Yes, the leveling with himself (and with Skyler), putting aside the self-justification, was crucial. I don’t think people would be praising the finale if Gilligan hadn’t included that scene. (And Gilligan is very much to be praised for the entire achievement that is Breaking Bad.)
Yes. I think that’s at the root of the ‘not quite satisfied’ reactions that some are posting. As many have noted, Walter was calm and at peace throughout the finale. There’s something about this that nags at us, and I think this is what it is:
No matter how frequently or vociferously it’s mentioned that Walter died with his son hating him and his reputation shredded and his body wracked with cancer….the fact is: he died with a smile on his face.
The entire duration of the finale, Walter had peace of mind. He’d accomplished what he set out to do in the very beginning: provide for his family. True, his family wasn’t with him at the end. But he had peace of mind. He smiled as he died.
The reason this bothers us, I think, is that Walter’s crimes were very unlike the crimes of someone like Macbeth (mentioned earlier in this thread as a parallel). Macbeth kills at least nine people in the name of his ambition. But what Macbeth doesn’t do is produce something that will kill thousands.
Walter has been making his money off something that isn’t really a recreational substance. It’s not like being a vintner, making wine that some will abuse but that most will enjoy…meth isn’t a ‘take it or leave it’ sort of substance. And Walter’s own rationalization–that if he doesn’t make it, someone else will–is belied by the storyline of the show. No one could make meth that was as pure and effective as Walter made, and the very quality of his product, logically, would have ensnared many more users than would have been the case had he not been cooking away.
I’m not trying to preach a sermon about meth; I’m pointing out that most of us know these facts–and were (I think) on some level bothered by the fact that they were simply ignored in the course of giving us a finale with a Walter who could die with a smile on his face.
In short: it’s his peace of mind that bothers us.
I think this could have been repaired by as little as one shot. Walter could have seen a headline somewhere (paper, television, or Internet) that mentioned some recent statistic on the number of deaths by heart attack, stroke, convulsions, etc., attributable to the product Walter had perfected and produced in large quantity. He could have reacted to it. Cranston is certainly up to the job of displaying some brand of shame or regret without resorting to cliché. He wouldn’t have had to dwell on it…but he should have felt it. For at least a moment.
I think that if some such moment had been included in the finale, it would have provided a counterpoint to the Peace of Mind choice that was probably inevitable, given the nature of episodic television.
At the end of a two-hour movie we can accept an anti-hero dying in mental anguish. But television is different. A mass audience wouldn’t accept mental anguish as the last moments of a character we’ve followed for over sixty episodes spanning nearly six years. Angry Defiance or Resigned Acceptance might each have worked for Walter’s last moments, as an alternative to Peace of Mind. But if Walter had died in full awareness of the misery he’d inflicted on thousands (not just on those he personally committed violence upon)–then today’s reviews for the finale would be outraged and contemptuous, instead of admiring and congratulatory.
Given that the realities of episodic TV meant that Walter was NOT going to die in mental anguish…the omission of at least some mention of what the character wrought, I think, is bothering many of us. The Peace of Mind aspect of the finale doesn’t seem fully….appropriate.
