I'm late to this.

kinda +1. Overall the ep was OK. The Walt / Jesse stuff was cool.

I think what makes it worse is I really just hate Walt's wife despite the preggers boobs she got working. She's just annoying as hell. Her leaving, confessing what she knows to Walt was way too dramatic. He doesn't go through surgery, recuperation time, etc with her holding it in and then "get out I'm leaving wahhh".

And the plane scene was absurd, and it made the buildup from previous episodes showing the body bags uber lame. It was ultimately a meaningless twist. OOOh Walt's decision to let her die has consequences. gmafb.

OK time to read everyone else's thoughts.

edit: seems I agree with the consensus!

I think this is BS and it diminishes my opinion of Gilligan as a writer.

that's not really "cool". That's someone mistaking cleverness for art. In an attempt to be clever, they told a **** story. Congrats.

ugh.

KC,
The worst thing in the interview is how he brags about wanting to surprise the audience, you aren't a magician you are a writer who should be creating a well-plotted story, with logical character actions that make both practical and thematic sense.

Edit:
Fly,
I think that is where a lot of the outrage is coming from, it's not that he surprised the audience, it's that he spent the whole season setting up an elaborate trick, that isn't that important to the story.

fly's just been on a bad-post binge don't mind him. He seems extra angry as of late.

I agree with pretty much everything franchise posted. I don't mind surprises, cool twists, etc. I mind awful story telling. I mind when a realistically written story all the sudden goes 20 year old hipster on me and focuses on being clever. Season 2 was perfectly on track and he took completely off the rails with a nonsense bout of "showmanship".

Anyway more Odenkirk and Gus in the next season and I'll forget all about this. Like all good shows, sometimes bad moments that make no sense happen. As long as crap like that doesn't become the norm it'll be fine.

I have no idea how you guys think air traffic controller error causing a plane crash is unrealistic. It's contrived, maybe. Too clever, sure. But unrealistic?


Pudge, kc- I think that interview explains the importance of the plane crash to the story. Yeah, it's kinda dopey, but it's Breaking Bad. The show has had plenty of dopey moments, questionable plot twists, etc.

Because they don't solely rely on the ATC's. The planes have technology to warn of approaching air crafts, and the pilot would also likely see the massive jet liner heading towards him. I'm not sure two major Airline Jets have ever collided mid-air. My searching only seems to come up with smaller planes.

BUT HAS AN AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER EVER FELT THE PAIN AND DESPAIR CAUSED BY DRUGS BEFORE??????????

there hasn't been a serious mid-air collision involving a commercial airplane in the US in over 20 years and none have occurred since the implementation of the collision avoidance systems

it's not JUST a plane crash. Though mid-air collisions are insanely rare (even bad coordinates would leave some wiggle room.. it's just a highly unlikely event), it could happen. That it happens directly over Walt's house, right after his wife booted him, and ****ing debris lands in his pool is the awful part. It's awful, cheesy, beat you over the head with a sledgehammer storytelling. Especially when you've been teasing with the ending of that scene in previous episodes.

We didn't need Gilligan's interview to understand the "importance" of the plane crash. I've seen self-written, self-directed high school theater plays that used less obvious symbolism.

After watching this a second time and taking into consideration that it was a chapter in a story and not a tease of a finale, I'll save my judgement of it till after I see what they do with it next season. It could set up some pretty amazing sh*t. Hell, it could even be a huge turning point for everyone in the show.

Sh*t is a good word to describe any storylines that are spawned by the planes colliding over Walt's house.

Well I thought it was awesome. I do agree that planes crashing right over his house is a bit cheesy. The episode as a whole, however, was great. I think the airplane exploding, yes Walt is responsible for that according to the views of the creators of the show. Some of us would probably disagree with that and say the blame lays on Q for a few reasons.

But both of these are kind of nitty in relation to the big picture of the show. Remember this is 20 something hours of extremely high quality television we've been fortunate enough to see, so we are naturally going to hold each episode to a higher standard than other tv shows. The finale was far from the high point of the series in terms of quality, but in terms of generating intriguing future storylines and just generally being very flavorful, it lived up to the series name.

Personally, I never really thought the bodybags were going to be any major characters on the show. Maybe that's why I view this somewhat differently? In any event, it is going to be hard to patiently wait for next season. I am very excited about where the show is or isn't going and what's going to ultimately happen to Walt and everyone else.

he caused two planes to crash

in mid-air

over Walt's house


What if he had somehow talked one plane into a skyscraper? It's not impossible, but that would be unrealistic, no? Because AFAIK that's about how unrealistic it is for two commercial airliners to crash into one another.

Passenger jets don't collide over Albuquerque. On rare occasions they come within 1000 ft of each other near a congested major airport and everyone craps their pants. But that's okay. I can live with that. It's fiction. And if it doesn't pull you out of it, then great.

Personally, I didn't need them to have a Holy Crap Spectacle to end the season. Personally, I didn't need them to resolve the question of the crime/accident scene at Walt's house-- not only this year, but ever. It could have simply hung over the season and the entire show as an ominous sign of ultimate catastrophe. Simply not a fan of them dangling that imagery all year, and then what they gave as the payoff.

I expected to be surprised. The writers have often surprised me, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. What I did expect was it to be more firmly rooted in what transpired before. Apparently, the creator would argue that exact point, That the crash is a direct result of Walt raining destruction on his community by becoming a meth kingpin.

I never spent more than 10 seconds at a time wondering who was in the bags. Not getting a payoff is way down on the list of reasons why I hated the ending.

same. I never really speculated it.

+1

Glad to see I'm not the only one with a ******ed little brain.

In fact, my brain is so little and ******ed, I didn't expect or predict anything at all.

The show has been great because you don't need to, and they haven't really given you a chance to.

The finale was great. The ending though, after all that foreshadowing, sucked.

well said.

well said.

well said.

Didn't you guys notice the NTSB van in the beginning of the episode? It wasn't that subtle. I considered that the reveal and the ending to just be follow-through. Since they already told you what the explosion was before the second scene of the episode, I'm surprised how shocked and dismayed everyone is about the ending.

Yes.

Saying, "hey, this is going to be the ending and it's going to suck" doesn't make the ending any better. All I wondered at the time was if this is a plane crash where will it come from and how in the world will it tie into the story. The ending was too Crash-esque. The same goes for Walt meeting Jane's dad in the bar and Gus meeting Hank. Next season we'll have Jesse fixing Skyler's flat on the side of the road while Flynn gets a job at Los Pollos Hermanos.

while i agree with your post in general Gus meeting Hank shouldnt be included as that was not just coincidence and was obviously orchestrated by Gus.

Narcotics something something bureau? If you aren't a US citizen that wasn't a reveal at all (i've Googled now)

Plane crash was fine, i think i much rather that scene than a dumb cliffhanger into next season. Might have been a bit more interesting if it was deliberately caused? The combination of season long foreshadowing and blowing up over his house was irritating though. Otherwise I tought the episode wrapped up the season well and am looking forward to next season.

I can't believe people are talking about how "unrealistic" the finale was. Look, I was disappointed a couple of episodes ago when Saul came along and so easily bailed Walt and co. out of the jam and basically gave the whole season an easy escape hatch. "Wow," I said to myself, "all semblance of realism, of suspension of disbelief, just went away." But then I thought it through -- c'mon, get real, Reup Gang. It's a ****ing drama; it's supposed to be plausible, not freaking based on a true story.

Think about the point of the writer wrt the finale. He's saying all of Walt's actions have a butterfly effect, and now it's starting to catch up to him. We saw the obvious with Skyler walking out on him, and with Jesse's life now in shambles. The end was an example of the subtle, and by putting the focus on that, knowing it would alienate so many of the viewers, that takes big balls. It's a methodical and thinking man's show, and the vast majority of the people in the thread are reacting like little babies, upset that they didn't get exactly what they want. And that is exactly why the ending was so good. More importantly, it sets up for an insane season premiere next season!