Wow. It's all over. And this was one incredible series finale. For a show this plotted from beginning to end, it really has to have an ending that gives you everything you wanted to see and I can tell you for sure that this one definitely did. No ambiguous Lost or Sopranos style endings here. The saga of Walter White comes to its natural conclusion and it goes out beautifully and in hugely satisfying fashion, cementing Breaking Bad's legacy as one of the very best (if not the best) television shows of all time.
We start off with Walt experiencing some of that classic luck that Jesse mentioned episodes ago, by finding a car outside the bar in New Hampshire that just happens to be unlocked. As he waits inside, hidden from the police by the snow piled on top of it, he searches for something to start the ignition with and finds a wrench, but can't get it to work. Then he prays out loud, "just let me get home, I'll do the rest," and we see the blurry police siren slowly pass him by and what do you know, he pulls down the sun visor and the keys fall into his lap, as if by miracle. Walt revs up the engine as the theme music kicks in for the last time.
We see Walt pull up outside a gas station with the stolen car that has the words "live free or die" on the license plate (the title to the first episode of the fifth season), and he uses a pay phone to call someone named "Susan," claiming to be from the New York Times and asking for Gretchen and Eliott's current address for an interview. I know there were people who were convinced he was going to kill Gretchen and Elliott in this episode for being the ones who started the whole thing, but I never bought it as I assumed they were a one-off return last week. Boy was I wrong. Walt takes off his watch (the birthday present Jesse gave him last season) and places it on the pay phone before walking away.
So Gretchen and Elliott make their way home as Walt is indeed, hiding in their yard and he nonchalantly follows them into the house and acquaints himself with their digs, checking everything out as neither of them notice he's there. When Gretchen turns around to see him she screams and both of them are afraid that Walt's there to kill them. Elliott even holds up a knife, which amuses Walt, who tells him if he wants to go that way, he needs a bigger knife. No, Walt's not there to kill them- what he wants to do is give them the last of his money, and he makes them drag all $9 million in cash out of his car and put it on their table. Walt tells them he wants the two of them to anonymously give the money to his children in a trust fund, use it to pay for any of their legal bills, etc. Gretchen refuses, but Walt thinks this is the only way it would work, seeing as Skyler and Walter Jr. won't take the money from him, but could accept it from two wealthy benefactors. The final touch is great, as Walt threatens them with the "best hitmen this side of the Mississippi" if they fail to comply, signaling for lasers to be shined on their chests and telling them they will be followed for the rest of their lives if his kids don't get the money. It's pretty much a horror movie scene, as Gretchen and Elliott are both terrified and quivering in fear as Walt leaves them standing there with the huge pile of cash.
When Walt picks up the two "hitmen," they turn out, in a brilliant move, to be Badger and Skinny Pete doing it for the money, which makes them feel better about the whole "shady deal" they just pulled off. It's pretty awesome. Walt asks about the blue meth that's still been making its way around town, and both guys thought it was him all along. Walt realizes that it's been Jesse the whole time and he seems to be angry about it (remember his freakout when Jesse learned how to make meth as good as his?) There's a flashback/fantasy sequence of the story Jesse told way back in the third season, about constructing a wooden box in his shop class, and how it was the one thing that he ever felt proud of. It's a sadly moving moment as we then see poor Jesse tugging on his ceiling chain as he hauls the meth supplies back and forth in the underground lab, still trapped in his life as the meth cooking slave.
Walt's now at the diner for his 52nd birthday, which means we've finally caught up to the present day flashforwards we'd been getting, and we see all the guns in the trunk again, along with the trip to the house to get the ricin cigarette, where Walt pauses in a flashback to his birthday from the pilot episode, with Hank offering to take him on a ride-along.
Lydia's at the coffee shop and this is where I finally realized that the ricin was for her, in place of the stevia she constantly asks for, and somehow I feel I should have figured this out sooner. It seems so obvious now. She's meeting Todd of course, but Walt is lurking in the background and he suddenly crashes their meeting, offering, begging to give them a new method he's created that works without methylene, seeing as they must be running low. He says he'll do it for $1 million, and Jesse's unsure, but Lydia accepts, even as Walt collapses in a coughing fit in front of them. Walt sets up a meeting with the Nazis that night and slinks out of the cafe, but Lydia tells Jesse just to kill him as she pours the stevia into her cup. And that is accompanied by a MAJOR closeup of the stuff going in, so in case you hadn't figured it out yet- yeah, Lydia gets the ricin in full. She's done.
Walt's out in the desert, singing to himself and making what looks like various explosives and bombs, and he sadly puts his wedding ring that he's still wearing around his neck back under his shirt when it falls out. Meanwhile, Marie calls Skyler at her new house and warns her that Walt's back in town, having been spotted by various people, including her old neighbor Carol, and to keep an eye out in case he comes to her. Skyler listens, but seems ambivalent as she smokes a cigarette, hanging up and saying to someone off screen, "you've got five minutes." The camera peers around the corner and we see that Walt is of course, already there. He tells her it's all over and that he just wants one more goodbye in place of their last phone call. Skyler tells him about the Nazi threat from the last episode, but Walt says there won't be any threat after tonight. Then he gives her the lotto ticket with the GPS coordinates where Hank and Gomez are buried and tells her to trade it for a deal with the prosecutor that absolves her of any guilt. Skyler tears up as she tells Walt not to tell her again that he did this for the family, but Walt surprises her by finally admitting to her and to himself, in a cool, calm, and collected manner, that he did it for him. Because he liked it, he was good at it, and it made him feel alive. Bryan Cranston is fantastic in this scene, and I'm convinced this is the episode that will get him his fourth and last Emmy next year. He asks to see the baby one last time and as he strokes Baby Holly's sleeping cheek, Skyler gives him one last, loving gaze as he silently walks out of the house. I have to admit, I almost teared up here. Walt hides behind a wall outside where he watches from a distance as Walter Jr. comes home from school, giving himself one last look at his son as well.
And now here comes the climax. Walt pulls up to the Nazi commune, as one of them gets in with him and directs him to park the car, but Walt backs up in front of the house instead (for a reason, as we'll see) and then he comes inside to meet Jack, Todd and the rest of the crew. He has a trigger on his car keys, which Jack takes from him and he's searched for a wire as well, before Walt yells at them that they owe him for not killing Jesse and making him a partner instead. Jack almost kills him, but is insulted by this accusation and orders Todd to bring Jesse here to show Walt how much of a "partner" he is. While Todd goes off to drag Jesse over, Walt slowly gets the keys back in his grip, and as Jesse is hauled in by his chains, Walt stares at him and walks over to face him, his hand on the trigger. As Walt and Jesse stand face to face, Walt suddenly dives on Jesse, tackling him to the ground and shielding him as he hits the trigger and a James Bond style machine gun contraption he rigged up in his trunk goes off, shattering bullets through the wall and taking out every single Nazi in a bloody hail of gunfire. It''s kind of unbelievable, but you have to admit, pretty amazing as they all go down one by one. All except Todd that is, who miraculously misses the bullets solely for the following reason: As Todd looks through the window at the rigged machine guns, Walt gets off of Jesse, who immediately lunges at Todd, wraps his chains around his neck and strangles the asshole to death, slowly until his neck snaps while Walt lets him do it. He Instead walks over to a still breathing Jack, who pathetically tries to save himself by offering up the money, but Walt picks a gun off one of the corpses and blows him away instantly. Well, my wish to see Todd die a slow, painful death at the hands of Jesse came true to a tee, so no complaints on that end.
Jesse gets rid of his chains and stand up to face Walt for the last time, but Walt slides the gun over to him and tells him to shoot him, giving him the chance to decide whether he wants to be the one to do it. Jesse holds up the gun but hesitates when he sees that Walt has already taken a bullet in the gut from protecting Jesse and is bleeding out anyway. He tells him he won't do it unless Walt says he wants it, which he does, but Jesse puts the gun down, telling him to do it himself. Then he takes off as Todd's phone rings, which Walt picks up when he sees that it's Lydia, asking her how she's feeling. She is of course, not looking too great, already experiencing flu-like symptoms and on her way out, which Walt cordially tells her before hanging up. As he walks outside he sees Jesse getting into a car and they exchange one last, meaningful look as they both nod in acknowledgement, and then Jesse hops in the car and races out of his enslaved hell, crashing through the gates and whooping it up as he sails to freedom at last, from the Nazis and from Walt. It's a good moment, and I personally like to think that he went off to take care of poor little Brock somehow, who's now an orphan. I'm also happy to see that Walt did in fact, save Jesse one more time instead of going there to kill him, as I half-feared he would.
Walt, now struggling from the gun wound, makes his way into the meth lab and looks around nostalgically as the police sirens get louder, making their way towards him. The Badfinger classic "Baby Blue" kicks in, as Walt succumbs to his fate, falling to the ground as the cops move in to find him already dead, staring up at the ceiling, surrounded by the thing he loved most, the thing he was good at it. He did what he wanted- he got his kids the money and he went out on his own terms. Heisenberg is gone.
And with that finale, so is one of the best shows in television history, an experience that I'm thrilled to have had as a fan while it was actually going on. I'm not anticipating a show this great to come along again for a good long while, although who knows what could happen in this golden age of TV that we're living in, right? But still, Breaking Bad and creator Vince Gilligan have left a special place for themselves in TV history, with many millions more who will eventually discover it as the years pass by. Walter White will live on for generations. I'm just glad to have been one of the first to see his reign.
