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

He died and got some personal closure. That's so different from redemption. The very concept of "redemption" implies some duty on the part of the writers to either tell a moral story or not tell one, which is a bullshit way of looking at culture but you know, if you want some scales of justice drama where everyone gets a fair amount of time then watch a school nativity play or something.

Walt did bad things, lost his family, died alone in the desert. Winner!

The only slivers of redemption for Walt are when he drops the pretence with Skylar and when he spares Jesse. But in general the idea of redemption is overly simplistic in what has been a deeply morally compromised universe from the start.

I think we're meant to believe that Walter Jr will get that money unless Gretchen and Elliott both die in a car crash or something.

This is pretty interesting as well:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/allenstjohn/2013/09/27/how-a-teenage-cancer-patient-changed-the-ending-of-breaking-bad/

Walt did bad things, lost his family, died alone in the desert. Winner!

He also died the kingpin, so yes, a winner of sorts.

ya the next day's news will be about how this crime kingpin massacred a nazi gang using his science genius, what more could walt want.

I'm not entirely sure about that.

It's a victory or a defeat depending on which motivations of Walt's are bubbling to the surface at any given time. Walt's admission that he basically did it for himself, for the buzz, foregrounds that side of things and he'd rather die in a meth lab surrounded by his enemies than die of cancer in a cabin in the the middle of nowhere.

The question of whether or not Walt considered it to have been worth the destruction of his family is the bit that we'll never know, but I'll hazard a guess at 'no'.

I actually enjoyed the way everything "worked" for Walt this episode - presumably that was an (un-spelled out) ironic counterpoint to pretty much every other single thing being completely screwed. But also it was kind of funny! This show is good at funny too.

It's a victory or a defeat depending on which motivations of Walt's are bubbling to the surface at any given time. Walt's admission that he basically did it for himself, for the buzz, foregrounds that side of things and he'd rather die in a meth lab surrounded by his enemies than die of cancer in a cabin in the the middle of nowhere.

It's a victory in the sense that Walt devised a plan on how to get the most out of the desperate situation he had gotten himself into, and the plan worked perfectly. Consider that during Walt's lowest point in "Granite State" he was slowly dying of cancer in a lone cabin, he had a bunch of money but couldn't do anything with it, his family hated him and refused the accept the money, he couldn't exact revenge on the folks who killed Hank against his wishes and stole his money, and on top of that Gretchen and Elliott were belittling his importance on national television.

Whereas by the end of "Felina" Walt had...

* Managed to but a bit of scare to Gretchen & Elliott, two people he had despised for a long time.
* Managed to show to Gretchen & Elliott he didn't need their pity money, that he had gotten rich on his own, even though him getting out of Gray Matter robbed him of the company's future fortunes. (I thought the scene where Walt tells the pair not to spend a dime of their own money for the trust was key, showing how badly Walt wanted to prove his financial self-sufficiency to them.)
* Managed to find a legal way to get his money to his family after all.
* Managed to get some sort of closure with Skyler (though not with Flynn, which was probably the biggest tragic moment in this episode).
* Managed to help Skyler negotiate a deal with the prosecutor.
* Managed to avenge Hank's death and kill the Nazis.
* Managed to save Jesse, whose slavery was essentially his fault.
* Managed to poison Lydia, who had threatened his family.
* Managed to die in a noble self-sacrifice instead of succumbing to cancer.
* Managed to die in a way that would make the cops think he was cooking for the Nazis, so Jesse wouldn't get the blame for that.

So yeah, I'd say it was a victory for Walt. Of course it wasn't the victory he had originally sought, he probably wouldn't have wanted to die estranged from his family and with Hank's death on his conscience. But I felt it was still too big a victory for Walt, everything shouldn't have gone that smoothly for him in the end.

"Managed to put a bit of scare to Gretchen & Elliott"

But I felt it was still too big a victory for Walt, everything shouldn't have gone that smoothly for him in the end.

where does this "should/shouldn't" come from?

Read my big post above, I tried to explain it there.

If you haven't worked out that Breaking Bad deliberately resists black-and-white moral judgements by now then I'm not sure what show you've been watching.

Well, since it was framed as a classical tragedy (the rise and fall of Walter White), I assumed the moral judgement would wait until the end. There's nothing inherently wrong with ending the story on a moral judgment, and with a show like this, where you essentially rooted for a deeply immoral character, it would've been a effective punch to the stomach. But instead we got this ambivalent/ambiguous ending, which felt more like the writers being afraid to take the tale to its logical end, and less like "we're deliberately resisting black-and-white moral judgements because we're so clever".

Yeah, just Walt getting the money to his family was an unbelievable win. If you read the interview with Gilligan, he talks about the writers doing that since that was Walt's goal since the premiere. Which is exactly the reason it shouldn't have happened imo.

And BB is massively moral! The sky went on fire after Walt let Jane die!

Also, the ending could be seen as being moralistic in a pat way: Once Walt prays, and admits his own faults, he is able to achieve what he wants.

Yeah, that was the first time I felt they were doing a bit of a Greek tragedy thing there.

(xpost)

How can anyone not consider this last ep, from the perspective of the fan, redemptive? Walt gets his revenge on those bumblin' Nazis (with genius DIY robot trunk gun!), that horrid single mom Lydia (what a bitch), his former partners (those bastards!), while making amends with Skyler (literally gives her a get out of jail card), his son (a ten million dollar trust), and his daughter (a lil' pat on the head). And then he essentially sacrifices himself to ensure Jesse gets away. He even gets a (relatively) warm, honorable death with an OTM Badfinger song.

Don't like Nussbaum much, but I agree this show could have gone much tougher. With, say, Walt freezing to death in that car a la Nicholson in The Shining and/or ""An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Not saying those would be better endings, but it could have been a little less tidy, a lot more messy, def. less silly. There barely left any room for emotional resonance with Jesse's escape (since he was given so little to do/say the last few eps).

By the way. Jesse Pinkman. Jesse P. P rhymes with J. JC. JC the carpenter, in heaven ...

Oh, and per Greek tragedy, praying to the Gods and making it right and getting what you want is the opposite of Greek tragedy.

of all the ridiculous things written about this show the claim the P rhymes with J has to be way up there

it's about seeming smarter than someone who's made something brilliant

board desc?

So the critical consensus seems to be: the finale should have been more depressing, and a dream?

Should have ended with Walt in hell and Satan wagging his finger at him.

There barely left any room for emotional resonance with Jesse's escape (since he was given so little to do/say the last few eps).

Like I said above, I think the biggest flaw of season 5B was Jesse's (who was once the co-lead of the show) story getting totally sidelined by Walt's story... In the previous seasons they'd gotten some interesting contrasts out of Walt's and Jesse's parallel character arcs, but during this season Jesse got hardly any characterization at all, most of the time he was just staring sadly into the eternity. The scene in the desert where he finally called on Walt's bullshit, and the final confrontation in the finale were cool, but two memorable scenes in 8 episodes is kinda little.

(xpost)

Again, strawmanning any criticism people dare to throw at the finale is not a good way to have a conversation...

Jesse had way more memorable scenes than that over this season. His ice-cream and attempted escape; his gf being murdered in front of him; numerous weird encounters with Todd. Last two episodes he ducked out a bit (apart from the awesome scenes I just mentioned), but there were plenty of opportunities for Jesse onscreen prior to that. And this was, at heart, Walt's story. Not Jesse's. He was meant to die at the end of the first season when the show started, after all.

So the critical consensus seems to be: the finale should have been more depressing, and a dream?

I don't think the dream solution would've been very good, too much of a cliché. (Though it can still work, like in Brazil or Mulholland Drive, but I don't think it would've fitted BB's aesthetic.) But more depressing? If that means Walt not getting a clean win, sure, I would've liked more depressing. It's not like BB was ever a particularly cheerful series.

nothing about this show was more emotionally resonant than the circuitous rises & falls of jesse afaic. this season particularly. I don't think he needed to be saying more or have some closer close-ups to better deliver his string of the story. watching him as just a recipient of all possible pain & suffering was intense. I can't think of anyone else on a tv show that things were as incessantly negative for.

basically I'm accusing you all of a not un-desert-neo-nazi-like callousness in the face of his brutal season

Thing is, Walt's retribution had already happened two episodes previously when Hank was killed and his family disowned him. He'd already lost everything and he was dying of cancer. The lifeline for Skylar and Flynn's future mysterious benefactor aren't going to soften their opinion of Walt. Short of the rest of his family dying in a Nazi attack things were about as bad as they could be.

I agree Jesse got stiffed in this episode a bit - giving the series' second most important character about as much screen time as Lydia and Todd was selling him short really.

tuomas - why not consider it a dream

I would've liked more depressing. It's not like BB was ever a particularly cheerful series.

maybe I'm just a sap but I think that a super dark ending would have been detrimental to the series as a whole. As everybody keeps saying, everything is irredeemably fucked for everyone anyway, I don't think piling despair on top of despair would have been the way to go.

His ice-cream and attempted escape; his gf being murdered in front of him; numerous weird encounters with Todd. Last two episodes he ducked out a bit (apart from the awesome scenes I just mentioned), but there were plenty of opportunities for Jesse onscreen prior to that.

Well yeah, but those were mostly just Jesse reacting to various awful things that were happening. Besides the escape attempt, he didn't have much agency during this season.

And this was, at heart, Walt's story. Not Jesse's.

If that's true, why did Jesse get so many character moments of his own during the previous seasons, many of which had little or nothing to do with Walt? (Like his drug therapy, his family story, his love life, his affection to kids, etc.) Maybe he started out as a disposable character, but by season 2 he was clearly the second lead of the show.

I thought it was a good and in most of the important ways a very fitting ending that leaves a lot of room for interpretation and rounds a lot of things off without trying to be an ultimate summing up of everything

if we're thinking of other ways it could have finished I am mostly glad there wasn't a need to have another, final and more complex climax rather than an ending and that there wasn't a shoehorning montage of all these other characters like a wire god that was a bad ending

mostly just Jesse reacting to various awful things that were happening

this is kind of jesse's story in toto

if there's anything weirder than demanding a strict moral accounting at the end of the series it's counting how many character moments everyone got

Yeah, just Walt getting the money to his family was an unbelievable win. If you read the interview with Gilligan, he talks about the writers doing that since that was Walt's goal since the premiere. Which is exactly the reason it shouldn't have happened imo.

And BB is massively moral! The sky went on fire after Walt let Jane die!

― Frederik B, Tuesday, October 1, 2013 7:37 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ gets it

of all the ridiculous things written about this show the claim the P rhymes with J has to be way up there

ha, that was totally a rush out the door mistake on my part. Clearly I meant P rhymes with C. Because Jesse is bearded martyr woodworking Jesus. And Walt is God, obv. (he also has a beard).

Walt didn't "lose" anything that he wasn't going to lose anyway. He was dying of cancer, and the show gets him shot to boot, meaning no one kills him and he doesn't kill himself. Entirely passive. The show shuffled the deck in his favor. Even Flynn and his mysterious benefactor ... there's nothing mysterious about it! Walt told his former partners (those horrible, horrible people, what with all the horrible things they are responsible for, the rich jerks) to funnel the money through their foundation. If generous friends of the family connected directly to Walt who have paid millions to victims of meth want to pay Flynn's way through school under penalty of death should they reveal the truth, who would question it? Hell, in a year college may cost $10 million.

Just because things were negative for Jesse - who of course ends the show penniless, alone and broken - doesn't mean his character was given much closure of nearly as fair of a treatment in this final arc than Walt. If we're playing Tuesday morning quarterback, could have used one more bottleneck ep, with Walt in the car, just thinkin', and used that to get some better closure for Jesse. Then they could have had this final episode and everything wrong with it would have still been wrong, but Jesse at least would have gotten a better narrative deal.

like, they'd really erased any chance of Walt ever being able to help his family financial in the last few episodes, only for Walt to come up with another circuitous scheme to make it work. almost kinda disappointed me (although i guess that makes me an asshole to his fictional family, i dunno). xp

Have you guys never been bothered by shows where there's an interesting character with an arc of his own, but then he starts getting less and less screentime and characterization, because another character's arc is considered so much more important? If that's never happened to you, great, but it definitely happened with me during season 5B of this show.

(x-post to Slocki)

ok I see where you're coming from with P and C

Worth repeating that Todd and Lydia got more screen time and certainly lines this last ep than Jesse, and no way was anyone seriously invested in them as characters.If we never got closure with Todd and Lydia got got better closure with Jesse, I don't think we'd be reading long screeds asking "what about Todd!!?! What about Lydia!?!?!?"

what about lydia's kid though

She can hang with Brock at the orphanage.

do you guys realize jesse's character arc had its climax when he helped catch walt in the desert?

like, just because something didn't happen in the actual last hour of the series doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I was kind of "invested" in Todd, inasmuch as I found him to be a fascinating character and would've liked to see a lot more of his particular brand of eerily calm psychopathy.

my wife and i joked a lot about a todd/lydia spinoff

Is it possible that, er, the very lack of Jesse was deliberate, i.e. mounting up the tension to the climax? I mean, he's "in" almost every scene, if not literally.

The scene in the desert was the climax of pretty much everything really.

do you guys realize jesse's character arc had its climax when he helped catch walt in the desert?

like, just because something didn't happen in the actual last hour of the series doesn't mean it didn't happen.

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, October 1, 2013 8:32 AM (4 minutes ago)

OTM. Time to get past thinking of this series in hourlong chunks.