Will Walter White be laying out bacon on his 53rd birthday? (Picture: Netflix)

Airing from August 12, Breaking Bad season 5 part 2 will see Walter White’s journey from chemistry teacher to meth kingpin, from meek punching bag to infanticidal maniac, from Mr. Chips to Scarface, come to an end.

Exactly how the show will close is unclear however and a debate currently occupying approximately 85% of the internet, with there still being a number of unresolved issues, characters, plot devices and items that hold the keys to the finale.

Let’s pour over them now, because all too soon this fantastic show’s secrets will be laid bare and irrevocably in the past.

1. Todd


I recently put it to creator Vince Gilligan that Todd feels kind of in the way as the show’s climax approaches – we haven’t invested in him emotionally, he merely serves to fill Jesse’s role in the meth business, and now Walt is ‘out’, he has no real purpose.



Gilligan insists he ‘gets more interesting’ as 5b rolls on however, suggesting Walt’s dealings with Todd aren’t through (be they meth or evading-the-DEA-related).

Todd is an expendable character and I can’t see him being around for the finale. He could well become a mid-season obstacle though, with Jesse already being far from his biggest fan. Walt/Jesse bumping him off would surely lead to trouble with his mobster relatives, who Todd was threatened with before.

2. The vial of ricin

The unused vial of ricin is probably the biggest Chehkhov’s gun left in the show bar the actual one in Walt’s trunk (below) . The last episode we saw, Gliding Over All, took great care to show us not only Walt choosing not to use it on Lydia but him then carefully screwing it back in its hiding place behind an electrical socket. Why?

It seems unlikely a quiet death-by-poison would suffice for an antagonist’s death given Gus’s grisly departure at the end of s4, but is it possible baby Holly could find the vial by accident (it’s a foot off the floor after all)? How about Skyler? Might Walt make good of his plan to poison Lydia? Or even his wife? That seems unlikely, but Gilligan and Cranston have both hinted that Walt’s morality drops to new lows in season 5b.

3. The flash forward

A whole heap of clues were teased in the diner scene, which sees Walt a year down the line returning to Albuquerque and arming himself with a machine gun. He appears calm and in no rush, suggesting this is not a desperate mission to rescue Jesse/his family like we have seen before, but a calculated mission of vengeance or a pre-emptive strike.

You could conclude that Walt is marching toward death Tony Montana-style (Gilligan has repeatedly referred to the Breaking Bad story as ‘Mr. Chips to Scarface’), but resigning himself to the grave doesn’t feel very Heisenberg – he doesn’t usually put himself in danger unless he knows he can win.

Then again, Walt’s cancer appears to be back in the scene and he looks to have given up on chemotherapy, so it is possible he has accepted death and plans on going out with a bang, quite literally.

Various forums have pointed out that his pseudonym in the flash forward, Mr Lambert, takes Skyler’s maiden name, and that he uses ones of her traits – arranging bacon into his age – which feeds into the theory that Heisenberg picks up a characteristic from each person he kills.



Is this an omen for Skyler’s death? Possibly, but more likely a red herring to make fans think just that.

4. Jesse’s gun

Last seen sliding across the floor after Walt gave Jesse a bag full of money and not exploding vipers as he seemed to be expecting, the gun was given to him by Saul in the DVD bonus scene ‘Chicks n’ Guns’, for the purpose of protection.

Will Jesse use it on Walt? He hasn’t been able to bring himself to before.

5. Leaves of Grass

Who offers up incriminating evidence for toilet reading? Was Hank’s discovery of the Walt Whitman dedication really a rare case of Walter being careless, or does he actually want to be caught on some level?

His empire has never been about the money, it stopped being about the family seasons ago and remains only for the pride and recognition and sense of self-worth it brings him. If he is dying of cancer, maybe he wants to go down in infamy rather than as a nobody?

The latest season 5 poster, emblazoned with the words ‘REMEMBER MY NAME’, lends some weight to this.

6. Gray Matter

Hank’s hackles have been raised by the ‘WW’ tribute, but he doesn’t have enough to go in with the handcuffs. Maybe Gray Matter would be a good place for him to re-open his investigation? They can attest to Walt’s crystal blue-grade chemistry skills and offer up the information that he suddenly came into a heap of money around the time of his cancer diagnosis.


I can’t see them featuring majorly, but it could be a small kink in the plot along the way.

7. ‘It’s not that we always know where we’re going, but that we’re driven to look back at the show’s history and mine little moments from it.’ – Vince Gilligan

It’s worth keeping in mind that not everything is a foreshadow in Breaking Bad, the writers instead tend to look at seemingly innocent moments in the show’s history and make them blossom into full-fledged plot-lines. Worth keeping in mind for anyone binge re-watching before August 12, as previous seemingly unimportant scenes could become crucial.

8. Holly

If you’re one of the Breaking Bad colour-theorists, then Holly is as good as dead.

As one of the few entirely innocent characters it is likely she will wind up being used as a blackmailing tool, and has had her life threatened before (Gus, in the desert). Her brother Walt Jr will surely also be put in danger in the final eight episodes, with the added kicker that he has yet to discover his father’s alter-ego.

9. Hank

Will Hank’s family loyalty override his desire to bust Walt? It might have done, had Walt not cruelly deceived him for months on end (including remember, faking a call from a hospital saying Marie had been seriously injured in a car crash).

The Heisenberg case has become Hank’s obsession and caused him mental and physical anguish, you have to believe he is the one snapping at Walt’s heels in the final eight.


But if not, then 10. who will Walt be running from?

Running from, whilst firing backwards at his pursuers most likely, as he was with Gus and Tuco.

The rival meth gang he was dealing with in the desert are obvious antagonists, but Todd’s family could re-enter the frame.

Also, in taking his blue meth of the market, Walt has let down the ruthless Lydia and potentially pissed off a load of Czechoslovakians he had just entered into business with. He has plenty of enemies.

11. Skyler

Sklyer seems to have come to terms with Walt’s felonies and simply wants a fresh start, but if forced to choose between Walt and Walt Jr and Holly, I don’t suppose would take too long to make a decision – even if it meant pulling the trigger on her husband herself.

But remember, Hank, Marie and Skyler are all in deep themselves. The former accepted (albeit unknowingly) drug money to fund physical therapy, and Skyler is an accessory thanks to her money laundering at the car wash.

12. Saul

‘Like the last cockroach alive after a nuclear holocaust’, Saul will survive and go on to star in his own show.

Saul worming his way out of yet another scrape and living to bribe another day? A great idea. A comedic spin-off series? We’ll see.

13. Jesse

Jesse has become the moral centre of Breaking Bad – a bad man with a good heart – and it seems inevitable that he will feature in the final scene, if not the final shot.

He of course has yet to find out the truth about Jane, Brock and Mike, but since – certainly in the first instance – Walt is the only person alive who holds those secrets, it is possible Jesse may never find out. I can’t see Walt breaking down on his knees and confessing his sins, however messed up the situation gets.

Possible denouement: Walt, perhaps horrified by his sins or responsible for the death of loved one, wants to die and begs Jesse to kill him. As Jesse struggles to go through with it, he reels of the list of evil deeds he has done at Jesse’s expense in the hope of coaxing him into pulling the trigger.

A Sopranos ending has been ruled out by Gilligan, but how about a Goodfellas one? Jesse could probably strike a deal with the DEA if he gives up the great Heisenberg, and he might do this after finding that again he is unable to bring himself to shoot his mentor.

Or, if they really want to tug on our heartstrings, Walt could kill Jesse, be it intentionally or accidentally. If the pair do end up in a fight, we know Jesse has the edge physically, but Walt has the killer instinct.

14. Walt

How do you end the story of one of the greatest anti-heroes in TV history? Do you have him go down in a blaze of glory? Does he rot in jail? Do you throw in a curveball and have him somehow emerging unscathed, as if the whole thing never happened?

We often talk about ‘character arcs’ in great TV shows but part of Breaking Bad’s success has been that its protagonist doesn’t have one – it’s a steady downward gradient that only reaches new depths.

As such, redemption for Walt would be disappointing; he’s started down this path, stayed the course and must see it through to the end.

He has already put a gun to his own head and goaded someone to kill him, and that was during a time when cancer hadn’t returned to place an expiry date on him. He does not fear death.

Walt’s death feels inevitable, especially as it will likely be a case of him or Hank, but however Walter White’s brief but explosive career in meth distribution ends, I have complete confidence Gilligan will do it in satisfying, heart-wrenching and thrilling style.

‘Gliding o’er all, through all,

Through Nature, Time, and Space,

As a ship on the waters advancing,

The voyage of the soul–not life alone,

Death, many deaths I’ll sing.’

– Walt Whitman