Abhijeet Singh ’15
After 6 years, it’s finally over. The intense, unpredictable, dynamic, and heart-stopping journey of Walter White has come to a close. Considering that the story of Breaking Bad has been built up so well, and that many series’ finales often disappoint and fail to close all plotlines in a satisfactory way (take the finale of Dexter last week), ending such a stellar show properly seems a difficult if not impossible task. Well, people will be glad to know that Vince Gilligan has once again done the impossible, and that this is a powerful and satisfying ending to the show that we all know and love.
The episode begins with an encounter between Walt and Gretchen and his wife Elliot, two characters who were more prominent in the show’s beginning. Due to this, the meeting between these characters not only develops the plot line, but shows the show going full circle. Walt, in one of his final acts of altruism, convinces the couple to keep his money and give it to Walt Jr. when he is of age, and does so through an act of deceptive intimidation that reminds us why we both love and hate the character so much.
Next, Walt finds himself interrupting a business discussion between Todd and Lydia— just when it seems Walt is powerless and that his request to strike a deal has proved fruitless, the audience sees once again his masterful end goal: he is actually ensuring the end of the remnants of his business by poisoning Lydia. Walt’s next move, and perhaps the most important to him personally, is his final visit to Skylar. Perhaps the most crucial part of this visit, besides seeing off his children and giving Hank’s burial location, is his confession to Skylar. Walt admits that he has not done any of this for the family, but for himself. He enjoyed being powerful, in control, and as he concisely put it, “good” at something. His drug empire was like his third child, and he viewed it as his greatest achievement, something that made him notorious and a force to be reckoned with. As a part of the final episode of Breaking Bad, this statement was one that truly seemed to show people who Walt really was.
Finally, Walt made his last and greatest visit—- he came to the Neo-Nazis to finish what he started. While Walt seems powerless at first, at the mercy of the pull of a trigger, his evil ingenuity comes into play— he kills them all, and in doing so finishes his meth business, and frees Jessie, a positive goodbye to a polarizing relationship. When Walt dies shortly afterwards from bullet shrapnel, he does so in the very place where we was reborn—- a meth lab, the home of Heisenburg. In the wake of his endless trail of devastation, suffering, and death, a limited amount of redemption is to be found.
Felina was the perfect sendoff for Walter White’s journey, and provided closure for not only his plotline but that of several other crucial characters, and in doing so properly ends one of the greatest television shows of all time.
Edsman Rating: A
