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Felina (Breaking Bad)

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"Felina (Breaking Bad)"

"Felina" is the series finale of the American drama television series Breaking Bad. It is the sixteenth episode of season five and the 62nd overall episode of the series. Written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan, it aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on September 29, 2013. Its title comes from [Marty Robbin] classic song [El Paso] which Walter White can be heard whistling during the episode.

The plot finds Walter White (Bryan Cranston) evading a nationwide manhunt for him in order to return to New Mexico to deliver the remaining profits from his illegal methamphetamine empire to his family, and to eliminate the neo-Nazi gang who double-crossed him. Before doing so however, knowing the cancer will soon kill him, Walt takes a trip down memory lane to properly prepare himself for his death.

Plot

After leaving the bar, Walt leaves New Hampshire in a Volvo, with Marty Robbins' song "El Paso" playing on the radio. Upon returning to New Mexico, he tracks down Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz (Jessica Hecht and Adam Godley) at their new house in Santa Fe, after posing as a reporter for The New York Times. In order to circumvent the suspicions of the DEA and Skyler he orders them to give his remaining $9.72 million to Walt Jr., who will inherit it upon turning eighteen, saying this is their chance to "make things right". Under the threat of apparent snipers waiting outside, the Schwartzes agree. After Walt leaves, he pays Badger Mayhew (Matt L. Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) for aiming red laser pointers at the Schwartzes and posing as hitmen. He learns Jack Welker's (Michael Bowen) gang has been cooking and distributing blue meth and deduces that Jesse (Aaron Paul) is still alive.

On his 52nd birthday, after purchasing an M60 machine gun and retrieving the ricin from his abandoned house, Walt intercepts Todd (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia's (Laura Fraser) meeting at a coffee shop and makes a business proposal, offering a new formula for methylamine-free meth. Todd turns him down, but Lydia feigns interest so that Walt can be lured into getting killed by Jack. Later, Skyler (Anna Gunn) receives a phone call from Marie (Betsy Brandt), who informs her Walt is back in town, unaware that Walt is already with Skyler. Walt leaves Skyler with the lottery ticket on which the coordinates of Hank and Steve's grave are printed, advising her to use it to negotiate a plea bargain with the authorities. Walt also admits that his life as a drug kingpin was for himself, rather than his family, stating that he did it because he enjoyed it, was good at it, and it made him feel alive. Skyler allows Walt to see Holly one last time while she sleeps. After leaving, Walt watches from afar as Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) arrives home from school.

Walt meets with Jack and his men at their hideout, where Jesse is still performing slave labor for the gang in an adjacent Quonset hut. Jack refuses Walt's offer and orders him killed. Walt insults Jack for partnering with Jesse, but Jack calls for Jesse to be brought to them, to show Walt they aren't partners and Jesse is Jack's prisoner. When Jesse is brought in, Walt tackles him to the ground and uses his car keys to remotely fire the machine gun (which he had connected to a pivoting turret rigged to the car key's remote unlock button) from his car. The ensuing gunfire kills Jack's men and wounds Jack and Walt, but leaves Todd and Jesse unharmed. Jesse strangles Todd with his handcuffs, killing him. Walt takes Jack's gun and kills Jack, despite Jack's insistence that Walt will never find the stolen money if he does. Walt gives the gun to Jesse and asks Jesse to kill him. Jesse refuses after seeing a bullet wound on Walt. As Jesse and Walt leave Jack's house, Walt answers a call on Todd's phone from a visibly ill Lydia. He gloats that her business partners are dead and informs her that she is about to die from ricin poisoning, as he laced her stevia with it at the coffee shop. Jesse and Walt, having made peace, nod farewell to one another one last time. Jesse then flees in Todd's El Camino, crying and screaming with relief.

Walt goes to Todd's lab and nostalgically admires the equipment, holding a gas mask and rubbing a kettle. Badfinger's "Baby Blue" is heard as he succumbs to his bullet wound and collapses[1] just as police storm the lab, finding a motionless Walt, who has a frozen smile on his face.

Reception

Ratings

"Felina" had the highest ratings of any episode of Breaking Bad: 10.28 million in the United States, including 5.3 million adults aged 18–49.[2][3] The episode generated millions of online comments and Nielsen Holdings rankings established that it was the most-discussed episode on Twitter for that week.[4] The popularity of the episode resulted in a 2,981 percent increase of sales of the Badfinger song "Baby Blue" as well as a 9,000 percent increase in streaming over Spotify.[5]

Critical reception

Critics praised Cranston's performance in Felina.

Upon airing, the episode received universal critical acclaim, with critics agreeing that the finale lived up to the hype that was generated around it.[6][7] In her review of "Felina", Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A rating, writing that, "Walt's purpose is fulfilled, and he just stops".[8] Seth Amitin at IGN also praised the episode, calling it fully satisfying and awarding it a score of 9.8 out of 10.[9] Katey Rich agreed with the above sentiments, calling the episode "a deeply satisfying and surprisingly emotional finale."[10]

Awards and nominations

Year Award Category Nominee(s) Result
2014 American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards Best Edited One-Hour Series for Commercial Television Skip MacDonald Won
Art Directors Guild Award One-Hour Single Camera Television Series Mark Freeborn Nominated
Cinema Audio Society Awards Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Television Series - One Hour Darryl L. Frank Nominated
Directors Guild of America Award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Dramatic Series Vince Gilligan Won
Golden Reel Awards Best Sound Editing in Television - Short Form: Sound Effects and Foley Nick Forshager Won
Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series Vince Gilligan Nominated
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series Nominated
Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series Skip MacDonald Won
Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or Special Tarra Day, Steve LaPorte, Greg Nicotero, Stephan Dupuis, and Howard Leigh Berger Nominated
Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series Nominated
Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour) Darryl L. Frank, Jeff Perkins, and Eric Justen Nominated

Production

Gilligan looking to the camera
Series creator Vince Gilligan wrote and directed "Felina"

On September 18, 2013, it was announced that both "Granite State" and "Felina" would run 75 minutes, including commercials.[11] The actual runtime of the episode is 55 minutes.[12] The episode was written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan.

Title reference and music

The episode title, "Felina", is inspired by the character Feleena from the song "El Paso" by Marty Robbins, which plays a major role during the episode.[8] The writers tweaked the name from Feleena to Felina so that it would also be an anagram for Finale.[13][14] Moreover, the word Felina can also be broken up into three different symbols of chemical elements found in the periodic table: Iron (Fe), Lithium (Li), and Sodium (Na); some sources note that these three elements are found, respectively, with blood, meth and tears.[note 1][16][17]

Badfinger's "Baby Blue" is played during the final scene. According to series creator Vince Gilligan, this is reference to the high-quality blue meth Walt had produced over the previous seasons and his life as a drug kingpin which the main character lastly recognizes he had enjoyed.[13] According to Rolling Stone, the music supervisors on the show disagreed with Gilligan's choice for the final song;[13] however music supervisor Thomas Golubić stated that "journalists sometimes try to create drama where there isn't any" and that his quotes were "mis-represented."[18] "Baby Blue" became an obvious choice as the editing came closer to completion with Golubić describing the process of finalizing the song:

Before I saw the scene, I pulled together a number of ideas – one which I thought worked pretty beautifully against picture: The Bees "No More Excuses" – but once I saw that beautiful shot, and saw the scene in context, I realized why Vince was so strongly attached to the Badfinger song. It's tricky for us as music supervisors in that we keep pulling together ideas and revising them. None of us know the right answer until we are at the very end of that process and have cut and locked picture to work with. Vince is just really talented at knowing what the final effect he is looking for, and knew early on that Badfinger's "Baby Blue" was the right choice for what he was looking to do. It took until the final picture was assembled that I was able to also see what a fantastic choice it was.[19]

— Thomas Golubić

Note

  1. ^ According to Eric Brown of International Business Times:

    "In its pure form (...) methamphetamine is composed solely of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and nitrogen (N), no lithium involved. However, there are multiple ways to synthesize meth from other ingredients, and several involve lithium. The Birch reduction, also called the "Nazi method," mixes lithium and ammonia to create a reaction. Another, called the "Shake 'n' Bake" method, involved throwing lithium and several other ingredients into a single pot to create the drug. Both methods are extremely dangerous, as lithium is a highly volatile element. Unfortunately, there's a big hole in this theory: Walt never uses a lithium-based synthesis in the show. (...) Walt uses two methods throughout the show: first the Nagai method involving red phosphorus and later a methylamine P2P reaction resulting in the famous blue meth. Neither one uses lithium at any point, shooting at big hole in this theory."[15]


References

  1. ^ Snierson, Dan (September 30, 2013). "'Breaking Bad': Creator Vince Gilligan explains series finale". ew.com. Retrieved October 14, 2013. ... he's expired before the cops show up.
  2. ^ Bibel, Sara (October 1, 2013). "Sunday Cable Ratings: 'Breaking Bad' Wins Big, 'Talking Bad', 'Homeland', 'Boardwalk Empire', 'Masters of Sex' & More". TV by the Numbers. Retrieved October 3, 2013.
  3. ^ Bibel, Sara (September 30, 2013). "Breaking Bad Finale Scores Record 10.3 Million Viewers, 6.7 Million Adults 18–49". Zap2it. Tribune Media Services. Retrieved September 30, 2013. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
  4. ^ Chmielewski, Dawn C. (September 30, 2013). "Breaking Bad generates millions of comments on Twitter, Facebook". Los Angeles Times. Tribune Company. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  5. ^ Subramanian, Courtney (October 2, 2013). "Breaking Bad's Final Scene Boosts Sales for 1970's Band Badfinger". TIME. Time Inc.
  6. ^ Dietz, Jason (September 29, 2013). "Episode Review: Breaking Bad Series Finale". Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  7. ^ "Breaking Bad finale is a hit with TV critics". BBC. September 30, 2013. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  8. ^ a b Bowman, Donna (September 29, 2013). ""Felina"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  9. ^ Amitin, Seth (September 29, 2013). "Breaking Bad: "Felina" Review". IGN. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  10. ^ "Breaking Bad Finale: Was That Really The Ending Walt Deserved?". CinemaBlend.com. September 29, 2013. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  11. ^ Couch, Aaron (September 18, 2013). "Breaking Bad: Final Two Episodes Get Extended Run Times". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
  12. ^ "Breaking Bad, The Final Season". iTunes. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  13. ^ a b c Knopper, Steve (October 1, 2013). "Why 'Breaking Bad' Chose Badfinger's 'Baby Blue'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  14. ^ "Breaking Bad - Insider Podcast Season 5". AMC. Retrieved October 7, 2013.
  15. ^ "Decoding the 'Breaking Bad' finale". International Business Times. 26 September 2013. Retrieved 16 June 2014.
  16. ^ Locker, Melissa (September 25, 2013). "Is "Felina" the Secret to the Breaking Bad Finale?". Time magazine. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  17. ^ Dibdin, Emma (September 30, 2013). "'Breaking Bad' series finale recap: Blood, meth and tears in 'Felina'". Digital Spy. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  18. ^ "I am Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead music supervisor, Thomas Golubić, ASK ME ANYTHIN". Reddit. October 5, 2013. Retrieved October 12, 2013.
  19. ^ "I am Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead music supervisor, Thomas Golubić, ASK ME ANYTHING". Reddit.com. October 5, 2013. Retrieved October 12, 2013.
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