‘Breaking Bad’: How will it end?
From mulling Walt’s last stand to predicting the fate of ‘that Opie, dead-eyed piece of shit,’ pure speculation has never been so fun (spoilers galore!)
Did your barista seemed a little on edge this week? Did your boss get snappy with you? Were your friends a little rude? Did your pets behave strangely? Well, you weren’t alone. An entire nation has been sitting on its hands, holding its breath, and biting its fingernails to the quick over the approaching Breaking Bad finale. Those night sweats, the dizziness, the heart palpitations? They’re all caused by one looming question: How will it end?
Since we can’t bend the laws of time and fast forward straight to Sunday night like we all want to, many chose to let off their anxiety with some quick and dirty Breaking Bad predictions. Now usually, TV finale predictions seem like a sure-fire path to overblown expectations. (Remember when everyone thought every single loose thread would be wrapped up by The Sopranos finale? Haw haw!) In this particular case, though, predictions don’t seem quite as dangerous. Vince Gilligan’s dark drama has improved steadily, season over season, culminating in what might be the best final season of TV ever. Let’s just state the obvious, Jesse-style: Some seriously dark shit is about to go down, yo.
So why not lean into the sport of guessing what happens next? Hasn’t Gilligan earned our trust by now? After seven breathtaking episodes straight, is he really going to screw the pooch at the very end?
I think not. That said, Gilligan’s sure-footedness so far makes it that much harder to figure out how this thing ends. Clearly, he and the other writers ran through more series-closing options than there are stars in the sky, and they chose an ending that fits the moral of Walt’s story. Now we just have to try to think the way they think.
Ready to begin?
Jesse kills Todd: On the one hand, yes, definitely. Not only did Jesse just watch Todd kill Andrea, but Jesse began his current downward spiral when Todd shot that kid after the great train heist. On the other hand, isn’t Todd’s aw-shucks form of chaotic evil destined to serve as a counter-example to Walt, who is clearly going to burn in hell by the finale’s end? It seems unlikely that Gilligan would bring damnation to Every. Single. Bad. Guy. And if one Very Bad Guy needs to escape, wouldn’t it be “that Opie, dead-eyed piece of shit” (as Jesse so fondly calls him)? If you’re going to present a low-key, respectful, happy-go-lucky homicidal maniac, why not use him as the one exception to the rule, the cockroach that slithers out of the apocalypse and lives to spread his evil elsewhere?
Jesse kills Todd using chemistry he learned from Walt: Sweet god, yes. This is the one option that would definitely trump a resilient cockroach fate for Todd. Jesse is probably doomed regardless, but before he goes down, what would be more appropriate than watching him throw down some hardcore chemistry, possibly while he’s still chained up. I don’t mean to sound bloodthirsty, but it sure would please the senses to see Todd trapped in a vat of hydrofluoric acid. But then, all Jesse would really have to do is overheat a little red phosphorous and kill Todd and a big gaggle of Nazis with phosphine gas. It’s science, look it up!
Jesse kills himself: Tough to see how the world’s most lovable loser doesn’t kill himself at some point, given his misery for the past seven episodes. A giant meth lab explosion could take out Jesse, Todd and the Nazis in one fell swoop. But that scenario would mean no final showdown with Walt, which seems unlikely considering the obvious fact that…
Walt returns to Nazi compound to kill, retrieve his cash: Parse the “Felina” title all you want; it boils down to Walt riding back into town, “El Paso”-style,and tragedy striking thereafter. Seeing the Schwartzes disavow his contribution on Charlie Rose made Walt think about his legacy. With his own son wishing him dead, Walt’s primary legacy is cash, most of it now possessed by Uncle Jack and his crew. It seems clear that Walt will show up with his M60 and blow some Nazis away. But there must be unintended consequences…
Jesse kills Walt: With Jesse chained up underground, it might be possible for Walt to believe he’s killed everyone at the Nazi compound, and then… Jesse appears. Walt: “No! Jesse! Let me explain. I came back to get you!” (Jesse squeezes trigger.) Nah, no way Walt will die from a bullet to the head. Way too easy. Todd will be Jesse’s big kill. But then again…
Jesse kills Walt using chemistry he learned from Walt: Now we’re cooking with sodium hydroxide! Jesse shooting Walt — or watching him fall to his death, or slicing his head off — is too quick and painless. But Jesse killing himself and Walt in one fell swoop? Maybe even by accident, intending to kill the Nazis with the gas instead? That’s the kind of haphazard crazy way to die that might just have Walt written all over it. Not all that dramatic, though. On the other hand, what if…
Jesse kills Nazis using chemistry, Walt saves Jesse: Bear with me, now. On the surface, this option is more Lassie than Breaking Bad. That said, though, isn’t it pure Vince Gilligan’s Island for Walt to show up with his M60 machine gun, and the lab is blown to smithereens already? Subverting flash-forward expectations not only makes perfect sense for this show, but it presents a scenario in which Walt might just save Jesse and offer the audience a tiny, half-maimed warm fuzzy, especially if…
Lydia kills Skyler: …in the scene right before this one, with Walt there to discover her body afterwards. Sorry, Skyler! But what better way for Walt to finally, at long last, give up on his megalomaniacal delusions, if only for a fleeting moment? And what better way for Lydia to insert herself into this picture than by hunting Skyler down herself, possibly after she realizes the Nazis are toast and she has to handle this one loose end by herself? Sure, some have speculated that Walt Jr. will be killed as Walt watches, but Junior has already told his dad to die, so that part of the story feels all wrapped up. Plus, in the moral universe of “Breaking Bad,” doesn’t Skyler need to pay for her short-sighted self-preservation, going along with Walt’s insanity at the expense of her whole family? And that’s not to mention the fact that this means that…
Marie gets Holly: Awww. You know you want it, as a wise man named Robin Thicke so memorably put it. Why else would we see Marie frolicking with baby Holly so many times, if we weren’t planting the seeds for a happy(ish) future for poor widowed Marie, who will require an adorable dependent just to survive her ravaged future? Can’t you see a closing shot of baby Holly, dressed from head to toe in that awful shade of purple Marie loves so dearly? Of course, we have to back up and consider a slight change to this…
Walt saves Jesse, then Jesse kills Walt: Again, probably not very likely. But still, imagine: Just when you kind of, almost, sort of want Walt to live (admittedly only out of residual sentimentality ingested from several decades of Disneyified happily ever afters), Jesse crushes him like a bug. Maybe with a giant rock? Or pushes him off a cliff and he flattens into a pancake, road runner-style? Nah, that’s still too merciful a fate for Walt.
Plus, a blockbuster ending is probably not Gilligan’s thing. Think about how good old Mike went down, shot impulsively by Walt and left to bleed out while Walt mumbled his apologies. That was exactly the kind of twisted, disturbing, surprising death that not only dramatized how wretched Walt had become, but highlighted Gilligan’s understated choices. In that light, we should not only expect a few subtle or accidental or impulse-driven twists, but we should also expect Walt to show us his worst side all the way to the bitter end.
Walt dies of cancer, alone: Now, you could argue that we already tried this on for size with Walt deteriorating in a snowy cabin in New Hampshire. But this still seems like the only appropriate end for Walt. Our story began with a guy who was arrogant enough to believe he could escape death, insolvency and a pretty mediocre legacy, and he brought a whole hell of a lot of misery to the world in the process. It only seems natural that “it’ll all be for nothing” (as Walt himself put it on the phone to his son), and he’ll die of cancer anyway. Can’t you just see Walt coughing blood all over his barrels of cash?
The ricin poisons the Schwartzes, Walt, or… Lydia?: Because Walt changes his mind about surrendering after seeing Elliott and Gretchen on his TV screen, many are guessing that he’ll poison his former business partners. But it’s hard to imagine Walt successfully avenging his nemeses, since the whole point of this final stretch has been watching Walt pay for his gigantic moral lapses. Even though Lydia doesn’t exactly feel like the first target on Walt’s list, let alone a target important enough to warrant the ricin stashed in Walt’s electrical outlet, if she killed Skyler, that would change fast.
And Joshua Nealey over at hypable points out that Lydia repeatedly and pointedly asks for Stevia for her tea. That feels truly Gilligan-esque: Once Todd and the Nazis and Walt and Jesse are killed, and Lydia thinks she’s free and clear, she stirs ricin into her tea. Now that’s a dark but colorful postscript: Death and destruction followed by Walt turning white, Holly dressed in purple, and Lydia sipping on poison tea.
The nice thing about Breaking Bad is that, even though we might want Todd to get his comeuppance or we might want Jesse to survive, even though we might want Marie to raise baby Holly and we might want Walt to die alone, this final stretch of the show has been too good to begrudge Gilligan and the writers whichever bizarre ending they chose.
So here’s the easiest prediction of all: It’s going to be a great finale.
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