Rambling TV: Breaking Bad recap + other TV thoughts

Thank you, Vince Gilligan.

 

Breaking Bad ended last night with what I think was the perfect finale. It's not often that a TV show can end on the right note, someone's always left disappointed. But I dare say that I think the majority of Breaking Bad's fans were satisfied with last night's episode.

 

We start with Walt breaking into a snowy car, and immediately trying the hard way to hotwire it, instead of simply looking under the visor for the spare set. The tape playing talked about a woman named 'Felina.' There's Gilligan's awesome choice in music again. He stays still when he sees the police lights, and drives off once he knows he's safe.

 

We get a quick scene of Jesse woodworking, he said he loved doing that in season three. But as he turns to walk away, his apron gets caught, but it's really his dog leash. It was just a day dream. 

 

He pays Gretchen and Elliott a visit. I for sure thought he was going to kill them out of spite. Hell, Elliott pulls a knife on him and Walt calmly tells him "If we're going to go that way, you're going to need a bigger knife." Instead, Walt drops his money on them and tells them they are going to put it into a trust and give to Walt Jr. on his 18th birthday. He is a helpless victim that is suffering from his drug king pin father, and he wants all of his money to go to him. Any taxes or fees associated with this? Take it from Walt's money. Never their own. And just so they don't think about not donating it, two red laser pointers appear on their chest. Walt says he's hired two of the best hit men in New Mexico who will have no problem killing them if they do not do what their told.

 

Later, we find out it's just Skinny Pete and Badger pointing lasers at them, not real hit men. They tell Mr. White how creepy this whole thing is, but once they're given $100,000 each, they start to feel better. I'm glad we got one last scene with those two. They crack me up. They also confirm to Walt that the blue is still being sold, but they thought it was still him that was cooking it. Walt knows better.

 

We get a quick recap of Walt at Denny's, getting the gun and the ricin from the flash forward we saw earlier. Then we see Skyler chain smoking in her apartment. Marie (no longer in purple) is on the phone telling her Walt has been seen in town. She calls a truce, and says he'll be caught because "Walt's not this big criminal master mind like he thinks he is." Oh Marie, if you hadn't just lost your husband I'd probably shake my head and think "silly bitch" like I always do when I think about you. But I'll let it slide, because I genuinely feel bad for her.

 

As the camera pans around a pillar, we see that Walt is actually standing in Skyler's kitchen with her. He gives her the lottery ticket with the GPS coordinates to Hank and Gomez's bodies. He tells her to trade it for immunity. He wants to tell her why he did all this, she's tired of hearing that it was "for the family." No. Walt says he did it for him. He was good at it, and it made him feel alive. We viewers already knew that, but this is the first time he admits it to those he's hurt the most. He asks to see Holly one last time, and I nearly cried at the sight of him seeing his baby girl for one last time. Poor Holly is going to have such a "wtf?" moment when he grows up. He also watches Junior come home from a distance. He's seen his wife and children, now he can go do what needs to be done.

 

Walt drops in on Lydia and Todd meeting at her favorite restaurant. Walt approaches them and says he knows they're nearly out of methylamine, but he's thought of a new way to make it, and he wants to sell that idea to him. Lydia dismisses him when she gets her tea delivered to her table, and she and Todd begin to talk it over. We see her pour the only Stivia into her tea, and when it dissolves, we know immediately that Walt's just fed her the ricin.

 

We get a quick scene of Walt rigging up his machine gun to spin on what I thought looked like a garage door opener. He then heads over to Jack's. They aren't having any of his shit. They don't care, they have millions. Jack plans on killing Walt right there and now until Walt accuses him of partnering with Jesse. Jack finds this hilarious and tells Todd to go fetch his "partner." Then Walt sees the beaten and broken Jesse himself. He knows he's not a partner, but a slave. Walt probably had every intention of killing Jesse when he shows up there, but deep down, Walt still loves him. That's why when he throws himself on Jesse in an attack mode, we know he's protecting him. He hits the button on his car keys, and the gun pops out from his trunk and starts firing. The gunfire kills everyone except Jack and Todd. One even hits Walt in the stomach. As Walt lets Jesse up, Jesse jumps on Todd and strangles him with his chains, we hear his neck break eventually. If this wasn't such a tense scene, I almost would've expected Jesse to get in one last 'Yeah, Bitch!" after the deed was done.

 

Jack starts to tell Walt something about his money, but Walt gives zero fucks about that anymore, and shoots Jack in the head. He slides the gun to Jesse and tells him to shoot him. He knows he wants it. Jesse tells him to say that he is the one that wants it. Walt, already with a bullet wound admits he's right. "I want this" he tells Jesse. "Then do it yourself" Jesse replies.

 

Jesse leaves his prison and as he gets into his car, he takes one last look at Mr. White. His partner, his father figure, his one time friend. I like to think at this moment, Jesse understood that Walt saved him. Despite all of the shitty things Walt did to Jesse, he always loved him. I like to think the look Walt was giving him was his way of saying he was sorry to Jesse.

 

Jesse drives off into the distance. Where does he go? I like to think that the police are no longer watching his house since he's been missing, and that he's hid his money well. He goes to his house, grabs his cash, finds out where Brock is staying so he can either say goodbye, or just get the address to write to him later. I like to think he drove off to Alaska to start a new, honest life. Maybe he'll meet someone, fall in love and become a husband and father. Either way, I just want good things to happen to Jesse. All good things. (and maybe Skinny Peter Badger come visit him eventually to smoke and talk about Star Trek.)

 

Walt takes one last walk into Todd's meth lab. He lovingly looks at a gas mask. For a minute there I wondered if he'd finally take a hit of his precious blue, but he doesn't. He falls on his back, dying from his gunshot wound. Gilligan's choice of music here was perfect too, singing about "his baby blue." as the cops descend on Walt, the camera pans away, much like it did in the Crawlspace episode, and our last shot was of Walter White dying in the place he felt most alive, a meth lab.

 

It was perfect in my opinion. Breaking Bad had every opportunity to have a dark, horrible ending, but in the end, Gilligan rewarded his fans for paying such close attention to everything, and gave us a sliver of hope for the rest of the characters that were negatively affected by Walt. I thought that was great. Gilligan stated that he really wanted to do an ending that would satisfy everyone, and even though I don't think writers are obligated to cater to their fans at all, I'm glad he did. Charlaine Harris could've taken a note or two from him when she decided to end her series with a big slap in the face for most of her fans.

 

I think Breaking Bad will go down in history as one of the best shows ever on television. People will look back to these years and think they're a "golden age" so to speak. We have so many good shows on TV right now, but Breaking Bad is easily the best. While I'm sad to let it go, I'm glad it had the perfect ending, and I look forward to that entire series box set because that looks fucking awesome.

 

pic via bravon



Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too spoiled with good TV, that when I see a new show, I have trouble giving it a chance. That's how I feel with SHIELD at the moment. I'm going to give it a few more episodes.

*Coulson's death: (or lack there of?) I'm assuming he's some sort of robot or clone? It's funny, when he started saying his death was faked to motivate the Avengers, my husband was SO pissed off. He said that was such a cop out and he couldn't believe Whedon would sign off on something like this. Then we got to the "he doesn't know, does he?" line and he took it all back. I totally agree with him, but that moment made me laugh.

*The show's budget and ambition do not match. I know that's unfair of me to compare the budget of a TV show to the budget of a blockbuster film, but seriously. Game of Thrones pulls off some amazing CGI shit, I think this show could do a little better.

*Skye is EXACTLY like WWE's AJ Lee. I know not many of my readers are fellow wrestling fans, but the ones that are have to see this resemblance too. It's almost distracting how similar they are.

*Agent Ward is SO Stale. Like Ruth pointed out, that T-1000 joke was pretty spot on.

*I hope this "finding heroes" thing goes better for this show than it did for Heroes. (I can't think of another show that went downhill so fast after only one season)

*Although, this episode ended in one of the filming techniques I hate the most. Panning to all of the characters, smiling. It's SO cheesy.

The Big Bang Theory

*Those two new episodes were hilarious. I'm always up for Penny hugging Sheldon.

*Although, there was a lot of titty-bouncing. I never thought I'd say that.

*Bernadette had a really good point when she mentioned Amy and Sheldon's relationship. Amy says so many sexually charged things that I'm surprised she HASN'T moved on from Sheldon just to get laid.

*No Leonard, it wasn't better when Raj couldn't talk to women.

*I'm glad they at least addressed the drinking problem they've been giving Penny.

Boardwalk Empire

 

*Eli's son just wanted to give the boy that bullied him the shits, instead it ended up like the picture above. Wahh wahhhhhhhh. I kind of thought something like that would happen, but I'm still wondering why he's all of a sudden getting all of this attention? I'm assuming because he's going to die and drive another wedge between Nucky and Eli?

*Rothstein was such a creep in this episode, much more than usual.

*No Harrow? Boo.

*At least Van Alden and Capone are bonding.

*Poor Eddie is so fucked.