This is a Tragedy - in the way of Shakespeare’s Tragedies.
Walt is going to die - the question is whether he will be redeemed, i.e., seen as sympathetic and aware of all of his failures, by either himself before he dies, or framed that way by those that survive him. Or will he just go down hard and unredeemed, i.e., Richard III looking for a horse as he collapses on the battlefield.
Given Cranston as an actor who can sell the ambiguity, I opt for him realizing his sins, and beginning to envision redemption - but dying based on all the damage he wrought.
He will NOT merely end up with nothing or in jail, a cruel return to his loser beginnings - that is a Twilight Zone ironic-zinger ending (love 'em, but that is not the currency this show trades in). For a tragedy this ambitious, he must die.
ETA: I voted “dies” - but I don’t “hope” that - I merely see it as required.
If Walter White were a real person, obviously, he’d DESERVE to die.
But from a dramatic/artistic perspective, I have no idea what will happen or what will work best.
Bad characters don’t always get their comeuppance in real life, and they don’t always get it in fiction. Occasionally, they come out on top.
So, while I’d be horrified if a real-life equivalent of Walter White got away scot-free, it wouldn’t NECESSARILY bother me if the fictional Walter White did.
I believe that the point of the story is exactly that: All of us have the capability to be monsters or flawed saints, it depends on how we react to the situation we are placed in. Walt had many options when he found he was diagnosed with cancer, varying from accepting the treatment and fate that he already had available, to becoming a drug kingpin in pursuit of securing a future for his family. He was intelligent enough to become a drug kingpin at any time, but he didn’t feel any pressure to do so. When he starts doing it, he finds he likes it.
Jesse, in contrast, saw no real future outside of becoming the biggest drug dealer he could be. He was a small time monster. He wasn’t particularly applying himself at that, but his pressures were few, and mostly manageable. When he starts seeing the possibility of a better life, he tries to achieve it. However, his situation with Walt and his own moral code make that difficult, and he performs more monstrous acts as a result.
On the other hand, maybe it’s as simple a contrast as good head/faulty heart vs. faulty head/good heart. I can see that argument being made, too.
Damn, are you sure you don’t write this show? Because if we brush the particulars of how we get to that scene aside, that’s really the question of these eight episodes.
I don’t really root for stuff in shows- and isn’t Walt’s death is a foregone conclusion anyway? The whole show began when he started dying of cancer. If he’s not dead in the final scene, he’ll meet some kind of fate worse than death, alone with his pride and on the verge of dying, knowing he destroyed everything he cared about and accomplished little or nothing. Maybe he’ll care about that and maybe he won’t.
One of the things that made the show great is the fact that Walt became a killer immediately. Even if you continued to sympathize with him through the killing of Jane and the poisoning of Brock or if you jumped off at some other point, they never shielded him from the consequences of his actions and didn’t let the fish out of water premise of the show linger.
My theory about the show isn’t that Walt was a good guy who became a bad guy or whatever- it’s that his diagnosis unleashed a bottomless well of nihilistic rage. For a while he fell back on the excuse of providing for his family, but his main motive is getting revenge on the world. The drug empire is his monument to himself. I think to a degree he doesn’t even believe it’s real. This is a fantasy that just happens to involve tons of real deaths and misery.
