Jan. 13th, 2025

canyonwalker: Breaking Bad stylized logo showing Walter White (breaking bad)
In the series finale of Breaking Bad, Walter White dies. I say that without revealing spoilers because we all knew from the first episode that's how the story would end. The character has lung cancer, and even the two years he's made it in this episode is a lot longer than he was originally expected to survive. Plus, he's involved in a dangerous criminal enterprise, as a drug kingpin— and now a most-wanted fugitive from justice. You know that if the bad guys don't get him first, the good guys will. Or the cancer will.

One thing I wondered was whether Walt would go out with a bang or a whimper. It's a trope of crime gang stories that when the kingpin is the protagonist, he goes down in a blaze of glory. But the shift in tone late in the series to empire shattered suggested Walt may go out not with a bang but a whimper. Ultimately the finale is a bit of both.

There's plenty of action in episode 5.16 as Walt acts to tie up loose ends before he dies. We've already seen from flash-forwards in earlier episodes that he returns to Albuquerque and buys a machine gun from an illegal arms dealer. Then he visits his old house, now empty and vandalized, to remove the vial of ricin poison he'd hidden inside. Now that the timeline has caught up we see that using these weapons isn't the first thing Walt does in Albuquerque.

Episode spoilers (click/tap to open) )

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canyonwalker

June 2025

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