After years of relative obscurity, no one would’ve expected the conclusion ofBreaking Badto amass much fanfare. By the time Season 5 of the critically acclaimed AMC drama hit the airwaves, a mass audience caught up with the show thanks to its popularity on Netflix’s streaming service — an early indicator of where the industry was shifting toward. Unlike most shows that garner a seismic critical following, creatorVince Gilligandid not want to overstay his welcome, deciding to end the series after five seasons and 60 episodes. On July 22, 2025, the world eagerly awaited to see how Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) Shakesperean rise-and-fall saga would end in the series finale, “Felina.” After all was said and done,Breaking Badsigned off under satisfactory terms, perhaps too satisfactory. Despite being ashow about how a mild-mannered, decent mandestroys his life and others around him to ruins, Gilligan opted to find resolution amid Walt’s self-destruction.
Breaking Bad
InBreaking Bad’s penultimate episode,“Granite State,” Walt is at his lowest. The former high school chemistry teacher who became a reluctant meth cook is gone, as a disheveled Walt has embraced his monstrous self. Hank (Dean Norris) is dead at the hands of Jack Welker (Michael Bowen) and his gang. They stole his drug money, and he is isolated in a cabin in the woods of New Hampshire as a fugitive. His family, the virtue that his criminal empire and Heisenberg alter-ego were founded on, now loathes him. He is about to turn himself in to the police, but then,a television inside a bar gives him a Hail Mary opportunity. Walt watches his old friends and colleagues Gretchen (Jessica Hecht) and Elliot (Adam Godley) appear onCharlie Rose, providing him with another ingenious scheme.
“Felina,” written and directed by Gilligan,follows Walt tying up loose endsby threatening the two philanthropists to donate Walt’s remaining cash to Walter Jr. (R.J. Mitte) on his 18th birthday. On his return to Albuquerque, he talks to Skyler (Anna Gunn) and gazes at his son from afar one final time. Like a dying Western cowboy, he strolls up to Jack’s hideout and meth labfor a bloody showdown with the gang of Naziswhile rescuing Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) from captivity.
After Walt, with his most advanced use of gadgetry in a car-lock-controlled machine gun, blows away Jack’s crew, he saunters over to the meth lab. Earlier, we see that he has been inflicted with gunshot wounds to his stomach, and his serene demeanor suggests that he’s ready to die. As he strolls through the lab, reminiscing over the gratification and fulfillment that meth cooking gave him, theBadfingerrock track, “Baby Blue,” plays. In the context of the story, the song’s title refers to Walt’s product with an unprecedented level of purity. The song’s wistful tone showsWalt reflecting on his fate and an undying passion for cooking.Like the opening lyrics of “Baby Blue,“Walt certainly got what he deserved, but he hardly regrets his actions, as he will carry his undying love for his blue meth to the grave. After all, in his conversation with Skyler in the episode, he finally drops the facade of “doing it for the family,” and admits thathe became a meth kingpin because he enjoyed it. He leaves a bloody handprint on a metal tank before falling to the ground and bleeding out. From a high angle, the camera slowly drifts away from Walt’s face as the police arrive at the crime scene.
Throughout its run,Breaking Bad’sstorytelling was tight as a drum.Each episode was incredibly gripping, and no stone was left unturned at the end of each season. The precise plotting made the show one of the most entertaining and satisfying to appear on the small screen. In “Felina,” everything seems just a little too clean and tightly resolved. In the grand scheme of things, Walt’s story is no fairy tale, as he was once a loving family man whose own hubris prevented him from accepting charity from Gretchen and Elliot and resorted to cooking meth, costing countless lives along the way. “Ozymandias,” considered to beBreaking Bad’s finest hour and one of the best episodes in television history, showed the unflinching horror of Walt’s actions andthe effect of his criminal empire collapsing in real-time. He was responsible for Hank’s death, allowed Jack to enslave and torture Jesse, traumatized his family, and fled to New Hampshire without an ounce of nobility.
Within the framework of the series finale, Walt experiences all the best attainable outcomes in his desperate bid to settle old affairs. Even after Walter Jr. scornfully rejects his father’s money, he crafts a scheme to leave a nest egg for his kids. While not a proper send-off, he manages to have one final moment with each of his family members. He kills every hostile force in his path, including Lydia (Laura Fraser), who is unsuspectingly poisoned by ricin, a series staple finally put to use. The episode wants us to believe thatJesse has forgiven Waltdespite shattering his livelihood.“Felina” is a denouement so tightly resolved that the episode can barely breathe. In “Ozymandias,” Walt left Albuquerque as a savage who pillaged the souls of the people he cared about the most, but Vince Gilligan chose to findclosure in his anti-hero’s cataclysmic downfall.
Because everything panned out favorably for Walt, fans speculated that “Felina” may have been just a dream.The New Yorker’sEmily Nussbaumalleged in her review that the overwhelming sense of closure evokes the fantasy of a dream-like world. These theories suggest that Walt died in his car in the episode’s opening moments, and everything we see afterward exists in his mind. In contrast to the unflinching destruction and sorrow demonstrated in “Ozymandias” and “Granite State,“the finale’s idyllic outcome for its disgraced meth kingpin is jarring.The episode tries to validate Walt as a determined family man by leaving behind a nest egg, a ruthless crime lord embarking on a vengeful rampage, and a tragic villain with the “Baby Blue” scored final scene. Even so, the poignant effect of the final scene is undermined by the preceding course of events. Just a few moments prior, Walt transformed into aClint Eastwood-like outlaw,gunning down enemy combatants without remorse and shooting Jack before he can utter his last words (revenge for Jack executing Hank before he finished his last words).
Throughout “Felina,” Walt is made out to be “cool,” as evident by his domineering nature against Gretchen and Elliott and theWestern duel in Jack’s hideout. In retrospect,Breaking Badends with an unfortunate whimper because it indirectly validates the bad-faith discourse that prevailed throughout its duration. While Walt’s anti-heroism was celebrated, Skyler was maligned for being an annoying roadblock to her husband’s success as a drug lord. Gilligan and the writers worked hard to deprive Walt of any sympathy in the previous two episodes,but the romanticism of the final moments of “Felina” is antithetical to what we expectfrom the crop of Golden Age dramas centered around anti-heroes.
The finale was generally well-received by critics and audiences, primarily due to its gratifying nature. Compared to the ambiguity and lack of crystal-clear resolution inThe SopranosandMad Men,both containing lingering mysteriesthat people are still debating but were divisive upon airing,Breaking Bad’s conclusion showed disinterest in leaving things messy.Vince Gilligan mirrored his protagonist in that his writing was sharp and calculated, and he handled each character and story arc with scientific precision, even when Walter White’s life went into complete free fall.
