Breaking Bad Season 5 Thread

Loved it. Perfectly done.

 

Kerri Strug watched the show and envied how they stuck the landing.

 

So often writers try too hard to do what isn't expected and get too cute with the finale. What made this show great was you couldn't always figure out what and how the next step was. That allowed a straight ending to really hit home, even though it was exactly what most people wanted.

It may or may not be the best show of all time, but it's certainly in the discussion.

 

Not as dark of an ending as I expected, but I'm okay with that. Gilligan never excused or forgave Walt his sins, but he did leave Jesse, Skylar, Holly and Flynn in a universe where there's still hope for those who don't take shortcuts and don't allow ego to overtake their humanity.

There was an ending there where he could've had Todd walk away with everything.

I got a Clockwork Orange vibe from the Schwartz's scene. Todd's death was straight out of No Country For Old Men. Loved Badger and Skinny Pete's exit.

Walt's admission to Skylar was powerful. Jesse's glee at the end contagious. There are so many things that could've went wrong, so my minor quibbles are pretty petty.


A great show.

 

My one nitpick is, how did Walt get the ricin into the Stevia packet? Aren't those things sealed?
I know they establish that he knows her routine, but he would've had to come into the coffee shop beforehand, plus find time to put it into a packet and plant it at the table (or somehow slip it into enough open ones that she'd pick it up) without being noticed.
It's a satisfying end for Lydia, but it's still a bigger stretch than the Brock poisoning.

 

I really kept waiting for Jesse to run into a tree and die in a fiery wreck.

 

I loved that they let Jesse kill Todd, too. So satisfying.

 

I think what I loved the most about this show was that you can tell, very clearly, just how much time and thought went into "sticking the landing."
Every moment of this back half of episodes led to this final episode and it delivered in every way possible.
This is exactly what I hated about Lost. The apologists who want to pretend Lost was a great show insist that the mysteries don't matter, that the show is a character study and that's it but my point of contention has always been that you can't value a show's beginning and middle without knowing the end.
What Breaking Bad did tonight was justify the hours I spent watching the series. It wasn't necessarily the pay-off that I wanted, per se, as I would have liked to have seen Walt go out in a blaze of glory fighting the police and would have liked Hank to have lived but the show took everything fans liked about it and turned it up 100 percent to deliver an emotionally satisfying ending that, I truly believe, is right up there with the best movies.
If Breaking Bad was a movie, it would have just won the Best Picture Oscar, without question.

 

Sure he did. The ending is the forgiveness. Since Walt was going to die anyway, a death that allows him to still procure the money for his family is the deus ex machina achieving for him what he'd always intended, and hence an atonement.

 

Who knows? He's a chemist and he sat in a cabin in New Hampshire for two months working all this out in his head. Maybe he got a packet well before he went to the cafe, steamed it open, then put the ricin in and resealed it before he planted it.

I'm more interested in how he got into Skylar's tiny apartment without being noticed. I did think that scene was beautifully shot, though --- from the total wear on both their faces and bodies, to Skylar's face being reflected in the microwave, to the camera panning back while Skylar was on the phone to reveal Walt behind the post.

And yeah, I did a fist pump when Jesse jumped Todd from behind. Absolute justice. (That was my second fist pump after seeing the Marty Robbins cassette in the Volvo).

 

I found little redemption for Walter White in this episode. If I did, I'd hate this episode.

This man walked out of his family's apartment without even a hug from his wife. His last words with his son involved Flynn screaming expletives at him. You and I have different definitions of atonement.

I'd have prefered an even less redemptive ending for Walt (He was never forced to see the lives his drugs ruined, one of the show's loose ends) But Walt is never forgiven, only less reviled.

He is left only with his metallicic, cold science. That it comforts him only shows how empty his life ultimately was.

 

I thought he was going to try some meth at the end.