Marie also would have told the DEA what she knows about Jesse’s part in the investigation when she told them everything she’s aware of that led to Hank’s disappearance. I don’t see life getting easier for him but even if he ends up in an Aryan Brotherhood filled prison, he’s free of Walter White, I guess.
I think that Lydia is the one who sent the cops to the compound, so telling her about the ricin was necessary for that.
Loved it. And this is coming from someone who didn’t initially like where the show was heading with the relatively dull nazi antagonists.
But even so, everything came together brilliantly. And was totally surprised by the Grey Matter twist at the start (though I totally guessed the laser-pointers).
My only potential qualm: Was it ever explained how Walt even got a hold of the dude who sold him the gun?
Yes, the guy who sold him the M60 was Lawson (played by Jim Beaver) who had previously sold him the revolver in “Thirty-Eight Snub”.
If I were Gretchen and Eliot, billionaires, I would burn the money Walt left with them and then give Flynn the exact same amount (minus attorney’s costs, etc.). Why hassle with illegally laundering it, when ten million bucks out of your own pocket is close to a rounding error? Plus it would be like a secret “fuck you” to Walt, since it was so important to him that his actual money get to Flynn, “not a penny” of theirs.
He was not shown definitively to die, though it’s certainly all set up to take it that way if you wish.
I agree that it is likely he takes pride in his work, is not a total murdering scumbag, etc. But it is not correct that he “did straight-up tell Walt that if he came to the cabin and found him dead he was going to take all the money”. He only left the implication hanging in the air with his question “if I said yes, would you believe me?”.
You may object that the message was delivered either way. But I still like to think that we can and should be more precise in our language than to characterise implying something to someone as “straight up telling” someone something.
Has anyone ever done some kind of psycholinguistics study to determine why this particular switch is so common? I think I’ve finally conquered it for the most part, but I used to do it a lot myself.
I thought this finale was great. But I don’t want that to be the rule for all finales for all shows. I thought the Sopranos ending, for instance, was magnificent. Didn’t Vince say so as well on Talking Bad? (I didn’t see it as I don’t have cable and had to wait until 3 a.m. to watch the finale on iTunes; but I read on another site that he said that.)
I agree, and he may even go back and redo his confession. They say it’s good for the soul, and Jesse sure seemed to feel that way.
Me too.
That is an insanely great idea but obviously also problematic. I have no inside knowledge, but I can totally imagine them shooting something like that, and then sitting in the editing room going back and forth agonising about whether to leave it in or take it out.
Oh, ouch. When you put it like that, it does sound a bit grim for Jesse. I had thought of the fact that Walt did not take care of the whole gang by a long shot as so many were in prison (at least, what, thirty that we saw in the montage?); but I was just hoping that none of them were clued in about Skyler or anything.
You mean how he found him originally back in the second episode of Season Four? Or had you forgotten that appearance?
My only quibble is that did, to no small degree, redeem himself and “win.”
He ended up providing for his family’s future, both monetarily and with a threat eliminated. He rescued Jesse from a living hell. He had some sort of comeuppance and the Schwartzs.
While they did that well (and it was very well done) I personally would have preferred they had a less “happy” ending done that well.
I enjoyed the finale very much and thought it was a great end to a great show. I’m glad Jesse got to choke the life out of Todd and escape, but how far can he go on a single tank of gas (even assuming it’s full) and no money? Maybe he’ll visit Badger & Skinny Pete and they will give him some cash.
[QUOTE=Tarwater]
Sepinwall has posted his review and it reflects exactly how I’m currently feeling about the finale; i.e., it wrapped up the series perhaps a little too neatly and it’s going to take some mulling over before I can say whether or not it was wholly satisfying.
[/QUOTE]
Basically this - love the show, and in no way want to rain on the parade of the finale, but I am still digesting how it ended.
Walt getting to resolve things and die with his Baby Blue definitely works - but does it get to the heart of the tragedy of Walt’s pride? And how important was it to do that?
Oh, and was it just me, or when Skyler was on the phone and the camera lingered on shots of her with her cigarette - didn’t you want her long, blonde hair to fall in front of one eye, like Veronica Lake in a 1940’s hard-boiled noir film? She looked downright sultry.
I mentioned this earlier, but there’s no laundering involved, per se. They’re running a charity. They can say they can put the cash in the charity’s checking account, claim it as an anonymous donation and it’s laundered. If they don’t want to do it all at once, they could do it over the course of several years.
Something that bothered me about that scene is that Walt said it was 9 million and change but then he said something about giving Walt Jr 20 million in the trust. Did I just mishear the numbers?
He was referring to the 28 million donation to the meth rehab, as explanation to them (and us) of why they were going to be the ones able to get away with a level of money laundering that no one else had achieved in the show so far.
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.
My first thought was “wow, that was really cool” but also “you know, it did almost tie everything up a little too neatly.” But I was over that about ten minutes later, I came to realize that just because classics like The Wire and The Sopranos have final endings that didn’t tie everything up. The Wire ends with several of the major villains rich and living happy, and several of the protagonists losing their jobs and careers. And without starting an argument, the Sopranos ending is genuinely ambiguous, the closest the show creator ever came to showing his hand was by alluding to the scene at the end of Planet of the Apes where Heston sees the Statue of Liberty. David Chase notes that most viewers are shocked to find out that Heston has been on Earth, whereas he looked at it as “weird, they have a Statue of Liberty on that planet too.” Basically what I draw from that is he’s making an argument that even if you think something is very close to being obviously spelled out, you can’t necessarily just believe that your assumptions are correct. In a sense telling us that there is no “correct” interpretation to the fade to black.
With Breaking Bad Gilligan gave us a traditional, movie-esque ending that does resolve most of the issues with the plot. I then recognized that if you execute that well (which I feel he did) it doesn’t matter that it is “conventional.” Conventional doesn’t = bad, Gilligan gave as a conventional ending and I think it worked perfectly for Breaking Bad. In many ways it made a lot more sense for this series than an ambiguous ending did. The Wire was an extremely morally ambiguous show, so its ending made perfect sense–it always went for a type of hyper-realism you didn’t see in Breaking Bad. The Sopranos was always very metaphysical with weird dream states and such from Tony, in addition to being morally ambiguous itself. A traditional ending may not have made sense with that show either. With Breaking Bad it really did.
Walt didn’t win at all, but he was self-aware. He recognized “I had no reason to do this other than I was dying and it made me want to do something where I could feel like I was successful and respected, doing it has ruined my family and killed many innocent people, but that is what it is.” He wasn’t apologetic, he may have felt some minor degree of regret, but that’s it–and at that he was probably only regretful when he saw Flynn walking into the apartment, because he knew that for the rest of his life Flynn would be ashamed of and hate the man that was his father.
Yeah, those two would probably have not done it if not for Badger and Skinny Pete. They’d sit there in their mansion scared shitless for a few days then call their attorney and ask for advice, and he’d tell them to get the DEA on the phone.
Those red laser pointers put a fear in those milquetoast people that won’t be easily shaken. Gretchen and Elliott seem like probably the worst thing that has happened to them in years (until Walt blackened the good name of their company) was a waiter spilling their coffee or something. They simply don’t have the ability to handle the level of personal fear and intimidation that Walt put into them, they’re going to set up the trust and Walt Jr will get the money.
Walt Jr is set for life but what about Holly…did I miss something?
I wondered that too. Walt did say he hoped Junior would use the money to care for his family (mother and sister included. Maybe even Marie, as needed).
Last night I was reflecting on this type of thing. There were a lot of improbable, if not preposterous, events:
[ul]
[li]Walt evading the police in the first place[/li][li]Walt getting into the Schwartz’s so easily[/li][li]The LEOs only watching the front of Skyler’s place, so Walt could get in the back[/li][li]The Aryan Brotherhood not checking the trunk[/li][li]The AB not killing Walt immediately[/li][/ul]
And really, the series is full of equally problematic developments.
I think it comes down to this: get the characters and the emotions right, and the audience will carry a LOT of disbelief for you on things like this. It’s necessary for Walt to talk to Skyler and see Holly and Flynn, so he can. As long as the scene in the house is effective (and BTW, did Gilligan use that pillar brilliantly, or what?) and the interactions ring true, I for one will happily gloss over the difficult plot bits. And I think a lot of viewers are the same.
$10 million is going to leave a paper trail. And “anonymous” (in relation to the donation) is referencing the recipients. The charity, on the other hand, knows who the donors are and is legally required to keep records, receipts, etc, just like a business (I’m no expert, but I would bet the IRS wants to know about every large dollar donation.) A charity can’t just come up with $10m and say “Hey, we don’t know where it came from!” 
Their best option (from our omniscient viewpoint): Go to the Feds, turn over the money, use their power and influence to find who was out there that night.
What they’ll likely do (best case scenario): Destroy the cash and give Flynn Jr. his $10m irrevocable trust out of their own pockets. They can even start a website, asking for donations. 
Worse option for them is to do anything with the money. AuntiePam is right - they need to get rid of it.
Walt said the trust was to be specified it was for Flynn to do whatever he saw fit with the money. Presumably he’d take care of his mother and sister.
Nice subverting of our expectations with Gretchen and Elliot. When Walt caught them on tv at the bar in NH, everybody assumed he got fired up with revenge. But it was actually a light bulb going off for Walt-- his central dilemma at that point was how he could get money to his family in a way they’d accept, and that the DEA wouldn’t confisticate.
I think you are wrong. Just because someone has a charity doesn’t mean that they can avoid all of the laws about money laundering. It’s still illegal to do anything with the money without having the banks file all the appropriate paperwork.
Also, the charity they founded was for drug treatment facilities in the Southwest. It can’t possibly be legal for them to use charitable funds for the benefit of one person (i.e., Walter White Jr).
It’s a private charity. They aren’t bound like that. They can change the purpose so long as they aren’t violating any laws, like embezzling, fraud, etc.
Well I got some of it right. Grey Matter was going to somehow get the Children a Trust Fund, and in the shootout with the Nazis learn that Jesse suffered and save Jesse. Walter was coming back to make the world right, not revenge, since he didn’t take the Nazis money they stole from him. The lyrics of the finale music tipped me off.