Breaking Bad “Face Off”: Adios, Gustavo

At the end of last night’s explosive (pardon the pun) season finale of Breaking Bad, Walt is on the phone with Skylar, and sums up the entire season in one sentence: “I won.” And it’s true…. but while he feels he’s pushed back the closing walls around him by winning this war with Gus, it’s clear the only thing he’s doing is pulling those walls closer to him. With 16 episodes left to air in two parts starting next summer, Breaking Bad is at a turning point – in more ways then one.

Before we address what might happen in the future, let’s talk about the events that unfolded in ‘Face Off.’ The biggest of these (obviously) is the sudden alliance of Hector with Walt to take out Gus. It shouldn’t come to the audience as a surprise this happened: it’s been clear through most of the season by Gus’s visits to Hector that he still had a role left to play with his sniveling, drooling face and finger bell.  And while the murder plot works and makes sense – Hector has wanted to die for a long time now, and Gus has simply been keeping him alive for his sick, twisted satisfaction (or you can call it justified, Hector did kill his partner/possible lover years ago) – it doesn’t play out with the same level of excitement and suspense Walt’s previous plans to deal with pain in the ass drug lords and dealers has in the past. This might be caused by the straightforward nature of the plan, but I think it says more about the allusions to Gus’s death all season. With the last season looming large in 2012, Gilligan and co. had to take care of the Gus business now, so season 5 can be the final hurrah (more on that later). One one hand, it was clear Gus had to go, or else someone on Walt’s side was going to have to get whacked by the writers – and in all honesty, I was hoping Marie would catch a bullet all season from the likes of Mike or Tyrus – to keep Gus an interesting character in the last season.

While I enjoyed watching the relief (and realization of power) wash over Walt’s face multiple times during the episode, I couldn’t help feel but this season finished a slightly clumsy season, with a number of clumsy plot devices. Most noticeably among these is the ricin cigarette, whose importance all season became something entirely different in the span of ten minutes during last week’s episode, only to finally be revealed as merely a device in the long con of Walt on Jesse. There are numerous holes into how Walt got the cigarette off Jesse, and proceeded to poison his girlfriend’s kid enough to bring Jesse under his wing again, and while I don’t think we needed to see it all, or hear it all explained in some sloppy exposition, the whole story about Brock felt a bit contrived – although, since it was part of Walt’s deception, it may very well be designed to do that specifically.It also felt odd that Jesse got back with his girl so quickly in the later parts of the season when it happened, and felt a bit abrupt and revealing (because like any good TV show, everything on Breaking Bad is intentional).

Which brings me to the most important part of season 4 (and the show, in general) is the relationship of Jesse and Walt. While Jesse did finally come back to Walt, each time they argue, the fight gets uglier and the following reconciliation is more and more uneasy. They obviously needed to fight sometime this season in order to come back together for the end, but I think there are much bigger issues about Walt and Jesse that are both alluded to by the writers. I mean, after this round of fucking with Jesse’s life, is there anyone in the audience who doesn’t think Jesse is going to be the one who finally ends Walt? We’ve spent four seasons watching Walt walk all over Jesse, and assume him to be easily manipulated, even after all this time. This story will come to a head in season 5, and I’m guessing it will be a lot uglier than the brawl they had this season. Lest we forget, the true reason Jane died is still hidden to Jesse (though with Walt adding five more to his body count tonight, he may simply cease to care about the whole Jane thing at this point).

Sure, lots of signs point to Hank and the DEA coming onto Walt in the final season, but do we really think its going to work? Hank’s been dancing around Walt for 4 seasons. This could be the obvious: an intentional four season build up (which it probably is), or it could be another one of Gilligan’s long cons (which it’s probably not, but I’m hoping it is). Like I said, Hank has had the scent of Walt for a long time now, and still spends too much time asking the people around him questions, and overlooking simple things (why didn’t Hank finally realize something after the death of Gus was shown on the news, knowing Walt still hadn’t shown up at his house?). Then again, this could be some of the weaker writing on Breaking Bad, where inexplicable things happen simply to service the plot (ricin cigarette this season, the shootout at Hector’s between Tio and Hank way back in the first season).

So what did people think about last night’s conclusion? I suppose Gus’s spider-sense only works so much (especially when Mike is sitting in a white tent down in Mexico with a bullet wound), although it seems to work better in empty parking lots then around enemies like Hector (why would Gus think Hector really flipped? I suppose Tortuga showed us even the cartel can have leaks). It was a good finale to a season that took a slight dip in quality after the amazing first two seasons and a shaky third. There are still a bunch of story lines that didn’t work: most of the stuff with Saul, anything with Marie, and especially the Ted Beneke plot), but the finale was on par with the rest of the season. Breaking Bad is prone to storytelling stutters and long periods of time where not much happens (like the time spent with Hector spelling words, stripping away the allusion the 51-minute episode was 51 minutes of things happening), but when it swings and makes contact, Bad can still hit it out of the park (as the Walt vs. Jesse tensions showed us). A solid finish to a slighty underwhelming season, but a good set up for the Walt vs. Jesse vs. Mike vs. Hank war waiting for us in Season 5.