Saying Goodbye to Breaking Bad... and Lost

I posted my thoughts on the Breaking Bad finale about an hour after I watched it. And Twitter and Facebook both lit up immediately after the show with people falling all over themselves professing their undying love to Vince Gilligan, Bryan Cranston, and everyone involved in the series. I've posted over on Facebook a few reviews that didn't love it — here and here — and one that absolutely hated it (here), and while I might not agree, I loved these little reviews standing there shouting against the tide of positivity.

Because I know how they feel. Only I was on the other side. I'm not Damon Lindelof or Carlton Cuse (well, Damon took a job from me once, but that's another story altogether...) and since they were the ones who actually wrote the series with that divisive finale, they had to take a lot of shit. I, while not writing the episode, had written about the series for six years, and for some reason ended up in the position of the Show's Defender, like anyone else in our quiet minority who actually loved the end of Lost but were outvoiced by those who hated it.

Now, everyone who's a creative type at all is the same when it comes to criticism: you can praise us all you want, but say one negative thing and we'll remember that FOREVER. It's why trolls exist on the internet, because we thin-skinned "artists" can't handle it, and crumble, and respond to you on Twitter or in the comments, and then you end up with more notoriety than the positive people. Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse received a ton of praise for the ending... but they'll never remember that. They'll remember the nastiness, the hatred, that proprietary feeling fans had over Lost and how Damon came in and shat all over it with an ending they found unsatisfying.

So when Breaking Bad ended and, as I said in my blog post, avoided the divisiveness that Lost, The Sopranos, and even Dexter created in their endings, I knew I wasn't going to have to defend the show this time, that other people would be really happy with the ending, too. Vince Gilligan has been held aloft and carried on the shoulders of many of the same people who stomped all over Damon and Carlton for their ending.

But I loved the end of Lost. So much so that when I posted on Facebook that Six Feet Under needs to step aside because there's a new all-time best finale in town, many people messaged and emailed me to say, "You mean... BETTER THAN LOST, NIKKI?!"

Hm. Well, I was closer to Lost. I was more invested in it. From beginning to end, Breaking Bad was a more consistently written show, but Gilligan wasn't meeting a 22-episode mandate. It's much easier to craft perfection in a first season when working with seven episodes, and not 23 like Lost had to do. There were things that had to be achieved in the Breaking Bad finale, things fans wanted, and Gilligan managed to make most people happy; Walt won, and he lost. Yet there are those who dislike the finale because he won, and those who dislike it because he lost.

Similarly, fans demanded that Lost do a number of things, chief among them is answer every single question that has ever been raised by the show. And they didn't do that. At least, not overtly. I wrote a 22,000-word defence of the Lost finale in my last book, and answered most of the questions fans said weren't answered. But maybe that was the problem: it became a little too subtle. For those of us who'd invested hours each week in studying every aspect of this show, it might have been satisfying, but for the majority of the viewers, it was a head-scratcher.

As someone who loved it, I can say that the Lost finale reached into my soul, made me weep with joy, caused lack of sleep over the next few days, and affected me emotionally more than any other show has ever done, before or since. I have never stopped defending it. I've never once said, "Well, yeah, you're right," because I believe in that ending wholeheartedly. Breaking Bad, on the other hand, was just... perfect. It was quiet, it wasn't the best episode of the series (see "Ozymandias" for that one), but it did what a finale is supposed to do. It wrapped things up, it gave us hope that life would still go on, and created a world that was encapsulated within the episodes of the series.

Damon Lindelof has finally spoken out and released an essay that was supposed to be on the finale of Breaking Bad, but instead turned into a piece talking about how watching the end of that show reminded him of how people reacted to the end of his show:

I'm sick of myself for continuing to beat this particular drum, so I can't imagine how sick of it you are. If it's unpleasant and exhausting for me to keep defending the Lost finale, aren't you getting tired of hating it? And so … I, like Walter White, want out. To be free. And to grant you the same.
I'd like to make a pact, you and me. And here's your part: You acknowledge that I know how you feel about the ending of Lost. I got it. I heard you. I will think about your dissatisfaction always and forever. It will stay with me until I lie there on my back dying, camera pulling slowly upward whether it be a solitary dog or an entire SWAT team that comes to my side as I breathe my last breath.

It's a poignant and sad piece, mostly because, as I said above, he spends the entire piece talking about those who hated it, and barely mentions those of us who loved it. Why would he? We feel the same way he does, and it's the haters who affected him so deeply. I know he'll be treated negatively for this piece (I mean, it's not like we live in an age of the confessional, right? Oh... wait...) and he'll be forced to face it all again, but I'm glad he wrote it.

But Damon, I really wish you'd realize that beyond those who loudly hated it is a group of us who loved it. And that image of Jack, on his back, looking up into the sky, satisfied that he'd done his bit for the world but will now die of a wound to his lower right-hand side? Um... do you think perhaps that image has become so iconic that it was also the final shot of this other finale that you loved so much?

All we needed in that meth lab was a dog and some bamboo.

Breaking Bad will go down in history as one of the greatest finales of all time. And Lost will go down in half the history books as the worst, and the other half as one of the best. Maybe there's something to be said for being controversial.

And how about this: discussing perfect pilots the other day, a friend of mine and I concluded that Lost had the best pilot, bar none, of any show we can think of. Breaking Bad's doesn't even come close. In fact, I watched the pilot of Breaking Bad and didn't watch another episode for another year. And then all of season 1 that followed Lost (remember... that's 23 episodes; Breaking Bad is in season 3 before it hits its 23rd episode) was near perfect. For many people, Lost didn't stick the landing, and that's all that matters. I loved it.

Is Breaking Bad the better finale? Yes, because it satisfied more people, and that's a finale's main goal. Is it my favourite finale? No... that one still belongs to Lost.

Thoughts on the Breaking Bad Series Finale

Warning: Spoilers ahead... please stop reading if you have not yet seen the end of Breaking Bad.

I've only watched the episode once, and that ended just a few minutes ago, so I haven't had time to process the ending completely other than to paraphrase what I posted on my Facebook page: Step aside, Six Feet Under... there's a new 'best series finale ever' in town.

From the very beginning, we've speculated on how this series will end. Will Walt win? He can't win. He has to die. But he MUST win. We're all rooting for him. But we're not, because he's made every single bad decision a person can make, and there must be consequences for it. So he won't die. He'll end up in prison. No... Jesse will kill him. No... the cancer will kill him. No... he'll kill himself. No wait; that last one is bananas. Walt is all about self-preservation.

From the beginning, he said he was doing it for his family. But that was only the case when he was pantsless in the desert, calling his wife to let her know he'll be late for dinner. Once he got the taste of it, he knew he loved it. He continued to cook for his own pride. When he was Heisenberg, he was important. Even his own wife was afraid of him, and while that wasn't his original intent, hell... it's better than having her look at her laptop while jerking him off on his birthday, right? At least... that's what Walt thought at the time.

This has been a show that followed an absolutely perfect arc: we begin at what appears to be the bottom, and then we see the rise of Heisenberg until he becomes a drug kingpin, and then his family finds out, and then Hank finds out, and then it all unravels into a horrible, terrible place, and he ends up lower than he was before. But in hindsight, you realize he was never higher than he was at the very beginning. That it was all a downhill slide.

But this finale — this perfect finale — showed us the real trajectory: that it was all about perspective. From the perspective of family, yes, it was entirely downhill. But from the perspective of Walt's own pride and sense of place and importance in the world, Heisenberg actually was important to him, to his wellbeing. It made him feel important. He's become the consummate liar, where lies just roll off his tongue like sugar, but in the moment in "Felina" where he looks at Skyler and finally — finally — admits that he didn't do it for his family, but for himself, he's telling the truth. He's seen it, we already knew it, and it's an absolutely perfect moment in an episode filled with them. This series has documented the fall of Walter White, family man, but it certainly also showed the rise and fall (and rise and fall) of Walter White, man of pride.

Perhaps some viewers will see the episode as being a little too careful, too pat, but I don't think so. I think Gilligan managed what seemed to be the impossible: he made everyone happy. If you wanted Walt to die, congratulations. If you wanted him to lose, he did. Big time. If you wanted him to win... he did. If you wanted Jesse to be free, he was. Happy? Not for a long time, but he'll get there. Maniacally happy is the best we can get right now, and I'll take it.

Walt managed to get revenge on the Schwartzes: don't tell me they won't spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders at every bump they hear. (Funny side note: my dad came over to watch the finale with us, and when the red lights appeared on their chests and Walt began terrifying them, we were all laughing nervously and my dad said, "Watch. It'll be Badger and that other guy with laser pointers" and we all laughed and THEN IT WAS!!)

He helped get Skyler off the hook with the police, if she decides to use the coordinates as leverage in the way he suggested.

He was able to say goodbye to her, and let her know he cared about her, and she had one moment of seeing him as a loving father to Holly, something she hasn't been able to see much of at all.

He saw Flynn one last time, and realized he's a man now, who can take care of himself and his family.

He gave Marie the closure she needs with those coordinates. And he let Skyler know that he didn't actually kill Hank (even if his actions did).

He found a way to get the money to his family, and finally realized that almost $10 million is quite enough. You don't need $71 million to be happy. I loved the moment when Uncle Jack said, "If you pull that trigger you'll never find out where the mo—" Bang. Walt no longer cares about the rest of the money.

He allowed Jesse to kill Todd. It had to be Jesse who did that.

He got rid of Lydia by using her own weird OCD against her.

He allowed Jesse to get away. Jesse's name isn't tied with Walt's at all in any of this; remember, the only people who realized Pinkman was tied with Walt were Gomez and Hank, and they're buried at those lottery coordinates. Jesse is a broken man, but maybe that fantasy we saw of him with his own woodworking shop will actually come true. I hope so.

And then, he died. Jesse didn't shoot him (thank god; I knew deep down Gilligan wouldn't make that misstep), because it was what Walt wanted. And Jesse is DONE with doing what Walt wants.

Surprisingly, and beautifully, Walt died by his own hand. He died because of his hubris of taking care of everything by himself. He died because he'd misjudged where the machine gun would fire (or, perhaps... he KNEW it would hit him?) He died because he was protecting Jesse with his own body. Walt's death is so complicated, yet simply handled. He died. The end.

The first episode of the final season, way back in July 2012, was called "Live Free Or Die" (that flashes quickly at the beginning of this episode on Walt's license plate). And in this episode, Jesse lived free, and Walt died.

Walt did a lot of bad things, and we want him to pay for it. He does, with his life. But his family was innocent, and they will receive the money: is it drug money? Perhaps. But let's look at it another way. If Walt had been given his due by the Schwartzes, who took his idea and ran with it and acted like he'd never contributed anything to their giant empire, then his family would have lived in the opulence they've achieved. It's genius to have the trust money come from them: they are finally handing over the money that's long overdue to Walter White. Yes, he earned that money, through his brilliance in chemistry. Whether it's meth money or money because of his original ideas that made the Schwartzes filthy rich is up to how you want to perceive it.

I loved the final scene, with Walt walking through the meth lab one final time, tapping the pressure gauge (which we've seen him do countless times). For a moment, I thought he was actually going to finish Jesse's cook. But instead he walks up to the stainless steel container and looks at his own reflection. We'll never know if he likes or hates the man he sees looking back at him.

And then he falls onto his back... and he's gone. The king is dead.

I couldn't help but notice the final image (aside from being very Lost-like!) was like the final image in one of my favourite episodes, "Crawl Space," which ended with Walter lying on his back in the crawl space, with the money, which is partly gone because Skyler has given it to Ted, and Walter pretty much has a nervous breakdown on the spot, laughing and laughing as the camera pans back to show a man at rock bottom.

Walter's lying in a very similar position at the end, eyes wide open (of course, since as I've mentioned before, eyes are extremely important on the show), but dead.

The episode was called "Felina," which baffled fans leading up to it. My favourite explanation was that it's actually three chemical compounds: Fe (iron) Li (lithium) and Na (sodium), which are found in blood, meth, and tears. (Other fans shot it down by saying Walter never used Lithium in his cooks, so...)

But in the opening of the episode, it was clear the title referenced Marty Robbins' "El Paso," and the lyrics not only sum up the themes and tensions of the entire series, but foreshadow exactly how Walter was going to die:

Out in the West Texas town of El Paso

I fell in love with a Mexican girl.

Night-time would find me in Rosa's cantina;

Music would play and Felina would whirl.

Blacker than night were the eyes of Felina,

Wicked and evil while casting a spell.

My love was deep for this Mexican maiden;

I was in love but in vain, I could tell.

One night a wild young cowboy came in,

Wild as the West Texas wind.

Dashing and daring,

A drink he was sharing

With wicked Felina,

The girl that I loved.

So in anger I

Challenged his right for the love of this maiden.

Down went his hand for the gun that he wore.

My challenge was answered in less than a heart-beat;

The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor.

Just for a moment I stood there in silence,

Shocked by the FOUL EVIL deed I had done.

Many thoughts raced through my mind as I stood there;

I had but one chance and that was to run.

Out through the back door of Rosa's I ran,

Out where the horses were tied.

I caught a good one.

It looked like it could run.

Up on its back

And away I did ride,

Just as fast as I

Could from the West Texas town of El Paso

Out to the bad-lands of New Mexico.

Back in El Paso my life would be worthless.

Everything's gone in life; nothing is left.

It's been so long since I've seen the young maiden

My love is stronger than my fear of death.

I saddled up and away I did go,

Riding alone in the dark.

Maybe tomorrow

A bullet may find me.

Tonight nothing's worse than this

Pain in my heart.

And at last here I

Am on the hill overlooking El Paso;

I can see Rosa's cantina below.

My love is strong and it pushes me onward.

Down off the hill to Felina I go.

Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys;

Off to my left ride a dozen or more.

Shouting and shooting I can't let them catch me.

I have to make it to Rosa's back door.

Something is dreadfully wrong for I feel

A deep burning pain in my side.

Though I am trying

To stay in the saddle,

I'm getting weary,

Unable to ride.

But my love for

Felina is strong and I rise where I've fallen,

Though I am weary I can't stop to rest.

I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle.

I feel the bullet go deep in my chest.

From out of nowhere Felina has found me,

Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side.

Cradled by two loving arms that I'll die for,

One little kiss and Felina, good-bye.

Thank you, Breaking Bad for the five best seasons of television I've ever seen. Even better than The Wire (blasphemy!!! but true), with an even more perfect ending than Six Feet Under, with an ending that left me satisfied and bereft, and I doubt will divide fans the way other finales have done (see Sopranos, Lost, Dexter...) An incredible show has come to an end. And with one little kiss... I wave goodbye.

Breaking Bad: Ozymandias

Breaking Bad is, hands down, my favourite TV show. And yet, I don't write about it. I was someone who caught up late, watching the first episode of season 1, then leaving it for a while, and then watching the first three seasons in a marathon before watching seasons 4 and 5 live. So during those first three years, other people wrote about it. And their followings grew, and they did a fantastic job, so instead, if you follow me on Facebook, you'll just see me losing my mind every Sunday night watching this meticulously plotted, brilliantly written, and perfectly acted series... but I don't write about it.

And then yesterday, while on a long plane flight to Hawaii, my husband and I popped open his computer and clicked on this week's episode. And I gasped, and cried, and gasped again, and my hands flew into the air, and then to my mouth, and my jaw dropped, and I sobbed, and then I gasped, and then ended the episode crying and crying. My husband said, "Ok, now what do you want to watch?" And I said I was going to need a while to recover. And I stared out the window, thinking about how this show just gave me the best, most satisfying hour of television I think I've ever seen.

If you haven't watched it, STOP NOW. I've been dying all season NOT discussing it on Facebook so as not to spoil it for those who don't watch it until it's On Demand later in the week. But I MUST discuss this episode.

First, I had no idea until after I watched it that it was called "Ozymandias." For those English lit students out there, remember how you have to mainline about 1,500 poems throughout your degree, but you really only remember about four or five of them at the end? (No? Just me? OK FINE.) "Ozymandias" was one of those poems. Let's leave off the Watchmen reference (which was clearly a nod to Shelley's poem) and just look at Shelley's poem:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Like the great king Ozymandias, Walt's kingdom officially crumbles in this episode. He's lost his family, his partner, his dignity, his power... and his money. Look on his works, ye Mighty Viewers... and despair. The sand has washed over everything.

The episode begins with one of those absolutely fantastic cold opens. At first I thought it was a repeat of a scene from season 1, but they've clearly gone back and recreated it (both Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston look a little older) but what they do is take us right back to the beginning, to the moment when, as Walt discussed in season 3's "The Fly," they could have stopped and things would have been OK. Skyler is pregnant and happily shipping knickknacks from the house to earn some extra money. She and Walt have a sweet conversation on the phone. She loves him, and he adores her. They discuss doing something as a family. Jesse Pinkman is considered by Walt to be a dumbass. Walt is meek, but he's loved and respected by those he loves and respects, and that's all that should matter.

But it didn't matter enough, and now it's all gone. The phone call at the opening is to remind us of everything Walt has lost. This is the moment of the cook, right before the two gangsters show up and everything goes apeshit and people die and Walt and Jesse are inextricably linked forever.

This Walt...

...is gone. Meek, happy, beloved, but — to his mind — fundamentally useless.

And in his place, we have this Walt:

No hair, scars on his face, his hand — slashed by his wife, no less — held together by duct tape. He's a drug kingpin, a murderer, and the most terrifying man in New Mexico. Bitter, broken, vengeful, and destroyed, he still has the lung cancer, and will be leaving his family with the most devastating legacy imaginable.

The contrast between the two phone calls is what makes this episode perfect. In the first, Skyler's chatting about pizza and cooing to him about how it's OK that his boss is keeping him late. Moments before making the call, Walt's running the lie through, practising it because he wants it to sound genuine. Skyler doesn't think of Walt as a liar, so she doesn't suspect a thing. But in the second phone call? She's surrounded by police, her sister despises him, Hank is dead, Flynn hates his father even more than Marie does, and Walt has kidnapped the daughter Skyler was pregnant with in the first phone call.

And then Walt lies. Beautifully, perfectly, without any practice, he just pops open that phone, dials, and lies. And at first, even the viewers fall for it. But Skyler knows exactly what he's doing. "Are you alone?" he asks. "No police?" "No. No police," she responds. And he begins yelling at her and abusing her in such a way that at first the viewers think he's completely lost it, but it only takes a few seconds before you realize what he's really doing: he's saving her. He knows damn well the police are there. He knows Marie will be sitting there, and Flynn, and that they can all hear him. And so he tells the biggest lie of all: that he tortured and abused and threatened Skyler for the past year, that she had no choice but to go along with it, that she couldn't tell anyone or help herself or her family. That he acted purely out of greed, family be damned. Just like he tried to incriminate Hank by creating a DVD that made it look like he was the scumbag, now he pulls the same switcheroo, and says things to her that he would never say to her, even at his worst.

And Skyler knows it. If the police weren't standing there, she would have ripped him a new one. But instead she knows what he's doing. She knows he's letting her off the hook, that he's incriminating himself and separating his family from everything he did, and he's giving her back her son, her relationship with her sister, her dignity, and her freedom. So instead she plays along, and says, "I'm sorry." And with those two words, Walt closes his eyes and knows the cops are standing right there. That's her signal to him, and so he ups the ante and makes the threats worse. In this moment, for the first time since he stood pantsless in the New Mexico desert, he really is doing this for his family. The cooks, the murders, the bargains... all of that was for himself and his own sense of pride and usefulness, despite him always saying it was for them. But this, this one act: this was for Skyler. This is Walt's one moment of pure selflessness, and in this act he redeems himself in Skyler's eyes.

Butbutbut... this is also the episode where Walt throws Jesse to the dogs. His family means everything to him, and Jesse is as much family as anyone but Walt has never seen it that way. Hank can turn on him; Skyler can wield a knife on him; Flynn can refuse his breakfast sausages... and Walt will forgive all of them. But Jesse is a partnership, and partnerships are based on loyalty. And if Jesse is willing to turn him over, then Walt will turn Jesse over, too. It's a shocking moment.

At the beginning of the season, Gilligan was asked: what would be the more painful thing for Jesse to discover: that Walt poisoned Brock, or allowed Jane to die? Gilligan, without hesitation, said Jane's death. And that's when I knew that Jesse would find out. I predicted early in the season that Jesse is going to hit rock bottom, perhaps Walt will be the one with his hand on the trigger, and he'll snarl the truth about Jane in his face just to hurt him more. And then he did.

Walt tells Jesse everything, and we watch Jesse's entire world crumble, knowing that the man he'd been helping.. the man whom he KILLED for... was the one who killed his soulmate. Jesse has been hanging on by a thread for most of two seasons, but with that confession by Walt, Jesse's entire world just ends. And moments later we see him chained, imprisoned, beaten so badly his one eye is closed (closed and damaged eyes are an ongoing trope of the series), and he has absolutely nothing to live for. But Landry and the boys aren't going to let him die: they'll force him to cook. And, oh yeah, they've put a little photo of Brock and his mom there just to remind Jesse of what will happen if he doesn't.

And then there's Hank. The good ol' boy who came off as a colossal dick in season 1 has grown into one of the most unexpectedly brilliant characters of the entire series. In the beginning he seemed to be a bit of a dolt, but you realize pretty quickly that he's an incredible detective. He's so smart, but he's a man who, like Walt, loves his family more than anything, so of course he's blind (there's the eye thing again) to the one person who's been manipulating him this entire time. Heisenberg couldn't possibly be his brother-in-law, right? Nah. Not family.

When the first half of season 5 ended with Hank discovering the Walt Whitman book, that moment went down in history as one of the cruellest cliffhangers EVER. Breaking Bad fan theories have been flying around for an entire year: Hank KNOWS, and how will he do the little dance around Walt so that Walt doesn't know that he knows? Turns out... Hank refused to do that dance. He let Walt know right away in the explosive end to the first episode back this summer, and watching Dean Norris in this second half has been sublime. He's so angry he can barely speak. Everything bad that's happened to him happened because of a man that he loved like a brother. Walt tries to play him with the phoney DVD confession, but Hank doesn't roll over like so many people do in Walt's path: he pulls Agent Gomez on side so he'll have an ally who will watch him do his work and know he's not the bad guy: Walt is. Then he gets Jesse on board and creates an elaborate scheme to catch Walt. But Jesse has other ideas.

There are two lines in this episode that really stood out for me and they're interlinked. The first is when Jesse looks at Walt in the cold open, after Walt has told him not to light the cigarette in the trailer, and Jesse says he's not a dumbass. Walt underestimated Jesse one too many times, and Jesse got him. Secondly, while Walt tries to bargain for Hank's life, Hank looks at Walt and says, "You're the smartest man I've ever met. But you can't see that he already made up his mind 10 minutes ago." Walt is a genius, but when he's under pressure, he doesn't think. That's how Jesse got him last week (Hank's plan was a drawn-out sting operation; Jesse knew that if you just put Walt under pressure, he'll crumble and you'll get him). Hank couldn't see Walt right under his nose; Walt couldn't see that Uncle Jack was going to kill Hank no matter what and instead he gave up the location of his money. Jesse's certainly not the dumbass in this situation.

Where Walt redeems himself with his call to Skyler at the end of this episode, his bartering for Hank's life redeems him a tiny bit in the beginning as well. For a while now the big question has been: what's more important to Walt: his family or his money? Last week his, "DON'T YOU TOUCH MY MONEY!!!" snarl to Jesse seemed to point in the direction of the latter. But this week he offers up $80 million to save the life of his brother-in-law, a man who has hunted him down and was willing to lock him up and throw away the key moments earlier. Despite everything, Hank's still family, and that means everything to Walt.

But it's not enough: Hank's smart enough to know that Jack is going to kill him either way, and he dies perhaps with the one tiny satisfaction that Walt just lost all his money in the process. He also dies, however, wondering if Jack is going to hunt down and kill the rest of Walt's family. There will never be any peace for Hank. I knew this death was coming, and I knew it would be in this episode, but the shot still made me jump in my seat and start crying.

We don't see Hank die, but instead watch Walt's devastating reaction. His entire meth career has come to this. He started off as a man with lung cancer who wanted to have a nest egg to leave his family. He began with lofty goals, but was dragged down, and his hubris and greed got the better of him. We've watched him break bad for five years now, and Vince Gilligan has achieved his goal: early on he said he wanted to take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface, and he did that. But now it's all gone. The statue of the great Ozymandias is broken, lying in pieces in the sand of the desert.

He began everything with good intentions, and now his money, his family — everything — is gone. Walt is unable to move for what could be over an hour (they manage to dig up all of the barrels and he's still lying like this). This is the end of his career. But this tragic image of a broken man calls up a very similar one we saw a couple of seasons ago:

Gus saw his partner (possibly his lover) gunned down before him, and it turned him into the evil badass he eventually became. He acted out of revenge, and lost. Walt acted out of love, and his love turned into greed, and he lost, too. We know what happened to Gus in the end; we can only imagine where Walt will end up.

At the end of "Ozymandias," the king leaves Albuquerque via Saul's guy. Presumably, next week's episode will begin a year from now, and we'll see the Walt of those two cold opens: on his 52nd birthday, racked with lung cancer, a head full of hair, looking scrawny and frail, with a trunk full of guns and ammo and a tiny vial of ricin, and a house full of degenerates, spray-painted to suggest that the world knows about the crimes of Walter White/Heisenberg. The cold opens have been an exciting head scratcher for fans throughout season 5, but now I have a sense of who all that is aimed at. Gus returned to the scene of his heartbreak by the pool and took out the entire cartel. What will Walt do?

Stuff for a Wednesday

I haven't really chatted on here for a while, so I thought I'd check in. The kids have gone back to school, with my little baby moving into grade 1, and my older baby into grade 4. "I'm not in primary anymore, Mummy, I'm a junior now!" So what have I been up to...

Breaking Bad
IlovethisshowsomuchIdon'tevenknowwheretobegin. I can't believe we only have four episodes left of this magnificent series. If you've been hearing all the hype and rolling your eyes and thinking, "Oh GOD it's like when the frickin' Wire was on," believe it. It's really as good as everyone says it is. Bryan Cranston is sublime, Aaron Paul turns in one jaw-dropping performance after another, and this season, Dean Norris as Hank has been incredible. At the end of the first episode back, there was a scene that will easily be the scene I remember most from this year (the same year I saw the Red Wedding, I might add), and it was FANTASTIC. In the next episode, I screamed when they ended it (DAMN YOU, CLIFFHANGERS!!!) And in the third episode, I was ready to storm creator Vince Gilligan's house and demand he show me the fourth episode right now!!! It's that good. So please check it out, and if you're watching, I hope you're loving it as much as I am.

The Vampire Diaries
I mentioned in a recent post that I had finished season 3 of The Vampire Diaries and was crazy hooked.  I had been thinking ahead and had recorded all of season 4 onto my PVR since last September, so I finally sat down and watched it, finishing up just a few days ago. And while it probably didn't make me screech with delight quite as much as season 3 did, it was freakin' addictive. Why? It's still The Originals for me. Klaus is just magnificent, and whenever Elijah shows up I sigh the sigh of the obsessed. Rebekah is fantastic, but Klaus has my heart. (And I want him to have Caroline's, too.) Caroline still remains my favourite Mystic Falls person, mostly because she's just so damn earnest!! No matter what is happening or who just died or what apocalypse was just averted, Caroline stomps one fashionable foot and screams that the prom/formal/semi-formal/other lavish school event/graduation was almost ruined and GODDAMMIT she's not going to stand for it!! And I heart her so much for it. This fall I might be looking forward to the new CW series, The Originals, even more than season 5 of The Vampire Diaries. Because if they're the highlight of the show for me now, and they've been transplanted elsewhere, I'm keen to see who they keep on as viewers. That said, Damon and Stefan and their eternal struggle to get the girl to love him and not his brother is crazy fun to watch, and Damon usually has some quip that makes me laugh out loud. Elena I still don't care much for, but there are enough other characters that I'm happy happy happy. So for the first time, I'll be watching the season premiere of TVD alongside everyone else. Yay!

Other Shows on my PVR
I've mentioned this before, but I don't just have one PVR that holds 200 hours of programming; I have two of them. I'm simultaneously recording up to four shows at one time, and I figure I'll watch some of them now (anything on cable, basically) and some of them later (network comedies and the handful of dramas I actually watch that aren't on HBO or AMC). But the problem is, I was a little too recording-happy last year, and now I still have the following shows there staring at me:
*Revolution (which I have every intention of watching, because I really enjoyed the first three episodes, but then I erased those and I've been trying to get into the fourth episode recently and I don't quite remember where I am in the show!)
*The Mindy Project (love every episode I've watched but I've only watched about 10 of them)
*Modern Family (with so much else on the go, this took a back seat. The entire season is sitting there)
*The Neighbours (watched the first episode and LOVED it, and I don't know a SOUL who watches it. So the entire season of this one actually got the dump earlier this week)
*Elementary (watched the first episode and thought it was great, but decided to go back and watch Sherlock first, and then never caught up on Elementary)
*Under the Dome (really liked the first episode, but haven't watched beyond that. I guess I liked it, but didn't love it, and with so much else on the go it takes a lot to get me to watch something)
*The Following (watched the first episode and thought it was corny and utterly unbelievable — really? A bunch of internet psychopath wannabes were able to organize themselves and fool the FBI?? — and when I started watching Hannibal, it felt superior in every way, so I've never watched the rest of it. But, again, it's all right there if I want it)
*Arrow (watched the first episode and loved it, and never had the time to watch the rest. Oh, well, and the fact my husband went and erased the first 10 episodes just as I was about to marathon them didn't help)
Instead, I've gotten a lot more reading done this year than in the past. So maybe I need to curb my TV viewing? Or figure out a better schedule for it? See, I'm currently working through Sons of Anarchy on DVD, and have bought The Good Wife and really want to watch Parenthood and have put on hold at the library all of Castle and Luther, so there are a ton of other good shows that have proven themselves that I'd like to watch. Maybe I just have to accept that I can't watch everything.

BUT... Fall shows!!!
But yeah, the fall shows are starting. And on my list to watch are (* denotes new):
Boardwalk Empire
*Sleepy Hollow
*Blacklist
*Marvel's Agents of SHIELD (Duh)
Revolution
Nashville
Big Bang Theory
*The Millers
*The Crazy Ones
*The Michael J. Fox Show
Once Upon a Time
Homeland
*Super Fun Night
The Vampire Diaries
*The Originals
*Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
The Walking Dead
*Dracula
*Almost Human

So, um... OK, I don't know how I'm going to do this. But I will try!!

The Hunt
Speaking of Mads Mikkelsen (wait, I wasn't? Well, I should be!) I went to see his latest film, The Hunt, last week, and it was mindblowingly good. It's in Danish, as are most of his films, and in this one he plays a kindergarten teacher who has a friendly disagreement with a five-year-old girl, who goes to the head of the kindergarten and says that he showed her his "willie." And... who's going to question a five-year-old girl, right? The movie shows exactly what happens to a man in a small town when an innocent little girl says something foolish, and everyone believes her. It was heartbreaking, and his performance is tremendous.

The World's End
And from frightful to frightfully hilarious, I saw the third instalment of the Cornetto trilogy this past weekend and thought it was fab. If a little depressing at times. See, basically this guy remembers a night of wild drinking in 1990, when he was 17 (the exact age I was in 1990), as the best night of his life, so he decides to re-enact it with his buddies, but now, they're old. Old. They're about 40. My age. And therefore, old. Oh, fuck off, stupid "40 is old" bullshit.

But whatever.

Aside from that, the soundtrack was fantastic, it had some hilarious lines, and I loved loved loved seeing so many of them back again. When they walk into the eighth or ninth pub and Brian from Spaced was standing there, I literally squealed out loud. SO HAPPY. I really enjoyed this movie; Simon Pegg is just... so... funny.

Sigur Ros
I know I talk about my love of Sigur Ros a lot, but if you want to know what they're like live, they played a show in London UK on Monday, and it was live-streamed around the globe as part of the iTunes festival. Follow this link and when you click on it, it'll open the show in your iTunes and you can watch the entire thing. This tour was the best time I'd ever seen them, so it's worth it if you have the time. :)

Aaron Paul: Before He Was Famous

I watched this earlier today and was laughing out loud. This is one of Aaron Paul's first TV appearances... when he was a contestant on The Price Is Right. And it's insanely funny.

The Ecstacy of Breaking Bad

Thanks to Ensley Guffey for directing me to this AMAZING tribute video to the first 4 seasons of Breaking Bad (warning: you must have seen everything so far, for there are spoilers right up to the end of S4). Incidentally, Ensley and his wife Dale will be penning a Breaking Bad book for release in 2013! Watch this space for more information.

Breaking Bad Season 4

NO SPOILERS: Last week I was in New Orleans at the PCAS/Lost conference, giving a keynote on Lost (more on that coming soon). While I was there, I met a few other Lost bloggers and book authors, and among them was Pearson Moore, author of Lost Humanity: The Mythology and Themes of Lost. One afternoon between panels, we wandered over to Starbucks, and on the way there Pearson said to me, “So, Nikki, now that Lost is over, what show should I be watching?” My immediate reaction: “Are you watching Breaking Bad?”

“No.”

“You should be watching Breaking Bad.”

And that recommendation goes for anyone reading this. If you’re not already watching Breaking Bad, walk, run, sprint, fly… use whatever means necessary to get the season 1 DVDs NOW and start watching. Season 1 is great. Season 2 was even better. Season 3 was jaw-dropping. And season 4 – which ended this past Sunday – is one of the most perfect seasons of television I’ve ever seen. The first three seasons are available on DVD.

Breaking Bad is the story of Walter White, who is married to Skyler and they have a 15-year-old son with cerebral palsy. At the beginning of the pilot, Walter, a high school chemistry teacher who has a second job at a carwash to make ends meet (because Skyler is pregnant with their second child), has just found out he has terminal lung cancer. He’s desperate, doesn’t want his family to know, and all he cares about is leaving enough of a financial legacy behind so both of his kids will make it through college and his wife won’t be destitute.

And that’s where Jesse Pinkman comes in. This former student of Walter’s, who Walter now considers a washed-up loser, has been attempting to deal meth with varied results. Walter explains that the person who makes the real money is the cook, and uses chemistry to come up with a recipe for meth that’s about as pure as it can possibly be. The moment their stuff hits the market, Walter realizes that his family won’t be destitute after all.

This show is funny (really, really darkly funny), harrowing, devastating, terrifying, suspenseful, and has so many scenes of extraordinary acting, it’s the one show where I consistently look at my husband at some point in the episode and go, “Wow.” There are moments where I don’t realize until the end of the long scene between these amazing actors that I haven’t really breathed for the last couple of minutes. They are THAT good. And the writing is fantastic.

So if you’re not watching… do!

SPOILERS AHEAD NOW: If you haven’t seen the show, please stop reading. If you’ve only seen up to season 3, please stop reading. This is for anyone who just watched the season 4 ending… Oh. My. God.

This show has been a slow build, through Walter’s descent into Heisenberg throughout season 1, to his cooking meth with Jesse for Gus Fring in season 2 (which leads him to miss his daughter’s birth and ends his marriage), to the tension between him and Jesse in season 3, leading to the two of them going their separate ways despite working with Gus and making gobs of money and Skyler coming back on board as a partner, to this colossal season.

We’ve watched Walter devolve from a high school chemistry teacher (I won’t say “mild-mannered,” because I highly doubt he was ever mild-mannered) and a loving family man into a brutal killer. Everyone around him has been touched by what Walter has done, and almost none of it in a good way. Hank is attempting a slow recuperation after having been shot last season (because of Walter). Jesse is moving deeper and deeper into his own depression, after killing a man at Walter’s behest. This came on top of the season 2 climax, where Walter not only facilitated the death of Jesse’s girlfriend, but stood by watching her die when he could have saved her life. Jesse doesn’t know this, and I wonder if he will find out some day… and I have no idea what he’ll do with that information, but it could kill either him or Walter. Skyler, after making Walter pay for his transgressions by leaving him and having an affair with her boss, despite his pleas that he was only doing it for the good of the family, is finding herself drawn to the large sums of money, and has become deeply involved in Walter’s business by laundering his $274,000 bimonthly paycheque. Saul (better call Saul!) has been put in danger time and again because of Walter, but being the comic foil for the show, we don’t feel sorry for him as much as giggle every time we see his assistant shredding papers or Saul’s rock-stupid bodyguard standing nearby as Saul calls from a payphone in Antarctica. Walter’s two children were put in danger this season when Gus threatened their lives to keep Walter in line.

But Walter doesn’t quit. He aims higher and higher. He started by fighting back against local drug kingpins. Then he not only ran over a street thug, but got out of the car and shot the other one last season (in that season’s “Oh my GOD did he just DO that?!” moment). He watched as Jesse’s girlfriend choked on her own vomit, thinking that having her out of the way will refocus Jesse (of course, in doing so, the girl’s father blamed himself, and being an air traffic controller, he was unfocused at his job and allowed a plane collision in the sky, causing plane and body parts to come raining down from the sky and killing hundreds of people). He let Hank walk into danger, knowing that he was doing so. He ordered Jesse at the season 3 climax to go to Gale’s house and shoot him in the face, killing one man’s body and another man’s soul in the process. And this season, he aimed for the highest of the high: Gus Fring.

In the season 4 opener, after Gale was shot, Gus showed up in the meth lab, silently walked in, meticulously changed his outfit into the meth-making scrubs (the man is nothing if not meticulous!), and said not a word as a terrified Walter babbled a mile a minute. But it wasn’t Walter he was after, and instead he grabbed one of his lackeys and slit his throat quickly and mercilessly with a box cutter, while Walter looked in, no doubt peeing his pants. Gus then silently changed back into his business suit and walked out. His point had been made. Hey Walter, you think you’re a big guy? You’re nothing compared to this one. Or so Gus thought.

After Uncle Hector took out Gus’s partner years ago (a partner who was implied to be romantic as well as a business one), Gus has slowly plotted his revenge, and this season we see Gus visiting the nursing home where Hector now lives, taunting him every time he’s managed to take out another person in Hector’s circle. The tough-as-nails Gus – seriously, this guy walks into the middle of a gun battle at one point this season, holding his arms out in the air as if to dare the shooter to take him out, and the shooter instead retreats! – actually heads down to Mexico and manages to take out an entire drug cartel that Hector works with, just to go back to taunt Hector some more. AND… he kills them by ingesting the very poison he hands to them to poison all of them, but his own team of doctors manages to pull him through. This guy is Scary with a capital S.

So how the hell can Walter possibly take him out? By hitting him in his vulnerable spot: Hector. Hector is the only person who causes Gus to stop seeing straight. Hector hit Gus so badly by killing his partner in front of him that Gus has been red-eyed with revenge, and he’s put himself in needlessly dangerous situations just to give Hector another poke in the eye. In the penultimate episode of season 4, Walter tries to kill Gus by rigging Gus’s car with a bomb, but the moment Gus returns to the car park and realizes his car is in an isolated place, he stops, looks around, and leaves on foot. Walter begins to think the guy is unkillable.

Meanwhile, Jesse has been separated from Walter all season, doing separate errands for Gus (making Walter insane with not knowing why they’ve chosen Jesse to do these things), and he’s reconnected with a single mom he was seeing last season, hanging out with her son Brock. All season long Walter has been forcing Jesse to carry a cigarette with a vial of ricin in it, in the hopes that he might find a moment where he could poison Gus, who will become sick over three days before dying of a heart attack. But Jesse isn’t a killer. He killed Gale because Walter was in trouble, and his loyalties are to “Mr. White” when all else fails. But at heart, he’d rather throw himself to the dogs than sacrifice someone who might have gotten in his way. He’s not like Walter. At the beginning of season 1, we’re supposed to see Walter as the family man who’s pushed to an extreme to save his loved ones, and Jesse is the scum of the earth with no morals or ethics. But that wasn’t true. Jesse is the one with the soul, who is slowly being destroyed by a man with a sense of ambition rivaled only by Lady Macbeth (and even SHE showed some guilt along the way…) When Brock suddenly falls sick, and Jesse discovers his ricin cigarette is missing, the viewers all go, “Oh my GOD, Gus has attacked Jesse’s loved ones!” But Jesse doesn’t think that, and goes right to Walter. As he points a gun at Walter’s face (and if THAT scene doesn’t earn Aaron Paul another Emmy, there is no justice in this world), begging him to explain just how he could hurt a little boy, Walter calms him down, explaining that HE doesn’t commit this atrocity, GUS did. And it’s that moment where Jesse stops being Walter’s adversary and helps him.

Between the two of them, they pinpoint Hector as the one who is Gus’s vulnerable spot, and Walter talks Hector into going to see the DEA. At that moment, the final episode really begins to ramp up. Hank hobbles into the precinct to speak to Hector (who communicates by ringing a little bell as a nurse points to letters on a board) and after he basically just tells Hank to go eff himself in as many colourful ways as he can, the nurse leaves the precinct in an apologetic huff, berating Hector for being such an ass (can I just mention at this point how multi-layered a character Hank is? He was set up as a typical cop who could play the foil to Walter’s far more intelligent character, but he’s instead been revealed to be a brilliant detective who’s always one step behind Walter, and the only reason he hasn’t yet found the blue meth dealer is because Walter’s watching Hank’s every move and standing in his way). But Gus has eyes on that nursing home AND the DEA’s office, and finds out immediately he’s been there. At home we watch and say, “Oh, Walter is brilliant… this will draw Gus directly to the nursing home, and he can rig up his car bomb there.” But when Gus goes into the nursing home, he takes only one of his bodyguards and leaves the other in his car. Whatever will Walter do now?!

Gus strides into Hector’s room, where the always stubborn and smug Hector sits, his stroke-afflicted lips puckered up and trembling with rage, while Gus stands over him and berates him once again for going to the DEA’s office, and he tells him he’s decided to finish him off once and for all. He sits across from him, as Hector obstinately looks at the wall amidst Gus’s offer that this is the last chance he’ll get to look Gus in the eye (knowing that Hector’s personality would prevent him from ever looking his killer directly in the face), and Gus begins to inject the poison into Hector’s arm… until he looks up, and Hector is staring directly at him. Gus knows instantly what is happening: Hector won’t look his killer in the eye, but he ALWAYS stares his victims in the eye so he can watch their final moments. Hector begins madly ringing his bell, the camera pans down to reveal Walter’s car bomb rigged to Hector’s chair, Gus stands up to scream, “NOOOO!” and at home we leap off the couch and scream the same thing.

And as if that moment wasn’t jaw-dropping and breathtaking enough, Gus actually WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM (and I said to my husband, “Oh come ON, I know the guy is tough but did he seriously survive that?!”) and we only see him in profile, as he once again meticulously buttons up his suit jacket. Only then does the camera (which, in these two scenes becomes the real storyteller… drawing out the story and revealing the truth at the last second) pan around Gus to show us that the entire right half of his head has been blown off (giving the title of this episode – “Face Off” – that extra chuckle factor), and he falls over, dead.

Wow. Now the only real person left from Gus’s cartel is Mike, the bodyguard who sort of despises Walter and his damn ambition, but who has slowly come to regard Jesse with a certain impressed fascination. He’s gone away for a bit and will return to a big surprise. I’m pretty sure he’ll be integral to the next season, and perhaps Jesse coming out on top.

But the shocks of this season finale don’t stop there. Walter calls Skyler – a woman who is showing her own brand of Machiavellian machinations this season when she orders Saul’s men to go over to her former boss/lover’s house and threaten him into helping her out, and they kill him by accident. Skyler has just seen the explosion on TV and has seen Walter’s fingerprints all over it, and asks him if he did it. “I won,” he says, in a surprised and breathless way, but there’s a serenity about him that shows us the buck won’t stop here. Walter is worse than any of the bad guys he’s come up against. And if you somehow think that maybe Gus is still worse, it only takes the next scene for us to be convinced otherwise… Jesse shows up to tell Walter that Brock wasn’t poisoned by ricin after all, but had eaten some berries from a Lily of the Valley plant, and it makes you very sick for a few days and then you miraculously get better. Walter looks very happy for him, and Jesse leaves.

And our storytelling camera once again takes us to Walter’s backyard, zooming in to reveal that very Lily of the Valley plant propped up next to Walter’s pool. Walter was behind it all along. He poisoned a child, forcing Jesse over to his side so Jesse could help him kill three men – three men who so far weren’t actually posing a threat to Jesse, but to Walter – and even putting himself in danger along the way when he suggested to a doctor that the boy may have been poisoned by ricin, something that, turns out, really gets the FBI noticing you. Jesse’s now on the FBI watch list, Walter’s family is safe, and Walter has “won.”

There is only one season left, with 16 episodes, and I for one can say I cannot wait. I can’t imagine Walter will ultimately get off scot-free, and instead I’m hoping Jesse will find some peace. I can’t imagine how it will end – will Walter die? And if so, at whose hand? Jesse’s? Skyler’s? Hank’s?

His own?