I’ve
held my tongue out of respect for the brilliance of the first four seasons of
Breaking Bad but I found Season 5 especially the last eight episodes very
uneven.
A big
problem was the pacing rather than let the story arc go at its own pace like
the brilliant Gus Fring Season 4 events culminating in Face Off, it felt that
too much was jammed into too small a period of time. Characters were not given enough air time and
then elevated in importance without us truly understanding them. At times, the show also moved too slowly –
Hank and Jesse’s attempts to catch Walt for example could’ve been tighter. I think the fifth season would have been
better played out over two seasons instead of one.
That
being said the finale accomplished its task.
All important loose ends were wrapped up and we had closure. There were many things I liked about the
final episode – The machine gun trick, the fate of Lydia, one last appearance
of Badger and Skinny Pete and especially the final scene between Walt and
Skyler where he finally admits this was all about his ego. This was one of the most emotionally devastating
and also satisfying scenes in the whole series.
However,
there were also things I didn’t like about the finale – I still would like to
know what exactly happened with Walt’s relationship with Gretchen and with
Elliott and Grey Matter. I feel this is
Walt’s rosebud – the key to his personality, his motivation. I also would have liked a longer
confrontation between Jesse and Walt.
Not necessarily hugging and crying and forgiveness but some admission
from Walt about how he manipulated Jesse and maybe more cathartic anger from
Jesse.
Many
scenes were of course reminiscent of earlier scenes. That’s the genius of Breaking Bad – the use
of foreshadowing and symbolism. In the
fifth season, things moved so quickly we sometimes didn’t have time for that.
There
were many fake spoilers circulating around the Internet the last few months –
on IMDB, on Reddit. Most of them were a
lot bloodier and darker than what actually happened. Some of these were even
better than the real episodes for precisely that reason. At its heart Breaking Bad was the most
moralistic of shows. Actions have
consequences and violence tends to spiral out of control catching innocents as
well as those who deserve punishment. In
the end, Walter deserved perhaps some violence close to home. In particular, killing off Skyler would have
made a lot of sense. It would have been
a better fate for her than the one bedroom apartment despite her great last
scene with Walt.
Here
are some of my previous comments on Breaking Bad
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