Five seasons, one last chance – and “Breaking Bad” took advantage of it. Why “Felina” is still considered the benchmark for series finales today and what makes it so special.
Over five seasons, “Breaking Bad” thrilled both audiences and critics. With the finale, however, Walter White’s series achieved a rare feat: it brought the story to a worthy end.
5) No surprises, no sensationalism
Fortunately, the last episode called “Felina” of Vince Gilligan’s five-season drama series did not offer any great fireworks of effects, but brought – more or less leisurely – to an end what had been told over 62 episodes: the story of an average chemistry teacher who, in the face of his expected death, broke away from his oppressive everyday life and became a drug lord. At first (at least he claimed to himself) for noble motives, to leave his family some financial security. Then from a self-centered perspective, because it brought him joy and gave him new vitality.
4) Walter White is allowed to complete his mission
What particularly pleased the majority of fans and critics was the fact that Walter White was able to tie up all the loose ends in the final few meters and bring them to a satisfactory conclusion. “Felina” works like a little farewell tour:
First he meets his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) one last time, he says goodbye to his son (RJ Mitte) from a distance and strokes his little daughter’s head for the first and last time.
He then goes to his former college friends Gretchen (Jessica Hecht) and Elliot (Adam Godley) Schwartz, to whom he hands over almost $10 million. The money is intended for his children – it will be bequeathed to them in the form of a donation on their 18th birthday.
He later meets Lydia (Laura Fraser) and Todd (Jesse Plemons) at their local cafe to poison them with ricin he mixed into their beloved stevia and gain access to the white supremacy stronghold where Jesse (Aaron Paul) is being held captive.
The only action-packed scene in the finale occurs, which many fans described as a “Scarface” moment: After Walter has previously built an elaborate construction in the desert, he shoots the Nazi gang with a radio-triggered self-firing device in his trunk, which ultimately also hits him, and frees Jesse.
After settling all earthly affairs, he dies, strangely at peace with himself, in the middle of a meth lab. Both his initially formulated goal of wanting to secure the family financially and his desire to be an influential villain (“I am the one who knocks”), which became more and more apparent over the course of the seasons, were satisfied.
3) Jesse Pinkman also gets a kind of “happy ending”
But it’s not just Walter who gets his very fitting end. If one can still speak of it after a grueling imprisonment, kept like cattle in chains in order to produce the blue meth for said Nazis around the clock, Jesse Pinkman also gets a kind of “happy ending”. Just one that doesn’t seem forced. In his final scene we see him speeding away in a car after his liberation, screaming, triumphant and hysterical.
Vince Gilligan himself said “Entertainment Weekly” to decide Jesse’s fate the following:
“We always felt like the viewers desired Jesse to get away. And it’s up to the individual viewer to decide what happens next for Jesse. Some people might think, ‘Well, he probably got two miles down the road before the cops nailed him.’ But I prefer to believe that he got away, and he’s got a long road to recovery ahead, in a sense of being hero prisoner in a dungeon for the last six months and being beaten to within an inch of his life and watching Andrea be shot. All these terrible things he’s witnessed are going to scar him as well, but the romantic in me wants to believe that he gets away with it and moves to Alaska and has a peaceful life communing with nature.”
Anyone who has seen the Netflix film “El Camino” knows what the director and screenwriter ultimately decided on.
2) The characters remain true to themselves
In all of this, the characters that appeared acted as their previous development demanded of them. After the hasty finale of “Game of Thrones,” fans know how much such loyalty to what has previously been told and painstakingly built means.
Skyler doesn’t forgive her husband in the last few meters, son Walter Jr. doesn’t find any understanding for his father in the end – and Walter doesn’t end up falling into the role of the self-sacrificing, submissive provider that he may have been at the beginning of the series. Instead, he finally stands up for himself. His final revelation is one of the series’ most iconic words: “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was really alive.”
Jesse also comes to his senses at the end: When Walter has already been hit by the rapid-fire gun, Walter gives him a pistol and tells him to shoot him. He refuses and thus remains faithful to his decision, which he had previously expressed a few episodes (“Rabid Dog”), to never again do what Walter asked him to do.
1) Consistent down to the last detail
As we already knew from “Breaking Bad” in the past, everything in the final episode “Felina” was perfect down to the smallest detail. It starts with the title, which initially seems cryptic. On the one hand it is simply an anagram for “finale” and on the other hand it is the name of the beloved in the song “El Paso” by Marty Robbins, which can be heard in two places in the episode. Several passages can be excellently applied to Walter’s development, but one describes particularly well his initial departure towards the deep satisfaction to which his journey ultimately led him:
“My Love Is Stronger Than My Fear Of Death/I Saddled Up And Away I Did Go/Riding Alone In The Dark/Maybe Tomorrow A Bullet Will Find Me/Tonight Nothing’s Worse Than This Pain In My Heart/And At Last Here I Am On The Hill Overlooking El Paso/I Can See Rosa’s Cantina Below/My Love.”
His death in the meth lab is ultimately accompanied by the song “Baby Blue” by Badfinger, which says, among other things: “The special love I had for you, my baby blue,” of course alluding to the blue methamphetamine that became Heisenberg’s trademark. A series can hardly have a more rounded ending.
