Tinsel
As I mentioned last week, I’m now blogging over at Cinemeditations rather than Tinsel. You’ll be able to find more of my writing about film and television over there, including my recent look at the new Showtime series Masters of Sex. Below, you’ll find a portion of my review of the series finale of Breaking Bad. You can find the full review over at Cinemeditations. Thanks again to Rebecca for allowing me to blog here for the past few months! I look forward to continuing the conversation.
It was Gilligan’s Catholic upbringing that partially inspired him to create a show that explores not just evil, but its consequences. We watched Walt gradually slide down a slippery slope until he seemed to be the Devil incarnate, and then we saw his empire crumble, the people he loved forever damaged, assuming they were even still alive. It was Old Testament judgment, an eye for an eye, and while it was tragic, it was also satisfying to see Walt get what he deserves.
But Catholicism is also about redemption. “Granite State” saw Walt leaving his ego behind, and “Felina” finds him receiving some of the grace that by definition he doesn’t deserve. His opening lines are a prayer—“Just get me home, I’ll do the rest”—and God, or the universe, or Vince Gilligan, grants him his wish. What follows is a twisted tale of self-sacrifice in which Walt assures his children’s financial future, reveals the location of Hank’s body, poisons Lydia, says goodbye to his wife and daughter and gets one last look at his son before saving Jesse’s life by taking out Uncle Jack and his gang.
It would be a mistake to interpret this as “Walt wins.” It’s more accurate to say that he dies knowing that he’s done pretty much everything he can to bring closure to the entire affair. He can never get his family back, Hank is still dead, and he’ll never get to enjoy spending all the money he made selling meth. But he finally admits his own guilt and does his best to act not in his own interests, but those of others. Before taking his last stand against Uncle Jack, he visits Skyler and finally says the confession two years in the making: “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive.” Later on, he rejects Jack’s offer to get back the tens of millions of dollars he lost. This is not the same Walter White that just two episodes ago was pushing his last barrel of money—his prized possession–through the desert. As was first stated in the pilot, chemistry is the study of change. Breaking Bad has been the study of Walter White’s transformation.
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