Breaking Bad (AMC)

[D-Dogg]

It's just like great books and music. It climaxes and then there's the denouement.

Nailed it.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

I liked it.

Here is Vince Gilligan on other possible endings:

Spoiler

There was a version we kicked around where Walt is the only one who survives, and he’s standing among the wreckage and his whole family is destroyed. That would be a very powerful ending but very much a kick-in-the-teeth kind of ending for the viewers. We talked about a version where Jesse kills Walt. We talked about a version where Walt more or less gets away with it. There’s no right or wrong way to do this job — it’s just a matter of: You get as many smart people around you as possible in the writers room, and I was very lucky to have that. And when our gut told us we had it, we wrote it, and I guess our gut told us that it would feel satisfying for Walt to at least begin to make amends for his life and for all the sadness and misery wrought upon his family and his friends. Walt is never going to redeem himself. He’s just too far down the road to damnation. But at least he takes a few steps along that path.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

It's just like great books and music. It climaxes and then there's the denouement.

 

[crisper57]

It's just like great books and music. It climaxes and then there's the denouement.

Yes!!! Perfect analogy!!!

 

[Cheesebeef]

I liked it.

Here is Vince Gilligan on other possible endings:

Spoiler

There was a version we kicked around where Walt is the only one who survives, and he’s standing among the wreckage and his whole family is destroyed. That would be a very powerful ending but very much a kick-in-the-teeth kind of ending for the viewers. We talked about a version where Jesse kills Walt. We talked about a version where Walt more or less gets away with it. There’s no right or wrong way to do this job — it’s just a matter of: You get as many smart people around you as possible in the writers room, and I was very lucky to have that. And when our gut told us we had it, we wrote it, and I guess our gut told us that it would feel satisfying for Walt to at least begin to make amends for his life and for all the sadness and misery wrought upon his family and his friends. Walt is never going to redeem himself. He’s just too far down the road to damnation. But at least he takes a few steps along that path.

I kinda think that first option is what I would have gone with. Would have fit the tone of the show for me a little better.

 

[D-Dogg]

Superbone nailed it for me. I've been thinking about this series as "the best book I've ever watched" yet I can't picture someone writing it as a book and me being interested.

This was the denouement. It was artfully done. If I were reading this as a book, the Chapter Ozymandias would have me on my seat, and all would tail off to the conclusion. This is what Vince Gilligan did, IMO, and what I kind of think he was planning all along: he wrote the Great American Novel: 2000 Version. Tell me, who will write a better story visually and scriptorally? Dude nailed it. He really, really did. Sucked off a LOT of greek and roman tragedy in the process, but he nailed it.

He wasn't making a TV show. He was writing the new Great American Novel. He did. It rocked. He won.

Oh, and that shirt he wore on Talking Bad? In my closet, stat!

 

[Brian in Mesa]

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[Superbone]

LOL! Poor Huell.

 

[Cheesebeef]

even though I had some quibbles with the finale, I still have the utmost respect and reveration for Gilligan, even more so after reading this interview. He doesn't pull the auteur bs that others have. he's asked questions, questions most show-runners wouldn't answer and pulls back the curtain a little bit on how things came to be. as a writer who works in the medium, I love this kind of interview, where I get to see how the sausage was made. he's not coy about anything, not a hint of pretension. great interview:

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/09/30/breaking-bad-finale-vince-gilligan/

 

[carrrnuttt]

This nails the finale right on the head:

The bravest thing that show runner (and writer/director of this last episode) Vince Gilligan did in the finale was refuse to subvert our expectations. It would have been easy to throw in a left turn right there at the end, to have a totally unexpected player come in - Jane’s dad, or Marie with a thirst for vengeance or some other no-one-saw-that-coming character showing up with a bomb - and upset the storyline in an attempt to be dramatic. That must be tempting when you’re working in long-form serialized fiction; the audience has months and years to think and get ahead of your story. If you’re telling your story right you’re headed for an ending that is being set up meticulously and, in dummy parlance, ‘obvious.’ That leads too many long-form storytellers to try a Lindelof at the end, to kick out our legs in order to be two steps ahead of us. But Gilligan finishes the story he was telling, unafraid of the fact that it has been becoming more and more ‘obvious’ where the finale would go.

 

[Phrazbit]

So, I was just trying to figure the body count in my head. Hypothetically, lets say Walt accepts Gretchen's charity, never gets deeply involved in the drug trade, how many people would NOT have died?

A few exceptions: The two dudes Walt gasses in the pilot died prior to Gretchen's offer, I'd say Tuco probably finds an early grave with or without Walt, that dude was unstable. The meth head whos wife dropped an ATM on his head, he probably was also not looking at a long life. I'd also think that Gus would have pulled his power play with the cartel with Gale as his chemist, so all the cartel members and their victims probably die either way.

So I'd peg the direct and indirect victims of Walt's selfishness as:

Combo
Andrea's younger brother
The two drug dealers Walt runs over
Jane
Jane's dad
The 167 victims of the mid-air collision
Gale
Victor
Mike
The 10 witnesses in jail
Gus
Gus's body guard who blew up with him
Andrea
Hank
Gomez
The kid on the dirt bike
The distributors from Arizona that Uncle Jack wipes out (~10 guys?)
Lydia
Todd
Uncle Jack
Uncle Jack's gang o' Nazi buddies (6 guys?)

My tab comes to roughly 211 people, give or take a few Nazi's and Arizona drug runners.

Also I don't know if the various victims of the Salamanca cousins as they came rambling into the country (~15-20 people?) should be included.

Am I forgetting anyone?

That is a serious body count.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Spoiler

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[Southpaw]

So, ... what if Walt told Skyler he did it for himself so that she wouldn't be guilt ridden as the impetus for his enterprise? His final act of selflessness for his family.

 

[NJCardFan]

Spoiler

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As was pointed out above, this table forgot the people who died in the plane crash. If Jesse never meets Jane, Jane never OD's, dads never goes off the deep end and screws up his job, and none of those people die. So add 167 people to the body count and you're prit near 500.

 

[thirty-two]

As was pointed out above, this table forgot the people who died in the plane crash. If Jesse never meets Jane, Jane never OD's, dads never goes off the deep end and screws up his job, and none of those people die. So add 167 people to the body count and you're prit near 500.

That picture did include the airplane deaths. Look under Donald Margolis (left side, Dm) on the periodic table.

 

[Cheesebeef]

This nails the finale right on the head:

"It would have been easy to throw in a left turn right there at the end, to have a totally unexpected player come in - Jane’s dad, or Marie with a thirst for vengeance or some other no-one-saw-that-coming character showing up with a bomb - and upset the storyline in an attempt to be dramatic. "

it would have been "easy"? man, the ideas above wouldn't be easy, they'd be terrible.

 

[Cardinals.Ken]

All things considered, I thought it was a stellar finale.

I just finished watching it, so it'll take some time to process fully.

One thing though, which I feel may have been a missed opportunity...

Spoiler

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It was at this moment, as the sirens were off in the distance, that I thought that Gilligan would have borrowed again from antiquity (considering his reference to Ozymandias), and have Walt try to finish the cook as the cops stormed in, with the last words of the series being "Don't disturb my cook." (a la Archimedes) just before they gun him down.

 

[Gaddabout]

I have previously had that spot reserved for The Wire.

BB took it over. The show is flat out brilliant.

(and ozymandias might be the best episode of TV I've ever watched)

I love Breaking Bad, but nothing is going to knock The Wire off my all-time greatest spot. The Wire was forever satisfying because of the way it looked at common (and highly complex) issue from every possible perspective. Whenever people want to understand how governments and politics work, I point them to The Wire as the absolute best educational device. BB is an enjoyable morality tale.

 

[Gaddabout]

It ended the right way. You make those kind of decisions, you don't just ruin your own life, you ruin the lives of everyone you come into contact with. I felt the morality was always consistent and appropriate. No apologies, no extended existential meandering.

Fun, fun show.

 

[crisper57]

I love Breaking Bad, but nothing is going to knock The Wire off my all-time greatest spot. The Wire was forever satisfying because of the way it looked at common (and highly complex) issue from every possible perspective. Whenever people want to understand how governments and politics work, I point them to The Wire as the absolute best educational device. BB is an enjoyable morality tale.

Watched the first 6 episodes of "The Wire". When does it get good?

It isn't holding my interest at all and I really want to get into it because people keep singing its praises.

 

[Mulli]

Watched the first 6 episodes of "The Wire". When does it get good?

It isn't holding my interest at all and I really want to get into it because people keep singing its praises.

That is what I ALWAYS have said about that show.

 

[Gaddabout]

Watched the first 6 episodes of "The Wire". When does it get good?

It isn't holding my interest at all and I really want to get into it because people keep singing its praises.

The Wire spends most of the season setting up the final two or three episodes, because the narrative is king. If you're looking for a character to latch onto, you're out of luck. There are no heroes in The Wire. That's part of the point.

Think of it like this: The Wire is the story David Simon wanted to tell but couldn't tell at the Baltimore Sun. What he wrote at the Sun was what was printable. The Wire is the broader picture that defines the morass of the drug war and American politics. Nothing I have ever seen or read comes as close to explaining the whole story.

 

[Mulli]

The Wire spends most of the season setting up the final two or three episodes, because the narrative is king. If you're looking for a character to latch onto, you're out of luck. There are no heroes in The Wire. That's part of the point.

Think of it like this: The Wire is the story David Simon wanted to tell but couldn't tell at the Baltimore Sun. What he wrote at the Sun was what was printable. The Wire is the broader picture that defines the morass of the drug war and American politics. Nothing I have ever seen or read comes as close to explaining the whole story.

The Baltimore Sun probably said what I always think when I try to watch:

This is too boring. No characters to latch onto? Blech. We get it Bmore is messed up.

 

[crisper57]

I love Breaking Bad, but nothing is going to knock The Wire off my all-time greatest spot. The Wire was forever satisfying because of the way it looked at common (and highly complex) issue from every possible perspective. Whenever people want to understand how governments and politics work, I point them to The Wire as the absolute best educational device. BB is an enjoyable morality tale.

I send them to Parks and Recreation. The first season of that show hit so close to home, I couldn't view it as a comedy.

 

[Gaddabout]

The Baltimore Sun probably said what I always think when I try to watch:

This is too boring. No characters to latch onto? Blech. We get it Bmore is messed up.

Baltimore is every city in America. It's a metaphor.