Tag Archive | finale

Breaking Bad Episode 516 “Felina” – The Series Finale

“Just get me home. Just get me home. I’ll do the rest.”

So much to say that it’s hard to know where to start. I’m so full of different emotions. I loved the finale. It was so bittersweet and surprisingly hopeful, and full of sad goodbyes that were heartbreaking but understated and not sentimental. And then there are all the feelings I’m having as a fan. It was actually hard to watch the finale a second time in order to write this post because all the goodbyes hit harder the second time around. It wasn’t just Walt saying goodbye in different ways to the people in his life, but us saying goodbye to all these characters we’ve lived with since we started watching the show, characters who were written and acted so vividly that they seemed almost alive and breathing in the real world.

It’s a big loss. No more predicting what Walt or anyone else will do. No more suspense, or shocking surprises. No more crazy, off-the-wall scenarios tossed out during the weeks or years between episodes. No more time with these wonderful awful people who are all so flawed and human. But even this loss puts some sweetness in the bittersweet of it all. The show did go out on top. There are shows I love that have just gone on too long and shown a drop in quality, and it’s usually around the fifth of sixth season, sometimes sooner, so that by the end, no one really cares anymore, and just watches out of habit if at all. And there are shows that ended too soon (The Killing, anyone? Don’t get me started) with stories unfinished, left on cliffhangers that will never resolve because the writers didn’t know the last episode was the last episode.

Vince Gilligan and his brilliant team of writers did know, for a long time, and so they could craft an ending, build up to it. And craft they did.

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With a Wink and a Smile

Sep23

Yo! So I’m currently in this contest to go to the Breaking Bad finale in LA, which I’ve been desperately wishin’ and hopin’ to go to for a long while now. The contest is based on coming up with toasts, but I thought, just in the interest of trying everything I can, I’d also throw out a pitch.

This make me so uncomfortable (and I really hope the places where I make fun of myself come across) but here goes:

Top Ten Reasons You Should Pick Me for ToastingBad

10. Wanting it More

Whispers about the finale event at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery started in February. And ever since then, I’ve always kept one dedicated window on my phone’s internet browser open to a google search for “breaking bad finale hollywood forever” and would refresh it on a daily basis in hopes of new updates. For months and months, there was nothing new. In June and July the news started picking up and in August ticket info was finally available. At noon on September 4, 2013, I sat here at my computer with two browsers open, refreshing the ticket page on each like a madwoman. But even with all that, it went from “not onsale yet” to “no more tickets available” with one click of the refresh button on each browser. I was so crushed that I wrote a post about it.

In Season 5 of The Office, Michael Scott tries to start his own paper company. He has his first meeting with investors, and of course it turns out to be his grandmother’s investment group. When Michael’s Nana asks him how he expects to turn a profit in this economy, Michael says, “By wanting it more” This answer is hilarious, ridiculous and quintessential Michael. I realize that winning the chance to go to the Breaking Bad finale is a much bigger stretch than Michael Scott launching a successful paper company on his own, that my odds are WAY worse than his (which is saying something sorta astronomical), but I think I can make a case for wanting it more. Or at least wanting it really, really badly.

Point is, I was tracking this event for a over six months. The timing of the event fit my schedule so well (which came as a surprise) that it felt destined. And that’s gotta count for something, right, Nana?

9. Contributions to the Breaking Bad Community

I blog here, a lot, about Breaking Bad. My post How Walter White Poisoned Brock and What Happened to the Ricin Cigarette, which walks through the whole tangled web of lies Walt wove, step-by-step, with episode titles, pictures and detailed discussion to illuminate what happened and how Jesse finally figured it out, has helped more than TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND people (check it: photo evidence from my stats page) understand that plotline. One commenter even said, “This convoluted plot seems to be all crystal clear now about 99.1%. :) Thanks Emilia J I’m going to marry you!” This post has been linked at IMDB, televisionwithoutpity, a Radiohead forum, the Breaking Bad wiki, a bodybuilding forum, the AMC Breaking Bad site, TV Guide, and many, many other sites. Greg Otto linked it in his review of a Game of Thrones episode (it’s the “near-deaths” link) in US News and World Report.

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Breaking Bad Episode 413 “Face Off”

Jul21

Yeah, that happened.

Gus got his face half blown off and walked out of the room and straightened his tie. Maybe gilding the lily, maybe a believability stretch. Still a nice touch. It’s a lot like the scene where Gus makes himself throw up after taking the poison in 410 “Salud,” he was alone, no one was watching, and he was still so Gus. Same here, he’s pretty much dead, in shock, and habit takes over. Gus doesn’t just put on a face for the outside world of this meticulous, inscrutable, insanely professional man. Gus is Gus to the core.

RIP, yo. Gus is dead. Walter White has “won” so he says.

But before that, one of my favorite lines ever. “Did you just bring a bomb into a hospital?” Jesse asks Walt. Great callback to “You brought a meth lab to the airport?” from Walt to Jesse in Season Two. So funny how Walt’s bag sticks to the door.

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Breaking Bad Episode 313 “Full Measure”

Apr21

All I want to do is gush.

If it came down to it, you know, gun to my head, or desert island and I can only take one episode of Breaking Bad, I think this would be it. It seems like half the episodes would be on my top five list (the show is just too good), but if we are talking absolute favorite, not one of, not a handful of choices, well, “Full Measure” is in first place.

I’m not exactly sure what it says about my psychology or twisted mind that I love this episode so much, an episode where the sweetest, most innocent (aside from being a meth cook) character gets shot in the face. But I love this one like no other.

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Breaking Bad Episode 213 “ABQ”

Jan20

How does so much happen in one episode? The Earth has moved in the world of the show. So many storylines intertwine and evolve.

And we learn some key things in this one. Like, Combo stole a baby Jesus statue from a Knights of Columbus display. That might be my favorite detail of the whole episode. Also, Walt’s storing his drug phone in a plastic baggie in the toilet tank, another favorite detail.

There is also a lot–probably in part for time, because so many stories are being told at once–that we don’t see. We don’t see Jesse waking up, or the moment he discovers Jane’s body. Or when he calls her death in to the police. We actually don’t even see or hear anything Jesse says to Walt when he first calls him. All of these things can be inferred and don’t need to be shown on screen.

How did Aaron Paul not win an Emmy for this episode? His acting here blows me away. He’s playing crushing grief, detoxing, guilt, drugged out stupor, and numbness, sometimes several of these at once, and he’s so, so raw. Just like he was in “Grilled” but for much longer stretches. Just breaks my heart.

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Breaking Bad Episode 508 “Gliding Over All”

Sep5

I feel like Stanley at the end of the pretzel day episode (“Initiation”) of The Office. 313 days until the next episode of Breaking Bad, assuming they start at the same time next year that they did this year. Three hundred and thirteen days. A lot can happen in that time.

I am planning on going back, starting with the pilot and posting about all the previous episodes, doing one each Sunday until it’s back on. 44 Sundays and 46 episodes, so there will have to be a tiny bit of doubling up, but I want to keep the BrBa love alive and really dig into the series while waiting for it to come back next year.

So, this week’s episode. Holy shit. HANK KNOWS. And it happened through Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. How freaking cool is that? It’s cool that a book of poetry was Walt’s undoing. It’s also poetry that is just so different than Walt’s Heisenberg persona. I haven’t read all of Leaves of Grass, but “Song of Myself,” which takes up a large part of LoG is just so, so flowy, free associative, full of fragments and so freakin’ right-brained it’s not even funny. I liked that Gale got a little bit of revenge from beyond the grave.

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The Killing: Crime Writing, Endings and the Season 2 Finale

Jun28

The Killing (U.S. TV series)

Last week, I wrote about Breaking Bad and endings in this post, and today I’m going to look at another show’s season ending, and discuss some writerly things about endings in general, particularly for crime writing.

Spoiler Alert: If you aren’t caught up and don’t know who did it, go get caught up…then come back.

Sunday, June 17th was the big Season 2 finale of AMC’s The Killing. Like with Breaking Bad, I came to The Killing late in the game and just started watching it this year. There are a lot of things I really like about this show, most notably atmosphere.

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Why Breaking Bad Needs Season 5

Jun24

Spoiler Alert: If you aren’t caught up with Breaking Bad, in particular the end of Season 4, stop now and get caught up…then come back.

First, a little background. I was way, way late coming to this show. And it’s not like I hadn’t heard about it. Last summer I took a TV scriptwriting class with Thom Bray and a few people in the class (including Thom) would talk about the amazingness of Breaking Bad. I kept putting it off because who wants to get into something that intense when you’re already in the middle of all these intense science classes and your brain needs to relax, not amp up?

But then one day in organic chemistry class, the professor brought it up. We were learning about reductive amination, a reaction that transforms a ketone or aldehyde into an amine, and he mentioned that it’s the reaction they talk about on the show (in the famous “Yeah Science!” scene). Later that night I finished watching another show (okay, it was Gossip Girl) on Netflix and needed something new to watch and loaded up the pilot episode. And that was it. I don’t think I did anything else for the next week, at least. Instant obsession. Almost immediately, I started discussing the show with anyone who would listen, in real life and online.

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