Final Thoughts on Breaking Bad
Nov. 12th, 2022 09:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereHaving finished Breaking Bad (and currently doing six day a week shifts), here is a brief comparison of 'Ozymandias' and 'Felina' to conclude. If anyone's seen the end of the show, I would love your thoughts on this matter. I thought both episodes were brilliant, but in wholly opposite philosophical ways.
I loved the finale so much that I am beginning to have second thoughts as to why that is. Throughout the show, Walt was despicable and I was looking forward to it all crashing down around him. That happened in the justly celebrated 'Ozymandius.' However, the very last episode gave Walt two arcs. In the first (the emotional arc), Walt finally stopped lying and was honest with the people he'd been abusing and gaslighting for five solid seasons - specifically Skyler and Jesse. These scenes were hugely cathartic and yet felt in character.
The second (plot-driven) arc is more complicated. To put it briefly, it was fun. Too much fun. It was Walter White finally turning into the badass he'd always tried to be, and instead of deconstructing his inflated opinion of himself, this time it worked out exactly the way he wanted it to, and he finally got his other wish: To die before the consequences ever hit him. And because his final opponents were a gang of neo-nazis who'd been torturing fan favorite Jesse for months (in addition to murdering four completely sympathetic characters), a crazy business executive whose solution to every problem was murder and the filthy rich Schwartzes with their gated house, it was easy to get behind Walt's decisions to make them all pay. I loved every second of it.
It's important to stress that I don't really think this was the wrong decision to make. If the writers had trotted out some fresh horror for a "realistic" downer ending, I would never in a million years want to rewatch the show. If it ended with 'Ozymandias' I would shake my head and say, 'well, what did you expect?' and move on a sadder and a wiser man, as it were. As it stands, I just might revisit it someday. The final episode was totally awesome. However, its very awesomeness felt weird in context. Basically, there was no way Walt wouldn't look good in that final episode, without Hank, and surrounded by people so much worse than him.
'Ozymandias' set itself a much more challenging task: To lay the monstrous Walt low, to showcase him at his most pathetic, yet engender some sense of his lost humanity in the midst of such terrible events that the audience is fully repelled (if they weren't before). He brought it all on himself and everyone around him paid, yet once he called Skyler on the phone and tried to exonerate her, I began to cry. I was actually moved by their plight. Gold acting stars to Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn for that scene, but after the continuous horror of Walt getting Hank killed, breaking and selling out Jesse, getting into a knife fight with Skyler and abducting Holly - that phone call where Walt tried to ameliorate the circumstances of Skyler's arrest (without remotely doing the right thing, which would have been to turn himself in) should not have worked. And because it managed the seemingly impossible, I feel like it was the greater achievement. It even began with a season one flashback to remind the audience what it was Walt had, and what he so willingly gave up.
'Felina' was fun, right from the second 'El Paso' started playing on Walt's stolen car. It was uplifting, bordering on redemptive. It made all the horror worth suffering through. I just think it did so by stacking the deck in Walt's favor, and that's not a tactic the show had ever really employed until then because the hero antagonist of the piece was always Hank Schrader. If Walt succeeded in anything, it meant Hank had failed. With Hank and Gomez dead, the perspective of law enforcement was abandoned and the show committed fully to outlaw versus outlaw. Rooting for Walt became the only option to see justice done.
Edited to add: Further thinking on the subject, I now wonder if perhaps these two arcs were more connected than I first noticed. If Walt finally became the badass chessmaster he'd fancied himself being, perhaps it was only because he had finally found a way to live with integrity. He was no longer making meth, he was leveling with those he'd hurt and manipulated, he was finally able to let go of some of his pride-fueled desires and make some attempt at cleaning up the mess he'd created. In which case, the whole series was the slow, painful march toward epiphany for Walt. Upon receiving it, he was able to make restitution and die as the anti-hero he'd never been. Which is interesting.
I will probably end up trying Better Call Saul and definitely El Camino, but it will be a while before either. I want a nice long break from this universe.
I loved the finale so much that I am beginning to have second thoughts as to why that is. Throughout the show, Walt was despicable and I was looking forward to it all crashing down around him. That happened in the justly celebrated 'Ozymandius.' However, the very last episode gave Walt two arcs. In the first (the emotional arc), Walt finally stopped lying and was honest with the people he'd been abusing and gaslighting for five solid seasons - specifically Skyler and Jesse. These scenes were hugely cathartic and yet felt in character.
The second (plot-driven) arc is more complicated. To put it briefly, it was fun. Too much fun. It was Walter White finally turning into the badass he'd always tried to be, and instead of deconstructing his inflated opinion of himself, this time it worked out exactly the way he wanted it to, and he finally got his other wish: To die before the consequences ever hit him. And because his final opponents were a gang of neo-nazis who'd been torturing fan favorite Jesse for months (in addition to murdering four completely sympathetic characters), a crazy business executive whose solution to every problem was murder and the filthy rich Schwartzes with their gated house, it was easy to get behind Walt's decisions to make them all pay. I loved every second of it.
It's important to stress that I don't really think this was the wrong decision to make. If the writers had trotted out some fresh horror for a "realistic" downer ending, I would never in a million years want to rewatch the show. If it ended with 'Ozymandias' I would shake my head and say, 'well, what did you expect?' and move on a sadder and a wiser man, as it were. As it stands, I just might revisit it someday. The final episode was totally awesome. However, its very awesomeness felt weird in context. Basically, there was no way Walt wouldn't look good in that final episode, without Hank, and surrounded by people so much worse than him.
'Ozymandias' set itself a much more challenging task: To lay the monstrous Walt low, to showcase him at his most pathetic, yet engender some sense of his lost humanity in the midst of such terrible events that the audience is fully repelled (if they weren't before). He brought it all on himself and everyone around him paid, yet once he called Skyler on the phone and tried to exonerate her, I began to cry. I was actually moved by their plight. Gold acting stars to Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn for that scene, but after the continuous horror of Walt getting Hank killed, breaking and selling out Jesse, getting into a knife fight with Skyler and abducting Holly - that phone call where Walt tried to ameliorate the circumstances of Skyler's arrest (without remotely doing the right thing, which would have been to turn himself in) should not have worked. And because it managed the seemingly impossible, I feel like it was the greater achievement. It even began with a season one flashback to remind the audience what it was Walt had, and what he so willingly gave up.
'Felina' was fun, right from the second 'El Paso' started playing on Walt's stolen car. It was uplifting, bordering on redemptive. It made all the horror worth suffering through. I just think it did so by stacking the deck in Walt's favor, and that's not a tactic the show had ever really employed until then because the hero antagonist of the piece was always Hank Schrader. If Walt succeeded in anything, it meant Hank had failed. With Hank and Gomez dead, the perspective of law enforcement was abandoned and the show committed fully to outlaw versus outlaw. Rooting for Walt became the only option to see justice done.
Edited to add: Further thinking on the subject, I now wonder if perhaps these two arcs were more connected than I first noticed. If Walt finally became the badass chessmaster he'd fancied himself being, perhaps it was only because he had finally found a way to live with integrity. He was no longer making meth, he was leveling with those he'd hurt and manipulated, he was finally able to let go of some of his pride-fueled desires and make some attempt at cleaning up the mess he'd created. In which case, the whole series was the slow, painful march toward epiphany for Walt. Upon receiving it, he was able to make restitution and die as the anti-hero he'd never been. Which is interesting.
I will probably end up trying Better Call Saul and definitely El Camino, but it will be a while before either. I want a nice long break from this universe.
