I’m not sure what Flynn would do if he did get the money. Providing for his sister is a noble thing. It does go to show that Walt never stopped being Walt- for the entire series he kept ensnaring otherwise innocent people with his schemes and his secrets, and giving the money to Flynn would be more of the same. Either he has to take the money and sign off on what Walt did on some level, or he has to reject providing for Holly. And maybe Marie. I don’t think he’d spend too much on Skyler, but maybe in time he’d forgive her somewhat.
I wonder if he would even have to know it was from his Dad. Walt told them that Jr wouldn’t accept it from him so maybe they could say that it was from them, that since their dad wouldn’t accept money for treatment when they offered it to him a year ago, they set up a trust fund for the kids to be given to each of them on their 18th birthday in the event that their father had passed away because they loved Walt and regardless of how the events of the last 18 months unfolded that want to remember the old Walt and still want to make sure his children are taken care of blah blah blah …4.5 million to Walt Jr, 4.5 million to Holly and some chump change to Skyler. Or to really stick to what Walt said, all of it to Walt Jr since they didn’t know about Holly when they set it up.
Flynn was willing to let his dad buy him a car with gambling winnings, so he’s not completely immune to the lure of the material. That same kid at nineteen working in a Coffee Bean for a douchebag manager, riding the bus to the local junior college for night classes, and living on five hours of sleep a night might respond differently when a nine million dollar shows up in the mail.
The idea was that it would look like a gift from the Schwartzes. The question is whether or not he buys that story. If he doesn’t know too much about Gray Matter I suppose he might.
The circumstances were just a little different then.
Sure, and they’ll be a little different in a year or so when he finds out about the trust. I’m just saying that the phone call with his dad isn’t necessarily the only predictor of how he’ll respond to the trust.
And I didn’t see any evidence that he wouldn’t help his mom with the money either. He doesn’t know what we know about her. He’s still living with her, when he could have gone to live with Marie. We last saw him defending her from a psychopath who terrorized her into some degree of complicity, from Flynn’s point of view anyway. We don’t really know what has gone down between Flynn and Skyler since, do we? He was loyal to the point of naivete with his father. Why wouldn’t he be the with her as well.
There isn’t a lot of ambiguity in “You’re as bad as him.” And he did move out of the house at least for a little while. Things could thaw between Flynn and Skyler, but that seems like a permanently damaged relationship to me.
In fact, one of the B&J flavors Todd offered Jesse was “Americone Dream,” which is the flavor inspired by The Colbert Report.
Hmm, I didn’t remember that. I guess you’re right.
For what it’s worth: RJ Mitte (the actor who plays Junior/Flynn), said on Talking Bad after the finale that he thought that Flynn would accept the money, mainly because he would want to take care of his family, but that he would “probably need to work some things out first”.
As an irrevocable trust, it would be there waiting for however long it takes for him to decide what he wants to do.
But IMO speculating on what a character will do or feel after the story is done says more about the speculator’s frame of mind than anything else. Personally, I lean towards forgiveness. And I do that for me. 
But I think this particular story is a very unusual scenario for a child to process: Many people had parents who were criminals, but how many people “break bad” - to that degree - after fifty years of living the straight and narrow? The kid has all those years of an upstanding, totally supportive and loving father to weigh against the man he turned into at the end. I’d like to think he would be able to remember the good, and take the bad end as a cautionary tale for his own life going forward.
Anyway, I wouldn’t put too much stock in some of the things Flynn said to his parents at the end, as an indicator of how he’d feel about them later on. He’s a teenager. I’ve heard worse. Maybe even said worse myself.
Random question: how long was Walt in town after returning? Did he sleep somewhere? He had apparently already been driving, awake, for a long-ass time.
I was just as positive as can be that they wouldn’t be used as the impetus of the cliffhanger at the end of the penultimate episode and then not appear in the finale.
Yes, this. I was frankly puzzled by all the comments suggesting he wouldn’t share the money with his mom. “You’re as bad as him” was, let’s recall, before he fought off his father in the knife struggle with his mother, then made a phone call to the police that (unfairly, some viewers thought) put all the blame on the violent situation on his father.
I thought that whole scene was masterfully directed and acted, but although I’m totally not going to nitpick the stevia and so on, I did wonder about the security system. The way it was portrayed, once they are home and punch in the code, anyone can just walk into their house despite their having closed the door? That didn’t make sense to me.
I have no proof, but I strongly believe you are barking up the wrong tree there.
This is a good point. Everyone is assuming his money’s gone, but that might be wrong. The $5 million (or what was left of it) is surely impounded by the cops; but the money Walt gave him to take to “Alaska” might be still in play.
Was that shown, or are you assuming this? I think it’s possible he stopped at his house first, to get the gas can for instance.
You still haven’t backed that up, though. We’re assuming, right, that they aren’t going to involve anyone else in the conspiracy? And of course the bank has to report any cash deposit over ten grand. So they are going to make a *thousand *separate cash deposits of nine thousand dollars or so each, despite their not running any kind of business that generates cash? Again: billionaires may occasionally *withdraw *a little cash (if for nothing else, to pay for hookers and blow). But *deposit *it? That looks very strange.
What a strange post.
I thought they were just disarming the alarm now that they were home. I’ve seen alarm systems like that.
No, I think he’s right. Jesse’s just escaped slavery, beatings. imprisonment and/or sure death. And he knows Walt’s a goner, because he saw the wound, so he doesn’t have to worry about him anymore. It’s a great new world for him from now on.
A good episode, but I for one was a bit let down. A big part of the show’s brilliance was giving the viewers twists, turns & surprises that were always ‘telegraphed’ in a sense, if you knew what to look for, but without being obvious or stupid. The twists and turns were realistic (for the most part) or otherwise fit in within the Breaking Bad world. Walt’s fake confession tape implicating Walt. Using Tio to blow up Gus. The Nazis shooting Hank. All were shocking, in some way or another, but not simply for the sake for plot twists - they made sense within the show.
I thought this final episode was, perhaps more than any other episode, entirely too predictable. I (and, it must be said, over half the Internetz) 100% nailed the ‘Walt uses G&E to get his money to his family’ bit. I thought the ‘ricin/Stevia for Lydia’ was a bit too obvious for the show, not realizing that this final episode would be all about the uber-obvious. I knew immediately when Marie called Skyler that Walt would already be in the room (so much for the great ABQ police dept and their monitoring capabilities) and I knew he’d tell her where Hank was buried.
The only surprise for me was Jesse getting out and getting away alive, although I don’t think we can say Jesse is ‘free’ in any sense of the word - after Walt with Holly, I think the maniacal laugh as Jesse drives away was one of the saddest moments in the episode. I’m not sure that him going free is a ‘happy ending’ for him; after everything he’s been through physically and emotionally (Gale, Andrea, Jane, Drew, Tomas) I can’t see any happy ending for Jesse, not to mention he’s still going to be very much a known, wanted criminal in the ABQ area for a very long time, and that’s before we get to what evidence might still be left at the compound (for starters his fingerprints are all over that meth lab).
One point I found interesting was wondering what Walt’s original plan was when he got to the compound. He knew Jesse was alive and cooking, but didn’t realize he was basically a slave, being kept in chains. And Jesse wasn’t in the compound when he arrived. Was Walt going to try and get Jesse into the compound before the shooting started? His last words to Uncle Jack before Jack was going to have him sent out back to get shot was stall by saying that ‘you owe me, you still haven’t killed Pinkman’. Despite coming clean and having a bit of self-awareness with Skyler, it doesn’t sound to me like Walt was harboring any good tidings for Jesse - until the moment he sees Jesse in chains, *he still wanted to kill him. *Which makes me wonder to what extent he really was ‘self-aware’ in his meeting with Skyler. He still obviously had some Heisenberg in him, no?
One of the greatest shows of all time, brilliant writing and brilliant acting. I give the finale 8/10; execution was brilliant even though I was disappointed that the final act was telegraphed so far in advance.
Raisin Bran CRUNCH, bitches!
Yep. In a way, Walt won. It will be very interesting to see how that ending ages in our perceptions. I don’t think it will affect BB’s reputation as “one of the best ever” one way or another - just curious.
I think, up close, we identify with Walt via Cranston’s amazing performance, and we also don’t want to see beloved characters suffer. But this ain’t your 2,000-year-old grandpa’s Greek Tragedy…
I thought I was the only one underwhelmed by the finale but DragonAsh has covered many of the things that I thought were blindingly obvious while watching the show. I was disappointed by the fairy tale nature of the events - the ridiculous happy ending for Flynn and Skyler with the $9,000,000, Walt kills the guy who killed Hank, Jesse kills the guy who killed Andrea. They even telegraphed the gun in the trunk of the car to ruin that surprise.
As to Walt’s plan on arrival I assumed that he taunted Jack into getting Jesse so that the M60 would kill all of them - the Nazis, Jesse and himself. At the sight of Jesse he decided to save him. In fact when Walt is shot he is laying with his right side over Jesse so is presumably hit from behind, saving Jesse again.
riginally Posted by Enderw24 View Post
Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Jesse Pinkman’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and Flynn have ever had.
It’s a Fight Club reference with a Walt Jr. breakfast joke for good measure. The Raymond K. Hessel scene in particular.
Heh. It was a modified quote from Fight Club.
I thought it fit the situation.
“And that was the day Albuquerque ran out of bacon.”
It’s better with anticipation than as a surprise.
I really enjoyed the finale. While I did think there were things you could see coming, it didn’t bother me because I knew there wouldn’t be any twists and turns, it was all being wrapped up. Of course we knew he was going to use the gun on the Nazi’s…he came right out and said it in Granite State.
I watched this again last night and haven’t seen this mentioned…a lot of people are complaining that he was able to move around so freely around ABQ…but this was addressed when Marie and Skyler were on the phone and Marie said that the police were getting numerous anonymous calls about threats on different parts of the city, which was spreading them pretty thin as they went to check on the calls.