Welp, it’s over.
After five years of one of the most engaging and exciting shows on TV in a long time, last night we finally saw the end of former chemistry teacher-meth kingpin-all around horrible person Walter White’s corrosive saga. Time to mourn, or just look for a new show to dominate the pop culture landscape until Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Mad Men return to the air. Whatever way you cut it, you just know that there won’t be a show like Breaking Bad in a long time.
As should happen in a series finale, Walt’s primary goal is to tie up loose ends before high noon: ensuring his $9 million got to his family; slipping the ricin capsule into Lydia’s Stevia; saying one final goodbye to Skyler; and driving to Jack’s clubhouse to exact his revenge. A short list, but packed with the things that make this show worth watching every minute of.
“Felina” felt very much like a slow burn; each move Walt (but at this point, he’s really Heisenberg) makes has been painstakingly planned out to meet his definition of closure. He can’t get the money to his family, but Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz can place it in a trust for his children, or die by “the two best hitmen west of the Mississippi (actually Badger and Skinny Pete).” Ever business-minded Lydia wants Walt dead by uncle Jack’s hand, but can’t resist her chamomile tea with Stevia, which Walt banks on, and gets the payoff for, in a later phone call with bed-ridden/ricin-poisoned Lydia.
His visit to Skyler, however, is one of two emotional high points of the episode; he gives Skyler the lottery ticket where Hank and Steve Gomez are buried, and tells her (and us) that all of this — the murder, the extortion, the mental anguish and very real threat of death — was never for the family, but for him. “I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really… I was alive.” Viewers will have known this for an entire season at this point, but to hear it come from Heisenberg’s mouth provides its own closure. We know he is a terrible person; George R.R. Martin has admitted that he is a bigger monster than anyone in Westeros; but to hear him finally tell us that we were right, and for him to accept it, sets the stage for the one thing he always knew was coming — his death.
The shootout at Jack’s compound is both the standard final showdown in an action movie and a cathartic release for both Walt and neo-Nazi’s captive, Jesse Pinkman. A broken man after … well, the entire series, he is ragged and beyond any capacity to feel. Walt mistakenly thinks Jack has taken Jesse as a partner, which Jack doesn’t take too well. After bringing him out to show Walt how much of a “partner” Jesse is, Walt throws himself on him and, via an intricate car-lock device, activates the M60 in his trunk, firing into the clubhouse and killing all except Jack and Todd. Todd, ever the empty-headed follower and in awe of Walt’s ingenuity in murder, is strangled by his captive Jesse. Jack pleads Walt for his life, telling Walt that if he kills him, he’ll never-and is promptly cut off by Walt’s bullet, splattering blood on the camera.
Interestingly enough, this is still only setup for what is to follow. Walt tosses the gun to Jesse and tells him to kill him, because Jesse wants this. Jesse won’t do it until Walt tells him that he wants this, and tells Walt to do it himself. Jesse, the kid who asked Mr White at the beginning of the first season if he really wanted to “break bad” and could never fully break bad himself, solidifies his place as one of the only characters that truly has a moral center by refusing to kill Walt-besides, Walt has already been hit, and will die soon. They nod to each other, and Jesse speeds away, laughing maniacally.
A wounded Walt stumbles to the meth lab, his last moments staring around at the gleaming chemistry equipment, places a bloody hand on a tank, and dies, surrounded by the one thing that ever really gave him meaning. The camera zooms out, and fades to black. RIP Walter White; RIP Breaking Bad.