September 19, 2013
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This post contains many spoilers through Breaking Bad S5b:6, and even more examples of wild speculation. Also, I’ve abandoned (for the most part) any pretense to tie in any workplace issues. Apologies for all three.
Hank’s dogged pursuit of Heisenberg paid off — at least for a few minutes. But when the smoke cleared, there was one dog on the loose, and another on a short leash.
With two episodes of Breaking Bad to go, Walt’s ride into the sunset is accompanied by a wild dog crossing the road in his wake. It’s an apt metaphor as Walt runs away from any semblance of domesticity and, for the moment, just needs to be on the move.
Having ordered a hit on Jesse, and then delaying the execution, Walt has sentenced his former partner to a fate worse than death: As the indentured, meth-cooking slave of the Aryans, tethered to a dog trolley when he isn’t tossed into a hole in the ground.
But every dog has his day.
I was spectacularly wrong about how Jesse escapes death — but, perhaps, only for the time being. At the moment of truth Walt still wanted Jesse dead — so dead he even took the opportunity to share the soul-crushing revelation he had allowed Jane to die.
Walt had hired the Aryans to do the hit — quick, no fear — because he couldn’t bring himself to do the wet work. And now he is ready to watch Jesse die.
But beatings, murder and torment are one thing, and torture is another. In the end Walt won’t be able to live — or die — with the knowledge that Jesse is being forced to serve a life sentence in an one-man work camp.
His discovery of Jesse’s fate will set the final act in motion. Walt needed that M60 for something, and liberating Jesse at the barrel of a gun that can fire up to 650 rounds per minute is about as cinematic a final act of grace as could be. The ricin? An insurance policy that, even if he survives the firefight, he doesn’t survive for long. With maybe a little set aside for that inexplicably annoying Lydia.
Breaking Bad could have credibly ended the series with Ozymandias: Walt is in the wind, and death is certain; Jesse is paying dearly for having no self-preservation instinct: Skylar is rid of her cancer — an incorrigibly reckless husband; Walt Jr. is further crippled by the loss of two father figures. There is finality in all of this. But no real satisfaction.
The new plot pivot is an all-too sentimental attempt to save Hank. By offering all of his ill-gotten gains — a staggering $80 million cleared in about 18 months — Walt learns a lesson Neville Chamberlain was taught in 1938: Non-aggression pacts with Nazis don’t last very long.
Walt is nearing the end of his life, and now has even less to live for than when he learned of his cancer. Having surrendered once in the desert, and having been abandoned by his family in the suburbs, he might well have turned himself in downtown. Instead, he’s on a road trip to New Hampshire (whose state motto, "Live Free or Die," is perhaps one of the least subtle foreshadowings of this series).
Walt has, shall we say, unfinished business to attend to.
He doesn’t have much time. He will die on or about his 52nd birthday — what better occasion to tip a Denny’s waitress $100 for a meal you didn’t touch? And when a man who has sacrificed so much to fall off the face of the earth goes to his old neighborhood with no fear of being recognized — "Hi Carol" — it can only mean that getting recognized no longer matters.
No amount of breaking good can redeem Walt. But he’ll try to make penance. He’ll start by re-engaging Saul to funnel his millions to his long-suffering wife. He’ll get Brock and Andrea into some kind of safe situation — perhaps for Jesse to join. There might even be some money left over for Mike’s granddaughter and the family of the kid Todd shot after the Great Train Robbery.
And then, having made his peace, Walt will go to war.
Earlier stories:
Breaking Bad: The Law of Unintended Consequences (S5b:4)
The Women of ‘Breaking Bad’ Lean In (S5b:4)
Breaking Bad’s Walter White on Crisis Management (S5b:03)
Breaking Bad: Negotiate Your Way out of a Bottomless Pit (S5b:2)
Why You Don’t Want to Work For ‘Breaking Bad’s’ Walter White (S5b:1)
Business Lessons From Breaking Bad’s Walter White (By Dylan Tweney)
What The Success Of Breaking Bad Teaches Us (By Michael Powell)
Enshrining Breaking Bad (By Charlie Collier)
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Posted by:John C A.
