In Part 1 of this video,
we talked about how the final episode of Breaking Bad
showed Walter White achieving his end goals of providing for his family
and tying up his loose ends, as well as what
these victories cost him. In Part 2, we’re focusing on
the most enigmatic part of the finale, which points to the show’s
central mystery -- the enduring bond
between Walt and Jesse Pinkman. If you're new here,
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about all of our new videos. After Walt deduces that Jesse
is still alive and cooking, "What's this I hear about
blue meth still being out here?" he goes to Jack’s intent
on killing his former partner. He’s out for revenge after Jesse
worked with Hank to bring him down. “This is just a head's up to
let you know I'm comin' for ya. Next time, I get you
where you really live.” and the fallout resulted
in Hank’s death. Walt reminds Jack of his promise
to kill Jesse Pinkman "You promised you would
kill him, and you didn't." Instead you partnered with him. You’re his partner now." "Woah, woah, woah, he can stop." He chooses his language carefully here
to prod Jack into doing what he wants, insulting Jack’s pride by suggesting
he’d view Jesse as an equal. “What, you’d think
I’d partner with a rat?” When Jesse enters, Jack’s words, “This look like a partner to you?” take on an extra layer of meaning
because, of course, this poor abused young man
is what’s become of Walt’s partner. Walt can’t quite meet Jesse’s gaze. And as Jack keeps repeating
the word “partner.” “This is my partner. Right, partner? Right buddy? Hardworking good partner. 50/50 partner.” the word triggers
a burst of feeling in Walt. He jumps onto Jesse ostensibly in a rage. But we can just make out Walt’s keys
in the foreground of this shot, and when we hear him pop open his trunk to trigger the machine gun
that takes out Jack’s gang, we understand that Walt’s impulse
was in fact a last-minute decision to SHIELD his partner
from the fire of bullets. This action epitomizes the nature
of Walt’s and Jesse’s relationship. Walt puts the kid through hell, all while expressing nothing but contempt
for the former student he once flunked. “Go to Mexico and screw up
like I know you will and wind up in a barrel somewhere.” [Grunts] yet whenever Jesse is threatened,
something comes over Walt to protect his partner. On some instinctive level
Walt loves Jesse, inasmuch as he’s capable of love
in this Heisenberg chapter of his life. “Walt’s ruthless -- he’ll do just about anything
to protect his interest, I agree -- except when it comes to you. He cares about you.” Walt’s strange, toxic love for Jesse
brings out the best and the worst in him, mostly without him even being conscious
of how important the boy is to him. In Walt’s mind, Jesse is HIS. And some of the most evil
or crazy things he does are driven by the fear of
losing control over Jesse. “The way you tell it, it sounds like
he’s manipulating you to stick around, like doesn’t want to lose you.” When Jane comes between the partners,
Walt lets her die from an overdose. When Jesse’s about to have
a shoot-out with Gus’ dealers, Walt rushes in to kill them,
risking his whole arrangement with Gus. “Run!” When Mike starts babysitting
Jesse on Gus’ orders, “I like to think I see things in people.” Walt is so threatened
that his ego flares up “This whole thing, all of this... It's all about me.” and he gives Hank the big hint
that Gale Boetticher wasn’t Heisenberg "This 'genius' of yours...
maybe he's still out there." And, too, whenever Walt
feels out of control he takes it out on Jesse. At his lowest, most powerless point -- after he can’t stop Jack from killing Hank,
and he has to shake Jack’s hand -- “Hey man, I gotta know we’re square. Or we're gonna have to go that other way.” the first thing Walt says is "Pinkman." Because he can’t face
blaming HIMSELF for this mess, he blames Jesse. It’s like he views Jesse as his dog, and whenever he’s suffering,
his first instinct is to kick that poor dog. “I watched Jane die.” But however much he manipulates,
abuses and dismisses Jesse, "Can you just, for once, stop working me." on a deep buried level this relationship has become more important to Walt
than even his own family. You might note that he buries
his beloved money in the spot where he and Jesse
first cooked together, "Yo, I remember this place. The very first place we cooked, like, ever." which has a kind of
a twisted romance to it. And he’s right to value Jesse --
the youth is actually Walt’s secret weapon. He saves Walt time and time again
through his loyalty “You kill Mr. White,
you’re gonna have to kill me too.” his aptitude, which is constantly
overlooked by everyone "Or what about a magnet?" "What magnet? What about it?" and through his goodness. "They used this little kid like some puppet." After the bullets die down,
Walt kills Jack, and Jesse kills Todd, and there’s something CATHARTIC
about these murders, as if both are slaughtering
dark mirrors of themselves, to be free of these demons. In the final season, eerily unfeeling Todd
has served as a kind of alternate, evil Jesse. He’s another young blonde kid
learning to cook, but with a complete lack
of regard for morality. Whereas Jesse has to repeatedly
implore his partners to, you know, not kill kids. “These assholes of yours,
they got an 11-year-old kid doing their killing for them. You're supposed to be some kind
of reasonable businessman? This how you do business?” Todd shoots a boy completely
unnecessarily, on instinct. "I was thinking on my feet
and I saw a threat and I took care of it
the only way that I could." "A threat? The kid was waving at us." Whereas Jesse beats himself up
about every bad thing that happens, even when it’s not his fault,
Todd is devoid of emotion or guilt. “Just so you know, this isn't personal...” In Season 5, Walt relying
more on Todd instead of Jesse shows how soulless he’s becoming. It’s easier to use Todd as a sidekick so he no longer has to explain
or hide his evil actions. “I don't want to talk about this.” “Okay.” “It had to be done.” “Okay.” Likewise, Jack is a dark mirror of Walt. Todd’s uncle is also a paternal figure
leading a youth down a bad path, and he’s also got a huge ego. "He just insulted you, he insulted me. All of us! Jesus." But as the leader of an outlaw gang
of white supremacists, he’s as cartoonishly evil as you can get
-- so when Walt rejects Jack’s offer
to get back the rest of his money "You want your money, right? Huh? You wanna know where it is? You pull that trigger, you'll never-" we’re seeing that Walt
has finally turned back, at least a little,
from the edge. Earlier this season, he was
risking his partners’ lives for just a little more methylamine, "Walter, we've got a Good Samaritan
on the scene. You pull your guys off that train right now." "We're not done yet!" dismissing five million dollars
as insignificant “Five million dollars isn’t NOTHING.” and scoffing that ten million
was not enough for his family. “My money goes to my children. Not just this barrel, ALL OF IT.” But this endgame-Walt has
regained some of his senses, and is no longer blinded by
an insatiable greed for more. Finally, only the two partners remain. Walt tells Jesse to shoot him “You want this.” but Jesse senses he’s being
manipulated yet again “Say you want this.” “I want this.” He spots that Walt took a bullet
and then he refuses, “Then do it yourself.” making good on his vow never again
to do what Walt wants him to do. “I'm not doing what you want anymore.” Outside, Walt and Jesse
stare at one another. What exactly is exchanged
in this final glance? Jesse’s first look appears to be asking
if Walt is really going to let him go -- Jesse has just defied him,
and Walt has never before accepted this. "I'm done." "No, you're not. You're not done. [Raises voice]
You're not leaving because if you leave, you get NOTHING! You understand me? NOTHING!" But Walt nods, giving his permission,
his assurance that this really is the end. And maybe, too, we’re spying a glimmer
of regret or apology from Walt, insofar as Walt is capable of these things (he’s not, fully). "I forgive you." Jesse’s return look, his eyes full of tears, appears to thank Walt for
FINALLY letting this hell be over. And perhaps for giving him
what he’s wanted all along -- RESPECT. We’ve seen repeatedly how Jesse
longs for Walt’s approval. “You don't give a shit about me! You said I was no good. I'm NOTHING! Why would you want me, huh?” Despite all the terrible things Walt does, all he really has to do to get Jesse
back on his side is to say, “Your meth is good, Jesse. As good as mine.” Walt’s final act of saving Jesse acknowledges how much he has
really needed Jesse all along. Jesse drives away like a madman,
laughing and crying with exhilaration as he finally escapes [Laughs and sobs] not just Jack’s evil gang,
but also (more fundamentally) Mr. White. "Mr. White, he's the devil." We may forget, but in the pilot "You, uh... you want to
cook crystal meth? You. You and, uh...and me?" "That's right." Jesse actually never had a choice
about becoming Walt’s partner "Either that... or I turn you in." and Walt has never allowed Jesse
to escape his pull since, "Actually, Mr. White, I'm out too." "You're what?" however many times Jesse has
tried to extract himself. “Ever since I met you, everything
I've ever cared about is gone... Ever since I hooked up
with the great Heisenberg...” At last, poor Jesse is free. Gilligan has said that all of the writers
loved Jesse and couldn’t bear for him to die -- quote, “This poor kid, based on a couple of
really bad decisions he made early on, has been paying through the nose spiritually
and physically and mentally and emotionally... It would have been such a bummer for us,
as the first fans of the show, for Jesse to have to pay
with his life ultimately.” After Jesse leaves,
Walt examines his bullet wound -- he’s about to die, just as he was told in
the first episode that he would. “Best-case scenario,
with chemo, I'll live maybe another couple years.” The irony is it’s not
the cancer that kills him; it’s the bullet he took
to give Jesse this second act. And this bullet embodies
Walt’s partial redemption -- saving Jesse is the one really good thing
he does before he departs. Ultimately the question of what happens
to Jesse after this moment will likely be answered in
the upcoming Breaking Bad movie. Gilligan has said,
despite the odds against Jesse, he likes to believe the kid got to
make a fresh start -- quote, “The romantic in me wants to believe
that he gets away with it and moves to Alaska and has a peaceful life
communing with nature.” "50/50." "Yes, 50/50." "Okay. Partners." Gilligan has described Breaking Bad
as a modern Western, and in the episode "Felina" we can really feel
the Western genre’s influence. We hear sentences like, “I gave it to the two best hitmen
West of the Mississippi.” The title comes from the song “El Paso,"
which we hear near the start. [Sings] "Riding alone in the dark..." in the lyrics, "Feleena"
(spelled a little differently) is an irresistible temptress, just as Walt’s “baby blue”
is a wicked love he can’t resist. [Sings]
"Special love I have for you, my baby blue." The scene of Walt and Jesse
standing outside Jack’s also visually evokes a Western showdown. In fact, Gilligan has confirmed
that the Breaking Bad ending is an homage to the John Ford classic,
The Searchers. John Wayne’s character spends
the movie searching for his niece, played by Natalie Wood, who’s been taken
and raised by Native Americans. To quote Gilligan’s explanation, “Throughout the whole movie, John Wayne
says, ‘I need to put her out of her misery. As soon as I find her,
I’m going to kill her.’ And then at the end of the movie, on impulse
you think he’s riding toward her to shoot her, "We go chargin' in, they'll kill her. And you know it." "It's what I'm counting' on." "I know you are..." and instead he sweeps her up off her feet
and he carries her away and he says -- 'Let’s Go Home, Debbie.'" As we saw, Walt has the same
involuntary, instinctual bond for Jesse. As much as he SAYS he wants to kill him,
he just can’t let anything happen to the boy. The Western ethos of the show is reflected not just in its desert vistas
or its cowboys-and-lawmen plots, but even more fundamentally
in the show’s feeling of living large, of escaping restrictive society
to enter a Wild West. "What's the point of being an outlaw
when you got responsibilities?" When Walt admits to Skyler
that he did all this for himself, "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it." he finishes with the key words: “I was alive.” And here we arrive at the deepest reason
Walt did what he did -- in the face of a death sentence,
he decided it was about time to start living. When the show aired,
there was a lot of debate over how much viewers should be “rooting” for
Walt. Gilligan even expressed his surprise that viewers did continue to side
with Walt for so long. “I lost sympathy for the guy
along the way. He’s a sociopath.” But what most of us can
relate to, on some level, is this journey of a man who feels
he’s been letting life pass him by discovering what it means to feel alive. The showrunner ultimately connects
our interest in Walter White to our American love of outsiders: “Uh, I think what interests us
typically as human beings is people who have the will or the courage to live outside of society’s strictures.” A lot of viewers can identify
with Walt’s starting state of powerlessness and fearfulness. "I have spent my whole life scared, frightened of things that could happen,
might happen, might not happen." "He’s a guy who lived for 50 years unnoticed, a guy you wouldn't notice walking
down the street if he passed you, and suddenly... and he lived
and a lot of his decisions were based on fear." "What I came to realize is that fear,
that's the worst of it. That's the real enemy.” And they might feel a vicarious pleasure
in watching him break free of those shackles and take control of his life. “When we’re, you know, feeling powerless,
or feeling unnoticed, or whatever... there’s something about living large
that intrigues us.” In fact, what really makes Walt
feel “alive” on the deepest level is being in control. “Never give up control. Live life on your own terms.” At the start of the series, he didn’t have control over
anything in his life. "Hey, Mr. White! Make those tires shine, huh?" "Oh my god." And as he starts to experience real power, Walt realizes that control
is his drug of choice. “Every life comes with a death sentence. But until then, who’s in charge? Me. That’s how I live my life.” So, like a Western hero, Walt takes charge, casts aside society’s expectations
and lives by his own rules. Yet the classic Western hero
is also associated with an innate code of honor -- he’s a model of individual responsibility. "They're making me run. I've never run from anybody before." But the tragedy of Walt’s character
is that he doesn’t take responsibility. “But he is a guy and this is
a fatal flaw on his part -- he’s a guy who doesn’t take
responsibility for his actions." After everything he’s done,
Walt is still blaming circumstance, holding onto his old spite, coming up with any reason he can
to avoid holding HIMSELF accountable. “Really, I blame the government.” “You either run from things,
or you face them, Mr. White.” Gilligan said that he and Bryan Cranston agreed Walt experienced SOME degree
of regret for his action “I do, personally, for one man's opinion,
I think he had regrets... Every now and then the clouds
will part a little bit, he'd get a little beam of light, as it were, like 'Ooh, this really is my fault. All of this.'” Yet ultimately, he doesn’t fully let himself
feel or give in to this self-awareness. By the end, even if he starts
to let the truth back in, he’s lost the ability
to be honest with himself. “Every now and then,
these moments of regret but they're regret that the world
really did a number on me, versus I regret that,
uh, I really screwed up.” Walt’s toxic environment does
feel to blame for a lot. His bitter resentment toward
his society is justified -- the world has screwed him over. But at the same time,
spite continues to drive Walt even long after he can plausibly
claim to be a victim. After he’s become the one who knocks --
even Heisenberg, the devil himself. “He's smarter than you. He's luckier than you." So even when the world is
a terribly unfair, cruel or ugly place, Breaking Bad is pointing out the tragedy of continuing to blame external circumstances
for our personal choices. At a certain point,
we must take responsibility for what we’ve done and for who we are. "So no matter what I do,
hooray for me because I'm a great guy? It's all good? No matter how many dogs I kill,
I just, what, do an inventory and accept?" Fans noticed that the spelling of Felina
is not only an anagram for finale, it strings together the symbols
for the elements Iron (which is in blood), Lithium (which is in meth), and Sodium (which is in tears). So you can also read the title
as “blood, meth and tears.” The finale certainly delivers all three. But most poignantly,
as Walt departs this world, it leaves us reflecting
on WHY Walt did what he did and what it cost him on a spiritual level. As he meets his end in the meth lab, Walt spies his distorted
reflection in the metal -- the visualization of his inner Heisenberg
-- reminding us of the earlier shot
of Walt punching his reflection, fighting with himself. [Grunts] Here, Walt calmly looks at this distorted
reflection again with acceptance -- his Mr. Hyde won. And as he moves his hand away,
he leaves behind a trail of blood. "I accept who I am." "And who are you?" “I'm the bad guy." Hi guys, Susannah and Debra here. If you like what we do
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Oh, thanks for sharing it! This was such a good analysis!