During the past week and a half, one question has addled the collective American psyche:
Is Huell ever going to get out of that room?
I’m joking, of course, but the pervasiveness of this question around Grounds says something about last Sunday’s finale to “Breaking Bad” — not to mention, saying something about the last half of the season that turned the show into a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon.
“Breaking Bad” has gotten under our skin, so much so that the unresolved fate of everyone’s rotund bodyguard has become one of the prevailing post-episode topics of discussion — indicating not only that most of us enjoyed the finale, but also that the majority of students think “Breaking Bad” should trump every other topic of conversation.
“Felina” was chicken soup for the “Breaking Bad” fan soul, a denouement that answered virtually all questions in characteristically enthralling fashion as Walter White vanquished enemies, amended wrongs and, as Badfinger sang in the episode’s closing minutes, got what he deserved. After seven episodes of suspense and dread, show creator Vince Gilligan threw us a bone. Indeed, the finale represented the perfect culmination of Walter White’s milquetoast-to-monster metamorphosis, as well as of foil and surrogate son Jesse Pinkman’s mirroring journey — even if the episode itself was far from perfect. To reconcile those two truths about “Felina,” we have to consider the episode in the context of the seven pulse-bludgeoning episodes which preceded it.
From the moment Hank confronts Walter about his secret meth-chef identity in the season’s first episode, the remaining episodes were foot to the throat of the viewership and threw the middle finger to established television conventions. Gilligan and his coterie of talented writers bombarded the audience’s mental and emotional faculties in a manner that somehow felt both realistic and nightmarish, both shocking and inevitable.
It all crested with “Ozymandias,” the series’ third-to-last episode and a viewing experience equivalent to having your insides repeatedly steamrolled by a Mack truck for 65 minutes. Where meeker counterparts may have settled for half-measures, Gilligan pulled no punches.
All of this leads up to why “Felina,” sweet as most of us found it, felt like ingesting sugar when we were bracing for the taste of Stevia. It constituted a mostly predictable redemption narrative in which Walter actually broke good and things broke good for him in implausible ways, almost as if he were Kevin McAllister thwarting thieves in “Home Alone” rather than the cunning but hubristic megalomaniac we knew and loved.
Jesse, a broken man just an episode earlier, drives away exultant and free in the show’s closing minutes, unshackled both from his neo-Nazi captors and, to some extent, from his own tortured sense of guilt. Heck, there’s even a Badger and Skinny Pete cameo. After seven episodes of Gilligan assailing his characters with harsh, unflinching reality, the finale seemed like a good dream — so much so that the New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum and comedian Norm Macdonald mused that it may have actually been Walt’s dying fantasy.
Although I understand such misgivings, to deem “Felina” a betrayal of the show’s essence is to misapprehend that essence in the first place. A chic conceit in “Breaking Bad” criticism characterizes the show as mad scientist Gilligan’s chemical reaction. But Gilligan has always been more poet than aloof chemist, relying immensely on contrived, impossible scenarios and storytelling improvisations to create a narrative with broader purpose. To paraphrase Walt himself from the third season episode “Fly”: the odds of Walter causing a plane crash, or Hank surviving the shootout with the cartel twins, or Walt devising an elaborate plan to poison a child he had barely glimpsed as a way of regaining Jesse’s allegiance are astronomical. A chemist in his precision, Gilligan has never shied from playing Old Testament God and moving mountains for the sake of moving the story to where he wanted it in the interest of moralizing. He just disguised it well.
So for the finale to appropriately conclude the narrative, it needed to drive home a larger point — even at the expense of realism. And Gilligan indeed strived to provide a fitting ending that imbued the entire series with deeper meaning, no different from Tolkien or Rowling or any author of fantasy.
For Gilligan, that meant Walt and Jesse’s parallel quests had to end in self-recognition: Walt had to realize that he did it all for himself and acknowledge the depth of his depravity to finally help the people he loved before his death, just as Jesse had to accept that, even with all his faults and sins, he could still look forward to a fresh start. In redeeming his main characters, Gilligan and company invited us to ponder how we can redeem ourselves.
On a less preachy, but equally important note, “Felina” was simply fun to watch. With everyone from luminaries of entertainment criticism to fanboys like me engaging in highfalutin discourse about the show’s literary devices and broader moral implications, we too easily forget that 10.3 million people tuned into “Felina” and have set the Internet ablaze with discussion about the show.
Whether it was Walter running down gangbangers or Jesse calling people female dogs or montages of drug cooking absurdly set to cheery ’60s songs, “Breaking Bad” consistently found ways to toe the line between disturbing and awesome. Walt’s brilliant manipulation of the Schwartzs and the brutal demise of sociopathic neo-Nazis in the finale certainly qualify as awesome. The virtuoso performances routinely delivered from the most talented and versatile cast in television history rendered each episode a treat, as well.
By keeping his baby enjoyable, Gilligan ensured that people would remain engaged enough to detect the profound life lessons and literary flourishes along the way. The Huell jokes signify something important, after all.
So even though the finale of “Breaking Bad” lacked some of the harrowing realism of the rest of this sublime half-season, I believe it stayed true to what it always was: a story designed to teach us something serious about ourselves without ever forgetting to have a little fun. In the end, Gilligan threw us the bone we needed to appreciate his masterpiece to the fullest.
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