What a ruthless, uncompromising, and absolutely fitting endgame for Breaking Bad. I have imagined many ways the series could end, but none feel quite as perfect as Walt embracing his most selfish, destructive side, because at the end of the day, deep down, that is what this series is about. I used to think Breaking Bad was all surface, not in a bad way – that surface is, with its gorgeous visual, wonderful writing, and great performances, insanely rich – but in a way that set it apart from shows with clearly deeper thematic, philosophical, or sociopolitical ambitions, like Mad Men or The Wire. Breaking Bad rarely, to me, connected on as deep a level as those shows, because it did not seem to be ‘about’ anything more than what we saw at face value.
But this final season, and “Granite State” in particular, has changed my thinking on all that. As this episode hammers home, evil actions, and the motivation to transgress, comes from a very human, very relatable place of inferiority. We live to compare ourselves to others. We live to ‘achieve’ things, to make a name for ourselves, to leave our mark and feel we have done something of meaning with our lives. The basic question Breaking Bad has always asked, and has explored even more deeply in this final season, is what happens when conventional, normative ‘greatness’ is out of our reach. Is it a natural impulse to turn to crime? Can we understand and empathize with Walt’s dreams of empire, and intent to make the world remember him by any means necessary, even if we do not condone or sympathize with his actions?
I think we can, and that is what makes Breaking Bad, especially at the end, so immensely powerful. As I said last week, and as I continue to insist this week, I have arrived at a point of feeling sorry for Walter White. I do not like him, nor do I necessary care for him, but I do understand him, and that understanding brings pity. He could have been great. With his intellect, he probably should have been. Circumstances and character flaws held him back, and while he should have been content to simply live the decent life he led with his family, I can understand why he reached for greatness wherever he could find it, even if that ‘greatness’ lay in a meth lab. I feel his pain, and I empathize with him now as he sets out on the final, most destructive phase of his journey.
I still despise Walter White in many, many ways, and obviously do not consider any of his actions ‘justified,’ but Breaking Bad is about so much more than viewing this character as an abject villain. We are meant, I think, to see eye-to-eye with him on a certain level. Because he is human, and so are we, and this is what humans are capable of when our best and worst desires clash. Seeing these big, intensely profound ideas dramatized over the course of the series, honed in on over the last few weeks, and made more powerful and immediate than ever in “Granite State” makes me respect Breaking Bad more than ever before.
And that is why, assuming Vince Gilligan sticks the landing next week, Breaking Bad may well have delivered the greatest final season of all time. Before these last eight episodes – even before tonight’s installment – I did not connect with this series as deeply as I do now. I was not as moved by it, nor as intellectually provoked. But this end-run has re-contextualized and enhanced everything that came before in such spectacular fashion that I cannot help but reappraise my already high opinion of the show. Breaking Bad truly is one of the all-time greats – melancholy as it shall be to say goodbye, the end cannot come soon enough.
“Remember My Name” indeed.
Follow author Jonathan Lack on Twitter @JonathanLack.