgur.com/UrovlOp.jpg

nailed it

we should have a thread for bad cartoons that aren't political probably

was it just me, or was anybody else wondering how bad Walt had to have smelled when he walked into the Schwartzes house?

― Neanderthal, Monday, September 30, 2013 2:28 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL my exact words were "Man, I be he really stinks."

huge numbers on the finale. i'm sure i'm forgetting several obv previous examples but is this the first show you can definitely point to that somewhat quickly (but not quick enough - have to imagine amc regrets being so hasty) went from awful ratings to fantastic ratings due to netflix?

That ending was so deeply satisfying.

I hear you people saying it was too neatly wrapped up but one, da croupier super OTM, and two, this show was about as realistic as I want a show about the meth business that I watch for entertainment to be. So yeah, I am totally pleased.

And if I want to be all dark about it I just mentally spin a realistic future for poor Jesse.

Yeah I feel v good about the finale...it had a very oddly tranquil kind of tone/pacing to it that I really appreciated, after all the heightened chaos of two episodes back. Like, even the shootout at the end almost felt like Walt walking through as if in a dream, and his kind of zen-calm sort of radiated out so that it wasn't as stressful to watch as I expected

I am still haunted by the scene between Skylar and Walt. So many quiet moments between them, the eye-contact, the facial expressions...I mean, if you want to encapsulate the end of a fictional marriage between two ppl who once loved each other SO very much, and still somehow retain that love even with the pain that is laying over top...I just loved that a scene that was full of so many complicated emotions was handled so simply, and that they let walt & skylar be so completely human with each other (even thoug I was sobbing on the couch through the whole thing)

walt in the desert inventing his machine-gun rig and his boxes of ammo was so wile e. coyote; all I wanted was one dynamite ignition box with a push-down handle and I would have been overjoyed

MARTY ROBBINS FTW!!! God I was so happy about that. I'm still thinking about that dude's essay though. Like 'hmmm maybe the METH was Felina'.

oh and the Marx Bros ringtone for Lydia was outstanding

i like how managed everyone's expectations are that people are fretting that walt, bleeding out on the floor, with his family in ruins, is totally victorious here

Wile E. Coyote totally OTM!

And I was legit pumped for the El Paso theory guy when the Marty Robbins cassette slid out if the glove box.

reading complaints about how every little detail or plot nuance wasn't exactly how one would've liked it's like my god how do you ever enjoy any piece of art not produced by you ever

i think with some people (no one here guys - we're all cool!), it's about seeming smarter than someone who's made something brilliant.

heh.

from what little I know about the process of BB's writers they prob spitball tested virtually every "what if instead..." a viewer could come up with. if they went with the what if that would please complainers, then the non-complainers could have something to complain about. can't please everyone blah blah. just seems very nitpicky what most people are criticizing.

Elliot's pose with the knife toward Walt.

poor landry!

Yeah I really didn't expect Walt's last crazy plan to be executed perfectly. Sparing Jesse was the only deviation and that was at least a small slice of redemption.

I know he didn't care about living or dying by that point but being shot by his own insane machine was a nice touch. But still, it is a victory of sorts - Junior gets the money and the blue meth is off the streets and his enemies are either dead or living in fear.

Terrible for Skylar and Marie obviously.

Like despite everything, I was both hoping Walt would die AND rooting for him throughout this episode. How could you not?

Only real complaint was that Aaron Paul was underused throughout this episode, and I suppose throughout the second half of the season, his switch from accomplice to victim robbed the character of a lot of what was compelling about him.

I really liked the warmth of the ending. It was like Walt's acceptance that he was a power-mad asshole sort of made it okay to have rooted for this power-mad asshole. It was v aware of being a TV show, which is kind of true for Breaking Bad all the way through. I didn't like this at first, in S1 etc, compared to things like The Wire or whatever, but ultimately I found it allowed it to be more dramatic and entertaining.

Like Walt is both hero and villain throughout and the last episode really played off that ambiguity, but the Nazis are the Pandora's box that he's unleashed and it's impossible not to want him to win against that.

Like overall I don't think this episode quite had the wow factor of Hank vs the twins or Jesse and Gale or the Fring takeout but equally I don't think they were going for that.

whoever said upthread the last two eps were basically extended epilogue is otm.

Starting to think the ricin cigarette is for Lydia, they made a point of showing she takes sweetener in her tea in the last episode.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, September 24, 2013 3:12 PM (1 week ago)

Called it.

I think Jesse will probably have to go to Alaska, but I'd guess that his future depends on whether or not his videotaped confession is still in the middle of this massive crime scene.

Only real complaint was that Aaron Paul was underused throughout this episode, and I suppose throughout the second half of the season, his switch from accomplice to victim robbed the character of a lot of what was compelling about him.

yeah, this was a shame

for me it's not so much about walt winning or losing or paying for his crimes, more that up to now (in this season at least) the events mostly felt grimly believable - in terms of the bb world. but this episode didn't work like that, even in fictional terms so much depended on fluke and luck and coincidence and getting the angle of a transformerbot machinegun exactly right and a couple of billionaires having little-to-no home security. it worked entirely on walt's terms.

I agree with this totally. As a whole I liked the series a lot, but one thing I thought it kinda messed up was sitting on the fence when it came to the geekish masculine power fantasies at the center of Walt's character development. I know they often criticized this type of masculinity, showing the awful consequences of Walt's decisions, but just as often they showed how Walt had become this science nerd badass, breaking away from his miserable family existence and harpyish wife, taking down dangerous gangsters and building empires on his wits alone. It's because they kept pandering to these type of fantasies for so long that there was such a large "team Walt" righ until the end. (And the finale probably made many "team Walt" members feel right in thinking he was the hero.)

I didn't mind the idea of Walt as the geek hero outwitting drug lords at the end of season 4, partly because it made for such a suspenseful and exciting season finale, and partly because it was evident this wasn't the end of the story. If the whole series was the story of Walt's rise and fall, well, there had to be the rise before the fall, and Walt taking down Gus was obviously it. And most of season 5 was indeed about the fall, how Walt wasn't able to control his newly established empire, showing the unfeasibility and the cost of his power fantasies. This culminated with "Ozymandias", and it felt like the writers were finally deconstructing the idea that Walt was ever able to be this terrifying crime lord he imagined himself to be. This was emphasized by the next episode, showing how Walt at his most weak and emasculated.

But then with the finale it felt like they were yet again pandering to "team Walt". Once again Walt was the badass geek hero, once again he was shown to use wits and scientific talent to meet an impossible situation. And this time he got pretty much everything he wanted, this time (unlike with Gus) there were no innocent victims; quite the contrary, he even managed to save Jesse, even though that wasn't part of his plan. So the masculine fantasy part was played until the very end, it was never fully deconstructed.

And yeah, I get that there was ambiguity in the episode, I get that the scenes with Skyler and Holly and Flynn were meant to emphasize the damage Walt had done, what he had lost... But the finale still ended on a high note for Walt, he got what he wanted, he got rid of the villains (and making the ultimate villains vile Nazis felt way too convenient, because of course you're gonna root for anyone who goes against; even Gus was shown to be a kinda of tragic villain, not totally vile), he managed to help his family after, he died nobly while saving Jesse instead of withering away to cancer in a jail cell.

I had no problems with the idea of Walt trying to redeem himself for one last time, but I don't think he should've been so successful at it. If the finale had shown him trying to set things right, but failing at it because the wheels he'd set in motion were too big for him to tackle, that would've been a more courageous way to end the whole series. But this "ambiguous" ending felt like the writers wanted to have their cake and eat it too, like they didn't want to upset either those who wanted Walt to win, or those who wanted him to fail. If they had shown him fail, that would've been more truthful to general spirit of the show, and to the idea that Walt's power tripping was always wrong.

I think Jesse will probably have to go to Alaska, but I'd guess that his future depends on whether or not his videotaped confession is still in the middle of this massive crime scene.

I though the role of the videotape was weirdly unclear during the last three episodes. The Nazis don't invade and rob Marie's house immediately after the shootout in the desert, we know that Marie finds out about Hank's death before the house is burgled. Why then, doesn't Marie take the videotape to the cops? Why is it still in the house? Why do the Nazis assume (correctly, it seems) there was only one copy of the tape? Since they were implicated by Jesse's confession, shouldn't they at least consider the possibility that the cops have a copy of the tape? Shouldn't this make them a bit wary of continuing to cook meth on their farm?

Marie is with Skylar and Walter Jr while the Nazis are burgling the house, we see her being driven back by the police and then swiftly driven away when they see she's been broken into.

the show has always been ludicrous. plus walt died and his family hate him, it wasn't "redemption".

there was nothing "ambiguous" about the ending.

Marie is with Skylar and Walter Jr while the Nazis are burgling the house

Yeah, but before that Walt had already confessed Hank's death to Skyler and Flynn, and the cops already knew about that. (Hence they were tracking his phone call.) Why was the house unguarded? Why did Marie leave the tape there?