Breaking Half: "Felina"

Bryan Cranston

Are you tired of long, tedious accounts of Breaking Bad episode recaps? Then look no further than Breaking Half: a weekly column that takes the good and bad from each week's episode of Breaking Bad and dilutes it down to the core necessities. Each Monday, Breaking Half will attempt to take a few key moments from the episode and boil it down to one juicy paragraph. 

Season 5, Episode 16

"Felina"

"I did it for me."

-Walter (Bryan Cranston

Walter (Bryan Cranston) returns to Albuquerque to finish some business. He stops by Gretchen (Jessica Hecht) and Elliott's (Adam Godley) house to give him millions to donate to his son on his upcoming birthday. When they refuse to, he puts snipers on them, forcing them to be threatened into it, later to reveal that it was Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker). He next consults Skyler (Anna Gunn), who he confesses that he did the meth business to feel alive. He pays one last visit to Holly and watches his son (R.J. Mitte) enter a house that they have moved into after being threatened by Todd (Jesse Plemons). During a meeting with Todd and Lydia (Laura Fraser), he convinces them to let him have a meeting in regards to new meth manufacturing ideas. Later that night, he visits the compound where Todd and Uncle Jack (Michael Bowen) hang out and is eventually shot down. When he finds out that Jesse (Aaron Paul) is still alive, he demands to see him. After this, he sicks a machine gun on the building that is built into the trunk of his car set to go off with the press of his car alarm. It kills off most of them with Jesse to choke Todd to death and Walter to shoot Jack moments before he would tell him where the money is. He also informs Lydia that he slipped some ricin into her Stevia and she is dying. Walter lets Jesse go and after noticing that he's bleeding, collapses in the Nazi's meth lab and lets the police officers come to capture him.

Rating: 5 out of 5

MVP: Walter (Bryan Cranston)

This episode is pretty much about the final fall of the Heisenberg Empire. We have already seen him stripped of his identity, but this farewell is all about those last goodbyes that matter. While there were misleads early on with Walter's interaction with the Schwartzes was potentially a murder move, this was the most sincere that we have ever seen the character. He realizes that he is on his last leg and must do right. The confession to Skyler alone justifies this episode's greatness and watching him not have a chance to say goodbye to his son, broke and looking rather rugged, was shattering. Still, he was up to some old tricks in order to protect his family and with the final move of killing the Nazis, he managed to strip himself of his connections to the meth community, letting it die with his notoriety attached. He was exposed and while the final shot was reminiscent of "Crawl Space," it almost felt like the only way for the series to end. Walter may be shady and despicable in a lot of ways, but the noble ending made it worthwhile.

Aaron Paul

Best scene: I will admit that maybe I was the one who thought that Jesse would be happier in death. Somehow, the dog metaphor feels most apt here by letting Jesse off of Walter's leash and letting him roam free. It was the ultimate payoff for a character who I feel has grown to be the opposition to Walter. With the final moments of Jesse feeling reminiscent of a previous Go Kart scene, we can only hope that he is off to a better place. He will have to live with the pain, but the writers made the correct move in letting Jesse finally get his due.

I have enjoyed writing about this show and even reading reviews about it. I loved every theory that has come down the pipe. To see it over just makes me wonder what is next for my obsessive mindset. There will never be another Breaking Bad, mostly because it seems like a fluke on premise. Stay tuned later in the week for when I write a retrospective on the series as a whole and gush even more about why I love this show.