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| Photo Credit: Ursula Coyote/AMC |
BREAKING BAD, the AMC saga of a meth lord, ends strongly by tying up its loose ends and drawing from its main character an admission that sets the series free
Not only did Vince Gilligan's five-season, hyper-violent prose poem to midlife male frustration tie up virtually every loose end in sight, it contained the Holy Grail of all storytelling: an Actual Moment of Truth. And not just this particular story's truth, but one that extended to the beloved and bloated genre Gilligan both elevated and mocked.
"I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really ... I was alive."
[SPOILER ALERT]
In the end, BREAKING BAD was a bit of a cheat. The strongest moments of the final season came as Walt realized that great truism so often underscored in stories like his: Once you introduce evil into your life, you cannot control it. In the end, though, Walter White was triumphant. His money would go to his children, his enemies were dead, his foster son freed.
But the only things he was allowed to touch in farewell were his infant daughter and the equipment in his lab. And as he finally surrendered to his choices and himself, it was easy to tell which he loved more.
And that he died knowing it.
Vince Gilligan explains BREAKING BAD's final scene and reveals the rejected alternatives
"We didn’t feel an absolute need for Walt to expire at the end of the show. Our gut told us it was right. As the writers and I worked through all these different possibilities, it felt right, but I don’t think it was a necessity for us. There was a version we kicked around where Walt is the only one who survives, and he’s standing among the wreckage and his whole family is destroyed. That would be a very powerful ending but very much a kick-in-the-teeth kind of ending for the viewers. We talked about a version where Jesse kills Walt. We talked about a version where Walt more or less gets away with it. There’s no right or wrong way to do this job — it’s just a matter of: You get as many smart people around you as possible in the writers room, and I was very lucky to have that."
Sorry, You Can’t Avoid Spoilers Anymore
The major problem with avoiding spoilers in 2013: A lot of the audience isn't trying to. For all of the talk about DVRs and segmented viewing and death of the monoculture, we still really enjoy a Television Event. Everyone wants a viewing community, with hundreds of recaps and GIFs and witty jokes to make us feel like we're not alone on the couch. So when an opportunity like the Breaking Bad finale presents itself, the community goes hog-wild. That is not going to change anytime soon, and unless you're one of the sad souls stuck on season three, it's actually kind of fun. So just think of television finales like the Super Bowl: You're either going to watch with everyone, or you're going to hear about it all week from everyone else. Acceptance is the first step to not being so angry all the time.
REVENGE Reset: New Showrunner Sunil Nayar On Going Back to Basics With Season 3 Premiere
"Last season’s was so moody and almost ethereal. The audience knew something was going to happen, but they weren’t sure what. We wanted show them exactly happens to Emily Thorne and for it to be something that feels very definitive. You still don't know who it is that pulled the trigger and why it happens – so those are the more fun questions to answer."
