Breaking Bad

[ono]

Watch writers.

They're writing 504 and they have some cards for 5B on the wall.

That was fun to watch.  Nice to be a fly on the wall there.  Thanks for sharing!

[Ghostboy]

That was awesome.

I liked the Gus Fring sculpt on the shelf.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Loved that video. For some reason I always pictured them in a larger room on couches. The table doesn't seem to be serving much of a purpose anyway.

Gordon the writers' assistant is on Facebook seriously half the time.

[Frederico Fellini]

Loved that video. For some reason I always pictured them in a larger room on couches. The table doesn't seem to be serving much of a purpose anyway.

Where else are they gonna put their drinks?

Gordon the writers' assistant is on Facebook seriously half the time.

Just like me when I write.

[Lottery]

Watch writers.

They're writing 504 and they have some cards for 5B on the wall.

Man, that looks like so much fun.

[Brando]

A Breaking Bad in the form of a Saturday morning cartoon with science projects is an incredible idea. I would watch it.

[MacGuffin]

'Breaking Bad' creator Vince Gilligan talks about the journey to the grand finale, and beyond
Source: Los Angeles Times

For Walter White, judgment day is at hand.

Legions of bingeing, borderline addicts of the meth-dealing anti-hero of AMC's "Breaking Bad" will receive their final fix Sunday as the newly crowned Emmy-winning series ends. Whether fans will want to cheer, howl or self-medicate after witnessing White's ultimate fate was a matter determined almost entirely by series creator and show runner Vince Gilligan.

While his beloved series, which has racked up ratings records in its final season, may be fading away, the 46-year-old Virginia native is not. For starters, he's moving ahead with a spinoff prequel series for AMC built around "Bad's" shady lawyer Saul Goodman, and a CBS cop drama called "Battle Creek" that is slated to air next year. More projects in television and film are certain to follow in the coming weeks and months.

Less than 48 hours after his show won its first Emmy for outstanding drama series, and less than a few hours before jetting off to the Vancouver International Film Festival, a T-shirt, jeans-clad Gilligan sat down with The Times to discuss all things "Breaking Bad." Here's an edited version of the interview.

*

Congratulations on your Emmy win. Have you recovered yet?

It's all been amazing. A blur. A wonderful, high-class blur, but I'm OK. The secret is not to party all night. My girlfriend and I got home just after midnight. The thing is you're tense for three hours straight, and you keep telling yourself, "It's a wonderful thing if you win, if you lose it's not the end of the world, it's not going to kill you and change your life." But you're nonetheless keyed up.

Then, at the end of the night, people are wishing you well, which is wonderful, and all of sudden during the Governor's Ball, at some point all the adrenaline goes out of you like a toilet being flushed. And then you're completely just spaced out and exhausted.... Now my problem is how do I ever have something like this again? There's always got to be a problem. I've got to find a problem. That's just how I am.

Is everyone asking you about the ending?

It's almost like people have gotten together and consulted on the script. I'm not complaining; it's just an interesting sociological thing. They say they love the show and so sorry it's ending. And then they'll say, "How does it end?" As I open my mouth to make a joke, they hold up their hands and say they don't want to know. They start waving their hands, like stopping a car.

What can you say about the ending?

I don't want to ruin it. I haven't really told anybody, and I don't want to break my perfect record.

What's your relationship been like with Walter White?

It took me a while to realize it. I used to tell the story that I came up with Walter White [Bryan Cranston] because I was turning 40 and was facing a midlife crisis. But in hindsight, I realize it was deeper than that, and it took me several seasons to realize it.

We had an episode where Walt is giving a pep talk to Hank [Dean Norris] after Hank sees a head blow up on a tortoise. He tells Hank that, "I used to be scared of everything. My whole first 50 years of life. Everything scared me. I'd lay awake at night wondering what might happen, what could happen. Until I got my cancer diagnosis, and then I slept like a baby." I didn't really realize it until that episode, but that's really what has drawn me to this character. I'm not Heisenberg. I'm more Walter White.

I tend toward this neurotic person who wonders "what if?"' a lot. And the "what if" isn't what if I win an Emmy, what if I win an Oscar, what if I win the Nobel Peace Prize? ... It's more like what if I accidentally hit a pedestrian driving over here, what if I get diagnosed with cancer, what if the pipes break in the house while we're away on vacation? I'm one of those guys.

Did you know if Walter was going to live or die when you sat down to write the final eight episodes?

No. We had some ideas in the writers room, some of which involve things we ended up doing.... It really took to the end, the last couple episodes, to figure out exactly how it was going to wrap up.

What were your biggest narrative concerns in these final episodes?

My two big concerns were Skyler [Anna Gunn] and Jesse [Aaron Paul]. Specifically, what was she going to do when Hank comes to her? Would it still be believable after all this if she'd still stand by her man, so to speak? ....The other big worry was Jesse ratting on Walt. That's a big step for him to side with Hank over his former partner. Have we earned that?

How about for Walter?

The big question for Walt is, "Do I kill my brother-in-law or do I not?" But we didn't discuss that for more than a minute or two in the great scheme of things. Our guts told us that Walt wouldn't kill Hank. It wasn't that we were afraid that Walt would be too unlikable. It's just that you have a certain understanding of the character, and mine was he would never do that. He would never actually harm a family member.

Does Walter actually love his family?

He does love his family. He doesn't do right by his family, even though he thinks he does. But he would never harm them physically. Of course, that confession tape allowed Walt to be nasty and Heisenbergian without actually physically harming his brother-in-law.

After being caged and watching helplessly as a woman he cares for is executed, how much more can Jesse take?

We didn't set out to torture poor Jesse or make him suffer. We love the character so much ourselves. We all know he deserves better. But Jesse should never have been a criminal in the first place.... His second-biggest mistake was getting into the meth trade. But his biggest mistake by a mile was getting involved with Walter White.

Walter did give him up to the white supremacists.

He's at his lowest moment that we've ever seen him prior to giving up Jesse. He's no longer Heisenberg. He lost the battle to save his brother-in-law, who is dead right there before his eyes. He's lost all his money. He's as low as he's ever been in his entire life. He can't strike back. He's completely impotent. He's lying there in a depthless misery, and he starts to snap out of it. He realizes he's staring at Jesse Pinkman hiding under that car. And in that moment, I think he's focusing all his loss, misery and rage on Jesse.

Is there anything Walter could do to redeem himself in the final episode?

Redemption is in the eye of the viewer. I can tell you, as writers, we didn't set out to damn or redeem anyone. I would have to say that considering all the things Walter White has done in the past 61 episodes — and he's done a few good things along the way, even relatively recently — that he's two miracles shy of sainthood, as Saul Goodman [Bob Odenkirk] might say. I don't think there's any redemption for Walter White, but that doesn't mean he has to go out in a sulfurous cloud of ignominy. It remains to be seen if he goes out standing on his feet or lying on his back.

[Drenk]

A great article from Thomas Schnauz, one of the writers, about why it had to end. Warning: there is a kind of spoiler at the end; not really a spoiler, but kind of. Beware.

http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/29/breaking-bad-writer-why-it-has-to-end/

Is Breaking Bad really ending? Why? Why not make more?!? I'm a writer for Breaking Bad, and that's the question I've gotten the most over the past year (next to: "Is that food on your lip?"). Believe me, it's a question I've asked myself many, many times. But the answer is pretty simple: A rule in the writers' room was to never force the characters in any direction, but to let them take us there—and Walt was taking us to the end of the road.

I joined the writing staff in Season Three (the Season of the Cousins), and I came to the show as a true fan. The work of the writers, directors, actors and crew was just clicking on all cylinders. And I was tricked by the idea that Walter White was jumping through these extreme hoops for the sake of his family. I cared about him, a man trying to take care of his family, getting corrupted as he did. But then I realized that this character wasn't changing. Not really. What he was really doing was revealing his true inner nature.

As I type that, I know that is my opinion and open to debate. Vince always pitched the now-classic line: "Turning Mr. Chips into Scarface." But when I wrote scenes for Walt, I believed he was Scarface (or in our world, Heisenberg) pretending to be the man society expected him to be. Cancer gave him an excuse not to pretend anymore. And I think, for all the "evil" Walt has done, that's why we watch and identify with him. All of us, in some aspects of our lives, pretend to be something we're not. But let's watch what happens when Walter White pulls back the cover. It may be exciting, but it's damn messy. It's much safer for all of us stay civilized and watch Walter White do it! If we all did it, the world would be like that Star Trek episode with everyone running around yelling "Festival!" and raping each other and stealing each other's lunch money. I would find some of that highly unpleasant.

(MORE: Why You're Hooked on Breaking Bad)

Of course, I'm not saying that all of us have a being as monstrous as Heisenberg inside of us. Some of us do. You know who you are. (You, reading this on the toilet. I'm talking to you.) But look, I'm a boring guy who doesn't drink or do drugs... but if I didn't worry about what people thought of me, I'd probably do a few things my mother would not be proud of.

I remember the very first pitch of mine that ever made it onto the board (we'd write ideas down on index cards and pin them to a big corkboard). It was: "Walt finds the teddy bear eye in his pool filter." I was quietly relieved when something I said on that first day of work stuck. We'd cite and steal/borrow from lots of movies—The Godfather, Once Upon a Time in the West, even Rocky—but a movie that came up quite a bit in the room was Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors. A man wrestling with what he has wrought, but in the end, learning to move on. That plastic eyeball came to represent judgment. Walt didn't have God watching him the same way Martin Landau did in Crimes, but he had that plastic eyeball. As if the souls of everyone who died because of him were staring right at him.

We had a scene in an early Season Five episode where Walt found the eyeball again and threw it in the garbage, but that scene fell out and never returned. I wish it had made it in. (That's how sick we writers get about tying up loose ends—it extends to inanimate objects.) But... Walt lost track of that eyeball. He stopped worrying about what people thought.

You could almost forget that only two seasons ago, Walt had more of a conscience (well, almost). Remember early in Season Three when Walt, wracked with guilt over the Wayfarer air disaster, put his cash on the BBQ grill and set it on fire? We almost let him burn it! (The initial argument was: "Walt has enough money. We need a reason for him to cook again!") But the character eventually told us his true nature, and he dumped those flaming bills in the swimming pool to save it all. Jesse is the one with a conscience, tortured by the blood money. Not Walt. He could compartmentalize and rationalize. Walter White was a kingpin, and he was succeeding at it. Up until it went all wrong...

And man, is it going wrong for Walt this season. Now everyone—Jesse, Skyler, Junior, Marie and Hank—is paying the price. So perfectly portrayed by master Bryan Cranston, we're watching Walter White reap what he has sown. We were heading towards Crimes and Misdemeanors, but then we steered toward another film we talked about a lot in the writer's room: Fargo. Walt was almost in the clear, but a persistent cop kept picking at the truth. W.W. in "Leaves of Grass."

We knew if the cancer didn't get him first, the tower of lies that Walt built would come tumbling down. Sure, we could have ended it with Walt triumphant and sitting at home with his family, and all of his money successfully laundered. But that didn't feel like Breaking Bad. Of all the outcomes we discussed in the writers' room, I don't even think we went that way once. "Ozymandias" was always in the air. We used to think that as soon as Hank found out the truth, the show was over. But it wasn't. Not quite. It was another moment in the show that ultimately made us realize that Walt had reached the end of his journey ... SPOILER words he speaks to Skyler END SPOILER in the series finale. Once he reaches that point, he has nowhere else to go. His true nature is revealed. So that's why, sadly, we came to the end.


Yes, I'm sad it's over. Really sad. I'm probably miserable to be around. Great crew, amazing cast, best and most fun writers' room ever. Our genius cinematographer/director Michael Slovis gave us all wrap gifts with a well-known quote from Dr. Suess attached: "Don't be sad because it's over, smile because it happened, bitch." (Okay, it didn't say "bitch." I added that. I'm a writer, that's what I do.) So, I'm trying really hard to heed those words and be happy. But unfortunately, like Walt, our true natures eventually come through.

admin edit: hid spoiler.

[Pubrick]

yep that's a pretty big spoiler.

i feel like he just revealed the last scene of the show.

what a fuckhead.

[Reel]

pretty good show

[Lottery]

It's finished. Huh.

[cine]

It's no Curb.

[picolas]

SPOILS OBVS

okay. it took me about 90 minutes after the episode ended for me to figure this out, but i think that was the worst episode of the series, and harms the overall meaning of the show.

first i'll just say that i LOVED season 5. the first seven episodes of the second half were simply beyond anything i could have expected. i felt going into this that there was no way it could possibly be screwed up.

let's ignore the general content of the episode. i'll just say that it was mostly predictable but executed in a pretty satisfying manner. it had its moments, and the use of skinny pete and badger was phenomenal. here's why i think this episode is kind of terrible:

ultimately, walt gives his family over ten times the initial amount of money he was trying to get as a meth dealer. the result of all of his behaviour is that his family will never have to worry about money again. when all is said and done, his plan worked.

YES, they all had to suffer. and NO money does not solve everything, or come close to redeeming him.

BUT. he gave them a fuckload of money. remember when gilligan was saying back in season 2 that death was the easy way out? that walt would have to go through much worse than that before all this was over? okay. he did go through hell. but at the end of the day, he managed to get everything he wanted and more. he was going to die anyway.

i'm not saying this is a black and white thing, or this show is saying that cooking meth is awesome, but i do think the decision to allow walt to give his family millions of dollars is the biggest copout in recent memory. it's a little above not allowing batman to die after showing him die. this whole series has been about paying for what we do. time and time again walt has had the chance to pull out or make a clean break, and every time he has gone further and he has had to pay more. to give him millions of dollars in the final hour severely dilutes the fundamental principles of the show, and is deeply unsatisfying to me. how sweetly horribly tragic was it when walt couldn't even give his son 100,000 last episode? how perfect was that? all undone by that episode.

i still think bb is one of the best shows ever, but this episode is almost the worst thing vince could have done.

[Drenk]

Walt won, yes. And? What's wrong? The writer is not a good God, punishing fairly its characters. I followed Walter White for years. I understand his need of power, being, myself, pretty powerless. When he was a selfish bastard, destroying everything around him, I never hated him. I was sad. Yes, he deserves to go to jail and suffer and whatever but I don't care. I'm watching a TV show, not reading an article about a criminal. I'm glad he understood, at the end, that he did it for himself. And he loved his lab. He loved making meth. His true love. Weird love. I loved how they didn't care to be ridiculous with him being sensual with his lab. He looks like crap. But he feels good.

It was predictable, yet surprising. It was the end Breaking Bad had in its DNA. I'm happy.

[Frederico Fellini]

- I'm cool with the family keeping the money, mostly because it's going to be given to Flynn and Holly. I don't have a problem with that, they've gone through enough.

- Song at the end was perfect. Too bad I'm desensitized by it after hearing it in The Departed a billion times.

- Happy that everyone that HAD TO die, DIED. Jesse living was a given. (motherfucker probably still crying)

- Pretty much everything that happened in this episode was already "expected" but I agree they succeeded in the execution to make you feel as if was fresh. The Gretchen and Elliot portion being the most clever one, really did not see that one coming.

- This as a finale ranks in the "Almost Great" category for me. Not disappointed, but not impressed either. Will definitely miss the hell outta this show. (Countdown for rewatching of all 5 seasons has officially begun)

FELINA.