All I really have to say to convince you the finale was great is this: The title was Felina -- an anagram of finale, yes, but... Fe is Iron. Li is Lithium. Na is Sodium. These are major elements present in...
Blood, Meth and Tears.
Did your brain just explode or what?
Okay, let's talk about the top most perfect moments in the finale...
(in chronological order)
1.) Walt breaking into Elliot and Gretchen's house
The suspense was overwhelming -- wait... he's not gonna... is he? No... well... no... -- and the dark humor was spot on. This scene was incredibly entertaining and set the mood for the episode. This isn't gonna be a blood bath, like I thought. (Not yet...) Walt's got a plan and he's gonna carry it out meticulously before he lets the bullets fly.
Not to mention... BADGER AND SKINNY PETE! YES! WITH LASER POINTERS!
2.) The flashback of Jesse making that wooden box in his high school woodworking class
The season 3 scene (in the episode Kafkaesque) in which Jesse describes this box is one of my all time favorite instances of character development. For those of you who don't know what's up, here's the story:
At a rehab support group session, the leader guy asks Jesse what he would do if he could do anything at all. Jesse replies that he'd make more money. The leader says, no, if you had all the money you'd ever want, what would you do? Jesse thinks about it... he'd work with his hands. Like woodworking? Yeah, he says. He took a class in high school, woodworking, and their assignment was to make a box "just to, like, put stuff in" and he figured he could make it quickly, get a D and skip class for the rest of the semester. When he turns in this piece of junk box, the teacher asks him if that's the best he can do. Something about this question strikes him, and he works harder than ever at this box, starting over several times. The end product is the most beautiful box you've every heard anyone describe: sanded for hours, rubbed with oil so "it even smelled good" -- just gorgeous. The leader, back in present day, asks him where the box is now. He gave it to his mom, he says. You know, the leader says, you can take classes. It's not too late, you can still pursue this. Jesse looks at him and says, "I didn't give it to my mom. I traded it for an ounce of weed."
That scene made my heart break a million times over because JESSE TRADED ALL HIS TALENT AND HIS POTENTIAL AND HIS WHOLE LIFE FOR DRUGS. And Jesse is my baby. Look at him:
 |
| He's just a little baby... (My one gripe is that his teeth are REALLY white for a meth addict. They're pretty white for a normal human.) |
Sooo in Felina, there was a brief, sort of sepia scene of a younger, less beaten up and less beaten down Jesse working his little heart out on that box. Then as he walks away from the woodworking table, his apron snags on the corner. As he looks down -- jump to present day. The light is harsher, Jesse's hair is overgrown and his poor baby face is all beaten up. It wasn't his apron that stopped his movement, but his chains. He's a meth slave, basically, if that's even a thing. Chained up and forced to cook Heisenbergian meth day in and day out. If only he'd kept that box.
3.) The shot down into Lydia's chamomile tea with soy milk (ick) as she pours in her "Stevia"
Spoiler alert: it's not really Stevia.
Just the feeling of: Noooo... but... what? How'd he do that? Did he do that? Noooo...
Spoiler alert: he did it.
Lydia got the ricin.
4.) "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was really... I was alive."
Before we talk about this particular moment of closure-like-no-other, let's talk about another hand-over-mouth moment in this episode:
Skyler's on the phone with Marie, being told that Walt is back and that police are watching her house and to be careful and blah blah blah. Skyler doesn't seem all that concerned. She hangs up the phone. Then says, "Five minutes." The camera inches forward and we see that, standing behind a pillar in the kitchen, WALT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME.
So, they have a little chat which leads to probably the most perfect moment of the whole episode. Walt starts to say, "Just remember that this whole time--" Skyler cuts him off. "If I have to hear one more time that you're doing this for your family--"
"I did it for me," Walt finally admits, after all these years. "I liked it. I was good at it. I was really... I was alive."
(I like how he says he was alive, like he's no longer.)
Let's remember that Walt hasn't been doing this for his family, hasn't been doing this to pay for his treatment, since episode 5 of season 1: Gray Matter. Elliot and Gretchen gave him a way out. A dignified way (a job offer), and one not so dignified (offer to pay out of pocket for his treatment). Walt turned them down -- aggressively. His pride was too strong. It shines through in the beginning of the episode when he demands that all expenses that arise from transferring his 9 million in drug money to Walter Jr. comes out of his drug money, not from Elliot and Gretchen. But when he admitted to Skyler and to himself his true motivation, it felt like the series could end.
5.) Jesse killed Todd
Todd only survived the barrage of bullets so this could happen. But it was a punch-the-air moment well worth any "well isn't that convenient" tricks from the writers. I usually don't cheer for violence, but come on... It's Todd. If anyone deserves to be strangled it's Todd, and if anyone deserves to strangle him it's Jesse. It felt so much like redemption.
PLUS -- So much like Walt's first murder, when he strangled Krazy 8 with the bike lock. Can't be a coincidence. Nothing is a coincidence in well-done television.
Hey, I had a thought! Walt's first murder (well, hands-on murder) and Jesse's last. I'm thinking the parallel is deeper than just the method used.
6.) Jesse didn't kill Walt
During Ozymandias, I thought that was what I wanted. But only Vince Gilligan really knows what I want.
I wonder, though, what would have happened if Walt didn't get shot by his little "say ello to my leetle friend" contraption and Jesse didn't shoot him. Or would he have? He doesn't lower the gun until he sees the wound. I think if Walt wasn't already going to die, Jesse very well might have shot him, but not out of rage, not for revenge. But for peace, for both of them. When he sees that Walt's a goner anyway, he realizes he doesn't have to yet again drench his hands in blood, so he doesn't. Instead tells him, "Do it yourself."
Would Walt have done it himself? I thought, before this episode, that he was going to, either by ricin or by gun (let's all remember that Walt would've shot himself in the mouth in the freaking pilot episode if he'd known how to turn off the safety). But once again, only Vince Gilligan knows what I really think, deep down.
7.) Jesse scream-laugh-crying as he speeds away, free at last
I have a head-canon that Jesse somehow adopts Brock (I don't care how impossible that would be IT NEEDS TO HAPPEN) and they move far, far away, somewhere it snows in the winter, and Jesse gets a job working with kids and since he's a dad now he never touches drugs again because he always had so much disrespect for mothers who did drugs and he's going to hold himself to that same standard, and he and Brock can be broken together, but they'll work it out and they'll not let each other forget Andrea and oh my God I'm making myself cry just typing this all out what's wrong with me this isn't even real.
8.) This shot:
What I thought I wanted versus what Vince Gilligan knew I wanted
Felina was really everything I wanted that I didn't know I wanted until I saw it.
I thought I wanted Walt to shave his head and look like Heisenberg once more. I'm glad he didn't. His hair made him more sympathetic, more real. He didn't have to wear that hat and those sunglasses to be Heisenberg because the transformation of the last five seasons was complete. Walter White and Heisenberg had merged completely and the result ended up somewhere in the middle. The show has done something great. Walter White hasn't turned into a one hundred percent evil villain. That's too unrealistic for a show like Breaking Bad. He let his evil side overtake him during Ozymandias. That was the full extent. Granite State was his punishment, his low point. Felina is his redemption. He comes to terms with his evil side, lets it in but doesn't let it overtake his good side. Whether or not Walt deserved redemption, well... he didn't get it completely. But he got a tiny little bittersweet slice. And I'd argue that that doesn't go against everything good and moral. Walt's an exaggeration, yes, but how much of one? How much of him is plausible? How many of us deserve our own slice of redemption?
I've yet to see much of season 4 and a bit of 5a as well, but watching the end of this show was something I hope I can talk about one day, when I'm a TV writer, as something that affected and inspired me. Whether that happens or not, it has affected and inspired me.
The first thing my mom did after Hank died (as she hid behind her blanket) was look at me and say, "Promise you'll never write anything like this." She meant violence-wise, but there's no need to worry, mom -- I'll never be able to write something as groundbreaking and perfect as Breaking Bad. But the fact that it exists is enough for me.
Not to imply that I won't ever be blogging about Breaking Bad again, because that's pretty much a given.
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