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Breaking Bad Series Finale Review: “Felina” (Season 5, Episode 16)

“Felina” may be the most anticipated episode in Breaking Bad history, but it is not necessarily the first ‘series finale’ the show has produced. Both the Season 2 and Season 4 conclusions, “ABQ” and “Face Off,” could easily have served as spectacular send-offs, as each expertly culminated upon everything that had happened up to that point, and brought closure – either literal, thematic, or both – to the story and characters. “ABQ” saw Jesse’s life utterly destroyed by Walt’s actions after the death of Jane, featured Skyler finally calling Walt on all his bullshit, and ended with Walt’s many sins becoming personified by two planes colliding in midair, right above his house. Had the show ended there, we would have been robbed of three all-time great seasons of television, but there would be no regrets as to the power of the conclusion.

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Yet moreso than that, I laughed because that final scene plays out like a perfectly delivered punch line. “Felina” is, up to and including that point, all about Walter White writing his own ending to his life’s story. It is different than any television finale I can recall, because unlike the characters of most stories, Walter White knows his time is up. He is just as intensely aware as the audience that this is his final hour, and that these are his final actions, and that his legacy will be set in stone by these final choices he makes.

The entire time, he is looking for the perfect ending, just the same as the fans. First, he thinks manipulating Gretchen and Elliot to deliver the last of his money – which still amounts to a pretty massive fortune, over ten times more than his original Season 2 goal of $747,000 – is the right way to cap his journey. Then, upon hearing his beloved blue meth is still in circulation, he chooses to extend his plans, because letting someone take credit for his signature product is patently unacceptable. So he takes out Lydia with ricin, and devises to infiltrate the Nazi base with a hidden machine gun, and says goodbye to Skyler along the way. His strategy works, and with the Nazis dead, he chooses to let Jesse go, and even give Jesse the option to kill him, which seems like a fitting ending. But Jesse declines.

So what does Walter White do with his final moments of life? Where does he decide to go to take his final breathes? Where does he wish to leave his final, blood-stained mark on this Earth?

He goes to the meth lab. And dies with a smile on his face, as these lyrics play:

“Guess I got what I deserved/kept you waiting there too long my love,

All that time without a word/Didn’t know you’d think that I’d forget.

Or I’d regret.

Special love I had for you … My baby blue.”

And all I could do was laugh, because that is an absolutely hilarious way to end the series. To all the world, Walt dies the most pathetic death imaginable. A dirty, hideous murderer, lying dead on the floor of a meth lab in a Neo-nazi compound. He dies as nothing more than a common, two-bit criminal, and many of his actions throughout the episode – hijacking a car, hiding in the shadows at Gretchen and Elliot’s, buying a machine gun, poisoning Lydia, gunning down his enemies, etc. – are not those of the great and powerful Heisenberg, Emperor of meth, but of an absolute low-life.

Yet in his own head, Walt dies happy, exactly where he wants and needs to be – with all his enemies decimated, his family taken care of, and surrounded by the beautiful meth equipment that gave him purpose in life. It is, as I said, the punch line to the entire series, with the entirety of this complex, sweeping, harrowing six-year tale summarized as a corny teen ‘romance’ between Walter White and his meth.

And I could not love that ending any more if I tried.

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