Boo, that ending sucked. The only thing that I liked was Walt's Stevia switcheroo trick. That whole trunk deal looked like something left over from a McGyver or an A-Team show. Shit, Saul popping out of the trunk with a bazooka or a machine gun in each hand would've been 10 times more entertaining. Now it would have been badass if Walt walked in there with a bag of fulminated mercury and tried the same shit on them he threatened Tuco with but only this time offed everybody including himself, or at least half of them, then deal with Jesse in one final confrontation where Jesse leaves him standing threre only then he decides to turn around and runs Walt down flapping like a fish.

Nah the episode was awesome and the trunk-gun was absolutely fucking amazing.

Yep. McGyver? Apparently you missed the first episode of the season which made use of magnets, or any number of devices Walt created throughout the series. I think Nekuomanteia is just upset Walt didn't shoot Skyler in the head and call her a cunt.

Great climax to the season, though I wish they'd worked in a denouement episode. I'd really like to have had the chance to get a look at how these characters moved on with their lives and how they dealt with the aftermath, maybe how Walt's story went down with the media and how it might have influenced or inspired future "entrepreneurs." Especially Jesse... I'd love to know how things looked for him after all that happened was just memories. Kinda feel like the story needed some sort of epitaph.

Yeah, I was hoping for something like the end of The Wire. Flynn getting his "donation" from the Schultz, Jesse dropping Brock off at school, Hank and Steve getting a proper burial, the great blue meth withdrawal epidemic of the Southwest, etc.

That aside, very satisfying finale to one of the greatest shows on TV.

I sort of assumed that he was going to attempt a "suicide by cop" blaze of glory.

I'm actually glad that the producers decided not to do a corny sort of epilogue ala Six Feet Under. This show was never spoonfed to viewers, there was always a degree of speculation and unknown. To wrap things up in a more typical way would have been a let down (for me, at least).

Kinda sucks to think that there won't be another new episode of BB to look forward to. Argh.

All in all, the finale gave us all closure. My favorite bit has to be the scene where Walt scares the living daylights of Elliot and Gretchen. I seriously thought they had it coming but I suppose he's put them to good use after all.

Everything tied up in a nice pretty bow, then?

Nah. It was a logical conclusion. The circle was completed.

Now we have to get on with our lives

I have been having these thoughts latelty.. A rather suspicion, moreof..
that Vince (the Creator) was, at one point in his younger years, in Jesse's position.. and vowed to himself that he would write it all out..
I think he was able to capture something so, real.. that it affects/effects each of us as admiring viewers.. Is it possible any of this ever was inspired by true/personal events of Vince's previous years?

Unlikely.

This is a great op-ed by Anna Gunn. I agree with her completely. Shame that her actual person got hatemail too, though that's (sadly) not surprising. She's spot-on about how wives are perceived in TV shows. Those who oppose or stand up to their husbands, even when completely justified, are routinely reviled. (The only example that comes to mind where the hate is justified is Lori in The Walking Dead, but that's because she's very, very badly and inconsistently written and just carries the idiot ball for its own sake.)

Incidentally, I was a fan of Anna Gunn before she became famous *pushes up hipster glasses *, I enjoyed her voice acting in Legacy of Kain way back in the late 90's. I'm glad she made it pretty big and won an Emmy, good for her.

She had me up until "Betty Draper." Betty's a pretty unlikeable character and generally a mean-spirited person. I've never seen The Sopranos so I can't really comment on that comparison. Honestly I think she's just being modest; her character is really complex, much moreso than Betty Draper. Draper has a handful of important facets of her personality, but her character is basically pretty linear: she was the archetypical 50's housewife who was ill-treated by a husband who was basically the archetype of the 50's sexist husband. However, (Mad Men spoilers):


All the anti-Skyler hatred is pretty nuts, though. Much of it that I've encountered definitely reeks of misogyny.

Anna Gunn is an intelligent lady, that article proves it. Skyler is a great character. On one level some people who dislike her are just reacting emotionally without really thinking about what's happening in the show or what a character should realistically do - which is fine, if you don't enjoy watching a certain character, that's okay. But on another level, a lot of people really seem to think that she should just be a cookie cutter wife with no personality who just lets Walt walk all over her.

The only time I ever hated her character was when she was smoking when pregnant, but then, that's not something I'd criticize her character or the show for - it was written in perfectly fine.

At one point or another I've hated every character in Breaking Bad; that's what makes it so good.

The 'epitaph' idea is the dumbest thing that I've read so far. Zooming out with the protagonists corpse surrounded by police officers is the greatest ending that this show could have. The aftermath could be inferred and it would essentially be filler..

I read that blog and it's pretty ridiculous. The fact that there are so many viewers who so vehemently hate Skylar is unbelievable. Shes' a fucking character...I can't even believe that there are pages devote to hating her. Her character pissed me off but not enough to elicit any real life discussion and it's really retarded that fans of this show could go as far as hating Anna Gunn...

Nah, it would only be as good or bad as the writers let it be. The ending we got felt truncated and hasty, really quite easy. Walt isn't the only character that means anything in this story, and ending the experience right then and there shortchanged the surviving characters a bit, I'd say. Sure, you could infer the aftermath (hey, I'd like to think Jesse went on to actually become the carpenter in his vision), but then one of the things about Breaking Bad that makes it great is how unexpected its twists are. Gaining signs that Walt's legacy, so carefully and agonizingly gained, might be nullified somehow, say, would be a terribly bitter but theoretically realistic twist of the knife. A denouement needn't be "wrapping things up with a pretty bow" or "spoonfeeding" by any means... it can be used instead to deliver devastating revelations and insights into macroscopic effects and changes.

Overall I am glad they did not do an epitaph. The show was about Walt and always has been, since the first episode when he discovered he had cancer. Everything revolved around him. I like the way they left the audience wondering about the other characters, and an epitaph would have been unnecessarily cheesy and taken away the wonder of what the other characters would do. The show left the characters in a place where they each had closure and could move on with their lives. What else do you need?

I wouldn't consider many of the characters as having had closure. Just because Skyler and Walt Jr. got a shitty apartment and a shot at Skyler avoiding jail, they're somehow made emotionally and psychologically whole? The last glimpse we got of Jesse was that of a man teetering on the very brink of madness. I don't see any closure anywhere in there. The season basically felt like it ended at eight episodes because they'd run out of episodes, not because it was the best or most interesting way to end it.

What do you want to have happened to Skyler. Get married to Ted and Ted's company take back off and get rich? And for Jessie how is he supposed to become whole after everything he has been through? He was finally free. That's the best you can ask for. You needed to see a shot of him in his own carpentry shop or something with a wife and his own kid he named, Brock junior?

Like I was trying to say is, yes Walt severely hurt his family but the entire show was about him and how he impacted his family, and the closure was them getting closure from Walt and getting the money lined up (even if they have no idea where it came from) as that was why Walt did what he did in the first place, to support his family once he dies.

I do agree that the show seemed to rush a lot at the end, particularly the last episode and felt unusual considering the pace of this show over the 5 seasons. Perhaps it could have gone another episode or two but I think they did a good job with it.

Some people probably wanted the Breakfeast club ending i was talking about a few posts ago.

I don't see misogyny in the hatred of the female characters from the fans' perspective. It's just that the female characters are written as crappy characters. It's not a show with a lot of women in power for sure, with the exception of Lydia and Skyler occasionally. If anything the writers are misogynistic. Can you think of a single episode that passes the Bechdel test, for example?

He was quite overrun with emotions (as anyone would be given the circumstances) but he was clearly happy, happy to free and for it to be over with. There was no madness. I firmly agree with the above poster that the show was about Walt and with his death so it ended.

I agree with people who are saying that we didn't need anymore "closure" than we did. I'm not interested in seeing what happened to Skyler, Jesse or Jr after we last saw them. The final shot was perfect and any addition to it would have spoiled it.

Also, they're turning it into a telenovela, apparently! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_B ... age_remake

@ Cielo Blanco.

Hilarious! Also, presenting Walter Blanco


Link

Except I have never heard that argument as a reason why they hate the female characters. Plus, passing the Bechdel test isn't the only way to make a well written character.

Spanish language remake...

yeah because every work needs to have "women in power" shoehorned into it even if it's a show about illegal drug manufacturing which I would assume to be a fairly male dominated industry. those misogynist bastards.

What the hell you guys, why does the suggestion of a denouement instantly make you assume I'm talking about some idealized, treacle-coated rainbow happyland? That's not what I'm suggesting at all. The story simply felt like it needed some kind of coda to complete its momentous arc, it doesn't have to be some retarded soft-focus group hug. I do think the ending worked alright but it simply felt incomplete.

^I pretty much agree with Starmere. The ending to the show was good, but it did feel rushed and many of the characters' stories didn't really have any closure. Breaking Bad was a show that really took it's time and let the plot evolve naturally. But during the finale, so many major plot points just got resolved: Walt figured out how to get his money to his family, Walt killed Lydia, Walt killed the neo-nazi's, Walt freed Jesse, Walt apologized to Skylar, Walt died.

It might have been nice to have an episode where they recover Hank's body and see the other characters react to Walt's death.

Amen. Breaking Bad was Walt's story. It wasn't about Hank or Skyler or even Jesse. Virtually everything we saw about those characters was in relation to how they effected/were effected by Walt. The Breaking Bad story ends with Walt's death.

I'm kind of amazed by things people wanted to see in the finale. Jesse, that I get. Even Hank and Marie. But I've seen people talk about Lydia's daughter, a character who was only mentioned maybe one or two times and was never seen by the audience. I guess that's what fan fiction is for.

Yeah, I'm pretty much 100% in agreement with that. Also, Walt was pretty much the epicenter of interestingness in the characters' lives. Now that he's dead, I think pretty much everyone he interacted with who's still alive is going to live out a pretty mundane existence. Whether Jesse goes back to cooking and dealing or if he becomes a woodworker or whatever doesn't really matter because it's not going to be *interesting* either way. Same with Skyler moving on with her life, Jr. getting his money and investing it in something sensible...there's really nothing that any of the characters could do that would be very "Breaking Bad" and thus it's not really stuff that's covered under the show's jurisdiction.

That was even already happening in the last few eps. Marie's life wasn't interesting at all once Hank died. Just how it goes I suppose. The BB finale was good because it kept the action up right to the last second. A little epilogue may have been nice and all, but it would've slowed it down and been less immediate and powerful. Nothing they did could've been quite so good as the last shot we got with that song over it.

'Aaron Paul, how'd you get the part for Pinkman?'
Casting Call-
'yo' bitch!'

Yeah we know that she had gotten a dead-end job but was there really an explanation about the car wash being taken away from them or deemed to be funded by meth money? My memory might be failing me but I can't seem to recall that bit happening.

6 shows you should watch now that Breaking Bad is over

well, they are right about Rectify.

Rectify sounds cool, I might give that a spin. As I've raved about before, Justified is really great. Terriers was good, too, and had a lot of potential. Shame it got cut so short.

but why see it? I mean, everyone can kinda guess all such things would've happened, so, as the writers probably thought, what's the point in wasting a precious second on it? I mean...you may as well have a scene of the nazis in the morgue to let the audience know they're actually dead, give the audience no credit whatsoever.

Just finished it off today WOOOO a bit late to the party admittedly but glad to have wrapped it up, I had caught up to the end of season 4 and hadn't watched any of season 5 part one or two and went on a bing this weekedn watched all sixteen episodes in the past two days, the first part last night and the second part today. I liked the ending, I was satisfied with it. Good to see him tie up loose ends and gain revenge on the neo nazi's and that uptight bitch Lydia(I think that was her name) I grew to like Skyler, I thought she was annoying before but you know if I was in her shoes I'd probably react the same to my husband being a meth king. The characters in this show were phenomenal. Also good to see Jesse get away and while we all knew Walt was a complete and utter sociopath murderer I think we can all agree we were gunning for him in some way

I was gunning for Walt back and forth but he slid further and further away from the reality of needing to provide for his family and caring for others to just being a total megalomaniac who only cared about his pride and power, so I lost my support for him. Instead of providing for his family and taking care of them which he convinced himself was his motivation he ended up destroying it.

Yeah I agree that he was evil but his cancer diagnosis and the moustache killed me if I'm honest, I remember him from the start and he reminded of my dad too much when my dad got cancer and I just supported him the whole way through because of that. It mimicked my dad too much, hard working provider for my family and a moustache. It's funny I felt really uncomfortable watching the first season because of that, I used to watch an episode and I'd feel like shit and it would really hurt so no matter what Walt did I forgave him and kept rooting for him.

I hated him more for the little things he did, like manipulating Jesse - especially in early season 5 when he's trying to goad and bully him not to leave, treating him like a child. And that scene where Jesse broke down crying because he thought he'd tried to kill Walt for nothing. And I hated him for murdering Mike. It was one of the only things he did that was purely emotional with no real logic behind it - his Napoleon complex really showed there. And you should be scared of a man with a gun and a Napoleon complex like that.

The "big" things he did, the drug empire and the murdering 10 men in prison and even something as awful as letting Jane die - all that stuff, as reprehensible as it was, was more cold, calculating logic than anything, and he had his reasons for it. I wouldn't say I liked him for those things, but I think it says a lot about his character and complexities that I can understand why he did those things. They were awful things but I didn't think they really marked the deepest seeds of the darkness inside him. He was interesting because he had that kind of quick-thinking, sinister logic at all times.

To me, his character was interesting because he became that, and we're shown in painstaking detail exactly how he got to be that way. Walt is the failure of the American Dream personified.