'Breaking Bad': Creator Vince Gilligan explains series finale:

There was a version we kicked around where Walt is the only one who survives, and he’s standing among the wreckage and his whole family is destroyed. That would be a very powerful ending but very much a kick-in-the-teeth kind of ending for the viewers.

I guess our gut told us that it would feel satisfying for Walt to at least begin to make amends for his life and for all the sadness and misery wrought upon his family and his friends. Walt is never going to redeem himself. He’s just too far down the road to damnation. But at least he takes a few steps along that path. And I think more importantly for him than that is the fact that he accomplishes what he set out to accomplish way back in the first episode: He leaves his family just a ton of money.

emilyn's take on the finale: [link]

That is AWESOME. I am definitely choosing to believe this version.

I am with emilyn too.

I prefer the actual ending to emilyn's.

I don't think Walt deserved redemption, or gained it. But Jessie laid it out a few episodes ago; Walt's not just smarter and more devious, but he's also lucky.

He's fortune's chosen monster. And that will happen in a show as plot driven as this. They highlight it because Walt could have more credibly hotwired the car instead of having the keys fall into his lap. And if that allows a reading that it was all his dying revenge fantasy (ala, John Boorman's Point Blank) I'm sure they were cognizant of that as well.

I don't have a problem with the word anti-hero. It just means a protagonist who is not a good person. So it is with Walt. In the end, he was the one who knocked.

And it would have been unendurable for Jessie to be left in the hands of the Nazis.

In the end it was a story about a man who when faced with death deluded himself about helping his family and enacted his scientific competence and innate ruthlessness on the world. It was an act of will and pride and ego. And he was the smartest guy in the room. And he was lucky.

I'm a bit minded of the end of The Wire with Marlo Stanfield who after he has all the money and can leave the game has to go down on the street to reaffirm his name. Walt was driven by similar pride in Heisenberg.

There's the also that element of Omar's name being passed down after his death. Being legendary, having a reputation, earning your name (even through your bad deeds) was more important than money or power.

I think the way the finale was constructed allows emilyn's reading, but I don't think that's what Gilligan intended. I think he just followed the story to its conclusion and allowed Walt to die "when he says so."

Maybe you don't think Walt deserved to get what he wants, but the entire series follows his character consistently and logically to this end. And they took great pains to show how monstrous he became by acting on his will.

It just means a protagonist who is not a good person

I'm assuming you didn't click on the link.

And they took great pains to show how monstrous he became by acting on his will.

And to not have him go out monstrously.

I'm assuming you didn't click on the link.

...Sam and Dean Winchester what.

I would be a lot more entertained by Emily's column if I hadn't periodically read her tweets about BB and her guesses for these last few episodes. The tweets were wish fulfillment and fantastical.

Much like her column about the finale. Sure we didn't see WW drive off, but the show doesn't show a lot of stuff. How did Walt get from the cabin to the town bar in his physical state previous ep? Every ep has jumps in time.

If not for te periodic scenes to the finale, we could make the argument I guess he died on the floor of the cabin, but I don't think it's the writers' intent.

Maybe you don't think Walt deserved to get what he wants, but the entire series follows his character consistently and logically to this end.

Back in college, one of my screenwriting profs liked to say that every scene you write should be either surprising or inevitable. I don't agree with that as an unbreakable absolute, but the reason this ep failed for me was that it was neither - where it should have felt inevitable, it was just predictable. (I suppose Gretchen and Elliot were a little surprising, but then the fakeout with the laser pointers brought it right back into predictability.)

Oh dear lord the end of Monday's Colbert Report (with Vince Gilligan) is fantastic.

I'll be honest, I am not really understanding y'all's criticisms. I'm not saying it was perfect, but the specific flaws you're pointing out, I don't see.

Oh dear lord the end of Monday's Colbert Report (with Vince Gilligan) is fantastic.

Oh good. I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that here.