The Breaking Bad Finale Discussion Thread [SPOILERS WITHIN - UP TO FINALE]

[Forsaken]

I knew they were coming but only a matter of time, Hank will die and Gomez will die. Jesse will live.

One of the best scenes in a TV show, EVER

[Powerage5]

So next week is the only episode I can't see as it airs. Fuuuuuck.

But I'll be on a plane shortly after it airs, so I guess it's a good scenario to miss an episode since I don't really have any way to get it spoiled for me.

[SunnyDRE]

The episode was fine......though I did think it wasn't up to the standards as the first half of the season.

Walt is dumb all of a sudden?

Like I said....

Decent episode.

Ending was terrible.

I knew they were coming but only a matter of time, Hank will die and Gomez will die. Jesse will live.

One of the best scenes in a TV show, EVER

No way!!

That was a terrible scene!!

Edited September 9, 2013 by SunnyDRE

[Black Sabbath]

wat

[Forsaken]

Walt doesn't kill family.

[Powerage5]

I knew they were coming but only a matter of time, Hank will die and Gomez will die. Jesse will live.

One of the best scenes in a TV show, EVER

Yeah, I think Hank is toast. The way he said "I love you" to Marie seemed foreshadow-esque.

[Forsaken]

"It may be awhile before I come home"

[SunnyDRE]

gomez is fucked, that much is certain

It looked like he got hit to me.

Jesus, I'm literally shaking right now. Most intense scene of the series, hands down.

You're kidding right?

How about Walt and Mike for the last time?

I actually think the ending to tonight's episode was comical.....

[bacardimayne]

It did get a bit cop-outish when they started firing shots and nobody died.

[Ace Nova]

The episode was fine......though I did think it wasn't up to the standards as the first half of the season.

Walt is dumb all of a sudden?

I think basically the writers are showing how much loyalty Walt has (in his heart) and he assumes the same in return. They're also showing that Walt doesn't like to admit being wrong about someone, to the point that it's (potentially) to his own demise.

Yeah, I think Hank is toast. The way he said "I love you" to Marie seemed foreshadow-esque.

Yeah, he is as good as dead. Looks like he and Gomie are dead and somehow, Jesse escapes...notice how one of the last times they show Jesse, it looks as if he was about to run out of the car.

[Estranged Reality]

OK so I had a couple (strong) drinks during the show so I wasn't sure towards the end if it was really the best episode

since Gus Fring

or if the alcohol was clouding my judgment.

But after reading the posts here and on Facebook it appears my reaction was appropriate. That was AMAZING. FUCKING AMAZING.

HOLY SHIT.

[Ace Nova]

It did get a bit cop-outish when they started firing shots and nobody died.

To give the benefit of the doubt - they were relatively far away from each other, as you can see when they pan out.

[Forsaken]

gomez is fucked, that much is certain

It looked like he got hit to me.

Jesus, I'm literally shaking right now. Most intense scene of the series, hands down.

You're kidding right?

How about Walt and Mike for the last time?

Walt and Mike can't live up to this because at this point everyone​ is breaking bad, and you know the end is near. The build-up was what made it awesome. The the shootout was icing on the cake.. leaving with a cliffhanger of course.

[Estranged Reality]

i LOOOVE how the preview for next week's episode didn't give anything away.

[Ace Nova]

Although I think they may kill Hank and Gomie - with Jesse getting away...it wouldn't surprise me if they somehow "kidnap" Jesse and force him to cook with Todd. What may end up happening is that Walt gets infuriated with the skinheads for killing Hank and Gomie and basically just gives Jesse up to them instead of cooking for them.

[Estranged Reality]

this show's a little too 'dadrock' for me amirite?

[Ace Nova]

The irony is that Hank and Gomie have been doing this behind the DEA's back. All the evidence they have is with them. If they mysteriously disappear, so does their case.

[downzy]

Probably one of the best episodes of the series so far.

All this talk that "they're all breaking bad" is nonsense. This isn't a show about anybody else but Walt. I read this in a recently posted review over at Daily Beast and think it's spot on:

In that split second, “To’hajiilee” turns—and Gilligan’s true vision for Breaking Bad becomes clearer than it’s ever been before. As I watched the final shootout—the hail of bullets buzzing back and forth between Hank and Agent Gomez on one side and Todd, Uncle Jack, and Uncle Jack’s neo-Nazi buddies on the other—I thought back to what Gilligan had actually said to me. “I absolutely see Breaking Bad as a modern Western,” he’d explained—emphasis on the modern. Hank isn’t the hero. There are no heroes. There is only Walter White and what he hath wrought.

And in the end, that’s what “To’hajiilee” is telling us. That Breaking Bad is about Walter White’s descent—not anyone else’s heroism. Throughout the series, Walt has drawn lines, moral boundaries, in the sand. At first he would refuse to cross them, but then, inevitably, he would give in, and that’s how we measured Mr. Chips’s transformation into Scarface (or Heisenberg). But the one line that Walt wouldn’t cross was family. The meth, the money, all of it—for family. That was the point. Without family, everything Walt had done—“the multiple murders, the ties to a white-supremacist prison gang, the largest meth operation in the Southwest,” as Hank put it Sunday night—would be for naught.

But morality isn’t a chemical equation, as much as Walter White might like to think he can calibrate and control it. In “To’hajiilee,” Gilligan & Co. demonstrate that principle to brual effect. When Walt meets with Jack, he agrees to do two things he swore he would never do: kill Jesse (who, in his own words, “is like family”) and cook meth again (which will endanger Walt’s wife and children). Walt has his caveats, his rationalizations. He says Jesse’s death must be “quick and painless,” with “no suffering” and “no fear,” and he insists that he will only do “one cook, after the job”—that is, Jesse’s murder—“is done.”

But it’s useless. As palpable as Walt’s repugnance might be when he shakes Jack hand—Bryan Cranston is remarkable at conveying his character’s contradictory emotions in this scene—the deal kick-starts the crisp Rube Goldbergian plot machinery that makes the climactic showdown between Jack and Hank inevitable. Walt meant to kill Jesse. Now, a few scenes later, his own brother-in-law is in danger of being killed as a result.

Watching the shootout, I could barely breathe. The image that got me was one of the most poignant and terrifying ever to appear on a show with no shortage of either: Walt trapped in the back of a truck, powerless at last, his hands cuffed and his voice muffled, as the forces he has unleashed attempt to destroy the one thing he swore to protect. I can’t imagine a more effective way to dramatize the inescapable consequences of Walter White’s moral decline.

What I loved about this episode is how it completely fucks with the viewers emotions. Hank gets his triumphant moment where he catches his white whale only it to be fleeting, that he's ultimately facing his demise. In some way it's a victory for Hank: he caught Walter White. He outsmarted the genius, the guy who has always looked down on him. For those who are Hank fans (like myself), it was a great moment. But then it all gets taken away by the sheer onslaught of violence that Walt has brought into his world. This was one of those pay off episodes that accomplished what we've been waiting for.

With three episodes left I think the carnage is just beginning to rev up.

Edited September 9, 2013 by downzy

[SunnyDRE]

The irony is that Hank and Gomie have been doing this behind the DEA's back. All the evidence they have is with them. If they mysteriously disappear, so does their case.

Umm, IMO, .....one of the "comical elements" of the gunfight..

And hell..anyone who has written anything, knows you don't just change "Chapters" in the middle of a "gunfight."

I'll take my lumps from you guy...but please remeber; I do love the show and liked tonight's episode.

Just think the ending was rather weak.....

[Powerage5]

OK so I had a couple (strong) drinks during the show so I wasn't sure towards the end if it was really the best episode

since Gus Fring

or if the alcohol was clouding my judgment.

But after reading the posts here and on Facebook it appears my reaction was appropriate. That was AMAZING. FUCKING AMAZING.

HOLY SHIT.

Spoiler alert: Gus Fring is dead.

[downzy]

I think this prediction is a pretty good one:

"What I think now is that there won’t be any winners when Breaking Bad is over. Just one loser: Walter White—alone, dying of cancer, with seven barrels of money all to himself. And no family left to give it any meaning."

[Powerage5]

I think this prediction is a pretty good one:

"What I think now is that there won’t be any winners when Breaking Bad is over. Just one loser: Walter White—alone, dying of cancer, with seven barrels of money all to himself. And no family left to give it any meaning."

I think this is very possible.

[bacardimayne]

That scene with Walt driving down to the money is on the list of most satisfying moments in the show for me.

[Ace Nova]

Probably one of the best episodes of the series so far.

All this talk that "they're all breaking bad" is nonsense. This isn't a show about anybody else but Walt. I read this in a recently posted review over at Daily Beast and think it's spot on:

With three episodes left I think the carnage is just beginning to rev up.

They clearly have all "Broken Bad"...but it's all a result of Walter White breaking bad. Walter White is the antagonist and the show is demonstrating how he is sort of a "black hole" in a sense, taking everyone down with him - both mentally (That's why they all broke bad) and physically. (When they all end up dead or in jail). It's as clear as day.

I think this prediction is a pretty good one:

"What I think now is that there won’t be any winners when Breaking Bad is over. Just one loser: Walter White—alone, dying of cancer, with seven barrels of money all to himself. And no family left to give it any meaning."

That has been clear to me since the beginning of this season. There are no 'winners' here...when Walter White broke bad it was the beginning of the end. Although I wouldn't doubt there will be at least one or two 'survivors'.

Edited September 9, 2013 by Kasanova King

[Estranged Reality]

That scene with Walt driving down to the money is on the list of most satisfying moments in the show for me.

it's the first time since maybe the second season that he's been caught with his pants down. he'd become a little too clever for his own britches. that's, i think, why it was both so satisfying and tense.

his ego will ultimately do him in. heisenberg took over and he's starting to let that self-satisfaction cloud his judgments.