The much anticipated Breaking Bad series finale, “Felina” airs tonight at 9 p.m. eastern. There’s been so much speculation about who will die, and how it would all end. The real question is how much does the finale even matter to the overall series’ story.
UPDATE: Read our Breaking Bad series finale recap!
The show has gone from pulling in a little over one million viewers each week, to pulling in 6.6 million during its latest episode, “Granite State.”
This is partly due to the fact that friends of friends and family have sent their loved ones in droves to Netflix and other online ways of binge watching the entire series to catch up before the end.
So why praise the entire show and then say that Breaking Bad’s finale, “Felina,” is entirely meaningless? The fact is, what has happened in these first five seasons is our reward for being loyal.
It’s incredibly written, acted, and more addicting than meth. What it comes down to is this: Whatever happens in the final episode, Walt’s story is what we’ll remember.
Just like Tony in The Sopranos, it’s not the lackluster sit down with his family that’s remembered from the show’s finale, it’s him holding Chris’ nose shut as he murders his beloved, drug riddled nephew (cousin).
It’s the time the pregnant stripper was beat to death by Ralphie during a drunken fit of rage. It’s the time where Tony cries due to the death of his horse Pie-O-My, and the time where his son nearly committed suicide in their own pool. The seasons, stories, and epic scenes are remembered long after the finale fades from our minds.
Breaking Bad has had so many incredible moments during its five season run that we’ll be remembering them for years. From Walt watching Jane cough her last breath as she chokes to death on her own vomit, to Walt running over drug dealers to save Jesse from an untimely death. These sequences and scenes are what will be remembered for the next decade.
Just imagine telling your friends who missed Breaking Bad’s episode where Walt, Jesse, and crew rob a train of millions of dollars worth of Methylamine without anyone ever being the wiser, and then the undeniable shock of seeing Todd execute a kid without a second thought.
There are feature length films with less shocking moments than this series.
These are what we’ll be remembering for ages, but it’s the finale that will be analyzed for the next few weeks on social networks and entertainment websites. Now, you may think this sounds insane, and you may have a point, but what’s trying to be pointed out here is that it doesn’t matter what happens to Walt and his family, because everything already happened.
This is something you do not hear about in other shows. The entire reason they watch one episode is to get to the finale of the series. Breaking Bad hasn’t ever needed that, every week is just as riveting as any finale could be.
Don’t get us wrong. Breaking Bad’s final episode will be undeniably incredible, but here’s the point we’re trying to make about the finale.
Whatever happens to Walt or Jesse in the finale is just a drop in the bucket compared to the transformations that we’ve witnessed of these characters over course of the series.
When it comes down to it, we care about these characters, like or love, we care – and while their “ending” is vital to our own personal goals, it’s simply meaningless as we look over what the entire series has given us.
What has happened throughout these five seasons is something that no one expected and will never be repeated. We want to know what happens at the end, but what happened at the beginning and the middle is what made the show so incredible.
Don’t take this the wrong way, I wouldn’t trade a night out with Victoria Secret model Miranda Kerr to miss Breaking Bad’s series finale, but that’s because of my undying urge to see what the writers have in store for us fans as they complete their beloved series.
Whether you agree or not about the finale being meaningless, you have to admit that the true gift we’ve received from this show is being able to ride along for the journey that each and every character has taken.
It’s been a rollercoaster that’s caused us to scream at our TV, cry at Jesse’s depression, and hold our girlfriends’ hands as they screamed during the brutal execution of innocent Andrea on her front porch by sociopath Todd.
It’s caused us to be undeniably emotionally involved in something that had barely one million viewers during its first season.
There’s something that pulled us in, creative and original writing, brilliant acting, and those are the things that will be remembered ten years from now. The finale will be a blip on the overall radar of Breaking Bad as a whole.
Breaking Bad’s series finale will be incredible television, there’s no denying that, but it will be polarizing and shocking all at the same time.
And while fans and friends debate about what really happened and why this or that happened, we’ll know.
What we will be celebrating is that a show creator, Vince Gilligan, took a low budget, low viewership show, and turned it into a phenomenon that will be remembered forever as one of television’s best of all time. It’s something that some of us will only witness once in a lifetime.
When the credits roll tonight, just remember, the journey we all took together is so much more valuable than the last 75 minutes that “Felina” will gives us. And that’s the best gift we could ever give back to the creators and crew of Breaking Bad that have given us.
Breaking Bad’s final episode, “Felina” airs Sunday, September 29. The finale will be 75 minutes long and there will be an hour long Talking Bad with Host Chris Hardwick, the creator, and actors after the show ends on AMC.