# Breaking Bad 5.16 "Felina" 9/29/13 SERIES FINALE **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 24, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591 "2013-09-24T17:31:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 27
**Author:** ![PeacePlease](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/71c47a/32.png) [@PeacePlease](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeacePlease)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/521 "2013-09-30T20:27:54Z")
I really think I’ve read the whole thread but if not, someone point me to the discussion of where is the MONEY??? I know it is not important and that Walt didn’t even care enough to wait for Jack to finish his sentence (shades of Hank’s murder, obviously) but somewhere there is a shit load of money, probably buried. I guess I wish that Jesse had known and been able to take off for Alaska (perhaps Canada, since he’s probably wanted) and be a very wealthy woodworker. That’s my fantasy for him, anyway! ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/522 "2013-09-30T20:33:31Z")
Remember what Jesse told Hank. Walt isn’t just the smartest guy he knows, he’s also the luckiest. We saw a lot of that last night. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/523 "2013-09-30T20:34:31Z")
Walt didn’t need to swap the contents of the Stevia packet out with the ricin in the coffee shop. Just go buy some, spend a little time figuring out the best way to get it opened and closed back up - you’d have 100 or so packets to practice on. Then make the swap at the table, maybe act like you needed some more sweetener at your table and slip it in the holder at Lydia’s preferred table. Somebody else sits down there, just be rude and grab the last pack of “Stevia” before they order. Todd: “I think I’ll try that Stevia you always use, Lydia” Walt: :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Quercus\_alba](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quercus_alba/32/4061_2.png) [@Quercus\_alba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus_alba)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/524 "2013-09-30T20:35:37Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Is it odd that Walt never acknowledged the personal and societal damage done by meth? Scientists who split the atom at least considered the good and bad results of their work, but did Walt? He took pride in putting out a quality product, but he didn’t go past “Well, at least my product isn’t killing people because of impurities.” Agreed. All he ultimately acknowledges is “I liked it. I was good at it. I felt really alive.” Great, Walt. I’m sure that’s quite a comfort to all those bodies you left in the wake of your little end-of-life midlife crisis. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/525 "2013-09-30T20:36:27Z")
> [@PeacePlease](#): > > I really think I’ve read the whole thread but if not, someone point me to the discussion of where is the MONEY??? What’s to discuss? Nobody knows. It could be hidden in the compound or it could be somewhere close by, or it could be at some random spot where nobody wound think to look (like the money drop points Mike showed Jesse). Maybe someone will stumble onto it by chance one day or maybe it’s just going to rot away. Nobody involved in this story is ever going to see it. Is Jesse’s money gone? I know they burned a little of it to fake out Walt during “To’hajiilee.” Could Jesse drive back to his house, pick up whatever is left, and use that $5 million to help provide for Brock and start a new life? ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/526 "2013-09-30T20:36:36Z")
> [@Subterraneanus](#): > > Fugitives wander around doing stuff all the time. Focus less on what’s possible, and more on what it means. On a show where they’ve gone to great efforts to keep it realistic, suddenly expecting the audience to accept the improbable if not outright impossible is not fair. I know in the past other plots were similarly farfetched, but at least they were spread thin over the seasons. This episode was nothing but improbable situations and coincidences in order to get the story to a certain place. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/527 "2013-09-30T20:39:06Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > So a nationally wanted fugitive is able to just wander around a restaurant fiddling with packets of sugar? No one asks him questions? No one recognizes him? And how does he get the ricin in the packet and then reseal it for Lydia to open? It’s been probably 6 months since all that happened. No one has given it much thought and he looks totally different then the man everyone is looking for. If some guy that was all over the news last March walked down the block now sporting a full beard, glasses and big head of hair do you think you’d recognize him…or even remember the news reports in the first place. I’m sure he’s careful, he probably avoids crowds and doesn’t hang out in one place for too long. He may even pay attention to the news to see if they mention his name or people spotting him in places where he’s been, but it’s been a while. Also, if the blue meth is still showing up in all the places it’s always been the police and DEA have every reason to believe he’s still in the NM area. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/528 "2013-09-30T20:40:16Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > I assumed that he tampered with the package beforehand (which shouldn’t be that hard, just slice it open, add the ricin, glue it back together carefully, and Lydia probably wouldn’t notice unless she looked for it), and then quickly swapped it at the table he knew Lydia would sit at before she got there. > > Still, no real guarantee that Lydia would put it in her tea, or worse, that someone else wouldn’t end up doing so instead of her. > > As for not being recognized, I guess the Lambert “disguise” looks different enough from any pictures of him shown on the news. No guarantee? He knows Lydia always sits at the same table and always loads her tea with Stevia. He met with her in the exact same coffee shop for months and knows her routine. I assume after Walt planted the sole Stevia packet, he hung around to make sure no one else used it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/529 "2013-09-30T20:44:39Z")
> [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](#): > > On a show where they’ve gone to great efforts to keep it realistic, suddenly expecting the audience to accept the improbable if not outright impossible is not fair. I know in the past other plots were similarly farfetched, but at least they were spread thin over the seasons. This episode was nothing but improbable situations and coincidences in order to get the story to a certain place. There were a lot of plot machinations the last couple of episodes, but this one didn’t feel like a big deal. It’s not that improbable that nobody in the coffee shop would recognize him. Who expects to see a wanted fugitive hanging around a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning? And he doesn’t even look like he did a couple of months ago: he has the beard and a full heard of hair and he’s lost so much weight his wedding ring fell off his finger. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/530 "2013-09-30T20:45:22Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What’s to discuss? Nobody knows. It could be hidden in the compound or it could be somewhere close by, or it could be at some random spot where nobody wound think to look (like the money drop points Mike showed Jesse). Maybe someone will stumble onto it by chance one day or maybe it’s just going to rot away. Nobody involved in this story is ever going to see it. Is Jesse’s money gone? I know they burned a little of it to fake out Walt during “To’hajiilee.” Could Jesse drive back to his house, pick up whatever is left, and use that $5 million to help provide for Brock and start a new life? Jesse’s $5 million was partly thrown out his car window and the rest confiscated by the police. Walt made a point to give money to Saul to fund Jesse’s disappearance to Alaska via Vacuum Repair guy Ed. When Jesse realized the Huell ricin setup, he rushed to the White residence with gasoline with the disappearance money in his car. It was taken by Hank when he convinced Jesse to come with him. I highly doubt that Hank let Jesse put the disappearance money in Jesse’s “house”. If the Nazis came across the money when they raided Hank’s home, they probably took the money. As for the Stevia, Walt probably took some from the coffee shop beforehand. I doubt he went to a store to buy those packets – too risky and there could be subtle differences that tips Lydia off. It’s not like Walt can easily research the exactly restaurant-style packets and order them off Amazon. ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Why_Bother)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/531 "2013-09-30T20:46:14Z")
> [@Living Well Is Best Revenge](#): > > On a show where they’ve gone to great efforts to keep it realistic, suddenly expecting the audience to accept the improbable if not outright impossible is not fair. I know in the past other plots were similarly farfetched, but at least they were spread thin over the seasons. This episode was nothing but improbable situations and coincidences in order to get the story to a certain place. I don’t know if I’d recognise [this guy](http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://media.heavy.com/media/2013/08/VQ6rp.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.heavy.com/entertainment/2013/08/breaking-bad-season-5-blood-money-review-premiere/&h=349&w=620&sz=34&tbnid=oUgZXrhyGpwb-M:&tbnh=59&tbnw=104&zoom=1&usg=__u3Jr7T-h1E5gVwhq6vPJa1QNP4w=&docid=HkQPyrcLfrbZMM&sa=X&ei=RuJJUt7eOY7xhQe20ICoBA&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQ9QEwAA) if all I had to go on were pictures of [this guy](https://www.google.co.uk/search?gs_rn=27&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=walter+white+beard&cp=4&gs_id=b4&xhr=t&q=heisenberg&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.53217764,d.d2k&biw=1600&bih=706&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=eOJJUr3ACIfwhQfcsICoDA#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=TPWIsAKddrKxaM%3A%3BodHZpNMZ3uZ0iM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.edmlounge.com%252Fstorage%252Fheisenberg.png%253F__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%253D1360440540556%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.edmlounge.com%252Fblog%252F2013%252F2%252F9%252Fpreview-walter-white-heisenberg-above-and-beyond.html%3B853%3B476), especially if I was just trying to relax with a cup of coffee and wasn’t paying attention. ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/532 "2013-09-30T20:50:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There were a lot of plot machinations the last couple of episodes, but this one didn’t feel like a big deal. It’s not that improbable that nobody in the coffee shop would recognize him. Who expects to see a wanted fugitive hanging around a coffee shop on a Tuesday morning? And he doesn’t even look like he did a couple of months ago: he has the beard and a full heard of hair and he’s lost so much weight his wedding ring fell off his finger. Yeah, true. I guess I am just nitpicking because I’ve loved this show since the beginning and I am really disappointed how it ended. ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/533 "2013-09-30T21:18:47Z")
> [@nivlac](#): > > More words to add to my vocabulary! Appreciate it. while we are at it, Walt appeared to overcome his [Anosognosia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia), or deficit in self-awareness… ---
**Author:** ![Euthanasiast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Euthanasiast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euthanasiast)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/534 "2013-09-30T21:50:20Z")
> [@5\_time\_champ](#): > > Jesse becomes a substance abuse counselor. Down the road, some television series needs to have a scene where one of the characters is in a substance abuse program, and Jesse is the counselor. He’s in the middle of one of the standard counselor speeches, and the main character goes off on him (much like Jesse did during his own counseling sessions). “Yeah? What do you know about it, Jesse? I mean we’re all opening up and shit, and all I’ve heard out of you is that it gets better or work the program or some other canned line your supposed to spew out to make us feel better. What the hell do you know about it?” The camera holds for a moment on Jesse the counselor… Off which: Cut to next scene. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/535 "2013-09-30T21:54:34Z")
Well, the quality of this ending takes away a lot of the bad aftertaste of the ending of _Dexter_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/536 "2013-09-30T22:02:50Z")
> [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](#): > > I don’t know if I’d recognise [this guy](http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://media.heavy.com/media/2013/08/VQ6rp.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.heavy.com/entertainment/2013/08/breaking-bad-season-5-blood-money-review-premiere/&h=349&w=620&sz=34&tbnid=oUgZXrhyGpwb-M:&tbnh=59&tbnw=104&zoom=1&usg=__u3Jr7T-h1E5gVwhq6vPJa1QNP4w=&docid=HkQPyrcLfrbZMM&sa=X&ei=RuJJUt7eOY7xhQe20ICoBA&sqi=2&ved=0CDAQ9QEwAA) if all I had to go on were pictures of [this guy](https://www.google.co.uk/search?gs_rn=27&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=walter+white+beard&cp=4&gs_id=b4&xhr=t&q=heisenberg&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.53217764,d.d2k&biw=1600&bih=706&dpr=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=eOJJUr3ACIfwhQfcsICoDA#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=TPWIsAKddrKxaM%3A%3BodHZpNMZ3uZ0iM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.edmlounge.com%252Fstorage%252Fheisenberg.png%253F__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%253D1360440540556%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.edmlounge.com%252Fblog%252F2013%252F2%252F9%252Fpreview-walter-white-heisenberg-above-and-beyond.html%3B853%3B476), especially if I was just trying to relax with a cup of coffee and wasn’t paying attention. It’s amazing how even changing the eyeglass frames can alter someone’s appearance. I like how they showed Walt’s eyewear change explicitly in Granite State when Ed brought a tray of various prescriptions for Walt to read the newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/537 "2013-09-30T22:15:55Z")
> [@Quercus\_alba](#): > > I thought the scene also underlined how shallow and superficial Elliot and Gretchen are, which makes it all the more likely that they’ll end up following Walt’s instructions to the letter. What in the scene indicated shallowness or superficialness? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/538 "2013-09-30T22:52:34Z")
From Grantland: [» Breaking Bad Series Finale: A Man Becomes a Legend in 'Felina'](http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/88359/breaking-bad-series-finale-a-man-becomes-a-legend-in-felina) > [@](#): > > I don’t know if “Felina” let Walt off too easy — I mean, he did die — but maybe it was too easy on us. In its final weeks, Breaking Bad had dipped its toes into the kind of muddy water nearly all popular entertainment does its best to avoid: one in which sentimentality and preexisting notions of justice played no part, one where breaking bad itself is an impossibility since everything was already so irreparably broken. And its audience was, for the most part, ready to dive right in with it and splash around. Instead, in the final hour, the show stayed high and dry, allowing Walt to pull off the happiest of all possible endings for himself. Like a critic, he was able to swoop in and point out his own failings. His final conversation with Skyler was magnificently staged and played, but it felt jarring to hear Walt say the words that those of us on this side of the screen had been repeating for months: “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was … alive.” This level of self-awareness, like the teary good-bye to a sleeping baby Holly, struck me as undeserved. > > In a world governed by Bunsen burners and scales it’s silly to talk of things being “deserved.” I’m not a judge. Walter White never even saw the inside of a courtroom. But still, it seemed both odd and at odds with everything that came before to see Walt redeemed like this. In the end, he really did outsmart everyone. Not to parse Pinkman’s proverbs, but wasn’t this a touch too much “Yeah, bitch!” at the expense of the science? All the swaggering outlaw clichés turned into Swiss cheese by agonizing, bullet-ridden episodes like “Ozymandias” were made whole again last night. The story of a man became, in its final hour, the story of a legend. It seems Walt’s hollow boast at the end of Season 4 was premature, not pathetic. In the end, he really did win. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/539 "2013-09-30T22:53:25Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > What are you envisioning that 10 to 25% being spent on, exactly? And how are they actually going to physically get that cash into the bank? In real life, my understanding is that billionaires use very little if any cash. It’s not like Scrooge McDuck. It would depend on what method they are using to get the money into the irrevocable trust. > [@](#): > > But most importantly: why even bother with it? How will their lives be any worse or changed in any way except for having more time to devote to other things, if they just burn the money? I’m not really that invested in how Gretchen & Elliott get the money to Flynn, I just know they will. Maybe they do just burn that money and use their own. The point I was making is people here act like our financial system is so tightly tied down that if you have $10m in cash that is proceeds of a crime there is no way you could get it into a trust for some other person. That’s just patently false, there are many ways it could be done and it is almost certainly the case that the vast majority of people that do such things get away with it. The government in the United States is primarily set up to catch you doing weird stuff with money like move it to known terrorist entities, or move it in a way to avoid taxes (and despite aggressively monitoring this, we still miss out on billions in tax evasion every year.) All I’m saying is if G&E wanted to follow the letter of Walt’s instructions, they could, and would almost certainly face little trouble in doing so. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591/540 "2013-09-30T22:54:17Z")
> [@Bob Ducca](#): > > Remember what Jesse told Hank. Walt isn’t just the smartest guy he knows, he’s also the luckiest. We saw a lot of that last night. Luckiest except for the cancer and cashing out of Gray Matter and his son having cerebral palsey thing. Heisenberg is lucky because he has no fear of death. He knows he is going to die. And he is smarter and more prepared than anyone he encounters in the generally stupid criminal underworld. Gus Fring was the dangerous equal. Not Hank, Saul, Jack, or Jesse. The dangers to Heisenberg were cancer, Gus and Heisenberg. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591.md?page=26) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/breaking-bad-5-16-felina-9-29-13-series-finale/669591.md?page=28)