I almost forgot to type a fun fact in the opening paragraph to avoid preview spoilers. So today I learned this, and it’s making me laugh my ass off. Per IMDB: Samuel L. Jackson showed up unannounced during filming on the Pollos Hermanos set one day, dressed in his Nick Fury outfit from “The Avengers.” Both productions of Breaking Bad and The Avengers were happening on the same studio lot, and Jackson wanted to be an extra during the scene being filmed. The producers denied his request to appear as Nick Fury on the show.
There’s nothing left to review, friends and neighbors. We’re one hour less than a week from the end. It remains the greatest work to ever air on television. I’ve been attached to characters and stories and screamed “OW MY FEELS” in my lifetime, but I”ve never left an hour of television only to have it stay with me no matter how badly I try to shake it. I’ve never had a telelvision show remind me so vehemently that monsters are real, and in the right circumstances my friends, my father, even myself, could descend to horrifying deeds in the name of my skewed sense of need.
Last week I wondered which personality had survived. Between the episode title, the shot shown above and the last scene that showed Walter only in a mirror, I had thought that Heisenberg died in “Ozymandias.” After “Granite State,” I don’t think that was correct at all. Heisenberg is the cancer that is slowly killing Walter White, and after tonight there might be nothing left at all. His pride suffered several blows, from Saul refusing to get the band back together, his son rejecting an outreach, and a final nail of Walter’s former business partners announcing on a mega-media platform that Walter White contributed absolutely nothing to their work. We’ve known for five seasons that has always been a tender nerve, but tonight it was like pouring iodine on a knife wound. Without knowing how this will resolve in the final episode, that great debate over Walter White’s Jeckyll versus Heisenberg’s Hyde could go down in pop culture history along such great arguments as “who is the real villain in ‘A New Hope’?”*
Tonight Lydia joined Todd’s ranks as One of the Ickiest Characters Ever. Everything about Lydia makes me vibrate with hatred. She is a coward, she is utterly self serving, she is condescending; she is Heisenberg without the sympathetic angle of caring about a family. We had one glimpse into Lydia as a human being, when Mike spared her life, but since then she has been a paltry, contemptible cog. Todd, however, will probably give me nightmares for the rest of my life. Todd is not a coward, and while he is without a doubt greedy he is not self serving. He has a sense of family and duty. And he is also a killing machine. He, too, is all the worst parts of Heisenberg. His twisted values result in nothing but death and despair.
Death and despair…. Good God, can Jesse Pinkman just catch a break? It’s hard to find sympathy for any of the adults in this show, but Jesse has earned mine. I don’t know that I can fully explain why – he had contempt for the average family life in which he was raised (as presented by the show) and became an entitled drug addict/dealer. But while bad people do make questionable, deplorable decisions, making bad decisions does not make a person bad. Jesse is not a bad person, and I’m going to go out on a limb and say he never was. He had delusions of a glamorous Scarface lifestyle and thought he could have a life of crime and drugs and money without anyone ever getting hurt. And even after learning that is not a possibility, he continues to be punished. My heart has never broken for a fictional life like it did tonight.
The epic has 75 minutes left to resolve. There are many peripheral resolutions I need – will Todd and Lydia meet justice? Will the rest of the White family live as happily-as-possible ever after? Will Jesse catch a damn break? Dear Lord please let Jesse catch a damn break. But the only question left that the show absolutely must answer is this: Why on earth is Heisenberg returning to Albuquerque? He knows his family is safe. He also knows they want nothing to do with him. He likely assumes Jesse is dead. If he gets his fortune back from Uncle Jack, he knows he can never get it to his family. Is he going back only to appease his monstrous sense of pride and retire with his 80 million dollars to another cabin?
If you feel your soul can withstand the walloping, starting on Wednesday AMC will marathon all 61 episodes leading up to the finale. Sound of in the comments below. I’d love to hear your theories on the outcome, but beyond that I’d love to hear your perfect ending. Pitch me a final Breaking Bad episode that resolves everything you need in order to be fully satisfied when you turn the television off next Sunday.
*It’s Grand Moff Tarkin, by the way. Grand Moff Tarkin. Vader is simply a henchman with more screen time.