Yeah, you are very stupid.

lol

plane crash was super f'n lame. Walt meeting Dad in the bar was pretty bad too. And the name Flynn bothers me.

When Walt ran into the dad at the bar, I was like "come on" but by the time she lay dead I'd forgotten about all the coincidences that brought us there. Nothing makes me forget about how ridiculous the plane crash is. Unfortunate. Coincidence needs to drive the story, not be the story.

I wish Jane's dad was a train traffic controller so that the wreck would be more representative of the finale.

you guys are nits. the ending was fine.

I'm not defending the plane crash here -actually I was disappointed and considered it a director/writer out thinking himself. But at least it was intentionally implausible. I have no doubt that Vince Gilligan knows that planes aren't going to crash in mid-air due to air traffic controller error. You think he planned that ending out from at least the beginning of season 2 without ever bothering with 5 minutes of googling to check the realism of it, and nobody on the whole crew ever bothered with it either? He simply chose to forego reality to make his grandiose metaphor - an exclamation point to the butterfly effect theme he'd been making more and more obvious as the season progressed. You can dislike his choice, as I do, but at least recognize it was an intentional play and accept that you're not going to love every plot direction that will happen in a series.

The things that bother me more are the places where they get unrealistic while presumably not knowing they are doing so. Case in point, the whole ATM episode. Jesse being the idiot he is took all that cash like it was any other collection, but ATM's have to have a log of serial numbers of the bills they have. I thought they were going to go down a huge plot line where Jesse/Walt started spending that cash, with the serial numbers popping up around town, and them having to come up with some plan to avoid having it get traced back to them. I've got firsthand experience with how fast cops track down sources of bad money. It's crazy. Also, on the topic of that episode, how many fingerprints did Jesse leave in that house? And the cops can't get that kid to talk about what happened? They'd have a psychiatrist getting the kid to talk in no time and would have the events of the whole episode figured out before the timeline of the very next episode. But screw it, that was some of the most intense television I've ever watched, so I'll forgive it.

So in conclusion, if you want to hate on the show for being unrealistic, there are dozens of things you can pick apart. The one unrealistic moment that was intentional shouldn't really be one of them. It was just an artistic direction that wasn't that satisfying.

+++1

I didn't read your whole post, but I think there's a contradiction in your conclusion. I gather the out is supposed to be, "you can be annoyed with the scene for being unsatisfying but not being unrealistic." Contortionist act, imo. In addition to that fundamental problem, most of the objections noting the unlikelihood of the event go beyond a lack of realism--so you don't appear to be addressing anyone.

Goodness. So much in that post.

If a fireball over his house is meant to suggest God's Wrath, then maybe Walt's decision to cook meth (and a butterfly flapping its wings on the coast of Tierra Del Fuego) didn't really cause the plane crash after all. God, the Ultimate Air Traffic Controller, did it.

(Not being serious here, just trying to spur someone to crank out an essay/apologia explaining how the finale is a subtle, serious, major meditation by the writers on free will v. predestination.)

It is just a television show. You guys need to suspend your disbelief just a little and try to enjoy it.

A year between Seasons 1 and 2 and now 9 months until season 3 for a show that is only supposed to last a handful of seasons by design is a far greater annoyance then any bait-and-switch plot twist imo.

I agree with what I think is the thrust of this, as I've tried to indicate many times. Doesn't necessitate the end of conversation.

I generally dislike when creators of the show (see LOST) use outside sources to explain, what they couldn't explain in the art. While that interview explained a lot of self evident things, a lot of it was Gilligan explaining the ending and I inferred a lot of arrogance from him in the interview.

Meh not that crazy, idk how many bars there are open at that time, by Jesse/Jane's house in Alburquerque.

I did that when I signed up for a show involving an extremely over qualified HS chemistry teacher who has major self-esteem problems decides to be a meth dealer and becomes somewhat successful at it. PJ had a good post that the neat thing about this show is it takes a pretty implausible idea but injects it with a large dose of realism.

I don't know how many times we have to say this: it's not just that it's an extremely absurd event even for this show, it's that its straight up just bad story telling. It's like the body bags/plane saga was guest written by RL Stein.

Yes, what kidcolin said. Plus...

This kind of thinking is so insulting to the medium. Artists spend years of their lives working on multi-million-dollar productions that, for most of them, will be their only defining creation on this planet before they die -- the summation of the 40 years they spent trying to get a major television show on the air or a motion picture in theaters. It's what they will be remembered for long after they die, and it's something 95% of the people in the business trying to do the same thing will fail to do.

The streets of Hollywood are paved with the carcasses of failed writers, failed actors, failed directors, and failed producers who once dreamt of creating a show or making a movie. Those dreams crashed and burned like so many others. But for the ones that actually realize the dream and create a work of art that communicates an individual perspective on the world to millions of audience members at once, it becomes like their child -- an immensely satisfying experience.

And then people come along and say, "Meh. It's just a movie." "Eh, it's just a TV show." With the kind of brush-off apathy that says "there's nothing serious about it, it's just people screwing around for an hour on their day off, and it's meant for you to just sort of marginally enjoy while you're washing dishes or putting your kids to bed or studying for your GRE with the TV on in the background." And it's the kind of comment that implies criticism is pointless because the medium itself is so trivial that any serious analysis is wasting time on a frivolous enterprise.

It implies there are no great shows and no bad ones. There are no smart writers and no bankrupt ones. There are no compelling, discriminating artists, and there are no shameless hacks. Each one is the same; just turn your brain off and enjoy it, because all it's meant to do is distract you for an hour after class.

What a colossal insult that is.

Deal with it. I don't get any respect at my job either, but then again I'm a nobody, with nothing to do with TV.

And everyone stop whining about the ending of season 2, I think everyone has made their point by now. Like some of the others have said, it's just a TV show, sorry. It's a good TV show, but it is what it is. If you don't like it, then move on, and don't watch season 3. There are lots of other shows out there, and life goes on...

I should add, I've heard the creators and writers of The Simpsons respond to criticism from super-nit fans by essentially saying "Dude, it's just a cartoon". And a lot of people think a few of those seasons are among some of the best stuff ever on TV. So take it up with them while you're at it.

Do you realize that everyone criticizing the season 2 finale episode is someone who loves the show? If they didn't like Breaking Bad, they wouldn't feel disappointed by the substandard s2 finale. So... what are you talking about?

Also, are you really telling people to stop discussing something in a discussion forum?

I'm trying to say, at some point get over it. There's been page after page of the same stuff. Ok we get it, the ending sucked, you're right, so what's your point now?

And no, I'm not seriously saying stop discussing it, but it's getting boring. Sorry for stopping by, I'll show myself out now...

A plane crash??

Come on now.......

i think the worst thing is that somehow the writers of 24 were able to make a mid-air plane collision seem more plausible than the breaking bad writers could

Wow, I'm still trying to get how an entire group of writers could be okay with this ending.

They really need a re-do - just make it into a dream or something - and come up with something else - anything. I'll write the finale for free - it might suck, but it would be 100% improvement.

Perhaps I should clarify:

I watch incredibly little television. There are two shows that I have bothered to follow in the last ten years. Breaking Bad is one of them. I am about as tough a nut to crack as it comes when we are talking about keeping me entertained enough for me to actually bother to know what time a show comes on every week.

When I suggest that it is just a TV show and that you should overcome your disbelief, it is with the highest respect for a show. If I really didn't care, I simply would not watch. I certainly wouldn't post about it on 2+2. I love this show. If I am talking about television at all, I am talking about BB.

To me, the ultimate insult is to turn off the show and not consider it again. PJ, you are way way off the mark. The writers of this show should be rightly truly proud of their accomplishment. They sure don't need me to tell them that, but here it is.

That said, it is just a television show.

What I find difficult to reconcile in your point is that you say you respect the show but then you say that because it's just a TV show, everyone should suspend their disbelief and try to enjoy it. The problem with that is it equalizes all shows as if they are held to the same standards of realism.

Think about what that means to genres -- when you watch The Wire, do you ever think "Wow, how come McNulty doesn't do what Batman did in The Dark Knight -- link up all cell phones in Baltimore to a satellite mic and just find Marlo through Lucius Fox's investigation? Easy peasy."

I doubt you do. That's because The Wire operates in a different world than Batman, or Star Trek, or Family Guy. Each of these shows has a different set of standards, and we as viewers operate accordingly. In Family Guy, I accept Stewie and Brian talking, but I wouldn't accept Meg sucking Chris's dick because their standards of bad taste never sink that low. In The Wire, I accept the corrupt actions of police detectives, but I wouldn't accept a talking baby. The Wire -- and Breaking Bad to a lesser extent -- spent hours upon hours of careful, brilliant programming to acclimate its audience to a certain set of realistic standards. It's therefore acceptable for that same audience to criticize when a specific scene falls outside those standards due to lazy, poor, or questionable writing.

TV show homers are the worst.

I find it hard to believe that one lone ATC guy could cause the crash of 2 planes - planes have so much high tech sensing devices on them that they would avoid even getting close to another plane - planes can theoretically take off, fly, and land on their own.

I wasn't sure what type of planes they were - while watching I was thinking maybe just small aircraft flying into a small airfield - might also be more believable as well if that were the case.

It's not about the body bags, it the insane coincidence of the planes colliding right over Walt's house. That was the failure point for the writers.