Going out on its own terms
‘Most folks are going to dig the ending,’ Breaking Bad creator hopes
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. “Heisenberg,” Bryan-Cranston-as-Walter-White said in a film clip, seconds before Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Bob Odenkirk, R.J. Mitte, Betsy Brandt and Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan took the stage at the summer meeting of the TV Critics Association Friday. “God-damn right.”
“Heisenberg” is highschool-chemistry- turnedmeth-dealer White’s nom de guerre, from Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty. Albert Einstein interpreted the Heisenberg principle to mean that human knowledge is limited, and nature is absolute.
Breaking Bad is a study in uncertainty and unpredictability, as AMC president Charlie Collier reminded the room in introducing Breaking Bad’s cast: It was always Gilligan’s intention to kill off Paul’s character in the first season.
Who knew?
Who knew, too, that a dark, tightly wound drama about a high school chemistry teacher who turns to designing designer-label drugs to pay for his cancer treatment would become a multiple Emmy nominee and one of the most respected, critically lauded prime-time television dramas of its generation.
Just eight episodes remain after five seasons and 54 episodes. Breaking Bad returns Aug. 11 with an episode titled Blood Money, and will end for good eight weeks later, in September.
Cranston held the room spellbound with his personal account of how an earnest, committed high school chemistry teacher crosses over to the dark side, albeit fictionally.
Walter White was a man beaten down by life, Cranston said.
“He could have been Mr. Chips 20 years ago, but now he’s not.”
Breaking Bad’s story is about pragmatism winning out over idealism, and how a good man can break bad.
Now that Breaking Bad is to end, it’s almost impossible to envision an uplifting ending — even if it is television.
Paul, who plays White’s shadow character Jesse Pinkman — a former student of White’s who enthusiastically turned to peddling drugs, but is now reconsidering his life’s direction — told a hushed room that Pinkman hopes to redeem himself, even as White has suddenly embraced his dark side.
“Jesse is a drug dealer, a murderer, but for some reason you want to care for him and protect him,” Paul said, his voice soft and sombre.
“I think everyone will be happy with the ending where we hug it out,” Cranston said, with a wry smile. He reached over to hug Paul, and Gunn and Brandt, seated beside them, laughed.
Gilligan did not look to the fans to decide the ending. He alone decided how Breaking Bad would go out.
“I don’t spend much time on the Internet looking up Breaking Bad,” he said. At some point, regardless of what fans are saying, the writer has to decide for himself what happens in a story, regardless of outside counsel, advice and fans’ demands.