Breaking Bad episode review — 5.16 — Felina

Original air date: September 29, 2013
Director: Vince Gilligan
Writer: Vince Gilligan

Rating: 10/10

I haven’t watched that much in terms of dramatic television, really. So it may be a normie or uninformed opinion, but this maybe the best television finale I’ve ever seen.

Walt steals a car in New Hampshire, narrowly avoiding police, and heads back to New Mexico, where he goes to threaten the Schwartzes into setting up a trust fund of his drug money to send to Walter Jr. on his 18th birthday.

He purchases a machine gun, which we’ve already seen, and retrieves the ricin that he hid in his house. He finds Todd meeting with Lydia at the coffee shop that he used to always meet her in, and he slips some ricin into her stevia while telling them about a way to get methylamine. He is to meet with Todd’s uncle Jack later.

Earlier, Walt had learned that the meth being distributed is supposedly just as good as his, which means that they must be employing Jesse.

Walt then meets with Skyler, where he learns that Jack’s gang had broken into her house. He says that everything will be taken care of after tonight, and he gives her the coordinates to Hank’s body, and is able to see Holly for one last time. He also admits that when he was a kingpin, he was not working for his family. He did it all for him.

At the Nazi compound, Walt parks his car, having rigged a machine gun to work with his keys, and meets with Jack. They decide they’ll kill him, but Walt says they can’t because Jack’s gone back on his deal to kill Jesse.

He accuses them of employing him, so Todd brings him out to show that he’s not an employee.

Walt tackles Jesse while activating the machine gun, which kills nearly everyone in the room except for those that were down on the ground, such as Todd, who had tried to break them up.

After the shooting stops, Jesse strangles Todd, and Walt shoots Jack in the head.

Walt then asks Jesse to kill him, but he doesn’t, telling him to do it himself.

Walt wanders into the meth lab and dies, as Jesse gets away in Todd’s car.

It’s a fantastic ending because this is about Walt finally coming to terms with what we’ve known all along though he hasn’t been able to admit it. Though I think the Nazis make for fairly weak villains (at least for Walt, maybe not Jesse), this is more about Walt’s (at least partial) redemption. Fantastic stuff. Powerful performances all around.