The world was split in to two groups of people in the last few days; those talking about Breaking Bad, and those listening to people talk about Breaking Bad. If you were in the latter, you were in the minority.
The former (in which I include myself) have been banging on about the AMC drama for days, stringing together cringe-worthy sequences of superlatives while the rest of you stared blankly back thinking: ‘I must get a Netflix account’.
But as you sigh at the needless rhetoric of us BB addicts, you must know that those superlatives have qualitative data to back them up. Ah yes, in the IMDB list of ‘Top Rated TV Episodes Ever’, there are five from Breaking Bad. Sunday night’s scolding hot finale ‘Felina’ broke records on Twitter, with 22,373 tweets per minute whilst the episode aired. See, it is the best show ever. Science says so, bitch.
SPOILERS BELOW
Has anything ever ended so perfectly? From episode one Walt has been in a state of constant metamorphosis. “From Mr. Chips to Scarface” was the line that the Breaking Bad creator/modern-day genius Vince Gilligan coined way back in 2008, when the very first episode was aired. This, however, turned out to be a modest underestimation of his anti-hero.
Walt has embodied everything in between and more. From high-school chemistry teacher, to meth cook, to drug lord, to the target of an international manhunt, Breaking Bad’s anti-hero is a panorama of good and evil; impossible to see from one perspective.
But a new aspect was added to his character on Sunday night: magician. Walt appeared at the Schwartz’s to assure his fortune would be left to his children. He then somehow appeared in the café with Todd and Lydia to finally make use of the ricin and set in motion his plan to take out the neo-Nazi hitmen. He again magically appeared in front of Skylar to offer his sincerest apology of all, before again avoiding the police and appearing at the end to free Jesse and take his revenge on the Nazis. It was nail-biting, it was heart-wrenching and it was everything in between; the perfect ending to what many have described as the perfect TV show.
To anyone who is currently grieving over the loss of the show: don’t worry, The River feels your pain. It may take us a while to come to terms with the fact that we will never see Walt Jr. eat another breakfast again, but in the words of Dr. Suess: “don’t be sad it’s over, smile because it happened.”
To those of you that haven’t seen it: please, trust the hype and ride the rhetoric. It’ll be the best decision you’ve made in years.