Breaking Bad Final Showdowns

September 24, 2012 By scurley

Fring and Mike are both dead. Jesse’s out and Walt promises Skylar he’s done making meth. And Hank has finally found a clue linking Walt to Heisenberg. What now?

The final eight episodes of Breaking Bad are still a year away. While we impatiently wait to see how Vince Gilligan resolves (heals? punishes?) the bad that’s been broken in the previous four and a half seasons, we look at some possible scenarios.

How do you expect/hope the impending showdowns will play out?

Walter v. Skylar

1. Recognizing that Hank may be on the Walt, Skylar privately confronts Hank and pleads for the protection of her family. Hank refuses to cooperate and Skylar ends up killing him. Walt destroys the evidence and goes back to his job teaching chemistry. The White family takes Marie into their home and everything goes back to normal.

2. Unable to take the fear, pressure, and anxiety of Walt’s drug activity (and after some leading cues from Marie), Skylar accidentally finds the ricin and, despite not really knowing what it is, she pours it into the coffee she serves Walt for breakfast one day.

3. Skylar discovers that Walter, Jr. has started dealing drugs. Blaming Walt for his negative influence, she takes the kids and disappears just as the DEA arrives to arrest Walt.

Walter v. Jesse

1. When they realize Hank is on to them, Walt tries to pin the entire thing on Jesse. Jesse ends up killing Walt, and after realizing he is now completely alone, he kills himself.

2. Skylar figures out that Hank is closing in on the case. On her own accord she kills Jesse and tries to convince Walt to blame Jesse for the whole thing. Walt must decide if he is going to protect the reputation of his partner or risk his own innocence.

3. The DEA brings Jesse in for questioning and Hank reveals that Walt is responsible for Jane’s death and Brock’s poisoning. Jesse negotiates with the DEA and the series ends with Jesse visiting Walt in jail, the ricin in his pocket.

Walter v. Hank

1. Hank confronts Walt right away and after a series of threatening and angry interactions, Walt convinces Hank he really is out of the drug business (and has, in fact, helped to stop it by killing Fring). Instead of turning him in, Hank agrees to help Walt launder more of the money in order to provide for both their families. Everybody wins.

2. Hank secretly retraces Walt’s steps throughout the last year, collecting all the evidence of his wrongdoings. Walt quickly realizes he is faced with the choice between getting rid of Hank (and the evidence) or facing conviction and serious jail time. When Hank refuses to negotiate with him, Walt sees no choice but to kill him and bury Heisenberg’s identity once and for all…or so he thinks…

3. Walt learns his cancer has returned. He goes to Hank’s office to confide in him and finds the evidence Hank has against him. In a confrontation gone wrong Hank kills Walt, in what he says was be self-protection. Skylar freaks out and disappears with her kids and a big suitcase full of the money from the storage unit. No one ever learns Walt’s cancer had returned.

Let us know what you think is going to happen as Breaking Bad comes to a close. Comment from the options above, or create your own ending.

Post by Patheos intern, Samantha Curley.

Filed Under: Featured, Television Tagged With: Breaking Bad, Hank, Jesse, Skylar, Vince Gilligan, Walt

Breaking Bad: Inertia

September 4, 2012 By scurley

I am officially putty in Vince Gilligan’s hand.

I had finally given up on Walter White (Bryan Cranston). I had accepted the fact that I was witnessing the unraveling of a man’s humanity; the defraying of his soul. I had given up on redemption and wholeness and settled in to watch evil become evil. On some level, I had started to lose interest. The nuance and tension was dissipating as Walt became more and more of a monster. But I was also too bought into the story to really give it up.

Then he spoke the two words I’d been waiting for, hoping for, yet – after four and half seasons – had given up on hearing: “I’m out.”

“Gliding Over All,” the 8th episode of season 5, was brilliantly written. It contained the best montage clip Breaking Bad has yet to display: a month’s worth of making meth comprised into mere moments of seamless transitions. Beautifully synchronized scenes. Business as usual. “Crystal Blue Persuasion.”

At the end of it? We enter a storage unit with a huge stockpile of money. More money than anyone could spend in ten lifetimes, let alone launder in one. And with Skylar (Anna Gunn), we ask ourselves: Walt, why are you still doing this? Please tell me how much is enough?

Apparently enough came as soon as the problem solving stopped. As soon as mastery, control, and routine had begun. As soon as Jesse (Aaron Paul) isn’t around to question him. (Remember Todd’s (Jesse Plemons) response when Walt says he doesn’t want to talk about Mike’s death? “OK,” Todd says. That’s it.) Enough is as soon as Mike (Jonathan Banks) isn’t around to challenge him and as soon as Walt is able to pick up right where Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) had left off.

It’s as soon as Walt attains the smooth stability of his meth-making empire that he steps out. It was the quest, not the destination that he was after. The challenge and thrill of adventure, risk, and creative problem solving. The collaboration of working with a team. The sense of purpose and of worth that comes from living into your potential. Am I really that different? Aren’t these the same things that I want? That I live my life striving for?

All of a sudden, I’m back to rooting for Walt. I believe he’s finished making meth. He’s out and he means it. The story doesn’t make sense otherwise. Walt, as a human being, doesn’t make sense otherwise. And I don’t think we make sense if a large part of us doesn’t want to jump on board as soon as the current starts to shift towards good.

Yet, does that justify, excuse, or negate the consequences of the last year? Can Walt just sidestep the full impact and weight of his actions? Can he “dust himself off and start all over again?”

An object in motion remains in motion (and an object at rest remains at rest) until acted on by an outside force. This is the scientific definition of inertia. It’s also why Walt says he and Jesse hung on to their old, beat-up RV.

What’s kept Walt going? What force will it take to stop him? And what will that sort of collision look like when it happens?

We’ll have to wait until next summer to see how creator, Vince Gilligan, addresses these questions to conclude the Breaking Bad series. There are only eight episodes left for Hank (Dean Norris) to catch up to whatever remnants of his trail Walt has left behind. How many degrees separate Walt (Jesse, Skylar, and Saul) from Gale’s death? Fring’s death? Jane’s? From the ricin? Or the little boy on the bike? What about Mike? And Tuco?

A lot of questions remain. The tactical questions of inquiry, discovery, and punishment. But also those moral questions that once again hang in the balance: Who is to blame for what? When did the line of bad get crossed? Can repentance outweigh consequences? Should we get another chance?

It’s easy to punish what we deem as truly bad. But what if we don’t know? Or, more likely, when we aren’t totally sure? What happens and who decides then?

I’m glad Breaking Bad isn’t quite finished. I’m also nervous to see what new kinds of bad get broken as we uncover our answers to these questions. Something tells me the second half of season 5 may be more painful to watch – a different, more self-implicating, kind of pain – than what we’ve been exposed to thus far.

Filed Under: Featured, Television Tagged With: Breaking Bad, Hank, Jesse, Vince Gilligan, Walter White

Is the Thrill of Breaking Bad Over?

August 14, 2012 By scurley

Last week’s episode ended with Walt (Bryan Cranston) proclaiming that nothing would stop his train. But Walt didn’t have time to decide how seriously he meant those words before Todd grabbed his own gun and fired.

We’ve learned to pay attention to Vince Gilligan’s opening scenes.

“Dead Freight” begins with an unknown little boy playing with and eventually capturing a tarantula spider in a glass jar. I assumed it was a scene that wouldn’t come back into the plot for at least a few more episodes. Like the tired Walt at a diner on his birthday that opened season five (a scene we now know comes a year from this point in the season). Or the outlined bodies and police tape on Walt’s driveway and the ratted, pink teddy bear from season one.

And then, just as I was sucked back into celebrating another of Walt’s victories as the team extracts the final gallon of methylamine from the train just in the knick of time, the unthinkable happens. That same little boy emerges – in the wrong place at the wrong time – and without hesitation, or time for anyone to stop him, Todd (Jesse Plemons) reacts and kills an innocent boy.

Is the killing of a child the last layer of bad to be broken?

So far, the only characters in the show who have remained innocent are children. Jesse’s (Aaron Paul) relationship with Brock. Mike’s (Jonathan Banks) love of his granddaughter, Kaylee. Skylar (Anna Gunn) is desperate to protect Walter Jr., and Holly. Even Lydia’s daughter becomes the reason Mike didn’t kill her. And while Walt has proven he’s willing to go to any length to ‘protect his family’ and continue making meth, even he has yet to actually kill a child.

Breaking Bad has become a battleground of words. Words that foreshadow. Words that come back to haunt and to kill. Words that shatter our assumptions about right and wrong, good and evil. This is what makes the show (and creator, Vince Gilligan) so brilliant. In this episode alone, we hear –

Hank (to Walt): “It’s always darkest just before the dawn.”

Walt (to Lydia): “Trust has to work both ways.”

Mike (to Walt and Jesse): “I’ve done this long enough to know there are two kinds of heists. Those that get away with it and those that leave witnesses.”

Jesse (to Mike and Walt): “What if we ripped off the train and no one ever knows?”

Walt (to Todd): “No one can know about this other than the three of us. You understand?”

Todd (to Walt and Jesse): “You guys thought of everything.”

Skylar (to Walt): “I’m not your wife. I’m your hostage.”

We’ve gotten used to drugs, deception, and the seemingly inevitable death of those who choose to get involved in these activities. But in this episode, Breaking Bad has broken new ground.

Is the thrill of breaking bad finally finished? For Jesse? For Walt? For you?

Keep up with the rest of Season Five:

Episode One – “Is Redemption Possible For Walter White?”

Episode Two – “Madrigal, Money, and Metanoia”

Episode Three – “Breaking Bad Made Whole?”

Episode Four – “An Object Lesson and Breaking Bad’s Next Move”

Filed Under: Featured, Television Tagged With: Breaking Bad, Jesse, Vince Gilligan, Walter White

An Object Lesson and Breaking Bad’s Next Move

August 7, 2012 By scurley

As Skylar (Anna Gunn) winds a single strand of floss tighter and tighter around her finger, wincing with the comfort created by pain, creator Vince Gilligan gives us several object lessons in episode four, titled “Fifty-One.” With this episode we are officially a quarter of the way through Breaking Bad’s final season; four more episodes to go this summer and eight remaining for the summer of 2013.

Walt’s (Bryan Cranston) Pontiac Aztek opens the episode, operating as an analogy for Walt. It’s been continually beaten and bruised, but restored at the expense of someone else; a shiny exterior covers the broken, apparently unbeatable interior. This is a car that’s unwilling to die. The mechanic brags about the car’s indestructibility while Walt knows its hardly worth $50. Lydia’s mismatched shoes carry the weight of a woman losing control of her own life. A clue that only Hank (Dean Norris) picks up on, trying to weave the object into the unfinished lines of the story. We see Skylar’s unwinding in the scenes with the floss and her escape into the pool. As she’s submerged in the water – signifying freedom, cleansing, baptism, new life, and drowning – we see her smile for the first time of the season. And in the final scene Jesse (Aaron Paul) gives Walt a watch; an all-to-telling reminder that time is running out.

With the reemergence of Walter Jr.’s (R.J. Mitte) snazzy red sports car, Walt’s 51st birthday “celebration,” and the anniversary of Walt’s dismal cancer diagnosis, Vince Gilligan brings us through one full year of breaking bad in the life of Walter White.

As Walt’s house gets darker and darker, physically and relationally, he insists that he is just getting started. “Nothing stops this train. Nothing.” Not Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), not paranoid women or tracked barrels of Methylamine, not Jesse, Beneke, or Mike (Jonathan Banks). Not the DEA. Not his cowardly wife who tries to pronounce the end of his bullshit rationalizing. Not infidelity or boarding school. Not even cancer.

What’s the next move? How do you take on a man who has lost his soul?

With Skylar, we wait. We watch as the clock ticks, more characters unwind, and Walt ramps up. We hope that Hank ties the story together faster. That Skylar snaps. That Mike kills Lydia so their meth production has to slow down. We hope that the cancer returns.