Breaking Bad Finale - Non Spoiler Version?

Have been avoiding any coverage like the plague, but just want to know from the fan perspective - was it a satisfying season, and conclusion?

No Spoilerz plas!

Oui

Tied all loose ends well? = Yes

Satisfying? = Not really

  On 9/30/2013 at 11:45 AM, usagi said:

^ disagree. tied loose ends well, I am satisfied. of course they can't finalise every single plotline in just 55 mins but they did a pretty decent job and left the rest to the viewers. it's truly economical storytelling, which I appreciate in this context.

When I say "all" I mean the most important. That's obviously debatable though.

gonna watch this tonite after a few beers and the everton game,cannot wait! coyb!

Why not just watch it yourself and make up your own mind. Or would you just drop it if it was all negative?

surely spoiling the finale of breaking bad is like spoiling the end of titanic?

yeah I've avoided watching the ending of other shows that I thought ended badly. I thought Season 4 ended perfectly; there was no real reason for a season 5 whatsoever.

And the middling reviews of the first half of season 5 have made me wait on the sidelines to see if people think it's fitting or garbage.

Season 5 is arguably much more important to the overall arc of the show than Season 4.

5B is as good as 4 imo.

I thought 5a was the show's weakest run, but 5b was fantastic, and ended on a great note.

cool, I am excite

  On 10/1/2013 at 12:15 AM, feltcher said:

surely spoiling the finale of breaking bad is like spoiling the end of titanic?

well worth it,a fine end to a fine tv series,box-set pre-ordered!(everton were ace too!LUKAKU!!!)

  On 10/1/2013 at 6:34 AM, cult fiction said:

Season 5 is arguably much more important to the overall arc of the show than Season 4.

 

5B is as good as 4 imo.

I've come to believe this is 100% accurate.

S4 allows viewers to enjoy, if sheepishly, the conquests of Walt without giving too much thought to his complicated (im)morality. S5 demands that we re-evaluate his character and come to realize that he's been an indelibly flawed, narcissistic character since S1E1. You can't reason with narcissists. Like Nixon or Clinton or other countless examples, narcissists are guilty of being so smart they're stupid. As Hank put it, "You're the smartest guy I ever met and you're too stupid to see..."

People can piss and moan as much as they want; not shockingly I'm as ready as anybody to nitpick the fuck out of the finale. However, in the most populist sense of taking care of your audience, this was exactly the right ending. There were a lot of pegs to hang your hat on with this episode. It attended to the interests and qualities of the show that have kept unprecedented numbers of people tuning in even after season four's "perfect ending."

If you were at all or ever interested in an authentic trajectory of Walter White, you really needed S5 and you especially needed the last five episodes of S5.

While I have my reservations about the final episode, season 5 is absolute must-see-material. Very focused, not very playful. Perhaps the best season yet and yes, more important than seasons 3 or 4 for Walt's personal story.

Yeah and can we all be honest for once and say that Walt's story was the only one that ever really mattered.

I'll even say something controversial to piss people off: I never understood the love for Jesse or Hank or even Mike. Sure, they were interesting, compelling, even really fascinating characters at times, but they were hardly substantial enough. Jesse was mostly valuable as a plot foil for Walt, but he was overrated and Aaron Paul was especially overrated as an actor. He has two gears. Drugged out and spacy or BITCH! angry and whiny. The closest they came to substantiating his character was with the Jane plotline but that didn't really sustain his character's value long enough.

Of any non-Walt character, I think Mike's was most interesting and I'll bet I'd find him even more interesting if I watched the series again.

  On 10/1/2013 at 11:49 PM, Mirezzi said:

Aaron Paul was especially overrated as an actor. He has two gears. Drugged out and spacy or BITCH! angry and whiny.

how about completely emotionally and physically broken, desperate, self-abused, and weak? he portrayed that in an interesting way (imo).

his job was to serve as an example of how walt manipulated people, and i think his best acting came from moments where his character didn't know how to cope with the darkness he encountered due to the fact that he was used to being one of the two options you mentioned.

however i agree with you that walt is the focal point. despite the talent of the entire cast, and the depth and evolution of their characters, they never came close to walt/bryan because the show was meant to revolve around him and his changes and decisions.

He was a bit over-marketed maybe, because he's pretty & lovable and has probably appeared in a lot of girls' wet dreams since the series started. But he seems like a nice, normal guy. It's also highly sympathetic that he mostly taught himself how to act (and tells yet again a sad story of those so-called schools). I think he put on some great performances, especially when Jesse had his repeating breakdowns.

edit: ^Aaron Paul that is

excited to see Mirezzi's endorsement, I admit I was waiting for he and/or zaphod to chime in - the toughest watmm audience to please!

I agree with Mike being a great character (and actor), he just radiates weary charisma. Would love to see that guy in another show. In fact I'd be much more excited to see a "prequel" series of Gustavo and Mike and the saga of "Los Pollos Hermanos", than I would a "Better Call Saul" series.

I guess I am interested in an "authentic trajectory of Walter White" (lol), I just hope it doesn't get too heavy handed. The show has struck a very careful balance before between intense and very relatable interpersonal drama (the touchstones of Walt's feeling undervalued, his struggle with cancer and leading a "meaningful life", his relationship with Skyler), and borderline-cartoonish dark-humored excess (the identical Mexican Bros, the plane crash, epic standoff in Mexican villa, etc). And then of course there's the main reason people keep tuning in, which is much the same reason people kept tuning in to the Sopranos - the wondering "how long can he keep stringing people along, and when will it all come crashing down?" I'm not sure there's any way to do that right, as almost without exception the "journey is much more interesting than the destination." Very hard to have it not slip into some morality play...and I'm not that interested in a director trying to force the audience to confront their own reasons for enjoying vicarious thrills. Hope he sidesteps that and does deliver what you say, an ending that seems to be faithful to the characters, and maybe expand on the themes that have been present so far.

I thought Season 4 was the perfect ending because it had the climactic face-off between the "hero" and his nemesis, and all you needed to know about the morality side of things was contained in the final shot. Talk about economical. Assuming Walt fed Lily of the Valley to the kid, it showed (without need for dialogue) that Walt won the war but lost his soul. Fin. *curtains*. No need to drag it out unnecessarily.

But very curious to see what they came up with.

i basically feel the same as mirezzi. i wasn't a huge fan of season 4, although it contains some of the show's high points, it also has some of the worst moments. i hate how they handled gus' death. the cheesiness of that entire episode was too much for me to take. i felt like this season basically reiterated that one but in a much stronger, more "real", consequence laden way. right down to the third to last episode being the high point of the show. if you watch the finale as a sort of necessary epilogue, it's even better. i found parts of it to be very moving. and there is a lot of moral ambiguity in this ending. i can't say anything else or i'll spoil things for you, but each character is given an economical and, imo, believable goodbye.

i'm pretty sick of comparing this show to the sopranos or the wire, as they're all completely different shows with different goals, but i feel like breaking bad took the intricate character study of the sopranos and blew it up to a kind of shakespearean melodrama, and it's stronger for it. for every moment in the sopranos that i love, there are whole episodes that simply don't need to exist. the wire is the greek drama counterpart to breaking bad's five act tragedy, and it's goals are more about social criticism than creating a cultural touchstone. if i had to compare breaking bad to anything, i'd honestly say it's a kind of tragic cousin to eastbound and down.

  On 10/1/2013 at 11:49 PM, Mirezzi said:

Yeah and can we all be honest for once and say that Walt's story was the only one that ever really mattered.

 

I'll even say something controversial to piss people off: I never understood the love for Jesse or Hank or even Mike. Sure, they were interesting, compelling, even really fascinating characters at times, but they were hardly substantial enough. Jesse was mostly valuable as a plot foil for Walt, but he was overrated and Aaron Paul was especially overrated as an actor. He has two gears. Drugged out and spacy or BITCH! angry and whiny. The closest they came to substantiating his character was with the Jane plotline but that didn't really sustain his character's value long enough.

 

Of any non-Walt character, I think Mike's was most interesting and I'll bet I'd find him even more interesting if I watched the series again.

I think this was intentional though. It was meant to highlight the consequences of Walt's tendency to care for nobody but himself. It's an analogy for meth, isn't it? Walt wasn't addicted to meth but he showed basically the same tendencies as a meth addict. I really thought this was what the writers were trying to convey, the consequences of an inflated ego and lack of compassion and awareness for those around you.... in a way, Walt WAS a meth addict. I know what I'm trying to say but I'm having a hard time explaining it. I think those that know or have experienced hardcore drug addicts will understand what I'm getting at...

Mike's backstory would make for an awesome spinoff series.

i really don't want to see any spinoffs. the whole point of breaking bad is that its a clockwork universe built around walt's experience. i'm not interested in the other characters having internal lives. the only way saul's show could work is if it's tonally completely different from bb, i'm imagining an 80s sax laden theme song, an opening credit sequence that ends with bob odenkirk looking up from his desk, leaning back, and laughing lightly to himself.

  On 10/2/2013 at 6:06 AM, zaphod said:

i really don't want to see any spinoffs. the whole point of breaking bad is that its a clockwork universe built around walt's experience. i'm not interested in the other characters having internal lives. the only way saul's show could work is if it's tonally completely different from bb, i'm imagining an 80s sax laden theme song, an opening credit sequence that ends with bob odenkirk looking up from his desk, leaning back, and laughing lightly to himself.

What do you think about this being adapted into a novel? Or was the show already adapted from one.. lol

  On 10/1/2013 at 11:49 PM, Mirezzi said:

Yeah and can we all be honest for once and say that Walt's story was the only one that ever really mattered.

 

I'll even say something controversial to piss people off: I never understood the love for Jesse or Hank or even Mike. Sure, they were interesting, compelling, even really fascinating characters at times, but they were hardly substantial enough. Jesse was mostly valuable as a plot foil for Walt, but he was overrated and Aaron Paul was especially overrated as an actor. He has two gears. Drugged out and spacy or BITCH! angry and whiny. The closest they came to substantiating his character was with the Jane plotline but that didn't really sustain his character's value long enough.

I can't really disagree with this.