Breaking Bad – Season 5, Episode 16 – Crowd Pleaser ← FREE KRAUT!

Breaking Bad – Season 5, Episode 16 – Crowd Pleaser 24

Is my title a criticism? Read on.

I had mixed feelings about the finale, but it was classic Breaking Bad.  The most obvious shortcoming was the sheer implausibility of the final showdown, which relied on the convenient bunching of every bad guy in the compound in a single room and a pointless delay on Jack’s part.  (Yeah, it was that stupid male pride.  I get it.)  Walt was extraordinarily fortunate – except for the getting shot part, of course – in a way that stretched the bounds of realism too far.

Does it ruin the finale?  Well, it wasn’t my favorite episode.  But it had the effect, intended or not, or reinforcing an important fact about Walt.  He was so sure that his plan would work, even though it relied on a bunch of flukey things going right that he couldn’t possibly anticipate.  And so his assurances to Skyler are empty, as empty as they ever were about the danger she and her children faced.  If his scheme doesn’t work, and it really shouldn’t have, Skyler and the kids are killed just for sport.  Walt’s “redemption” is really just another way of him trying to prove he can outsmart everyone and exact revenge on everyone who has wronged him.  In the end, Vince Gilligan stacked the deck in Walt’s favor, even though it was Skyler who had the most logical plan of going to the cops – and the one that should have happened, given the fact that Walt isn’t the Invisible Man and shouldn’t have eluded the DEA agents watching her new, sad home.

But here’s the thing.  I didn’t really mind.  While the show could have gone in different, even more tragic directions, I didn’t want it to go there.  The Neo-Nazis were plot devices more than characters, and at their best, dished out some amusing Tarantino-esque dialogue.  They weren’t important enough to serve any other purpose.  I didn’t want any more of Walt’s family killed, or Jesse.  And it seemed pretty clear, after the show wrapped up its final surprise – Walt’s visit to Gretchen and Elliott, with Badger and Skinny Pete as “hitmen” – where things were headed.

Moreover, the show had a long history of Walt pulling off  over-the-top, spectacular stunts.  It started in the first season and only escalated to Walt getting away with a train robbery and destroying damning evidence against him in a police station.  It wasn’t just him.  The cousins weren’t exactly the height of realism either, nor was Gus during the takeout of his Mexican cartel rivals – the closest analogy to Walt’s machine gun caper.  That was a big part of the show’s appeal, even though I tended to enjoy the smaller, character-driven episodes at least as much.  It was not surprising that Vince Gilligan labored to give the audience what it wanted in the final episode.  He is no fool, and the last scheme was not inconsistent with the show at all.  The only difference was that Walt ended up dead.

That said, I did enjoy some of those smaller moments.  I have tended to rave about many of the Walt-Skyler scenes, and the last one didn’t disappoint – mostly because Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn were just so great again.  The most memorable line, of course, was Walt acknowledging what we all know – that he liked being Heisenberg, that he was good at it, that it made him feel alive.  I enjoyed Walt’s killing of Lydia, because I didn’t have to stretch my imagination very far to figure out how he pulled it off.  And viewers had more history with her.  Todd’s cellphone “Lydia” song was hysterical.

And then there is Jesse.  The flashback to his wooden boxes was a nice touch, and he got what I think most viewers wanted – an opportunity, taken, to break Todd’s neck, and a chance to kill Walt that he doesn’t choose.  Jesse still seems like a doomed character, haunted by the events of the past two years and unlikely to find peace even if he avoided those cops racing to the compound.  (Why was that, by the way?  I didn’t know the Neo-Nazis had neighbors who would be bothered by nighttime gunfire.)  And while Walt placed himself at the scene of the lab, Jesse’s fingerprints would be all over the place.  He couldn’t possibly escape a police manhunt, with no money or assistance.  But the show chooses to end with Jesse finally free, and that was good enough for me.

Walt, in the end, spares Jesse when he realizes what his captors have put him through.  He swallows enough of his pride to create a plausible-enough-for-the-show way for his family to get some of his drug money, by denying to Skyler that he has anything left.  And he gives Skyler something to offer, and Marie a chance to bury Hank.  (And Gomez’s family too.)  The concluding episode offered no big gimmicks, just a satisfying dramatic conclusion.  And we can be grateful for that.

24 thoughts on “Breaking Bad – Season 5, Episode 16 – Crowd Pleaser

  1. JediLeroy Oct 2,2013 7:51 am

    So, I’ve been following synopses of this show throughout its run, and I know all the major twists, as well as the ending. I have only seen the first episode, as well as clips from major turning points in the show. Would it be worth my time to go back and watch it from the beginning, knowing how it will end?

    az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
    • FreeSeatUpgrade Oct 2,2013 9:37 am || Up

      Yes, totally worth it. The writing, acting and cinematography of this series are just so beautifully done. This will be the first series I have ever bought a DVD set of, just so I can go back and re-watch in exquisite detail.

      "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
      • JediLeroy Oct 2,2013 9:54 am || Up

        I’m sold. Sounds like I have something to watch when I start traveling again later this month.

        az di bobe volt gehat beytsim volt zi geven mayn zeyde
      • Poppy Oct 2,2013 5:51 pm || Up

        Seconded, fwiw…

        There's a wild thing in the woolshed and it's keeping me awake at night.
  2. FreeSeatUpgrade Oct 2,2013 9:57 am

    I loved the finale, because Gilligan tied things up so well. It really suggested respect for his audience, to not leave us guessing/arguing about what happened. Some people are complaining that it was too neatly tied up, but I think that critique misses the point…Gilligan charted his tight story arcs this way all along, with each season-ender and with the Grand Felina. This was almost a classic Shakespearean morality tale, right down to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Badger and Skinny Pete providing comedic relief. Such tales get wrapped up tightly, and I appreciated that

    I did not find the machine gunning of the Nazis overly fantastic; sure, it gave Walt a little narrative license, but that’s also acceptable in this kind of tale. And the Nazi crew always hung out in a tight pack, reasonable for Walt to project that setting.

    But the beauty of this episode was the small settings. Walt with Gretchen and Elliot (“now you get to make things right”). Walt and Skyler, with the final admission that this was all for Walt himself, finally feeling after long decades of futility that he was a proud successful man by virtue of his own intellect. Walt and Lydia and Todd, as Gilligan showed all of us the ricin poisoning as it happened, though not a word was said of it. And Walt and Jesse’s final reckoning, so much conveyed beyond the sparse lines of dialogue. Just beautiful scenes. And since Gilligan gave us the real climactic moment of the series two episodes back in Ozymandius, he was able to play out this exquisite denouement for us, pitch perfect.

    And Walt in the lab one last time, death imminent, caressing the equipment and the setting and inhaling one last breath of accomplishment, and pride, and self-determination, with the absolutely fucking perfect piece of music (Badfinger’s “Baby Blue”) rolling over his death scene.

    "Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
    • colin Oct 2,2013 1:12 pm || Up

      With the caveat that I haven’t watched most of the series, I would totally agree with you that realism is not a particular hallmark of Breaking Bad. I think that a lot of people mistake the fact that lots of bad stuff happens to people as it being “dark and realistic”. But for me, I found a lot of the scenarios pretty far-fetched but totally defensible from the standpoint that they are trying to write a dramatic and exciting show.

    • nevermoor Oct 2,2013 9:08 pm || Up

      Really liked the lead-in to Gretchen/Elliot, where he’s just standing quietly in their house, looking at pictures. Best moment imo.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
    • AV May 8,2014 12:25 am || Up

      “Grand Felina”

      4-legged tailed creature that goes MEOW?

      *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
    • AV May 8,2014 1:10 am || Up

      picking a bone, did shakespeare do morality tales?

      at least, in his lifetime, a morality tale had a specific shape (obvious allegory, 1-dimensional characters, a battle for “humanity,” happy ending because god wins, the moral is that there is redemption in the afterlife with good choices here/now) and shakes didn’t follow that shape. sure, there are elements, and maybe by today’s standards, when we can engage with a genre, and thus be in it and of it, without necessarily following its every rigor, we read shakes that way, but i don’t know that bill himself would have agreed to that term. he would have said just tragedy (perhaps involving moral issues). but nobody ever learns how to lead a better life in shakespeare’s bloodier 5-acts! not until it’s too late anyway.

      *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
      • AV May 8,2014 1:11 am || Up

        well shit. exception to prove rule. maybe henry IV learned. but not till part II!

        *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
  3. the dogfather Oct 2,2013 3:02 pm

    I liked this take on it, that the ep was So fantastical that the perfect touch would have been if the final scene had been the depleted Walt, finally freezing to death in that NH car, having had a frigid fever dream of his redemption.

    The meaning of life is not so much found, as it is Made. -- Opus
    • brian.only Oct 2,2013 7:19 pm || Up

    • nevermoor Oct 2,2013 9:10 pm || Up

      Disagree. Anything dream-sequency would have felt awfully cheap to me.

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
  4. ozzman99 Oct 2,2013 6:41 pm

    I’m not too bothered by Walt’s luck in wiping out the Neo Nazis because Gilligan could have easily had Walt construct a massive explosive device, in which case he could’ve destroyed the entire compound. Knowing that Walt had the know-how to kill them all, the exact method is inconsequential (although admittedly, he would’ve killed Jesse in the explosion and never learned that Jesse was a slave).

  5. lynnzgal Oct 2,2013 7:44 pm

    I loved the hint of humor that Gilligan brought into the final episode with Badger and Skinny Pete. My favorite part besides the ending song. It’s those little touches that made this show so amazing. The attention to detail…

  6. elcroata Jan 12,2014 9:26 am

    Made it through, loved it and loved reading your recaps and comments.

    Now, for the Canadian/European version…

    Because survival is insufficient
    • nevermoor Jan 12,2014 7:07 pm || Up

      Yep. BECAUSE EUROPE IS DEVIL’S COUNTRY

      "There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want"
      • elcroata Jan 12,2014 11:03 pm || Up

        High demands, too. Don’t come here with that 62% shit…

        Because survival is insufficient
    • AV May 8,2014 10:13 am || Up

      IMO, this is the exact point of BB and why i don’t read it as a story so much about walt’s tragic flaw causing his downfall.

      BB is an indictment of the kind of society that allows this to happen to a regular middle-class person when they go up against modern bean-counting in post-enron US. and i’m assured i’m not making that up by the replicas of the same idea in other shows that started at about the same moment, namely hung* and weeds, probably others.

      a regular FK’n joe/jane, who, when they start to fall due to normally bad situations (that is, very bad situations that happen often enough to be statistically expected in a population), find that there is no safety net under them. even if they’ve been buying into that safety net through insurance premiums, a lifelong commitment to a modest, socially helpful career, etc. so they have to resort to something extreme.

      and faced with the amorality of institutionalized profiteering off the populace, they don’t have very far to go to throw their morality out the window too. that’s the subtext for the whole thing. sure, there are already tucos and guses in the world, but walt only becomes one of them because he’s squeezed in that direction. unfortunately, because plots have to be driven, and the story goes well beyond that and the message is somewhat diluted. so at the end we’re not all, pitchforks in hand, banging at the gates. instead we’re hee-hee, ho ho, what crazy turn will happen next? but basically, you give these people a basic social safety net, and there is no show.

      * not well-known, but it’s hilarious. a detroit HS gym teacher’s house burns (which his dad or grampa built, can’t remember which) and insurance won’t cover it. his only asset is his big dick, so he becomes a gigolo.

      *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
  7. AV May 8,2014 12:28 am

    it went a lil hollywood for me. my biggest complaint is that the contrivance to solve the problem wasn’t at all about chemistry. isn’t that walt’s thing from day one? instead he goes automated-rambo?? speaking strictly from the POV of what’s been set up all along, deus ex machine gun just a touch.

    *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
  8. AV May 8,2014 12:34 am

    and, a nagging question. did they ever explain why/how he became a chemistry HS teacher? sure, they explained how he dropped out of gray matter (and i do buy it, as a love-struck post-adolescent he might just decide that he can’t be in the same company with the woman his buddy won over him, [sighs and throws forearm over his eyes, mocks fainting, ay me…]). but a brilliant chemist might still, WOULD still, have other aspirations. there’s at least enough of an odd choice for him to shut himself away from academia/high chemistry (as an option offered by the other chemists at the birthday party in season 1) that it has to be explained.

    maybe i missed it.

    *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
  9. AV May 8,2014 12:36 am

    and did anybody do a “so there’s that” count?

    *i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.

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