I’ve been hooked on this show since the beginning, but if you were sitting on the fence at all or weren’t all that sure about whether you liked it or not, I can imagine that this would be where the show Blew the Hatch for many people. This was a completely unexpected ending, one that no one could have anticipated without having access to some sort of spoilers.
I will say that the opening scene of this episode helped us understand what was going to happen later, as related to the many ominous flash-forwards we’d seen in past episodes, with the body bags and the items by the poolside. Everyone had assumed that the chaos surrounding the White household was going to be drug related and that it was isolated to only their home, when in fact we saw early on that something far worse had happened. And, wouldn’t you know it, it was drug related, though indirectly.
We saw how Walt’s activity in the drug business has such far-reaching consequences, some which come full-circle in the strangest ways. It’s as though you could play a Kevin Bacon Game-like scenario with how that pink doll wound up in Walter’s pool, leading all the way up to him making the blue meth. He makes the Meth with Jesse, Jesse meets Jane and gets her back on drugs, Jane dies, Jane’s father goes into a depression which leads him to mistakenly direct two planes into each other, right over Walter’s house. It’s all coming back to haunt him, and he doesn’t even get that yet.
There’s a lot to mull over for next season. Walter is basically cancer-free, meaning there will likely be little focus on that next season. Meanwhile, Skyler finally snoops around enough to get that Walt’s been up to something for quite some time, though she’s not sure she wants to know what it is — will she ever? I can’t imagine Walter will have any other recourse but to tell Skyler the truth, as any other lies about where he got the money won’t likely be believed. Could he lie and say he’s a gambling addict, having won it all on private, high-stakes poker games, and therefore it’s tax-free? He’d better brush up on playing the game, if that’s the case.
I’ll say this about Skyler: it almost seems as though she wanted to find out that Walter was doing something “wrong.” Rather than confront him with her little discoveries, she mounted a bulk of evidence and let all of that stew until she could present it to him without a moment’s consideration of kicking him to the curb and stripping his child from him.
Speaking of how things come full-circle, Gus in the DEA office with Hank was a surprise, and he didn’t look all that happy to know that Walter’s related to a DEA agent. How that comes to haunt Walter and his new bad-ass goatee will be another interesting aspect of next season.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Jun 01, 2009 @ 18:00 EST5EDT
I noticed at the beginning of the episode that the trucks sere labeled NTSB and I was wondering why…. Makes sense now.
I’m still trying to decide how I feel about the ending. My immediate response is that it seems to be a little bit of a cheap fake out. The long ranging consequences of Walt’s actions is sort of interesting, though… I don’t know, I need to stew on it for a while.
I agree with Bob.
Most interesting cop-out finale I ever saw. I mean it had booms it had splashes but all in all – no story development and no conclusion to anything, everything left up in the air – makes you wonder why they had all the filler before – just to lead up to a non-conclusion? Strange. It’s as if Jane dying was the big finale and in this episode we got the “aftermath” to it.
“Full circle” to me would have been if something would’ve happened to Walter because of his drugs _directly_. This is all just coincidental. I mean two planes crash and the debris rains all over the neighborhood. Hows that “haunting him”? That’s basically haunting all of town, hm? Skyler didn’t cheat – she found out and nothing happened, the money wasn’t laundered through the website in large chunks, Jesse wasn’t back on track, Walter didn’t get under pressure although his brother-in-law kinda sorta found out where Heisenberg still is… it’s a big set-up for next season all the while we were shown the bodybags in every episode up until now.
I mean not that I’m unsatisfied with it, it’s just what it is – a big non-development. And I’m really not particularly interested in how this moves forward because when you look at it directly: Walter is now Cancer free. He’s done. Why would he need to cook more meth now? And isn’t that what the show is about?
So next season will all be about dealing with consequences. If I were him I wouldn’t even care. He’s alive! But for what? His wife is gone, his basically killed his partner’s girlfriend, the DEA is after him and instead of finally getting the girl he’s always loved he’ll most likely will get back to work and start brooding.
I mean I’d love for him to go al badass, don’t get me wrong but that’s a goatee not a life coach and I just got screwed out of everything I expected the season finale to be for 10 weeks… and Walt didn’t look that gung-ho when he sat by the pool… it would’ve been great if we at least got a angry-faced closeup or something to know that next season WILL be badass, at the moment it all really turns out to become wishful thinking.
I mean planecrashes are nice and everything but if I look at this season totally realistic then Walt wasn’t affected by the whole meth-cooking at all. He made it out by an inch all the time. He’s not badass. The one and only time he was he stood up to some wannabe-cooks in the parking lot whom he also gave tips back inside the store. He killed Jane by accident. He got his dealer killed because he didn’t know what he was doing. He stumbled upon his new sales-option by whitless kidnapping a lawyer who fortunately was corrupt to the bone. He always gets away with everything because he has dumb luck and that’s funny but going badass… based on a goatee… I mean I’d expect him buying a gun and shooting himself in the ass because he forgot to put the safety on if you ask me :-)
I guess after this episode, at least to me, it’s clear that he’ll continue stumbling forward and taking stuff down with him on the way. I now doubt he’ll ever get found out. The only reason for tabula-rasa for me would be the surefire notice towards the writers that the show is canceled around episode one to three of a season, and THEN we’d be in for a treat I guess… that would be lovely…
“Walter is now Cancer free.”
I’ve heard this a couple of times but that’s not what the surgery was for at all – the doctor specifically said he’s bought himself a bit more time now. The cough was cleared a few episodes previously & was because of something else (I can’t remember what) but I don’t think that storyline’s finished yet.
I don’t think it was all supposed to tie together – they knew they have a 3rd season at the start so they could pan it out
I think us talking like it’s all supposed to mean anything to Walt at this point is not seeing the bigger picture which will probably be when he starts to think about it all from outside his small world-view which was essentially supoprting his family – now they’ve left him he’ll maybe take a step back & start realising how many lives he’s fucked up
Yeah but who cares? I mean it’s the same with everything – as long as the show is not canceled, Walt won’t die. They are setting themselves up for a couple of more Seasons and I say GREAT to that – all for it, I love the show I think it’s great TV.
But I thought the same about “Weeds” in it’s first and second season and then it all went downhill. Because if things don’t have consequences you really care about, it gets boring. I really don’t find myself caring about Walt’s son or wife, I liked Jane for the eyecandy but don’t really miss her now, Jesse is getting stale too and just like on “Weeds” they are chaining silly antic to silly antic and it all gets kind of repetitive.
The show really needs Walter to become badass. The goatee is a nice indicator and I so sincerely hope they crank up the evil Walt up next season. I want him to really become the evil mastermind, the scheming, deadly chemist. That would be so awesome. I really hope they just suspended this until next season because they didn’t want to get rid of all their fireworks prematurely but if they don’t up the ante next season this might all really go downhill. Crossing fingers though :-)
I felt that Gus had known already about Walt’s brother in law and all that. and Gilligan confirmed it in an interview yesterday.
I was also somewhat let down by the plane crash thing. It would have been much cooler on its own, but instead it was built up all season. Of all the things I was expecting (or not expecting), the plane crash is really the lamest. I think the writers may have thought it was way cooler than the audience does. I was expecting a meth lab explosion for a while, the mexican drug cartel coming in, gus sending guys in there, some crackheads, you name it. A plane crash was nowhere near as exciting. Sure, explosions are cool, but the focus of this show has been very tight so far and I’d hate to lose that. Everything has focused strongly around Walt. This plane crash might be indirectly connected to him but I think we can all agree that the mexican drug cartel killing his family would be a bit more dramatic.
I really hope season three doesnt suck. I am kind of worried now. I’ve considered this show absolutely flawless up until that plane crash thing. The only other show i’ve considered flawless is Six Feet Under.
Thanks for the post Keith. I think you’re spot on with your thoughts on Walt’s actions coming full circle. I like the ending more when I think about it that way. For me the shocking moment was Skyler leaving. I think it sets up the next season for a ton of drama and high stakes. I hope Walt sticks it to Mr. Grabbie Hands who you know Sky is going to hook up with. Maybe he will blow up his car like he did to the cell phone guy in season 1. I wasn’t too hip on this season until this last episode. Now I can’t wait for March!
The plane crash indeed wrecked the tightness of the series. We were supposed to appreciate the interconnectedness, of a desperate man saving his family, and himself, oblivious to all else. That’s what survival is. Now, his actions have indirectly killed many innocent people. Well, it was all too incredible. Planes colliding above his house, debris in his pool, bodies on his driveway. He’ll never make the connection, of course. Which raises another flaw: the scene in the bar with Jane’s dad. The writers are stretching, and harming the credibility of the show. They can be forgiven, but only because Bryan Cranston is the best actor in America. He saves their butts repeatedly.