It just occurred to me that Jesse is exhibiting a lot of the classic signs of suicidal ideation.
I’m consistently surprised by this show, so I fully expect to be wrong here.
I voted the whole White clan, because I think it would take at least one of them dying for Walt to get where he is now, and I don’t really see him leaving them if there’s someone left to protect. If someone else doesn’t get Walter, his cancer will get him soon afterward. At two years, he’s already at the outside of the normal life expectancy for a person with what seems to be an aggressive lung cancer.
I initially thought that Jesse’s death might be the catalyst that leads to Walt buying a machine gun, but after the conversation about Mike in the last episode, I don’t think Walter cares about him enough to avenge him. However, I still picked Jesse to die. Having him live at this point is just torturing the character.
Lydia should die just because someone should finish Mike’s business for him. It’ll probably be Declan’s doing. Which would be unsatisfying, but seems to fit the story.
I’m thinking everyone else lives, Saul goes on to his own show, Badger gets a screen writing job, and Skinny Pete goes to Juilliard. Since this show surprises me all the time, it’ll probably be even better than that.
I don’t see them letting Lydia live, in a way most other characters in the show that have roughly been in her position have died. She’s involved high up in the meth business and isn’t Walt & Jesse–note Mike/Tuco/Gus and several of their associates have not made it through. Plus Lydia isn’t a big enough part of the show that her dying is even a huge deal, it’ll just be something that happens.
I suspect Hank and Jesse die. Jesse is going to die in a really tragic or depressing way (or both), because he’s clearly the fan favorite and the only person inside the meth business people identify with. That to me means Gilligan won’t be able to pass up on the urge to kill him off possibly in the penultimate episode (sort of like a similar Sopranos character who dies a few episodes before the end.)
Hank I think dies as sort of the only real noble character (Jesse has a good heart but isn’t noble, he is a career criminal and has done a lot of bad things), Hank despite starting off as not looking like much has ended up developing into a relentless investigator with a strong moral core. I’ll note Hank is one of if not the only character in Breaking Bad to have a moral failing, and he immediately takes full responsibility and is ready to accept the full consequences. I think he gets killed trying to take Walt down, if not by Walt directly then somehow the plot moves in a direction where someone thinks they’re “helping” Walt by killing Hank.
After that, I think Skyler dies because she basically has to die. I don’t think Gilligan has the cojones to kill any of the kids, but he can kill Skyler off so the long dreaded “loss of a White family member” happens to Walt.
I can’t even guess as to how Walt ends, I think there’s a chance he ends up not dying violently and the series ends with him totally miserable, his family ruined and his life a waste and we’re left to assume he dies of lung cancer at some point after the conclusion of the series. But I also wouldn’t be shocked if Walt does die in the Scarface style shootout that Gilligan has somewhat hinted at for years now.
Skylar and Holly. Walt Jr. somehow stops Walt from killing Hank. Walt Jr. gets the message to his dad that he does not think he is a monster but just a pathetic soul; the worst punishment Walt could have before he dies, of cancer, coughing up blood, in front of Walt Jr., fulfilling Walt’s nightmare of his son’s lasting memory of him being as his was of his dad: as a weak pathetic dying shell of a person.
Jesse I did not click even though I think rational Gilligan won’t be able to resist killing him off. I just want to see him flash forward studying chemistry and becoming the successful research scientist that Walt never was. I could also accept the full turn about of Jesse saving Hank’s life (rather than Walt Jr. doing it) and see that flip being something that would appeal to Gilligan.
Lydia, who cares?
I’d be pretty surprised if the plot hinged on Walt Jr that much. He’s probably the character the show has spend the least time developing.
Good point. Have Jesse flip to saving Hank (after having wanted him dead). Even dying in the process; suicide by heroism. But Walt dying knowing that his surviving child’s lasting image of him is of a weak pathetic dying man (his own memory of his father; his expressed nightmare for himself) seems apt.
I think Lydia’s daughter might be killed as a sign/foreshadowing that “We’re not above killing kids”.
I wonder what the purity of your average street meth is. (I’d google it, but I’m at a public computer at the moment.)
I did just google it, and the answer seems to be (perhaps not surprisingly) “it varies wildly.” In a DOJ report, it discusses “ice”, with purity ranging from 85 to “almost 100” percent. It also mentions that the average purity of “exhibits analyzed” in LA between 1997 and 1999 decreasing from 66 to 44 percent. (Old information, I know, but it’s what I came up with on a quick google search.) So while Walt’s blue meth appears to be what the kids these days call “some good shit”, it’s not particularly unique.
[QUOTE=LawMonkey]
So while Walt’s blue meth appears to be what the kids these days call “some good shit”, it’s not particularly unique.
[/QUOTE]
And the 68% wouldn’t be the worst- probably on the fair end of ‘fair to middlin’'. (Thanks for the info.)
I wonder if Todd/Declan are just inept or if it’s being deliberately cut. Walt said that Declan had been using blue food coloring to imitate Heisenberg’s product, so we already know they’re on the Big Lots end of the game.
I wonder what happened to Don Eladio’s lab when he and the chemist died. Not everybody in there was killed at the swimming pool (that hit, btw, is perhaps the most far fetched moment in the entire show upon reflection) and Jesse had shown them how to do a very high quality cook.
[QUOTE=Frazzled]
Speaking of Lydia, it’s been killing me trying to remember where I’d seen her face before. Finally realized that she’s Kate the Farrier from “A Knight’s Tale”
[/QUOTE]
I had a similar moment trying to recognize an actor playing the somewhat portly and effete Congressman who introduced the 13th Amendment in Lincoln before realizing and almost saying aloud in the theater “Gale Boetticher!”
Breaking Bad began with Walt about to die and him wanting to care for the people he loves, it’ll end with him alive and everyone he cares about dead or fleeing from him.
It’s funny just about everyone believes Saul is going to make it. I think so too.
[QUOTE=Sitnam]
It’s funny just about everyone believes Saul is going to make it. I think so too.
[/QUOTE]
The proposed Saul spinoff is one of the best ideas for a show I’ve heard in a long time, especially after years and years of “perhaps dark and troubled but at least always ultimately ethical” lawyers on the 209 L&O shows and their clones. However, I don’t see how it could work as a prequel- if you know that Saul ultimately gets blown up on the toilet it would be a downer and limit how long it could run and at some point you’d have to introduce Walt and Jesse and crew as characters- so unless it’s a red herring he’s got to live.
Though I do wonder if the show could work were he disbarred. And I hope there’s a role for Huell.
I wonder if Breaking Bad could potentially spawn a franchise (I’m misusing that word) that will span decades, à la Star Trek or Star Wars.
I voted Hank and Jesse, but I don’t know why. Maybe because they seem the most unlikely to die (though Hank is becoming more of a candidate after the season premiere).
He’ll be the only main-cast character who fell head-first into this pile of doo-doo and came up smelling like Paco Rabbane.
What I don’t want to see is Walt dying at the finale a la Pacino in Godfather III, after the incredible denoument that nobody saw coming and Walt simply having to succumb to the cancer. Wealthy, finally coming out of the smoke a survivor after the big finish and then - ACK! the cancer gets him.
My vote was for Marie to go. And Saul. Saul has to go in order to have Walt do something heroic to avenge his death after all the service he gave, despite his questionable morality. Marie, well, she’s just a nosey jerk. Maybe her death is something that will give Hank and Walt a common ground to bury the hatchet over. Marie dies from a failed Czech plot to kill Walt and she gets caught up instead (and maybe the baby as well). Jesse and Walt do something to avenge her death (because Jesse’s got the rule about kids) and Hank is a witness. Hank decides to let go of the entire investigation because he witnesses them in the act and lets them both walk off into the sunset with a boatload of cash.
My guess is that everyone who knows who Walt is will die except for Hank. Holly’s coincidental death is my WAG for what sends Walt into M-60, Custer’s last stand territory. Walt is still alive at the end of the show tormented by the death/rejection of everyone he loved as he faces a slow painful death from metastatic lung cancer in a prison hospital.
I think Gomez deserves a mention. Of all the people on the show his dying would probably bum me out the most. He seems like an all around good dude who just wants to do his part in making the world a little better off.
Jesse shoots Walt in front of Hank.
Hank rings up Gomes and says “Heisenberg’s been shot. Round up the usual suspects”.
Jesse & Walt take the cash and fly off to Grand Cayman as the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Not sure if this has been posted in any of the BB threads – apologies if it has.
Theory that the ricin is for Skyler, and why. It’s quite interesting, in particular the wedding rings – who’s wearing/not wearing theirs and when.
“Walt” wakes up in bed (with a full head of hair). He shakes the woman sleeping next to him.
“Lois–I just had the weirdest dream!”
“Shut up, Hal. Let me sleep.”
Frankie Muniz enters, on crutches…
The End.