Breaking Bad Finale - Here Be Spoilers

[ceemec]

So what did people make of the last episode?

Personally, I found it excellent. I don't think any finale (Felina...finale....I get it now!) is going to be universally liked but at least it provided closure on everything. It probably wasn't the best episode of the show but it certainly wasn't one of the weaker ones (if there were any) and everything is undoubtedly wrapped up. I'd have been irritated if it decided to go down the Sopranos route and leave it entirely open to debate.

I thought the scenes where Walt visited Skyler and when he visited Gretchen and Elliott were superb. Those scenes were as absorbing as any they've filmed and, in the case of the scene with Skyler and the following moments with his children, as affecting as any. The shot of Walt Jnr. closing the door in the distance as his father silently watched was perfect.

I'm not sure about the exact manner of the final scenes and think it was all a little bit contrived but I'm still happy enough how it went. I felt that, with a show of this quality, they wouldn't leave so many fortuitous circumstances to come together for Walt's plan to be executed. He was allowed visit the gang's lair, allowed park where he wasn't supposed to, his keys left in easy reach and Jack decided to delay Walt's execution and get Jesse because Walt called him a liar. All a little convenient but I really am picking holes in what was just a great ending to a superb show.

I will really struggle to find something to fill the BB void now!

[RoboProp]

Fe - Iron
Li - Lithium
Na - Sodium
Or Blood, drugs and tears. Or is that just overly nerdy of me

[paddyor]

So what did people make of the last episode?

Personally, I found it excellent. I don't think any finale (Felina...finale....I get it now!) is going to be universally liked but at least it provided closure on everything. It probably wasn't the best episode of the show but it certainly wasn't one of the weaker ones (if there were any) and everything is undoubtedly wrapped up. I'd have been irritated if it decided to go down the Sopranos route and leave it entirely open to debate.

I thought the scenes where Walt visited Skyler and when he visited Gretchen and Elliott were superb. Those scenes were as absorbing as any they've filmed and, in the case of the scene with Skyler and the following moments with his children, as affecting as any. The shot of Walt Jnr. closing the door in the distance as his father silently watched was perfect.

I'm not sure about the exact manner of the final scenes and think it was all a little bit contrived but I'm still happy enough how it went. I felt that, with a show of this quality, they wouldn't leave so many fortuitous circumstances to come together for Walt's plan to be executed. He was allowed visit the gang's lair, allowed park where he wasn't supposed to, his keys left in easy reach and Jack decided to delay Walt's execution and get Jesse because Walt called him a liar. All a little convenient but I really am picking holes in what was just a great ending to a superb show.

I will really struggle to find something to fill the BB void now!

Yeah but wasn't that thing about "Heisenberg" As Jesse said in To'ahajilee(4th last episode I think) "Nothing ever works out as it's supposed to with him, it all goes his way!" It was that way from season 1. Like the way Tuco Salamanca gets killed and they escape.

The high point was "Gliding All Over". The scene with Hank sandwiched by the the 2 montages. Can't imagine anything like the prison one ever being done again. And yes I know it's like the godfather ending but wasn't that the idea. It was done well!

Agreed on the last point. I'm watching a few other things but nothing of this quality. Think Better Call Saul will likely be a let down. Might go back to the start of The Wire

[fourthirtythree]

Fe - Iron
Li - Lithium
Na - Sodium
Or Blood, drugs and tears. Or is that just overly nerdy of me

Cool!

I think it's the name of the girl in the country song at the beginning also (where the narrator has a slug in his side and everything's going dark and he wonders if he's going to get back to her or something like that)/

[ceemec]

Fe - Iron
Li - Lithium
Na - Sodium
Or Blood, drugs and tears. Or is that just overly nerdy of me

Yes. Yes it is. But there's probably also accuracy in it! I only say it's an anagram as that's what Matt Jones (Badger) said on the second last episode of Talking Bad. I think it's too simplistic though so your explanation is much more likely (in conjunction with the anagram).

[Donny B.]

Fe - Iron
Li - Lithium
Na - Sodium
Or Blood, drugs and tears. Or is that just overly nerdy of me

Cool!

I think it's the name of the girl in the country song at the beginning also (where the narrator has a slug in his side and everything's going dark and he wonders if he's going to get back to her or something like that)/

http://comicbook.com/blog/2013/09/30/br ... ina-title/

[Donny B.]

I'm not sure about the exact manner of the final scenes and think it was all a little bit contrived but I'm still happy enough how it went. I felt that, with a show of this quality, they wouldn't leave so many fortuitous circumstances to come together for Walt's plan to be executed. He was allowed visit the gang's lair, allowed park where he wasn't supposed to, his keys left in easy reach and Jack decided to delay Walt's execution and get Jesse because Walt called him a liar. All a little convenient but I really am picking holes in what was just a great ending to a superb show.

I downloaded it and watched it at 5 A.M. on Monday to avoid any spoilers. In the end most people were fairly sound though.

I watched it and loved it but I was a little worried that it would be slated for being a little too neat, the evil Meth Nazis and Lydia getting their just deserts, Walt dying but reclaiming a little of his humanity in saving Jessie and Skyler and the kids having some sort of potentially positive future. In the end though the reaction was pretty much universally positive from what I've read and I've read a lot about it.

So all in all a fitting end to a classic show. Like David Simon before him Vince Gilligan will struggle to come up with something of the same quality but he's already trying. And hopefully will all the real creative talent deserting movies for TV we won't be long before another stone classic comes down the line. Remember Breaking Bad took its time to grow, which is a lesson to all TV execs.

[Donny B.]

So after watching it again last night I still think it stands up.

The scene where he intimidates Eliot and Gretchen into laundering the last of his money was a master-class. "Cheer-up beautiful people, you get to make it right!" Yeah I guessed there were no real hitmen too, but in their middle-class world this was perfectly believable for them.

The final scene with Skyler was perfectly played out, including the call from Marie to set it up. They packed so much into that call and subsequent conversation yet they didn't overplay the emotion in it. The shot of Walt silently watching Junior was beautifully done too.

And the final scene at the compound was a little contrived yes, but played well into the notion that Uncle Jack was the only person who always saw through Walt's bravado and was never intimidated by him. The fact that he even let him go after the shoot-out that killed Hank and stealing his money is further proof. He always saw him for the lucky amateur that he was so why shouldn't he let him walk into the club-house to say bon voyage before executing him. You could say he was lucky they didn't search the trunk for a bomb. Actually now I think of it, why didn't he just use a bomb? It's not like he doesn't know how to rig one.

But anyway the final scene where he saves Jessie who then gets to kill the dead-eyed Opie was really satisfying. And the kicker to Lydia too with the RIcin.

Yet still the survivors are is still in a world of pain although to some extent only the kids and Marie were entirely blameless in this. Jessie is a drug-dealing murderer, Skyler a money-launderer who by the end was urging Walt to murder to protect them.

But BB has never been The Wire, nor has it ever sought to be. As you say it's been a morality tale with a wonderfully surreal edge to it in things like the killer cousins hit-men.

What's Vince Gilligan's series motto "No bad deed goes unpunished".

In the end, pretty much everyone got theirs, one way or the other.

[JB1973]

I'm glad they didn't try some huge swerve at the end, it was a great show and we had already seen enough twists and turns .It just needed a solid and definitive end that put the series and the main characters to bed and we got it (unlike the Sopranos!)

ps I was still rooting for Walt even after the stuff he pulled, not sure what that says about me!!

[Donny B.]

ps I was still rooting for Walt even after the stuff he pulled, not sure what that says about me!!

Well it means you're a fellow sociopath....to be fair, it's what we've come to expect from Ospreys fans!

[JB1973]

lol probably true!

I was also rooting for Vic in the shield and Tony and Paulie in the Sopranos I must be a fan of the anti hero!

[fourthirtythree]

The anti-hero has to be a hero or he's just the baddie. BB played into our fantasies that if we were let off our leashes we'd all be real badasses. It's just that we're nice people and hold back that stops us.

[Scott]

So favourite scene/episode...........

[Bosco]

When Benekie (sp?) takes his fall, still piss myself laughing at it

[ceemec]

So favourite scene/episode...........

Full Measure. Final scenes when Mike is holding Walt hostage and about to kill him and Walt manages to get word to Jesse in his phone call with a race to protect/kill Gale with the season culminating in a devastated Jesse aiming his gun at Gale's face.

That's what springs to mind initially but there's so many, to be honest. The scenes with Gus and the cartel both past and present were superb too.

[Jackie Brown]

Bath tub through the ceiling for funniest bit. For shear ohhhh sh1t! moment it's gotta be when Walt planted the car bomb on Gus's car. Hard to watch.

[Dave Cahill]

Gus walks out of the hospital bedroom after the bomb goes off and adjusts his tie...

[Donny B.]

Scene: "Say my Name"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHKrCs1rFRI

Can't pick an episode although Better Call Saul was certainly the funniest

[Dave Cahill]

Marie telling Skyler how things will be now that Hank has arrested Walter, meanwhile in the desert...

[Donny B.]

The scenes with Gus and the cartel both past and present were superb too.

One little thing that's been bugging me. In the Cartel flashback scenes where they killed his partner, Don Eladio says "The only reason you are alive and he is not...is because I know who you are." There were other hints at Gus's mysterious Chilean background but it never really amounted to anything did it, or am I missing something?