"Now, say my name..." "JOHN CENA" MEMES GALORE "You're god damn right..." Hello, internet! Welcome to Film Theory a daily part of your balanced breakfast! "Where's breakfast...?" So go ahead, pour yourself some cereal and double-check your stevia for ricin 'Cause today, we're forever changing the way you look at the final scenes of one of the greatest television shows of all time As such consider this your [SPOILER ALERT] Now breaking bad, is one my favorite television shows one that truly pushed
storytelling on TV Main character Walter White's
transformation from a Mr.Rogers-esque chemistry teacher to a meth kingpin of
Scarface level proportions is perhaps the most memorable character arc in
television history and what other televised drama can attest to starting
so many memes from; "I am the one who knocks" To my personal pick... "Yeah, science!" The characters, the acting,
the pacing, the artistic camera shots everything about this show was perfect Well, except for one thing: The ending. Admittedly ending such an incredible show was an impossible task There was no way it could satisfy
everyone I mean, Walter White was a character you either love to hate, hated
to love, love to love, or hated to hate there was no middle ground with this guy; and after
six (or I guess five and a half) mind-blowing seasons, Breaking Bad ended
with what a lot of people thought was a cop out after getting complete closure
apologizing to his wife Skyler ensuring his children get the remainder of his
drug money, killing off the rest of the bad guys and rescuing his partner Jessie Walt dies from a combination of a
gunshot wound to the abdomen and his returning cancer all while surrounded by his beloved
meth-making equipment, ensures the problem a lot of people had with his ending is
that Walt gets everything; He wins! there is no punishment or
atonement for all of the awful things he does throughout the series and let's be
honest he does a lot of awful things sure you may say, "Oh, he dies!" but he dies
on his terms it's a complete victory for Walter White
and that understandably frustrated people But what if I told you there was
more to the story that Walt will face trial and punishment for his crimes that
the ending wasn't as clichéd and clean-cut as we've all been assuming the
last couple years in short are we really sure that the man
known as Heisenberg is dead in that final shot 'cause let me tell you: I've
run the numbers, and he's not. I mean yeah, He does get a gnarly stomach wound;
collapses and lies motionless on the floor for about 20 seconds as we hear
some appropriate blue meth inspired a jab but is that enough for us to hang
our theorists' coats up and accept that he's dead? NOT A CHANCE! "You're god damn right" Oh... gets me every time. ok, so what am I talking about? well,
according to the University of Maryland Medical Center the three most important
factors for determining a person's odds of surviving a gunshot wound are: 1. The location of the injury; 2. The
amount of blood lost; and 3. How quickly the victim is transported to a
hospital so let's take them point by point; but before we
dive into the location of the injury, we first need to discern the nature of the
injury itself, and I know what you're thinking: "It's a bullet in his stomach, right?" well,
not exactly. let's recap the final showdown Walt
comes to the neo-nazi compound with an automated remote-controlled turret built
into its trunk he tackles Jesse to the ground click the
button the trunk pops open and a mirage of bullets killed almost all the
neo-nazis inside but we are most interested in is near the end of the
attack when walt gets hit by *SOMETHING* I mean it's kind of hard to tell
honestly all we really do is see him grunts now we know from the opener of
season 5 episode one that won't purchase an m60 machine gun with 7.62 millimeter
NATO rounds pretty heavy-duty machinery is evidenced by the fact that it blasted
through the side of the trunk and the wall of the neo-nazi rec room like it
was nothing but let's look at the set up here it's highly unlikely that Walt was
actually hit by one of these bullets 1. walt is too low to the ground Walter's hoopty of death is a
fifth-generation cadillac deville which according to the manufacturer's stands
exactly fifty six point seven inches tall or about 1.4 meters if we take this photo of Walt standing
outside the car and apply some basic algebra and pixel counting we can conclude that the trunk is 42.5 inches off
the ground or slightly over one meter the m60 shoot slightly lower than the
exact height of the trunk let's just say it's an even 39 inches about one meter
just to be safe considering that the average width of a
human being is about 9.5 inches or 24 centimeters even if Walt and Jesse were
planning on top of each other toe to toe forehead to forehead they would still be
far lower than the line of fire I mean you can even see the difference
from the bullet holes in the wall compared to their relative position on
the ground so obviously it's not a direct bullet hit maybe it's a ricochet
seems like a solid possibility except for one thing according to my research it seems that
higher powered bullets like a 7.62 millimeter nato round 10 not to ricochet
the usually either crush into the object they hit or break apart ricochets are much more common with low
caliber ammunitions such as a 22 or 177 most likely culprit for injuring Walt then is
either shrapnel or a broken piece of a bullet entering from Walter side why the side well because throughout the
ensuing scenes we get a pretty good glimpse at the front back wall jacket
and there simply aren't any holes to the right side is the only option ok so we have a piece of shrapnel
entering waltz love handle knowing this let's look at our medical criteria
number one the location of the we never actually get to see the wound
itself only the blood stain on the lower right side of his shirts which is such a
shame because i really love that shirt on walt ;_; given the radius of the
blood-stained we can only make an educated guess as to where the entrance
wound is the biggest risk associated with a bullet wound to the abdomen is
hitting either the lower aorta or some of the major blood vessels if such was the case though Walter would
have keeled over and bled to death VERY quickly but that's not what
happens Walter walks talks and even tells Lydia that he murdered her with
relative grace for over 10 minutes now you could potentially right off a
lot of Walt's mobility as shocked but even shock can't keep you alive for 10
minutes if a vital organ has been hit your body now given the location of
blood and waltz shirt it's likely that the shrapnel got lodged somewhere in his
large intestine and believe it or not this is actually good news quotes the main concern with gunshot
wounds that involve the intestines or stomach is not bleeding but infections
that result from spillage of the contents of those organs(EW!) and quotes in
other words you were dead but it takes days to die from your womb a study
conducted by the medical journal the annals of surgery looked at victims of
gunshot wounds to the abdomen over a period of five years between 1983 and 1987 the survival rate
among victims that had no vital organs hit was an astounding 88.3 percent
that's incredibly high and with medical technology having only gotten more
advanced over the last 30 years Walt would have a real chance at survival
which means we should move on to the second criteria amount of blood lost now
blood loss is likely the factor that causes wall to collapse onto the ground
and stare blankly up at the ceiling but the big question here is whether he
died due to the blood loss or merely passed out well let's take a look although we can't
realistically measure the amount of blood that's ripped onto the ground or
absorbed onto waltz clothes we can draw some encouraging conclusions due to the
fact that there's no blood on the other side of his shirts which means the
bullet didn't go through him exit wounds leave a much bigger hole
than entrance wounds thereby leading the victim to bleed to death much faster in other words this fact buys Walt some
valuable time now one thing that I haven't brought up
that I'm sure it's on the tip of all your theorists tongues is that Walt's
lung cancer is back there by making his body more fragile and perhaps more
sensitive to blood loss but get ready to HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN because there's research to suggest the
exact opposite that his cancer would have increased his chances of survival there's actually a significant amount of
research that suggests that people with pancreatic cancer multiple myeloma and
most importantly for our purposes lung cancer are all more likely to form
blood clots according to dr. Jean Connors at the
dana-farber cancer institute for reasons not quite known the normal human body
will keep a balance between Pro clotting and anti-clotting activity apparently cancer skews that balance
in terms of pro clotting increasing inflammation and compression of blood
vessels creating more coagulation and actually lessening internal bleeding long story short there's actually a high
probability that Walt's cancer is limiting the amount of blood he's losing
in these crucial minutes so we have not a full bullet but a smaller piece of
shrapnel entering waltz body in an area with non essential organs walt's slow tour
about the compound showing that the injuries not really that critical in a
situation in which blood loss is slowed the only an entry wound it being in the
intestine and Walt having cancer that brings us to the final criteria of
determining the likelihood of survival speed at which the victim gets medical
attention. If walt were alone somewhere in the New Mexico desert this would be
an open and shut case you would have bled out and died but the final shot
shows us a unit of police officers descending on him almost immediately after he collapses. Are they DA, Albuquerque PD? If we zoom in on the arm patch the shape and color definitely indicate that it's
Albuquerque PD. According to code 02 - 11 of the
Albuquerque Police Department procedural orders manual : "department policy
is to ensure that medical care is provided to arrested persons intoxicated
persons when such care is needed based on approved medical and legal procedures"
Do not only are the police obligated to give Walt medical attention but let's
not forget that the walter white case is a national story they want Walt the sea trial they want
Walt to live so that he can confess to all the unsolved murders he's been
involved with it is in their best interest to keep him alive so that these cases can be concluded. Add to that the fact that it's
reasonable to assume that there's a standard-issue trauma kit and at least
one of those cop cars and most every police officer is trained to dress a
gunshot wound it's a waltz bleeding would have been significantly reduced as
soon as a minute after he collapsed and if you're looking at this from a
timeline standpoint he literally just collapsed we even see the police cars
rushing past seconds before he falls to the ground and here's a big piece of
evidence for you. Why are the cops even there ? Who called
them ? The pile of dead neo-nazis certainly didn't, Walt and Jesse didn't
do it, the most likely cases that someone nearby heard the m60 gunshots and called
the cops. What that tells us is that although we
have never given a real location for Jack's neo-nazi de Kamp it means we're
close to civilization based on the length of that last seen it took 10
minutes for the cops to arrive at the location that also means that there's
likely a hospital in that vicinity so looking at all the pieces of evidence
considering the wound didn't hit any vital organs was a smaller piece of
shrapnel didn't leave an exit wound that clotting was increased due to cancer and
that help was on the scene immediately after collapse and Walt got medical attention
somewhere in the realm of 20 minutes from the time he was shot there is a
high probability that Walt survives this last scene of Breaking Bad but you don't
have to believe me or all the research i did just trust the creators of the show if you look really really closely at
that final moment you see the officer reach out and check for Walt's pulse and
then the scene cuts out before we get his reaction. We don't actually see the results of
that test! Think this was a coincidence ? Heck no! It was a purposely done moved by
a creative team who thought through every last detail of every shot in this
show. What seemed like a clear-cut and kind of
clichéd ending is actually open to interpretation. We just saw the easy obvious answer but
by doing the research you see that there's a lot more ambiguity to that
final scene and that I only have one thing to say. "Yes science!". And before I sign off if you
want more fun and fascinating Breaking Bad analysis click on the eye icon in
the upper right part of the screen to check out my friends over at the
wisecrack channel who are doing an incredible five part series exploring
the hidden meaning of each season of Breaking Bad. Relive all the mag it's a tidy whitey goodness with their
hilarious and thought-provoking show earthling cinema show your theorists
bride telling Matt Pat section I don't know leave some sort of trolling
comment about how Walt is it dead also if I was you I'd probably subscribe
while I was over there but you know you're called your prerogative and with that being said remember THAT'S
JUST A THEORY A FILM (tv?) THEORY you know what the coolest thing about
all of this is it leaves open the possibility of seeing Walter White's
trial appear on better call Saul would that be incredible to see the return of
these characters ah make it happen skillion make it
happen please here click the bag of blue meth to check
out that Breaking Bad miniseries i mentioned over on the wisecrack channel
or if you want something truly scary click the Terminator to see how will all
be slaves to computers within the next 30 years fair warning the future gets intense and
you'll never look at your laptop the same way again now if you'll excuse me all this
breaking bad talk has got me a hankerin for some delicious fast food chicken like el pollo loco or
something don't know why exactly huh strange.
