Everybody's got their own thoughts on how Breaking Bad will end, and I'm no different. I LOVE this show. I remember being super excited when the pilot first aired, way back in our little apartment in Penticton, because here, finally, was a TV show that was different. An intriguing story with morally ambiguous undertones and the promise of a non-static protagonist. Literary devices being being applied to a TV show... I just hoped it wouldn't get cancelled before the whole story was complete. I’m generally pretty good at figuring out the endings of movies I’ve never seen before, for which Andy credits my English degree. I’ve got a good understanding of how a basic story is put together, the thematic role each character plays in that story, and how those roles mesh together to convey the message the author/creator was getting at in the first place. The author’s message in this epic tragedy is pretty clear, so all that’s left to do now is fit the puzzle pieces together to finish the picture. If you know the story, you know the characters, and you know the message, it’s not hard to make an educated guess on where the story will go, and how everybody gets there.
Andy’s going for the classic ‘Hamlet’ type ending, where everybody dies, but I think it will be much more elegant than that. For all its conventional storytelling, this show has managed to be amazingly clever about it and keep us guessing even though we all know where it’s eventually heading. Details are not important, but the plot devices which lead to the inevitable ending are. If I’m right in my predictions, well, I guess that degree was worth something, and if I’m wrong, oh well, wasn’t that a great ride???
Where we left off, Hank knows about Walt, Walt knows Hank knows, and Jesse wants nothing to do with his $5M worth of “blood money”, having been traumatized and now overwhelmingly guilt-ridden by the things he has done in order to earn it.
Here we go:
Hank will pursue Walt to the full extent of the law, and will not ‘tread lightly’ as Heisenberg warned. In the shitstorm that ensues, Skyler dies and Walt is forced to make use of his go-bag, leaving his empire behind. Jesse, the show’s moral center, who we saw is finally starting to see through Walter’s lies, deceits, and betrayals, is keen to make amends for all the suffering he has inflicted. While Walt is preparing for his escape (which includes go-bags for his kids) Jesse intervenes and gets Junior and Holly safely out of harm’s way. Walt is then faced with the prospect of dying of his cancer alone, without his family, and without his empire.
Once his identity is revealed it’s big news, and he helplessly watches as his greatest accomplishment collapses while he’s living anonymously in exile. Because he’s no longer Walter White, he can’t take credit for anything he’s done, and that, to him, is worse than the cancer. The pride and arrogance that lives inside him has an insane need for recognition, so he goes back, armed to the teeth, ready for a fight, with a plan to poison Jesse with the ricin for taking his family away.
His desire to protect his family, by the way, is always the excuse and rationale behind every evil act he has committed throughout the show, even after it became clear he was doing most of those things for his own benefit. So it makes sense that Walt would want to murder the person who took his kids away, even when that person actually had the best interests of the children at heart.
It pains me to say I think Walter will be successful in his plans concerning Jesse. Growth, decay, transformation. Walter White at first grew into his criminal role from that of mild-mannered science teacher, but Heisenberg's volitile influence increasingly decayed that part of him. Getting rid of Jesse will utterly and completely destroy Walter White as a sympathetic character, because even now, he’s hanging on by a thread, but by killing Jesse, it will ultimately transform him into the devil (aka Heisenberg). Clearly, murdering in cold blood the most morally righteous individual in the story for something which was his own original intent will become that cathartic moment of the series. After that, it will be all about his downfall though you’d have to be mighty unobservant to not realize there’s going to be a final showdown between Walt and Hank. I do think Walt will kill Hank in that showdown, but that Walt will very likely have a mundane or undignified death. However, I don't think the cancer will get him. Maybe it will be a rookie DEA agent bagging his first kill.
Plus I have a pretty good idea of who will die and who will live:
Walt: Dead (obviously)
Skyler: Dead
Walter Jr. and Holly: Live
Hank: Dead
Marie: Live (she’ll be the one who looks after the kids)
Jesse: Dead (though I’m really pulling for him, he must die at Walter’s hands for the show to really be a proper tragedy)
Badger & Skinny Pete: Dead
Saul: Dead
Lydia: Dead
