Series Finale Review: Breaking Bad ‘Felina’ – I Was Alive

Though definitively a plot-driven series from beginning to end, the philosophic question of “is Walter White a good man?” always sat at the heart of Breaking Bad. What makes a good person: and how many ‘bad’ things can they do before they’re ‘evil’, doomed to a metaphysical hell before they even die in the physical world? At times, Breaking Bad would pull away and posit this question in other people: Marie certainly can’t be a bad person because she stole some jewelry – but is Hank a ‘bad’ cop or a good husband for covering it up? Was Walter cooking meth to feed his ego, or provide for his family? Where does the gray area (“like, morality-wise”, to quote Skinny Pete) become all black and corrupted – and once it has, can it ever return to being white? 

This was the question at the heart of Breaking Bad: and for many episodes, the show posited that Walter wasn’t, despite his humble middle-class existence. To dip back into religious metaphors, he was full of the deadliest sins: greed, pride, lust, envy… just reading the list of the “cardinal sins” in traditional Christian ethics is like a checklist for our Walter White (who struck a nice Jesus pose back in ‘To’hajiilee’, by the way), traits that became increasingly dominant over his conscience when he donned the black cap of Heisenberg. His pride became so much that he screamed to others to proclaim his name, as if a god amongst men, screaming “Respect me as a deity, measly bitches!!!”.

But Walter was no god – if anything, he was closer to a devil, the schemer who had just enough good luck to scrape along. And if there’s been a motif to season five, it’s been proving that Walt is neither, slowly reducing him from rich kingpin to groveling, sick old bearded man in a lodge in the middle of nowhere, a torturous purgatory. That’s where Walter is in the beginning of “Felina”, an episode that often thrilled and occasionally disappointed: but never strayed from its course, culminating its six-year run with a memorable finale.

If “Ozymandias” and “Granite State” was Walt’s cosmic punishment, “Felina” is Walt’s attempt at redemption: the first half of the episode almost plays like a meth-flavored version of A Christmas Carol, with Walter playing the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge, returning to lives he lived (Skylar, his old home), lives that could’ve been (Gretchen and Elliot’s new home), entering and leaving scenes suddenly and quietly, like a ghost talking to the people he’s left behind. Neighbors, old accomplices, family: Walt visits them all, and sees the destruction he’s caused. He watches Flynn walk down the bus stairs and up the stairs to their new not-really-all-that-shitty-looking apartment (like Tiny Tim!), and like Scrooge, gets one last reminder of the humanity that still lives deep inside him (but unlike Scrooge, there is no second chance for Walter to redeem himself, no fairy tale ending awaiting at the end of the journey).

Now, many will argue that “Felina” is Walt getting his moment of redemption by saving Skylar, funneling his money to Walt Jr., freeing Jesse, and taking out Jack and his Nazi clan: a valid argument, given how neatly and cleanly every event in this episode fits into the narrative (and always the best case scenario, unless you’re Jack or Lydia, of course). But I’d argue “Felina” goes out of its way to suggest that Walt’s redemption will never come: Skylar still hates him, and knows her only ticket to freedom is by giving up the location of Hank’s dead body (and even then: what kind of freedom will that buy her?) Walt Jr. is going to be rich off the money that killed his uncle, and Jesse is going to be tortured (Aaron Paul as Jesse drives away = a fucking powerhouse ten seconds of acting…. just captured the complexity of that moment beautifully) with memories for the rest of his life. And Walt dies: does anybody really “win” at all? Gretchen and Elliott will walk around in fear for the rest of their lives, and Walt Jr. will always be the son of Heisenberg: the damage was done long before “Felina” arrived, and the final hour of the series proves what’s done is done.

In the end, all Walter has is self-realization: he finally comes to terms with the mix of monster and man that he is. He’s a prideful bastard (he tells Gretchen that all costs for Walt Jr.’s trust fund HAS to come out of the $9.725 million Walt left him), but one that can contemplate for a brief moment who he became. In his final conversation with Skylar, he finally tells the truth to the woman he’s been lying to two years for: he tells her where Hank is buried, and admits that he did it all for himself. “I was good at it,” he tells her, standing as tall as he can in his cancer-stricken body: “I was alive.” In the end, it was all a mid-life crisis gone wrong: but it still remains as Walter White’s defining moment, in all its sad, Ozymandian glory… well, that and coming up with the name Gray Matter, of course.

Many will say that “Felina” plays itself too safe, the most fantastical version of every possible outcome for the dangling threads of the world. Jesse gets to kill Todd, Walt takes down the Neo-Nazis and finally stops hiding behind the conceit of money as his driving force. But he didn’t go there to save Jesse (he has no empathy for him until he sees the scars and chains) or protect his family: he went so everyone would remember Heisenberg and the crazy, assault-rifle-autofiring-in-a-trunk myth that he always was. And as I predicted in last week’s review, those copies of Mr. Magorium proved true: in the show’s final scene, Walt takes a good look at the meth lab Jesse was imprisoned in, and smiles. Then, “he dies” in the place where he was reborn, bringing a season full of cyclical moments (whether Hank reaching for a weapon while injured, Walt and his ricin, Walt Jr. becoming Flynn again) to a close with a poignant, quiet final scene.

Is “Felina” a perfect finale? It doesn’t try to surprise: it simply reminds us all of the inevitable, and how there is no use fighting against it, be it some physical, mental, or emotional. Our darkest emotions and traits always threaten to consume us: and Breaking Bad is all about the damage that can be done because of that, from the precursor of transformation until there’s no energy left at all, just a hollow shell of once was, what might’ve been, and what never will be. Is it too neat in places? Probably. Does it jump around from scene to scene without context too many times? Possibly: but “Granite State” remains the extreme example of this kind of pacing, easily the most disjointed episode of the series.

If anything, “Felina” is satisfying: Vince Gilligan stayed true to the show he was trying to make, right down to the Scarface reference (Walter wasn’t standing with his finger on the trigger, but “say hello to my little friend” would’ve been snug as a bug in that final one-sided shootout). Good, bad, evil, pure… Walter White was none of these, and he was all of these. He was a human, one who changed and morphed – and ultimately, died on his own terms, arguably the most masculine, self-satisfying things to do. There’s nothing worse for a human than the absence of choice: and not having any power in one’s decision to die was one of Walt’s defining moments back in season one. He wanted to go out on his terms: and although the situation is far, far from ideal, Walter got to do exactly that. When he dies on the pavement in the meth lab, he’s happy: which, considering the pain and anguish he left behind, is a pretty dick move.

Regardless, it makes for a great ending to Breaking Bad: all of Walter’s best and worst traits are on full display in “Felina”, and the audience is left to judge whether what Walter did was noble, or just the final, desperate attack of a dying monster. None of it was surprising, but that was kind of the point: Breaking Bad was all about the inevitable drop of the other shoe, which we’ve seen over the past 16 episodes. We all knew what was coming: it was just a matter of how we got there. In that, Breaking Bad nailed it, delivering a memorable final season and final episode that showed that people CAN change, even if it’s too late. Chemistry never stops: transformation and mutation never stop occurring in the world, from molecules, to human beings, to the universe. It took Walter losing everything for him to realize what he once had: and although “Felina” may appear to give that all back to him, it doesn’t. He’s already a ghost by the time “Felina” begins – and more so, his attempts at “good” deeds involve giving the location of a dead family member he accidentally had killed, forcing people to give his son drug money under the threat of death, and murdering a half-dozen people out of pure hubris. He’s Walter White: family, monster, legend, myth – and now, deceased, leaving a path of destruction, sadness, and immortality behind him. How could this finale get any better?

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

– first of all, congrats to Vince Gilligan and co. on a fantastic six-year run. What a fucking show you all made.

– Jesse talked about wooden boxes once, in an NA meeting, hence the flashback.

– Walt, to the Schwartz’s: “Cheer up, beautiful people.”

– Walt was always a man to get lucky when he really needed it: how could he not get lucky one more time, even if he didn’t deserve it?

– Jesse’s last kill is very similar to Walt’s first “real” kill: Jesse goes up behind Todd and chokes him to death.

– “I want to hear you say it.” “I want this.” “Then do it yourself.”

– Todd: “I like your……….. shirt.”

– awww Holly!

– “No replacement for displacement.”

– Thanks for reading everyone!