I’ve been a fan of “Breaking Bad” since the start and kept watching with varying intensity throughout. And while fellow fans have been salivating over its denouement this fall, it seems to me they’ve been the most empty episodes of the run, a series of cat and mouse chases, threats and gunfights.
Nobody expects things to end well for Walter White, the former science teacher turned drug kingpin, who buried $70 million in the desert and hopes to run a car wash with ridiculous slogans (“Have an A-1 Day”) with his family for the rest of his life. But it could be a little less messy than what’s been going on in these final episodes, animated by Hank Shrader’s discovery that his meek, cancer-patient brother-in-law has been the mysterious drug figure the DEA agent has been chasing all along.
First Hank kept it to himself, then shared it with only a few people at the station, and then Walt threatened to blame Hank for forcing him to cook meth in a fairly convincing video. Then Jesse went a little cuckoo, as he is wont to do. He threw stacks of cash out of his car, almost burned Walt’s house down and even agreed to cooperate with Hank in nailing Walt once and for all.
About this time Walt was arranging a hit on Jesse and it all came to a head in the desert in a shootout that actually closed last week’s episode. This week, like a Road Runner cartoon, the episode started and the gunfire resumed. (There will be spoilers).
One agent was killed, Hank was wounded and pinned down. Walt pled for his hired killers to spare him — he’s family! But Hank knew they had already made their decision (besides, Dean Norris had another job to get to, “Under the Dome”). So: maybe the biggest killing in show history, with more to come.
Marie, not knowing the fate of her husband, thinks instead that Hank has arrested Walt, so confronts her sister Skye about the situation and insists she finally comes clean to her son, Marie’s nephew.
Well, the kid can hardly believe it, or anything. They go home to find Walt furiously packing and he urges them to do the same. Skyler refuses and Walt grabs the baby as some kind of emotional collateral on his way out the door.
Never has there been a baby in a crime drama who has done so well in a single episode. Give the infant a baby Emmy.
Walt calls home and gives a big speech about how he’s done everything for the family. The police have been called and are listening in and at first I’m thinking Walt is saying some code to Skyler in his speech. Only later do I realize it was, sadly, part of his real intent to say what he did.
Still, Walt knows the baby’s heart isn’t in the getaway (she keeps saying “mama”); he straps her into a fire truck seat instead to avoid the whole Amber alert thing.
Can “Breaking Bad” actually end with both Walt and Jesse alive? We’ve already seen the flash forward of Walt returning to his empty house looking for important things he buried there. There is a future for Walt (and a wig). Will Jesse come to terms with him? It’s just about the only solution that seems like it will be palatable for fans if not exactly A-1.