BreakingBadFinale_20130929_03c
The Breaking Bad Finale at Cadillac Lounge, Toronto © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com 2013
SPOILER ALERT
Like many others, I've been in the grip of a particular TV series for years now, and it all came to a head this past Sunday. Not wanting to face the finale of "Breaking Bad" alone, I headed to the Cadillac Lounge. As it happened, I ended up watching it on a small TV screen above the bar, as their "big screen" was peppered with dead pixels, much as if someone had sneezed cocaine over it. Almost fitting, had they been blue rather than white speckles. The place was dead quiet but we nevertheless strained to catch the dialogue. Anticipating the problem, I had asked the barman to put on my TV's subtitles.
It went down largely as I'd anticipated and hoped. I wanted Jesse to survive. Skyler and family as well. Walter was destined to die one way or another, and I was fine with it. I predict my son won't share this view as he was routing for Walter White, despised Jesse's "weakness' and like many viewers out there, wished all kinds of ill on Skyler the "bitch" wife, who inevitably saw through Walt's deceptions and demanded accountability. See "I Have a Character Issue"
By ANNA GUNN for her insights into a certain segment of the public's hatred of strong female characters. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?_r=1&
In the scene in this image, Marie's phoned Skyler to warn her that Walt's been sighted in the vicinity. From this, we can anticipate that the 2 sisters will eventually reconcile. As she hangs up and the camera pans, we realize he is already present in the room. Skyler greets the visit with skepticism and mixed emotions. Her family's safety has been threatened by drug dealers and DEA alike. She's endured so many lies and deception from Walt in the past, and been drawn in far too deeply. If Walt's skill and passion was chemistry, hers was accounting, which she took to with growing enthusiasm when he required her specific talent to "launder" the drug money. Walt had tried to deflect all culpability towards himself in a previous phone call (and episode) to Skyler. Made in full expectation that the DEA were listening in, he had established her as an unwitting, unwilling victim of his alter ego, the monstrous, murderous tyrant and drug lord, Heisenberg. Shady lawyer Saul had advised Walt to hand himself in rather than going on the lam, as he knew the DEA would continue to look towards Skyler if they couldn't get their hands on either him, the missing DEA members or the drug money. Walt however still has an agenda, and it doesn't include jail. Uncle Jack and the Aryan brotherhood had ignored Walt's pleas to spare Hank's life, even after Walt had revealed that the GPA coordinates to the site in the desert also led to his money, all of which he offered up in exchange. The neo-nazis nevertheless executed his brother in law and DEA partner, AND stole the bulk of his stashed drug money, leaving Walt one remaining barrel of cash and an uncomfortable handshake, in return for sparing his life and to establish complicity in the murders. He intended to get it back, "for the family" of course, as “Then and only then am I through.”
In that scene, Walt had then spotted Jesse cowering under the car following the DEA shoot-out and betrayed him to the Brotherhood, saying he was owed his death. Did he anticipate they would spare it and rather enslave him to produce blue meth? It seems unlikely. I wonder why he chose that moment to reveal to Jesse that he had been instrumental in the overdose death of his girlfriend, Jane. It was a blow intended to demoralize Jesse further, but for what purpose? Revenge for ratting to the DEA, or did he also personally blame him for the death of Hank, as Jesse (with the DEA) had lured Walt to his desert stash by suggesting he had found it and was in the process of burning his money. In a frantic fury, Walt had been tricked into leading the DEA to the location, and thinking it only Jesse, had in turn sent for the Nazis to come rescue him. By the time he realized it included Hank, he had lost the power to change the course.
Now, in pursuit of his ultimate agenda, Walt has come to make his final good-byes, offer more excuses and provide his wife with yet another "Get out of Jail" card. He gives her a lotto ticket with numbers that now reveal the GPS coordinates to the desert grave of Hank and Gomez rather than the site of his drug money stash, for her to use as an additional bargaining chip with the DEA. He tells her who was responsible for their deaths, not including himself.
She stops Walt before he can offer up one last excuse for his transgressions.
“If I have to hear one more time that you did this for the family...” but on this occasion he surprises her, and likely himself, with the truth. “I did it for ME... I liked it. I was GOOD at it. I was alive.”
And that moment of revelation and honesty breathes new life into Skylar's character. Actress Anna Gunn, describing the scene during a discussion following the finale, said, “She was waiting so long... and became such a shell of a person." This released her, like a long awaited sigh. She allowed him to say farewell to baby Holly, and he watches his now estranged son enter the house, but from a distance. He has lost the love of his family, and they no longer need him.
For Walt too, the admission allows him to free himself for the final scene, where all obsessions, aspirations, hatreds and perhaps the only love he has remaining, culminate as temperature and ingredients fuse in a final cook.
More photos and comments on my Flickr site breaking Bad Finale RIP
LDH
SPOILER ALERT
Like many others, I've been in the grip of a particular TV series for years now, and it all came to a head this past Sunday. Not wanting to face the finale of "Breaking Bad" alone, I headed to the Cadillac Lounge. As it happened, I ended up watching it on a small TV screen above the bar, as their "big screen" was peppered with dead pixels, much as if someone had sneezed cocaine over it. Almost fitting, had they been blue rather than white speckles. The place was dead quiet but we nevertheless strained to catch the dialogue. Anticipating the problem, I had asked the barman to put on my TV's subtitles.
It went down largely as I'd anticipated and hoped. I wanted Jesse to survive. Skyler and family as well. Walter was destined to die one way or another, and I was fine with it. I predict my son won't share this view as he was routing for Walter White, despised Jesse's "weakness' and like many viewers out there, wished all kinds of ill on Skyler the "bitch" wife, who inevitably saw through Walt's deceptions and demanded accountability. See "I Have a Character Issue"
By ANNA GUNN for her insights into a certain segment of the public's hatred of strong female characters. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?_r=1&
In the scene in this image, Marie's phoned Skyler to warn her that Walt's been sighted in the vicinity. From this, we can anticipate that the 2 sisters will eventually reconcile. As she hangs up and the camera pans, we realize he is already present in the room. Skyler greets the visit with skepticism and mixed emotions. Her family's safety has been threatened by drug dealers and DEA alike. She's endured so many lies and deception from Walt in the past, and been drawn in far too deeply. If Walt's skill and passion was chemistry, hers was accounting, which she took to with growing enthusiasm when he required her specific talent to "launder" the drug money. Walt had tried to deflect all culpability towards himself in a previous phone call (and episode) to Skyler. Made in full expectation that the DEA were listening in, he had established her as an unwitting, unwilling victim of his alter ego, the monstrous, murderous tyrant and drug lord, Heisenberg. Shady lawyer Saul had advised Walt to hand himself in rather than going on the lam, as he knew the DEA would continue to look towards Skyler if they couldn't get their hands on either him, the missing DEA members or the drug money. Walt however still has an agenda, and it doesn't include jail. Uncle Jack and the Aryan brotherhood had ignored Walt's pleas to spare Hank's life, even after Walt had revealed that the GPA coordinates to the site in the desert also led to his money, all of which he offered up in exchange. The neo-nazis nevertheless executed his brother in law and DEA partner, AND stole the bulk of his stashed drug money, leaving Walt one remaining barrel of cash and an uncomfortable handshake, in return for sparing his life and to establish complicity in the murders. He intended to get it back, "for the family" of course, as “Then and only then am I through.”
In that scene, Walt had then spotted Jesse cowering under the car following the DEA shoot-out and betrayed him to the Brotherhood, saying he was owed his death. Did he anticipate they would spare it and rather enslave him to produce blue meth? It seems unlikely. I wonder why he chose that moment to reveal to Jesse that he had been instrumental in the overdose death of his girlfriend, Jane. It was a blow intended to demoralize Jesse further, but for what purpose? Revenge for ratting to the DEA, or did he also personally blame him for the death of Hank, as Jesse (with the DEA) had lured Walt to his desert stash by suggesting he had found it and was in the process of burning his money. In a frantic fury, Walt had been tricked into leading the DEA to the location, and thinking it only Jesse, had in turn sent for the Nazis to come rescue him. By the time he realized it included Hank, he had lost the power to change the course.
Now, in pursuit of his ultimate agenda, Walt has come to make his final good-byes, offer more excuses and provide his wife with yet another "Get out of Jail" card. He gives her a lotto ticket with numbers that now reveal the GPS coordinates to the desert grave of Hank and Gomez rather than the site of his drug money stash, for her to use as an additional bargaining chip with the DEA. He tells her who was responsible for their deaths, not including himself.
She stops Walt before he can offer up one last excuse for his transgressions.
“If I have to hear one more time that you did this for the family...” but on this occasion he surprises her, and likely himself, with the truth. “I did it for ME... I liked it. I was GOOD at it. I was alive.”
And that moment of revelation and honesty breathes new life into Skylar's character. Actress Anna Gunn, describing the scene during a discussion following the finale, said, “She was waiting so long... and became such a shell of a person." This released her, like a long awaited sigh. She allowed him to say farewell to baby Holly, and he watches his now estranged son enter the house, but from a distance. He has lost the love of his family, and they no longer need him.
For Walt too, the admission allows him to free himself for the final scene, where all obsessions, aspirations, hatreds and perhaps the only love he has remaining, culminate as temperature and ingredients fuse in a final cook.
More photos and comments on my Flickr site breaking Bad Finale RIP
LDH
posted by Dawn One at 5:33 am
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