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

<i> a bit like with the keys falling from the visor, it's like hey - this is a show, remember? let's get into this thing. </i>

this is what I meant upthread but worded 10x better... Its a signal to the audience the following events could only really occur in TV

Or ... in Walt's head!

Nussbaum pseudo-theory, right?

Sorry if I duplicate any prev. posts, but Emily Nussbaum is mostly OTM (also some of the replies to her finale review posted on http://thenewyorker.com). The dreamlike quality she was struck by goes with the "this is a show, remember", and yeah it could all be Walt's reverie---but as several of Nussbaum's readers point out, having the ep end with a dead frozen Walt confirmation--"yep, it was all a dream, folks---literally!"--could be more schlocka than shocka, a la Dallas. So, my fan fiction goes like this: yep, he does caress his sweet machine like he did Baby Holly, as his recompense/revenge allows him finally to merge Walt and Heisenberg--and yep, he does fall---but back to the breakfast table scene, where he collapses, puking blood all over Lydia's "cornsilk, like, shirt" and Li'L Opie's corncrop. Credits Roll. Jesse's still on his lab zipchain, but he's dialing up the pressure. Final shot: Albequerque by night, seen from above. A fire blossom appears in the lower left corner.

Brock's safe, unless he's in the compound (surely the didn't leave him in his house, to be found by cops and turned over to social services, although the in-system Aryans may have associates there too)

surely the didn't leave him in his house

of course they would have. they aren't running Nazi daycare

A fire blossom appears in the lower left corner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXw6znXPfy4

lol

Re all of Walt's plans coming off in this episode being too neat/lucky, I guess the moralist take on this is that his acceptance that he would die friendless and unredeemed is what allowed everything to work out finally - before, he had always aimed too high, always wanted to earn lots of money AND be the scariest guy on the block AND get away with it entirely and still be liked by everyone. In all of the previous situations of him seeking to pull off convoluted plans, Walt's seeming light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be the harbinger of the next catastrophe on its way. Here, he gives up on the notion of the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's this which allows everything to play out as he intended.

but we don't know if everything played out as he intended at all

he's achieved this level of success (big baddie dead, money comin' for the fam) several times before

i was gratified to see that VG mentioned The Searchers in a podcast, since i think in a lot of ways that provided the template for how to take the ending. that is, Walt volunteering his own exclusion as "hero" to his family is what saves them and partially redeems him (through accepting his damnation).

of course with the ironic twist that the domestic paradise he makes possible is utterly destroyed.

the fact that people complaining about the tidiness keep having to overstate the degree of his accomplishment suggests imo it's not really "tidiness" they're complaining about, but the lack of walt being forced to admit failure. He's not a winner at the end, no more than he was at the end of s4, but he is allowed to keep his optimism. And THAT rankles.

I meant success in the more limited sense that his plans didn't fall apart during their execution. I agree that we have no idea whether his ultimate goals will be achieved after he is gone.

people spent most of the show's run speculating which member(s) of Walt's nuclear family would be badly harmed or killed in his ultimate agonizing failure, all of them coming out at the end with all their body parts intact is somewhat a sunny resolution in that respect.

Sort of, but there's stronger irony in the show sparing the family physically while destroying them psychologically.

xpost Or maybe that for the first time it's optimism and not arrogance Walt is exhibiting?

"only extended family members died" = "walt wins" ok

sunny days!

The fact that Walt ~maybe~ achieved his original goal while still destroying everything and everyone around him makes for a better message: not "crime never pays" but "even if you win, you lose".

i mean the show constantly encouraged you to expect the worst, is all i'm saying. that's the context the ending is being discussed in. (xp)

well, yeah. no one's saying that the ending wasn't at ALL happy for walt. just that anyone deluding themselves into thinking Walt wrapped things up with a nice tiny bow at the end clearly was aching to see his crimes shoved in his face (i.e. an immediate family member dying).

i mean, if i watched the first few episodes now and then asked someone who'd seen the whole show to spoil for me who dies besides Walt and they said "just the jerky brother-in-law and a bunch of mostly unsympathetic people you haven't met yet," i'd be like wow this show isn't as grim as i'd heard.

well whoever said that is kinda dim

i.e. in order to make the show bloody they had to keep introducing canon fodder that viewers didn't get too attached too beyond "what a seedy underworld badass that guy was"

I don't know how much it was VG's intention - but you can read BB as a vicious satire of all that self-help/motivational speaker/pop psychology stuff that says "follow your bliss", "find the one thing you love, and become the best at it" and "visualize your dreams and they will come true". All that Tony Robbins warmed-over Ayn Rand hyper-individualist stuff that doesn't include thinking about how your actions affect anyone else in your life, or the possibility that you might just be a sociopath. And the anger over Walt "getting what he wanted" or being somehow successful in achieving his goals feels like it misses that. Just because Walt can interpret it as a happy ending for himself, just because he got what he wanted, doesn't make it a happy ending.

basing how a grim this show gets solely on 'who dies' is hilariously simple

Bad people do end up getting what they want, or feeling great about doing bad things. Probably more than good people.

Walt wins. Walt loses. We all lose as long a this silly argument continues to tear us apart! Kumbayaaaaaaaaaa

For whatever it's worth - I think most of the debate on this thread on both sides pretty smart and insightful, and that it inspired so much conversation is a measure of the show's success. Kumbayah.

::roasts marshmellows::

::Cooks meth.::

::knocks::

::hands out stevia and juiceboxes::

(fires blossom)(Blazin' Bitch)

::becomes magical invisible ninja with a robotic rambo machinegun::

rambo mambo

When the Greeks more or less get away with it in S2 of the wire, were people saying maaan it sucks they should face penance and redemption for their immoral acts?

It's interesting to see this rhetoric appear around BB. I don't know if it's a wrong response, exactly.

To be precise were people saying the wire had 'failed' or fallen short at that point

I struggle to see any of the stuff walt does on BB as evil, because it either impacts cartoon baddies (Tuco Gus Todd Lydia Nazis) or, where it impacts real people (Hank Skylar Andrea Jane), it does so only because of these cartoon baddies somehow existing in real-world.

But if, in real-world, a real-person kills another real-person I would see that as actually evil. I have a much bigger hate on for Marlo Stansfield, and various other people in the wire, than I do for Walt or indeed anyone in BB

See Walt as closer to Bob out of Twin Peaks

When the Greeks more or less get away with it in S2 of the wire, were people saying maaan it sucks they should face penance and redemption for their immoral acts?

It's interesting to see this rhetoric appear around BB. I don't know if it's a wrong response, exactly.

― cardamon, Tuesday, October 1, 2013 10:09 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think this is "antagonists are thought of differently than protagonists" and not something unique or hugely different about those 2 shows.

wire also made it apparent time and again that it didn't matter if the greek or string or marlo or whoever won or lost or failed or were busted, there was always another greek or string or marlo waiting to replace them. the relative powerlessness of individuals relative to institutions was part of the point of the show.

It was a dreamy ending only for Walt, caressing his stainless steel reaction vessels.

In BB world, Walt's posterity is to be known as a skinhead meth cook for white supremacists. Nobody who knew the truth is in a position to talk.

think the quibbles here but esp elsewhere over the finale are kinda ridiculous imo.

i think this is "antagonists are thought of differently than protagonists" and not something unique or hugely different about those 2 shows.

I dunno about this, there's a crazy moralistic tone emerging about Walt who must redeem himself or be damned etc and how the show has not wrought sufficient wroth on his dastardly deeds ... not a complaint about him succeeding and this being unrealistic, but a cry that this is immoral, or something. Just seems crazy to me - people can't seem to get a kick out of 'fuck you all, i done bad and got away with it' as an ending yet this is a type of ending done so well so many times and it seems like one of several good types of endings BB could have had

i didn't get the sense that there was that much moral outrage itt, but maybe you mean elsewhere

I struggle to see any of the stuff walt does on BB as evil, because it either impacts cartoon baddies (Tuco Gus Todd Lydia Nazis) or, where it impacts real people (Hank Skylar Andrea Jane), it does so only because of these cartoon baddies somehow existing in real-world.

But if, in real-world, a real-person kills another real-person I would see that as actually evil. I have a much bigger hate on for Marlo Stansfield, and various other people in the wire, than I do for Walt or indeed anyone in BB

― cardamon, Tuesday, October 1, 2013 10:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Gale? Also Jane didn't die because of 'cartoon' baddies, she died because walt let her.

The series as a whole likes to punish everyone except badger and skinny pete.