Breaking Bad - "ABQ" Season Finale 5/31 (Open Spoilers)

Cafe Society
41

He knows what Jane’s father looks like. He talked to him at the bar. He heard his story about his daughter. He see’s a tv news showing Q (Janes father) talking about the air traffic controller error, perhaps he sees a picture of Jane in the story as well, or maybe Jesse notes its Janes father (he aint living permanently in rehab, remember its been like 2 months since the overdose), or maybe Walt just puts 2 and 2 together.

All we are missing is one little encounter or coincidence or whatever and the connection will be firmly made.

42

Gus probably did know about Hank, but he’s smart enough to know that he might not have all the information about Walt. He took the opportunity to mention Walt and read Hank’s body language, etc. and see if he got any weird vibes. Gus is one cool cucumber.

Oh, he’ll find out. Easily. It will be all over the news–nationwide or even a worldwide story. Plane crashes of big passenger jets are always news. Mid-air collisions? Even more so. And the circumstances of this one? “Air Traffic Controller Allowed Back to Work Too Soon After Tragic Heroin Death of his Daughter.” The media will be all over this one.

I was surprised, though, that he was allowed back to work right away without anyone to back him up or whatever. I’d have liked to see that addressed in some way, like if the guy in the coffee room had been his supervisor and suggested that he have someone sit in with him, only to be reassured, "no, I’m fine."They could have easily worded it so as not to give away that he was an ATC.

I know, right? That was not “movie grief.” That was the kind of genuine awful uncontrollable blubbering that, unfortunately, most of us have experienced. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing on TV or in a movie.

I’d love to see Cranston and Paul get matching Emmys.
Anyway, I think the plane crash will have HUGE implications for next season.

First of all, it will probably draw immense additional attention to Jane’s death. The Fixer fixed things for an ordinary investigation. Who knows if the job will stand up to ultra-close examination?

More importantly, as far as I can remember, this was the first time that Walt’s actions have led to the deaths of “innocent bystanders.” And so many of them, too! The planes collided right over a heavily populated area, so there could be immense collateral damage and additional casualties. The other people that he’s killed or had a part in the killing of were mostly drug dealers and junkies, right? You can say “if you play with fire, you might get burned.” The DEA agents (and their Mexican counterparts) might have been innocent, but they weren’t “bystanders,” if you know what I mean. The people on the plane were just minding their own business.

How will he react to the fact that his conscious choice to let Jane die led to that?

43

Just reading all of these posts is making me scream “Bring on the new season now!!!”

When does it come back, by the way?

And I concur with those that have said that both of the lead actors in this series are AMAZING and definitely deserve Emmy nods. Brian Cranston is so, so good and Aaron Paul really was fantastic, especially in this episode.

44

Incidentally, I don’t understand how people can hold Walt morally responsible for the plane crash. Yeah, he’s a murderer for what he did to Jane, but it’s not his responsibility to look after the competence of the air traffic controller staff; if they have such lax safeguards as that a single controller with emotional baggage from their personal life (a situation which surely arises often enough anyway) can assume duty and cause such destruction, then that’s on their heads, not Walt’s.

45

Ding!

It’s that same sound from Tuco’s Uncle Tio or whatever.

The ding that separated them from death via Tuco and separated Jesse from a whole lot of trouble in the interrogation room.

46

The Wikipedia doesn’t say, which is probably an indication that it hasn’t been announced yet.

47

True. I don’t see him as morally responsible for the crash, but the fact is that if he never started this thing, never got involved with Jesse, etc. etc. etc., that plane crash may very well have never happened. It’s a whole chain of events, a “butterfly effect” thing (as I think the guy says in the previously linked interview), where Walt’s actions and decisions cascade down the line to have consequences for innocent people all over the place. Similar to The Wire or some such where a decision made at City Hall cascades down through the police, through the drug dealers, through some corner kids, and has consequence for some poor random school kid (for Wire aficionados, I’m not reference any one specific incident here). Compared to situations in a show like that, though, this particular chain of people and events is relatively short…it’s very possible, even likely, that Walt will find out who Jane’s father was and that his decision to let her die set in motion the events that killed 100 or so innocent people. If he has any sort of normal conscience, that will have to eat at him, whether one can consider him actually responsible for it or not.

If I’m chasing a little kid around the yard, say horseplay, and he runs out into the street and gets killed…even if I didn’t chase him out there, I would still have to live with that result, and it would be hard. Not a perfect analogy, but even if I’m not directly responsible for putting him in front of the car, setting in motion the events that led to it would be a terrible burden to bear regardless.

48

I really hope it comes back in the fall, but I think the last 2 seasons have both been released in January.

sigh

And yes, Emmys all around.

49

Yeah, it is probably a January release heavy sigh. Back in the olden days (get off my lawn) ALL the new TV shows always started with school in September. And then, for you kids out there, school AND the TV shows went from September till May with maybe one or two shows being pre-empted around Christmas.

When great, intelligent shows like this come around, I dream fondly of the past…

50

What a crap reveal. I don’t care if they somehow tie together the plane crash, Q, Jane’s death, Jesse’s rehab, Skyler’s Colombo-impression, Hank’s investigation, and Chicken Man’s plot line. That was a bullshit move to have three or four teasers, with bodybags and a smashed up Pontiac Aztek… and then have it be a goddamned plane crash.

Just real bush league bullshit. Bah.

Still, I’ll keep watching the show for the acting. Shout-outs have already been given to Cranston and Paul, but I was also really impressed with Q. He shouted “devastated” without ever raising his voice above a gentle murmur.

But c’mon, next time, spare us the “OooOOOooOOOoo something mysterious and dastardly happened! And you don’t know what it is! Is it Walt and Skyler in those bags? Jesse and Jane (hah, just noticed that)? Hank and his annoying wife? Haha! You’re wrong! It was a plane crash!”

If you want to use the plane crash as a plot device, fine, but don’t milk your pseudo-tension for four episodes.

51

Oh, come off it. The whole lead up to the plane crash was like a practical joke on the audience, or a shaggy dog story. I laughed when the teddy bear fell out of the sky into Walt’s pool.

To be fair, I also laughed when the screen blacked out in the last Sopranos episode, so maybe I just find it funny when a TV show deliberately pisses off its audience.

52

From the Gilligan interview (linked to upthread):

*Sepinwall: Let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. I liked the ending, but I can imagine some people – who had built it up in their minds that the Mexican cartel was coming for Walt, and/or that the bodies in the bags were Skyler and Ted Beneke, or whatever – feeling cheated that it’s not remotely what they thought it was going to be.

Gilligan: There may be some folks who feel that way. By and large I hope they don’t feel that way. If folks figure it out for themselves, or learn about the meaning of the names of the episodes, they’d realize we were planning this for a very long time. It’s not a random event, but in fact a cosmic indictment of Walt’s life choices of late. And my philosophy is if you can guess it’s the cartel, and it turns out to be the cartel – well, as a viewer, I’d rather be surprised. *

I totally agree. It’s fun to speculate and be right, but it’s even more fun to be surprised.

53

I thought Walt said he didn’t want to do the money laundering, website thing? When did he say it was OK?

54

Enright3, we didn’t see him agree to it, but we didn’t see the the end of Saul and Walt’s discussion. I think it’s happening. Walt couldn’t come up with anything better.

55

I going to bet that given the exposure that Walt is now getting on the news, that his ‘donations’ will exceed the amount of laundered money. He is going to go viral!

56

Actually, there are, in the cockpit. You have to suspend belief in this case.

And watching all the reveals, I had to figure that, whatever was going on, it did **not ** have anything to do with a cartel hit or meth explosion or anything like that. It just would’ve been too obvious. Plus I can’t think of how the obvious explanations wouldn’t have cut down the length of the series.

57

I had an idea how the episode was going to end, though no idea that it would be caused by Donald. With the guys in the hazmat suits cleaning up before the camera panned back to show a NTSB vehicle and two big plumes of smoke, and the episode title “ABQ,” I immediately said “Plane crash!”

Count me in the surprised and happy with the way they ended this season. Great story telling, IMHO.

58

Me too. As mentioned upthread, it was way better than other shows, with their “A favorite character will be gone in a very special episode!” teasers. Those shows have to do that to keep people tuning in. With Breaking Bad, the teddy bear teaser wasn’t a carrot – it was come play with us, let’s have some fun.

59

I think the interesting question is not whether we think Walt is responsible for the plane crash, but whether he thinks he’s responsible. How will he react?

Through the course of this season, we’ve seen a kind of Jekyll/Hyde split developing. So, not only do we have to consider Walt’s reaction to the crash, but also Heisenberg’s. Will it cause him to become more Heisenberg-ish? What if the plane crash makes him want to retreat from his Heisenberg side, but he finds he stuck with that persona whether he likes it or not. Heisenberg is protected by the fact that he’s a scary mofo. Walter White? Not so much.

Anyway, I liked the device of the plane crash combined with that of Flynn’s website. In both cases, Walt and the effects of his actions went low visibility to high visibility. They’re not quite parallel, but they’re moving in the same direction.

I saw some random speculation that Walt might use the plane crash as a means to fake his own death and go underground. I’m not sure how he’d pull it off, though. It’s an interesting thought in any case.

60

Awesome finale for an awesome show. So many great visuals, but I’ll just add two I haven’t seen mentioned yet.

[li] The heartbreaking scene of Donald laying out Jane’s dress on the bed; cut to what I thought was Donald’s flashback, then pan out and it’s Walt’s daughter on the bed in the same pose.[/li]
Cuts between both Jesse and Walt sitting alone by a swimming pool, crushed over losing their loved ones.