Breaking Bad

[The Joker]

How Breaking Bad uses Yellow

http://imgur.com/a/hwmnX

[Paul (ral)]

Right! I'm gonna start watching Breaking Bad tonight!

[riddler]

Right! I'm gonna start watching Breaking Bad tonight!

Just a semi-word of caution; you may find it's slow paced in the first season. Stick with it, it gets much better.

[The Joker]

Well that was one hell of a cliffhanger! 

[BatmAngelus]

(OBVIOUS SPOILERS BELOW):

I think the brilliance of the episode is that it WASN'T the finale.  Once Walt saw Hank, Gomez, and Jesse arrive, I thought "Wait, a minute.  How are they going to extend this for another few episodes?"  And how is Walt going to get from here to where he is in the flashforwards?  This made it all the more tense since we knew that this wasn't going to be as clear cut as the characters thought.

While I'm pretty sure everyone knew that Uncle Jack, Todd, and company were going to show up anyway, I think the writers knew that and were playing up the tension by dragging out Walt's arrest and adding in Hank's phone call.

Ending the episode like this was a bold move.  While I figured that Hank and Gomez would get killed and Jesse would escape, the cliffhanger surprised me.  It makes me think that something different might happen. 

Think about it.  The writers could've easily ended the episode that way, with two deaths to add on Walt's conscience and left the audience in shock for a week. 

Instead, they cut to black, making us wait to see what will happen.  Now, everyone's already figuring that the DEA agents are goners.  So, if we see Hank and Gomey get killed in the beginning of the next episode, it would be pretty anticlimactic wouldn't it?  The audience has had seven days to predict that will happen. 

I think the window of opportunity to go that route has closed and the writers have something different in store.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the next episode actually starts somewhere different- either in a different place with a different character or even at a different time, a flashforward or flashback.

We'll see on Sunday how it plays out.

[The Joker]

What a heart pounding episode!

We have completely now gone past the point of no return, with all roads leading straight to Hell.

Kudos to Vince Gilligan and company. This was indeed nothing short of an amazingly outstanding piece of work in television history.

Cheers!

[riddler]

Yeah wow. 2 episodes left, can't say I predicted most of this.

Even Walt junior turned on Walt! No clue whats to come in the 2 episodes remaining, I imagine Jesse will escape, they didnt kill him off for a reason.

[The Joker]

Such a great ending.

[BatmAngelus]

Loved it.  Gilligan and his team did it!

I found the first half had the most surprises.  Was not expecting him to do what he did to Gretchen and Elliot.  And the "I did it for me.  I liked it" scene was fantastic.  Unpredictable, yet an inevitable, necessary part of the final stage of Walt's journey. 

I've seen some comments online saying that ending it with Walt vs. the Neo Nazis was too "safe" and they felt Walt should've died alone with his money in that cabin, but I don't think that would've been a satisfying ending to the show nor would it felt in-character for Walt to just let that happen without any attempt of getting back to Albuquerque.

[The Joker]

In other, more predictable shows, that sort of unending is just...eurgh.

In Breaking Bad, though? It's earned the "happy" ending after everything it put the characters through.

Five seasons of misery earns a pleasant finale (or as pleasant as the circumstances allow).