Full spoilers below you proceed once you have seen the episode.
Wow, who would have thought that the episodes title would have such a double meaning. To be honest with you, I have no idea how to do this review, I have gotten so used to good episodes (we have been spoiled from episodes 4 through 11) that I am not sure if this episode was actually bad or just bad compared to the ones preceding it (which actually wouldn't be a bad thing). What I am sure of is that this episode is most definitely not a 10, or a 9, and might be lucky to get an 8. The initial reaction from most fans has been very positive and I can't understand why. Gus's death was nicely executed up until the end, I can't believe that someone allowed the writers to kill Gus off in such an unrealistic way. I'm not saying Walt's plan was unrealistic, but Gus being able to walk out, adjust his tie one last time and stand still for a solid five seconds was just blasphemy.
If you described what I just said to someone who has never seen the show, then asked them to guess how he dies these would probably be the responses: sniper, someone shoots him, etc. Then you would tell them "actually no, he JUST had a bomb go off one foot from his face, which by the way is half missing" The person talking to you would say something like "man that's unrealistic, how can he walk out of the room and adjust his tie... or even stand?". I have two explanations: firstly, the second season of 'the walking dead' is coming out soon and this was a good way to show how good their make-up artists are, and secondly the writers really wanted to send Gus off with a scene that would be iconic. The only iconic thing about it is that it destroyed any chance that Breaking Bad had of being remembered as a great TV show. Watch the scene again, it killed the beautiful build-up, acting, and music (man was the music good, I think it saved the episode) really disappointing stuff. Other scenes in the episode like Jesse being investigated by the FBI and being kidnapped in front of a police station just added to the unrealistic feeling of this episode. The FBI and Saul was a nice touch, as was Walter sending his neighbor into a very dangerous situation, but overall it felt as if this season could have done with 12 episodes instead of 13. Realistically, all the things that happened in this episode were just a dragged out version of last episode without anything dramatic. We didn't even get a nice plot twist! I kept looking at the time and knew that there was 15 minutes left when Gus died and 6 left when Jesse and Walt destroyed the lab. I kept waiting for something but it never came, oh wait it did! It turns out that it wasn't Risen that Walt poisoned Brock with; it was some berries off of the plant in his back yard. This would have been great had the entire fan base not predicted it last week, and yes the last four or so lines are pure sarcasm. I find it really hard to believe that after such an incredible season that we went out with a whimper and not a bang. Don't believe me? I went back and looked at the ratings I have been giving these episodes, after an average score of 7.2/10 for the first 3 we got this stretch: 9, 8.2, 8.4, 10, 9.4, 9, 10, 9.2, 9.3. My goodness.
So what the hell is season 5 going to be about? A few candidates: Jesse vs. Walt when Jesse finds out Walt poisoned Brock (it has to happen), Hank connecting more dots and Mike, good ol' Mike (I really hope they show us a scene of him leaving Mexico and seeing the carnage Walt left) are the prime story lines I can think of, the good thing is I don't think we can go wrong here. All in all it is really a bitter end to a season that was brilliant as a whole, it is just a shame that the worst episodes were at the start and at the end and this is all made worse by the fact that we have to wait a year to see how this all ends. If this review feels mailed in to you, then I hope its the same feeling you got from the episode, because man did they mail this one in. Breaking Bad: you are better than this
Overall Rating for this episode: 6/10 (any higher would be insulting your intelligence)
Best Scene: Anything with Aaron Paul, I refuse to say Gus's death here because it was so 'Hollywood' and not realistic at all.
Overall Rating for the season: This was tougher than I thought because the final episode was so disappointing but overall the season was a solid 8.5/10
Best scene of the season: Let's go with the fight between Jesse and Walt, there were many worthy candidates but that one was the most intense.
A different take on things (from Jovan):
I cannot fully agree with the above review. I understand that there were some unrealistic scenes, as there have been throughout the entire show, but even though most people had already called some of the events beforehand, it was still acted out and directed extremely well. Hector got his revenge, and he had nothing left to live for, so I can't complain with his suicide. What I didn't like is how Gus did not realize that when Hector visited the DEA, it was set up. Why would Hector just suddenly decide to go and talk to the DEA? He clearly talked to someone first. Another problem I have is Gus not noticing the bomb on Hector's chair. It was in a visible area and when Tyrus turned around the chair, one of the two should have seen it. Lastly, Gus exiting the room before dying is somewhat unrealistic considering he lost half his face, but it made the scene that much better. The episode overall wasn't as good as some of the previous ones, but it was a good ending to a great season, and even though there were no twists (except the Lily of the Valley poisoning Brock - so why did Huell search Jesse in the last episode? I want this explained), there needn't have been any. What happened needed to happen and now we'll have to wait another year to see how Jesse will deal with Walt when he finds out that Walt was the one who poisoned Brock.
Episode Score: 8.5 (Season Rating: 8.8, while episodes 4-12 get a 9.5 average rating)
Look for some more Survivor thoughts in a week with some individual projects coming from each of the writers soon! Thanks for reading
Huel searched Jesse so Jesse would think someone stole the Risen from him, this made him more easily convinced that it was Gus. Explained
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