Breaking Bad - Part 14

[BestGirl]

According to Gilligan, there was no ambiguity about Walt. Since the beginning the show was about this seemingly regular person who becomes a very bad person. You can see glimpses of it, there is a point in the show were you can see that Walt is clearly getting a personal satisfaction in the meth business, one that goes beyond his initial desire of helping his family. For example, because of the Gray Matter issue, we can see that Walt is resentful, he needs to be recognized for his achievements. And with being Heisenberg, he does.

I always thought it was very clear that Walt was in the meth business primarily for himself. He turned down Gretchen and Elliot's safe offer to help and was so thoroughly turned on - literally - by doing something illegal. Remember how he threw a fit when Saul wanted to set it up so that it would look as though his medical bills were being paid by donations? Everything was about his ego.

 

[BlueLightning]

Yep, just about. Though in the beginning I kinda gave him the benefit of the doubt, watching it again you can see that it is there since the beginning. He really "broke bad".

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Tron Bonne]

I don't think Walt sheds ambiguity in the finale. There were always dueling sides to his personality and his motivations, between the pragmatic benefit of his family and the selfish power trip. It is reductive to boil him down to one or the other, he was a complex mixture of both. You can see these in nearly every thing he did throughout the series, that most choices no matter how bad could justified to be some twisted and compromised altruism. Which Walt would of course always fall back on, never admitting that that wasn't the sole reason for why he did it. I read the "I did it for me" line as an admission of the part of himself he denied but what had been so obvious from the first episode, that he was kind of a bastard. It wasn't an apology but it wasn't a denial of the good intentions behind it all either.

But that's really the problem of that scene. We are shown a lot of ways to inspect why he does what he ultimately does. But in the last episode he not only says that he did it for him, he goes on to say why he really did it and for what reasons. It's a scene that seems obviously made to destroy any ambiguity about Walt. The only way it'd be more blunt is if the scene paused, Gilligan walked on the screen, and told us exactly why Walt does what he intended Walt to be. That whole final episode was made, it seems to me, to be as closed to any interpretation of Breaking Bad as possible.

 

[BlueLightning]

I don't think the scene was for us as an audience in that sense. We already know Walt and the reasons he does what he does. The admission is a self realization. We as an audience don't learn that Walt did what he did because of himself, we learn that he admits and accepts it.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Everything that happens in any show is, to some extent, for the audience. And we don't know why Walt does what he does, not for sure. Yes, we can pull a lot of why he does by his actions or what he says, but that's my point, it is open to interpretation since one can argue other points about why Walt does what he does, but the finale does it's best to close that to any examination.

 

[James]

Despite the admission, I still think it was a mixed bag of motivation. Walt saying he did it for himself is true, but that doesn't automatically dismiss all other reasons for turning into a baddie.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

Congratulations to Aaron Paul on his third Emmy win.....*****.

 

[Kane52630]

Yeah *****!

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

What was the last project Anna Gunn did?

 

[Sawyer]

What was the last project Anna Gunn did?

Most recent things are a show on Broadway and Gracepoint, which starts soon on FOX.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

Hell yeah yo! Go Aaron t:

 

[TheNextNolan22]

So happy Cranston won!!!!

 

[Bruce Malone]

Cranston deserved it. I was a huge fan of Matthew in True Detective but for Cranston this was the culmination of 5 seasons of great work, not just 1 amazing season.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

Breaking Bad won Best Drama.

 

[kvz5]

Congrats on the well deserved wins.

 

[Brother Jack]

The show deserved it. A final send off to one of the greatest shows ever. It's a shame True Detective wasn't nominated for miniseries as it should have been. It probably would have won more awards.

 

[TheNextNolan22]

 

[TheNextNolan22]

 

[CapedCrusader14]

As much as I wanted True Detective to win more than it did, Breaking Bad deserved it whole-heartedly without a doubt.

Glad to see my favourite show of all time given a grand send off.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Prison Mike]

Poor RJ and Bob. They're the only ones without an Emmy in the front row.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Hank's still buried.

 

[Prison Mike]

Skylar is still hanging on to the lottery ticket with the coordinates.

 

[Kane52630]

Hank's still buried.

...for now.