Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Ending the Breaking Bad season with a bang

¡SPOILER ALERT!

This blog shows pictures and explains the ending of the last episode of Breaking Bad, Season Four. Leave now if you don't want to know how it ends.

Season Four of Breaking Bad ended with the episode, "Face Off." It was aptly named. Gus Fring enters Hector Sallamanca's room at the Casa Tranquila rest home, thinking Hector has been ratting him out to the DEA. Hector had paid a visit to the DEA, but it was part of a plot concocted by Walter White, whose bomb plot against Gus has gone awry in the hospital parking lot.

Gus has been tormenting and threatening to kill Hector, in revenge for Hector killing his friend. Gus prepared a lethal dosage and is about to inject it into Hector. Unable to speak or to move anything but his finger, which he uses to ding the bell on his wheelchair, Hector suddenly begins hitting the bell furiously. Too late Gus realizes there is a bomb under Hector's wheelchair. It's the same bomb Walt was unable to detonate under Gus's car in the hospital parking lot.

These pictures are taken from my television screen with my camera.

The bomb explodes. As the smoke is clearing, we see Gus step out of the doorway.

The camera pans around Gus, to show he is mortally wounded, half his face gone. Always immaculate, he straightens his tie.

Gus's remaining eye goes blank, and he pitches forward, dead.

The rest of the episode shows Walt and Jesse resolving their problems in the laundry's basement meth lab.

Season Five is said to be the last season of Breaking Bad, but it would be hard to beat the end of Gustavo Fring as a climax to the series. Just about anything they could come up with next season will seem anti-climactic.

Walt, when the series began, was shown to be a decent man pushed to extraordinary lengths to help his family financially. He has gone down a road to a place populated with some of the most dangerous criminals on earth. Walt continues to kill, but only to protect himself and his family. He is very satisfied to have removed the threat of Gus. If he doesn't exactly enjoy killing, it doesn't seem to bother him. I remember how he got Jesse's girlfriend out of the picture at the end of Season Two. Walt as a killer bothers me, but it is in the evolution of the character. He's heading for a fall, and he's postponed it for now. We'll see what happens next summer when the new season plays out. I'll be there.

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