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Breaking Bad - The (Beautiful) Finale - Season 5 Part 2 - Sunday on AMC - OT3

Protein

Banned
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Quoted for this page
 
This was one depressing final season. Not one character on the show gets a happy ending.

Walt dies knowing he screwed everything up. Jesse lives a post traumatic life. Skyler is widowed. Flynn hates his father. Brock loses his mother. Saul works at a cinnabun. Todd and the Nazis, dead. Lydia, dead. Hank, dead. Gomez, dead. Marie, widowed.


There are two characters off the top of my head who end on a happy note. Badger and Skinny Pete.

I would imagine that Saul isn't completely miserable.
 
Watched the episode this morning ready to cry and be depressed after, but actually the ending was quite uplifting for me :lol

Jesse, finally, is free to live his life however he wants (this moment made me SO HAPPY), Jack and his bunch of Nazis died (fuck yeah!).

Walt (was he even Walt at this point?) died in his 'home' so to speak. That is where he is meant to be and it was a lovely moment seeing him admire his work and his legacy before his death. The song fitted absolutely perfectly btw.

I felt sad for Walt when he went to visit Gretchen and Elliot and he's looking around the house touching the walls and looking at the photos. All of that could have been his if he had stayed with Gretchen, and there's a great juxtaposition later on when we see where Skyler is living as a result of Walt :(

All in all, a really good ending for me. Felt true to their roots and I'n glad that this is what Gilligan wanted.

Will be buying the Blu-rays for sure, is there a difference between the barrel edition and the normal edition in terms of the extras?

I'm pretty sure that right now, the Barrel is the only edition available.
 

iammeiam

Member
I think I need to rewatch the show through the lens of it essentially being an hour of Walt floating through town, spreading his poison. He contrives a situation in which Gretchen and Elliot must launder and distribute blood money under threat of death. He forces said money directly onto the son who has already stated he doesn't want it, but disguises it so the son will never know. He murders Lydia in a slow and painful way, kind of just because. He gives Skyler "leverage" for her freedom, but it is only leverage if Skyler can make herself threaten to withhold the information ("Marie, you can have Hank's body just as soon as I get a good deal.")

For all the semi-redemptive stuff in the finale, Walt's still a pretty vile guy. And while there's closure, it's all closure for Walt and that's it. The larger questions going forward are unresolved, but Walt didn't so much care about the long-term, just finishing his own story the way he wanted to.
 
Worst part was how they changed Walt's character completely partway through the final episode, they conveniently gave him a job at the new york times just so he could get to Elliot and Gretchen. Sloppy writing, Vince
 

PSGames

Junior Member
What somewhat threw me off was how was Walt able to see Skylar if she was being watched by the Feds and they knew he was in town? Does't make any sense.
 

.GqueB.

Banned
lol When it first came on I was like "YEAH BITCH!". When Walt hit that window I knew it was on.

who leaves their car keys in the visor though? lol

When people go out drinking and want to be driven home by a friend, they tend to leave the keys in an easily accessible place just in case. Also explains the unlocked door.

I made that up.
 

Frost_Ace

Member
I think I need to rewatch the show through the lens of it essentially being an hour of Walt floating through town, spreading his poison. He contrives a situation in which Gretchen and Elliot must launder and distribute blood money under threat of death. He forces said money directly onto the son who has already stated he doesn't want it, but disguises it so the son will never know. He murders Lydia in a slow and painful way, kind of just because. He gives Skyler "leverage" for her freedom, but it is only leverage if Skyler can make herself threaten to withhold the information ("Marie, you can have Hank's body just as soon as I get a good deal.")

For all the semi-redemptive stuff in the finale, Walt's still a pretty vile guy. And while there's closure, it's all closure for Walt and that's it. The larger questions going forward are unresolved, but Walt didn't so much care about the long-term, just finishing his own story the way he wanted to.
Yeah thinking about it it really felt like he was a ghost or something, this episode has such a weird vibe.
 

Toa TAK

Banned
Reading through the reactions now, you guys acted just as I thought you did when Walt signals the red dots on Elliot and Gretchen. Hilarious.
 
Oh, he's a total sociopath. That's why the only emotional reaction he should have had at that moment was his uncle, but he dismissed it for the possible threat and then total amazement at Mr. White's actions.

Something tells me if the scene played out differently, Todd wouldn't have killed the two. I think he respects Walt and Jesse....in a weird way.

BTW, I thought the finale would've been Walt going Snake style and just executing the Nazis one by one.
 

-griffy-

Banned
I think I need to rewatch the show through the lens of it essentially being an hour of Walt floating through town, spreading his poison. He contrives a situation in which Gretchen and Elliot must launder and distribute blood money under threat of death. He forces said money directly onto the son who has already stated he doesn't want it, but disguises it so the son will never know. He murders Lydia in a slow and painful way, kind of just because. He gives Skyler "leverage" for her freedom, but it is only leverage if Skyler can make herself threaten to withhold the information ("Marie, you can have Hank's body just as soon as I get a good deal.")

For all the semi-redemptive stuff in the finale, Walt's still a pretty vile guy. And while there's closure, it's all closure for Walt and that's it. The larger questions going forward are unresolved, but Walt didn't so much care about the long-term, just finishing his own story the way he wanted to.

Yeah, I agree with most of this. I don't think Walt "won" in the end. He accomplished his initial goal of leaving money for his family, but nothing around it is all that nice. The situation with Elliot and Gretchen was the last great morally nasty thing in the show. Everything about it was gross, from forcing them to see first hand who Walt is, making them stack his millions of drug money, making them "right" a perceived "wrong," to the hitman threat, to the false pretense of Junior getting the money. It was a "win," but everything about it was gross.

In the moment of watching the episode, it seemed falsely uplifting, but upon reflection today, I just have the image of Walt, broken and emaciated, standing there asking Jesse to kill him, and it's all kind of depressing.
 

Shrennin

Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
What somewhat threw me off was how was Walt able to see Skylar if she was being watched by the Feds and they knew he was in town? Does't make any sense.

Well, he was spreading the DEA thin with threats of Walt's "plans" being spread as anonymous sources, prank calls, a diversion, or whatever - all of that stuff still has to be taken seriously. Regardless, Todd was able to get to Skyler without any of that planning by Walt so...maybe they just aren't that observant? =P

Something tells me if the scene played out differently, Todd wouldn't have killed the two. I think he respects Walt and Jesse....in a weird way.

I agree. I think he would have been even more respectful of Walt after he saw what he did.
 
just awesome

highlight for me was the talk with Skylar and him finally admitting that this never was about his family... this was always about him and his legacy
 
People are seriously attacking Damon Lindelof because the Breaking Bad finale was so good?

Breaking Bad was a straightforward story with a finite plot. Taking a show like this to the finish line is much less daunting a task than an open-ended timeline with mutliple universes, two dozen characters, and equal brand mysticism and science-fiction. LOST's finale could never have lived up to the scope and complexity of the show itself. Sorry, but it's true. For what it was and how it carried itself, the LOST series finale was fucking great.

Breaking Bad remains the gold standard for television, but comparing the show to LOST is bullshit.

Sorry, slightly off-topic. lol
 
Reading through the reactions now, you guys acted just as I thought you did when Walt signals the red dots on Elliot and Gretchen. Hilarious.

That was a great moment. And then he keeps talking and you're like - this motherfucker. He's got a couple kids out in the woods with a couple laser pointers. There's no way...

People are seriously attacking Damon Lindelof because the Breaking Bad finale was so good

For a lot of people, their engaging in television with people online started with LOST. And you can see how they tackle shows, how they filter them - it gets filtered through those patterns and habits they got from playing the LOST game from week to week (not the actual game, I mean the game of playing "connect the dots" with the plot). It's not at all surprising that people who watch Breaking Bad the exact same way they watched LOST would get all shitty about it to the writer of LOST online.

I mean - it's kinda stupid, but it's not surprising.
 
Worst part was how they changed Walt's character completely partway through the final episode, they conveniently gave him a job at the new york times just so he could get to Elliot and Gretchen. Sloppy writing, Vince

StandingOvationGIF.gif


People are seriously attacking Damon Lindelof because the Breaking Bad finale was so good?

Breaking Bad was a straightforward story with a finite plot. Taking a show like this to the finish line is much less daunting a task than an open-ended timeline with mutliple universes, two dozen characters, and equal brand mysticism and science-fiction. LOST's finale could never have lived up to the scope and complexity of the show itself. Sorry, but it's true. For what it was and how it carried itself, the LOST series finale was fucking great.

Breaking Bad remains the gold standard for television, but comparing the show to LOST is bullshit.

Sorry, slightly off-topic. lol

Sorry, no one deserves a pass if they write a story that's too complex for they themselves to finish it properly.
 

DedValve

Banned
Such a satisfying end (even had a glorious dream about BB afterwards) but far from happy. Walt's family is broken with the heisenburg name forever attached to them. Their millionaires but they hate their father.

Marie has no husband, Saul has to get out of dodge, Jessie will no doubt be deeply affected by his traumatic experience and won't be fit to handle brock given his record at best he'll stay away from crack.

Even Walt didn't win, but at least he solved his family's financial problems. Yay?

Beautiful indeed.
 
Wow:
10.3 million viewers for #BreakingBad finale, 6.7M viewers in 18-49 demo, per AMC.

EDIT: More detail:

- EW: 'Breaking Bad' series finale ratings smash all records
Breaking Bad will not only be remembered as a TV drama that went out on top — creatively, and in terms of popularity — but possibly as a game-changer for underdog TV shows. The second half of the fifth season premiered last month to a stunningly large audience for the long-struggling cult-favorite series, delivering a record 5.9 million viewers. A couple weeks ago, ratings notably rose to 6.4 million viewers. Then last week’s penultimate hour crept up to 6.6 million.

For the grand series finale Sunday night, Breaking Bad hit 10.3 million viewers.

Let me explain how crazy that is. Do you know what the fourth season finale of Breaking Bad delivered a mere two years ago? This was the gripping “Face Off” episode that capped Walter vs. Gus’ deadly season-long chess game. Go on, guess…

The fourth season finale delivered only 1.9 million viewers. And at the time, that rating was actually considered good news. Because that was up 23 percent from season three. So two years and only 16 episodes later (since the fifth season was split into two runs of eight episodes each), Breaking Bad viewership has skyrocketed an astounding 442 percent.

The finale also represents yet another triumph of cable vs. broadcast. According to AdAge, AMC charged up to $400,000 per 30-second commercial during the finale — the same level as hits like ABC’s Modern Family and Fox’s American Idol. While every returning broadcast entertainment show last night was down in the 18-49 adult demo ratings, between 16 and 33 percent.

EDIT2: Full press release via TVbtN
 

.GqueB.

Banned
People are seriously attacking Damon Lindelof because the Breaking Bad finale was so good?

Breaking Bad was a straightforward story with a finite plot. Taking a show like this to the finish line is much less daunting a task than an open-ended timeline with mutliple universes, two dozen characters, and equal brand mysticism and science-fiction. LOST's finale could never have lived up to the scope and complexity of the show itself. Sorry, but it's true. For what it was and how it carried itself, the LOST series finale was fucking great.

Breaking Bad remains the gold standard for television, but comparing the show to LOST is bullshit.

Sorry, slightly off-topic. lol

Agreed. I think the Wire would be a more apt comparison since people think that was a big misstep. And we can also discuss that, while BB was great, the Friday Night Lights finale shat all over this.

LOST has no business in here. That finale didn't stand a chance against all the expectations everyone had going in.
 
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