Potvin29 said:
It's on quite the roll right now. It's exhilarating TV.
Deeply love the Wire and Deadwood, but Breaking Bad was, from a distance, the very best TV show I've ever seen. Amazing to see a show so committed to developing characters -- letting decisions mean something and have consequences at all levels (plot, unintended consequences, character relationships, development of the chracter). Hope it's long remembered for pursing that noble objective. But, when you dig down into the end game, it's a bit disappointing...
SPOILERS AHEAD....
It's logical conclusion was 3 episodes ago (THAT was a great finale, had it ended with a 273D arrest). Another pretty good ending was last episode (card games with Max Cherry, at $10k an hour, till expiration). And the finale we got... It was a bit disappointing to me. The guy whose plans always worked, improbably but perfectly, to accomplish goals we knew were wrong but liked seeing accomplished nonetheless ended up having a plan... that worked, improbably but perfectly, to accomplish goals that we could finally feel okay about? Felt cheap and easy.
BIGGER SPOILERS AHEAD...
Better ending was: the abandoned family leads a miserable life, the corporate face gets clear and continues her awful business, and the meth slave offs himself when he realizes the guy responsible for it all is still, selfishly invested coming out the hero. The show was always kind of unpleasantly moralistic. Would've been nice if it followed its own logic and was that but bleakly so, rather than contorting itself to be redemptively so. I actually would've been happy if a busted tail light on the NH car led to an arrest and the silly gun never went off. At the very least, it should've been less perfectly "satisfying." While the muted tone and withheld catharsis was appreciated, would've preferred an unapologetically anti-climatic and unredemptive ending, since (in a lot of ways) Gilligan gestured toward wanting to go that way.
