Two months from now, there will be no more Breaking Bad. Ever.
I probably don't need to tell anyone reading this blog that Breaking Bad returns this Sunday to air the first of its eight final episodes. Heck, I probably don't need to tell anyone who doesn't read this blog, either. The last several months have brought us the ends of a few notable shows (The Office, 30 Rock), but the anticipation surrounding the final half season of Breaking Bad is at a fevered pitch not seen for series finales since the end days of Lost or even The Sopranos. Go scroll through the homepage of any entertainment-covering website, and I guarantee you you'll see at least one feature or ad about Breaking Bad. As far as television events go, it's kind of a big deal.
If I were Vince Gilligan, though, I bet all that hype would be at least a little double-edged. 'Cause, you know, good series finales are freaking hard to pull off—especially when they're as hotly anticipated as this one is. Just ask Seinfeld or The X-Files or Battlestar Galactica (or, despite what I might argue, half of Lost's fanbase). There are a lot reasons why finales are hard, many of which I, being only on the viewing side of things, am probably ignorant of, but I can think of two main reasons why a lot of modern TV shows stumble when it comes to wrapping it up: scope and expectation[1]. Basically, a show's scope gets too broad to adequately bring to a conclusion (e.g. The X-Files or Battlestar Galactica) and/or the rest of the show primes the audience to expect a different ending than they end up getting (Seinfeld or, um, Battlestar Galactica again). Either way, it's unsatisfying.
But I'm not that worried about Breaking Bad. In fact, I'd say it has a really good chance of delivering a great finale, even when others of its ilk have failed. And that's because it's done a bang-up job of both controlling the scope of the show and managing its audience's expectations.
You could say the writers of Breaking Bad have a "wealth" of talent...
okay, I suck at captions.
First of all, let's look at scope. Now, Breaking Bad is a magnificently ambitious series, one that has somehow transformed its almost-jokey premise of a chemistry teacher becoming the best meth cook in the Southwest into an honest character study with propulsive plotting and resonant themes of capitalism, family, the war on drugs, and the nature of evil. The series has the sweeping feel of a thriller, the emotional nakedness of the best small-time dramas, and the towering destructive impulses and moral implications of a Shakespearean tragedy, and Walt's series-long descent into his own arrogance and depravity is more thorough and psychologically nuanced than any other character arc I can think of. There are very few shows in the history of television that have told a heavily serialized, series-long story as coherent and rewarding as Breaking Bad's.
So yeah, there are all sorts of great things about Breaking Bad's ambitious storytelling. But one thing that separates BB's ambition heading into its finale from that of, say, The Wire or Lost (shows with a similarly serialized bent and propulsive narrative) is how tidy it's been in its telling of that story. Looking back at the whole series, it's surprising just how few loose ends the show has left to tie up in these final eight episodes. Save for the cryptic flash-forward to Walt's 52nd birthday, we have no lingering mysteries to solve or cryptic character motivations to figure out as we watch these final eight episodes. In fact, the one plot left to resolve is the same one the show introduced in its opening minutes of Walt telling his video camera that "This is not an admission of guilt": whether cancer or crime will destroy Walter White. Fifty-four episodes into the story, the show's focus is as sharply on Walt and his family as it was in the pilot.
That's not to say that the show hasn't taken detours from that initial premise. Along the way, we've had all sorts of colorful characters added to the fray, some of which have drastically changed the course of the story. Who of us could have guessed after first viewing the pilot that Walter White would eventually cause an airline catastrophe or become the master meth chef for a drug-overlord-posing-as-fried-chicken-entrepreneur? But unlike similar world-expansions in other shows, these additions have never threatened to usurp or derail the show's central concern. When compared to other landmark series of the modern television era (such as The Wire, Lost, and even Arrested Development, which all used additional characters as opportunities to stray from their original premises), Breaking Bad is remarkably inbred in that all plots and characters connect back to Walt. And when characters and plots cease to serve the Walter White story, Vince Gilligan and his writers have been smart enough to wrap them up (R.I.P. Mike, Gus, Jane, and *sob* Gale), to the point where the cast of characters now, midway through Season 5, is just about as big as in the pilot. Seriously, when your role in the story is over, you either get killed or permanently hospitalized (hey there, Ted). As crazy as it can be mid-plot, Breaking Bad does a great job of cleaning up after itself[2].
This guy was no longer part of the Walter White story.
All that is to say, the scope was carefully moderated. It never got so huge that it overshadowed the show's center, which is Walt and family. And now, with only eight episodes remaining, that's proven to be a huge asset for the writers, since it means that there's only one or two main subjects to address before closing time. Which brings us to our expectations as an audience.
Really, what do we expect from the show's finale? In most cases, when a series nears its final episodes, fans have little mental checklists of everything that has to happen before the show bids farewell. These usually come in the form of resolutions or explanations. We want to know what the Island is, or if Liz Lemon will have kids, or if the Baltimore PD will catch that pesky Marlow Stanfield, or if George Michael and Maeby are related.
But do we Breaking Bad fans have those sorts of checklists? What do we know has to happen by the end of the show? What do we expect? Aside from explaining the "52" flash-forward, I'd say the only real questions to resolve at this point are "Will Hank catch Walt?" and "How will Walt get his comeuppance?" There are no lingering characters to check in on, no mysteries to resolve. Just forward plot momentum. The show has been so good at closing off subplots and weeding out wandering characters that the writers pretty much have a blank slate to work with, as far as our expectations are concerned. We of course want the finale to be "good," but aside from vague expectations about Jesse, Walt, and the immediate White family, we don't have any clues as to what "good" looks like.
And I don't mean to oversimplify things. It's really hard to write something "good," even when there's no pressure at all. So there's no question the Breaking Bad team has had quite a challenge in creating the show's conclusion. To please fans, these final episodes will have to be exciting, funny, poignant, and emotionally satisfying, and that's not a task to sneeze at. But by narrowing the show's scope and managing our expectations, Vince Gilligan and Co. have already sidestepped two of the main pitfalls that series finales often run into. And besides, these guys have already proven themselves to be storytellers of the highest order over the last four and a half seasons. Why lose faith in their abilities now?
So, what do you think? What are you feeling about Breaking Bad's imminent end? Optimistic? Pessimistic? Wanting to call Saul? Wishing Vince Gilligan would get with Chris Carter to resurrect The X-Files? (Or is that just me?) Well, tell me about it in the comments! I'd love some comments.
As for myself, color me optimistic (not to mention super excited) for these last episodes. Hurry up, Sunday night! I'm ready to watch some Breaking Bad!
Bitch.
Until next time.
1] I want to stress the word modern in that sentence. These reasons mostly apply to the current era of TV, where ongoing storylines, continuity, and character arcs play a central role in the majority of scripted TV. In the halcyon days of more episodic, pre-'90s TV, it was still hard to make a good finale, but for different reasons that I won't get into here.
2] It's interesting to note that AMC's other flagship show, Mad Men, has taken the opposite approach in preparing for its conclusion next year. That series has made its storytelling so diffuse and its cast of characters so expansive that, aside from touching on Don, Peggy, and a few other principle figures, we don't need the show to give resolutions to any of its myriad of subplots and narrative cul-de-sacs. Michael Ginsberg or Glen may never get a proper sendoff before Mad Men closes its doors for good, and that's okay because the show has been structured from the beginning to leave loose ends. If cleaning up after itself is Breaking Bad's storytelling ethic, then Mad Men's is to leave its story so messy that just tidying up the biggest pieces is an accomplishment.
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