9/29/13
View Logs: Breaking Bad Season 5.2 Finale
Episode Title: FelinaIt should be obvious by now that these view logs usually contain spoilers. Sure there's a few that don't actually give away what happens and just talks about the abstract core of the characters and the plot (my Agents of SHIELD Episode 1 was a bit like that). But it must be said here that there's no way I can avoid blatant spoilers when talking about Breaking Bad because, inevitably, I'll be talking about how Walter White's character came to a full complete arc.
The interesting thing is, the ending isn't as clear cut as it seems. Vince Gilligan is very careful to craft a return of Walter White that is both a kind of redemption and not at the same time... Really, Walter's specific redemption seems a little narrow in perspective and because of that it's not a "true" purification of the character. I'll elaborate.
So people who took the ending at face value will see that Walter White did indeed make up for a lot of his wrong doings. He said good bye to his wife and was, for the first time since Season 1, 100% honest with her. He was able to put aside his ego and truly admit himself for who he is. He did everything he did throughout the series because he sincerely enjoyed it. It wasn't because of anything else despite what he kept saying in the previous seasons. This isn't Eugene Sledge in The Pacific trying to force himself to fit in a morally reprehensible environment. This isn't Tony Sopranos growing complacent about his work. This is Walter White actively and sincerely enjoying destroying people's lives because it gave him the kind of power he's not used it. To Walter, power is power. It doesn't matter if it's a power to do good or to wreck havoc. Power in of itself is all that matters. Which makes Walt a true sociopath. Remember the exchange in Season 5.1:
Walter White: "I'm not in the meth business. I'm in the empire business."
Jesse Pinkman: "Is a meth empire really something to be proud of?..."
*Silence*
To Walt, he doesn't care what kind of empire it is. It's an empire. He has power. End of story.
But finally in Felinas, he finally saw himself for who he was. See, extreme narcissists always find a way to excuse themselves no matter what they do and that's what Walter's been doing throughout the entire series. But all in this final episode, Walt was able to truly see himself for who he really is. That scene in which Walt admits to Skylar that he hasn't done all this for the family for a long time is such a small detail but it makes all the difference to Walter's characters (the writer of Death Note should be taking notes from this show btw... Kira's character NEVER grew or even changed...)
But on top of that, he freed Jesse and actually gave him the opportunity to kill him. Truly, for the first time ever, admitting his extremely negative impact on Jesse's life.
Yet, despite all this. It isn't enough and the final episodes, very similar to The Sopranos, is very squarely from Walt's perspective. While I must give Walt credit for owning up to his issues (finally...), I cannot accept Walt viewing himself as completely purified from his sins as a positive ending to his character. That's what the final shot is about: Walt is thinking himself as ascending to heaven and completely atoning for what he's done. I am not completely sure if Vince Gilligan intended the ending to be a sincere purification of Walter White but from what I've assessed through my experience of tonight's finale (and about 10 minutes processing what I've just watched), the show seems to be aware of how narrow this perspective is.
Honestly, this makes sense for someone who is a true narcissistic sociopath. Even if they might finally recognize their own inner faults, they will still find a way to make their atonement about them. Not other people. Walt thought only about himself in his final moments. He saw his actions as "enough" to fix what he's done. Sure he's now sorry about this whole charade (after all, his money ambitious didn't pay off at all... no pun intended). But he's sorry only to a certain point and that's what makes him and his final moments interesting. And this is all done by putting the audience in Walter's head right at the end.
Let me make a few comparisons. Take a look at Walter's final moments to Eugene Sledge's and Tony Soprano's ending in The Pacific and The Sopranos respectively. I'll start with Sledge first. (BTW this isn't spoilers to The Pacific. Maybe just how the final scene plays out but that's it.)
The Pacific's Ending Scene:
So a quick background for those who haven't seen The Pacific. The show follows 3 US soldiers' experience throughout the Pacific theater of WWII. Unlike it's complement WWII show Band of Brothers, The Pacific details how war can turn people into monsters. This is the beginning of the end.Sledge is home in Alabama and struggling with home life. The first shot of a scene is in the wilderness, similar to what he saw on the Pacific islands.
Close up of the weeds establishing the Sledge's PoV.
Reaction shot of Sledge picking a flower
Sledge's PoV when he's examining the flower.
It eclipses the sun but the specific flower and the way it's shot right below the sun symbolizes the Japanese Imperial Rising Sun flag. This shot is especially important as it serves as visual symbolism on what Sledge is pondering even when the war has been over for a while at the time of this scene.
The scene transitions right as the flower is completely centered to the sun. Driving the imagery home.
The final shot of the entire series is of Sledge walking awkwardly away and uphill. The low camera angle represents Sledge's haunted mindset where, even when he's safe and comfortable at home, he will never truly escape the Pacific.
Here's an example of Sledge traversing the hills of Okinawa in episode 9 with a very similar shot.
So you can see how through use of visual storytelling, the audience is put in Sledge's head. He's thinking about the Pacific even when he's not there physically and there's no dialogue (or internal monologue) about the war.
Now... please allow me to make a second, much more well-known, example.
The Sopranos' Ending Scene:
David Chase utilized the same technique to great effect. (By the way this analysis will contain spoilers but at this point you should already know how The Sopranos ended... it was lampooned to hell back in 2007.) Only to a much larger degree (because David Chase wanted to drive a point home with this final sequence.) I need to credit the following to the Master of Sopranos blog, created purely to explain the ending.
Get it? This final sequence is very obviously from Tony's perspective. It's merely a sequence of PoV shot/reaction shot to get the audience into Tony's mind. This is very obviously set up by David Chase. Then the important bits happen.
This guy walks in...
He's walking in front of an important character who is meeting Tony. This signifies his own importance even if the audience doesn't recognize who he is.
Notice how Tony doesn't notice this weird man looking at him.
This is establishing that Tony is sloppy tonight. He's very casual and relaxed when normally he'd be very aware of his surroundings in public... cause you know... being a mob boss and all that. But tonight, he let his guard down because he thought everything's taken care of in the story.
The guy eventually gets up and goes to the bathroom... which has a perfectly clear shot of Tony but Tony doesn't seem to notice or care. He's too busy having a good time with his family. So what happens after this? Tony hears the door open and looks up...
Then this.
It's very obvious from the visual storytelling that Tony's dead. See, the point of all those PoV/reaction shots is to set up a pattern. It's to get the audience in Tony's mind as much as possible. He reacts to something, then the audience sees what he's reacting to. So in these final two shots, Tony is reacting to his daughter coming in. But what does he see/sense? Nothingness. There's literally no other explanation to this (that would make sense) other than Tony's dead. The way The Sopranos is resolved is actually not ambiguous at all and there's a thematic purpose to ending this show this abruptly.
If you would like to find out what David Chase is trying to say with this, again please check out the MoS blog. It'll contain story discussions that I won't go into more here because they aren't relevant to this post. I just wanted to show you how two shows got the audience to see things completely from the character's perspective and what's occupying their minds.
Now... Breaking Bad's ending is a lot simpler but utilizes similar visual storytelling techniques.
Breaking Bad's Ending Scene:
Remember I said earlier that Walter White has maintained his narcissistic attitude even when he's trying to fix things? So what is Walt thinking about when he's finally in the meth lab; alone and dying? What does the camera tell us?
Walter is walking through the lab, examining the equipment.
He sees a gas mask and starts pondering it fondly.
Walt then takes in the entire lab mentally. This is reflected in the wide shot. He is entirely surrounded by chemistry and, specifically, the meth chemistry that made him "feel alive."
He then sees and reacts to a boiler.
Then there's that PoV shot! So... whereas Eugene saw the Rising Sun and Tony saw his family. What does Walter see? Himself reflected on the meth equipment! The non-PoV sequence of shots before this should already tell you that he's reveling in his own work, but this specific PoV shot brings the point home that all he's thinking about is himself.
Walt collapses and leaves blood on the boiler... reminding the audience that Walter still has a lot of blood on his hands. But notice that the blood is there when Walter isn't paying attention to it. This serves as a symbolic gesture to the audience that Walter White has still done an incredible amount of damage to the people around him and society in general. Thanks for this by the way Vince. Glad to see you aren't glorifying Walt's death!
Finally, the camera is zooming out on Walt. Symbolizes Walt's imagined ascension to heaven or to a "higher" place. He thinks he's done enough to clean up the damage he's done and the fact that he's literally only thinking of himself makes him still the asshole narcissist we've always known him as.
You're probably wondering... "but there isn't any other way to show Walt thinking about other things because in visual mediums you're restricted to what you see?" That's not actually true, earlier in the episode we see that the show utilizes flashbacks in order to show us that Walt's mind is wandering. This doesn't happen often, but when it does it's very poignant. (and BTW flashbacks are only one of many ways to get the audience to see what the characters are thinking outside of their surroundings.) Here's what I mean.
So 20 minutes into this episode we see Walt getting the ricin.
The show establishes that Walt's in his old house.
Walt slowly walks out...
And pauses. We suddenly hear Hank's voice.
This tells us that Walt's thinking about Hank and his past and the irony of his current situation. This never happens in the final sequence. There isn't even any subtle visual symbolism of outside society like the teddy bear or a random toy eye ball rolling around. So... he has ruined so many people's lives throughout the show. Either directly or indirectly. Marie is widowed, Brock is now an orphan (or atleast without a mother, I'm assuming Jesse will now try to take care of him), Gomez left his family behind, Mike's daughter is without a father, Dan Waschberger's family is without a husband and Walt was creating new Jane Margolises every time he cooked a batch of his blue meth.
And at the end of the day, during his final moments... all he can think about is still himself.
Walter White's character has grown a lot over this season. He's had to face himself many times and eventually did go through an arc. But that doesn't mean he's suddenly a good, forgivable person. He might be more sincere about his real feelings and he might finally feel some regret about everything that's happened. But at the end of the day, Walt's still Walt and you would be blindfolding yourself not to see the egoist that's still inside him.
Thank you very much for the saga Vince!
