On Sunday night, Breaking Bad is finally coming to an end. And it'll be a tough goodbye. But show creator Vince Gilligan has promised that the ending will feel final – there won't be some mysterious Sopranos-esque head-scratcher. It may not please everyone, but it will be definitive. Six weeks ago, we compiled a list of our favorite theories about how the show was going to end. Now that the finale is nigh, we’ve decided to update the story to reflect everything we’ve learned in the subsequent episodes about whether or not these elaborate theories panned out. More Breaking Bad Breaking Bad Recap: Walter White Is an Abuser Breaking Bad Recap: Pink Is the New Black This Is the Ultimate Breaking Bad Finale PartyBreaking Bad is particularly ripe for this kind of symbolic close reading because Gilligan, who cut his teeth on The X-Files, is known for telling layered stories where nearly anything can be a future plot clue, Easter egg, or narrative device. "Breaking Bad is a show that rewards close attention," he told WIRED recently. "It's more enjoyable to watch the show with a solid foundation of what has come before, with a strong memory of what has come before." Close attention has been paid. Throughout teacher-turned-meth-cook Walter White's intense five-season journey on AMC, fans have deconstructed the show's potential layers of meaning with the dedication of Talmudic scholars. Color meanings have been catalogued, visual cues have been analyzed (what did it mean that Hector Salamanca sat in a chair made of wooden wheels before he was wheelchair-bound?), each moment pored over in an attempt to determine if it foreshadowed some momentous event. But even though the showrunner has admitted there was no grand plan from the beginning, he says his team has worked tirelessly to tie everything together for the series finale. "We sat around in a writers' room for thousands of man-hours – all seven of us – and we tried to play a game of chess, in which we said, 'If we move the character from here to here to here, what happens, what's the counter-move?' Essentially we said to ourselves, 'What are all the possible endings we could come up with and then what is the ending that satisfies us the most?" Gilligan said recently during a Nerdist Writer's Panel. "And in the process … what can we mine from the past so that it echoes, so that it resonates in the present, in the now in the final episode, or the final two or eight—in this case—so that it feels like we planned it from the get-go?'" With the series finale in sight, we're finally about to find out which of the fan theories were legit. So before it all goes down, take a last look at the theories above, make your predictions and remember: the gun is pointed at the red beanbag chair. Major spoilers for Breaking Bad follow. Photo: Ursula Coyote/AMC

The Color Theory The Color Theory is both deeply elaborate and conceptually confirmed by showrunners like Vince Gilligan, production designer Mark Freeborn, and costume designer Jennifer Bryan. But what it means, exactly, is still up for debate. We do know that the colors of props and costumes mean something, often seemingly functioning as thermometers for a character's state of mind or situation. As curator Barbara Miller explained to WIRED recently about the Museum of the Moving Image's exhibition on Breaking Bad's costumes and props, the color palettes for different characters, especially Walt and Jesse, darken as they sink deeper into damnation. Of course it's more complicated than simple hue. As graphic designer John LaRue of The Droid You're Looking For illustrates with his ludicrously painstaking infographic (above), color also seems to indicate both motivations and imminent turns in the narrative. For example, characters tend to wear yellow before they make intense, game-changing decisions, like Walt did when he killed Krazy-8 in season one. While yellow is the proverbial canary in a coal mine, green seems to indicate a character (usually Walt, often Saul) acting out of greed; white points to powerlessness (in the case of Walt's cancer and hospital treatments) while beiges represent to the straight-and-narrow life Walt left behind (see: Elliott Schwartz's birthday party guests). Some Breaking Bad color theorists believe the way a character's colored clothing is layered--and even put on or taken off--also represent compound or ulterior motives. For instance, when Jesse and Walt clean Jesse's apartment after the botched bathtub disposal of Emilio's body in the second episode, Walt wears a yellow shirt... under a green apron. There's also the Godfather-esque appearance of oranges throughout the series, the red bathroom fixtures as the Madrigal executive in Season 5 kills himself, and Marie's static purple home décor. (Marie, as Gilligan often notes, is just really fond of purple, so when she's not wearing it, chance are it means something.) Some colors seem to have multiple or uncertain meanings. Blue is Skyler's color, of course, not to mention that of water, and the car wash; but as it's also the color of the meth Walt cooks, and may represent the drug game in general, too. Red, similarly, is one of Jesse's colors. Even the characters' names are suspect when considering their natures (and potentially their fates): Walter White, Skyler White, Jesse Pinkman (red tinged with white), Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz (schwartz means black in German). What remains arguable, however, is whether color is truly intended to be predictive of plot events, or if it's more of a secondary, retrospective addition. Update: The chromatic symbolism has continued over the last seven episodes: Marie made a dramatic shift from her typical purple to black after the revelation about Walt, while Skyler shifted to match Walt’s beige when she openly became his accomplice. But what WIRED’s Laura Hudson really can’t stop talking about in her recaps is the color pink. On <me>Breaking Bad, pink has always been associated with death, and the repercussions of Walt's choices on the people around him. It’s also linked to the death of Jane, who died the same night Holly was born. The last several episodes have involved no less than three harrowing confrontations over the baby: one between Skyler and Marie, one between Skyler and Walt, and one with a group of black-masked neo-Nazis standing ominously over Holly’s crib. </me> The first time we saw pink was during the second season premiere, which involved a pink teddy bear -- literal fallout from a plane crash caused indirectly by Walt’s actions. We’ve since seen Holly wearing clothes with pink bears and once, even dressed as a pink bear. As Hudson says, "Skyler’s greatest fear has always been that Walt’s crimes would somehow blow back and cause collateral damage to their family, and the feminine, child-like associations of pink have always made it an odd choice to symbolize death. What if Breaking Bad's entire pink motif is the biggest flashforward of all?" —Devon Maloney Image: John LaRue/Tdylf.com

The Hamlet Theory The recent midseason premiere of Breaking Bad featured a scene where Jesse's erstwhile drug-distributing pals Badger and Skinny Pete discussed a speculative and hilarious script for Star Trek: The Original Series, a rare moment of levity from the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of a drama that seems likely to end in tragedy. But what if that comparison were even more apt, as several fans have suggested, and Vince Gilligan is gearing up to pull a full-on Hamlet? After all, the sullen, withdrawn Jesse--who has, of late, lost all his mirth--bears more than a passing resemblance to the prince of Denmark. Just look at the way he moped around his living room while the comedic duo jested, consumed with guilt over the death of Mike--the father figure whom he has slowly realized was almost certainly killed by Walt. Yes, Walt has arguably acted paternal to Jesse at times, but he's also manipulated and caused measurable harm to both Jesse and the people Jesse loves on numerous occasions. Indeed, it's Mike, as actor Aaron Paul recently observed during his Reddit AMA, who acted like a true father to Jesse and legitimately looked out for his best interests. Much like Claudius, who killed Hamlet's father, Walt denies doing the deed, but Jesse sees through the lie, and finds himself haunted both by the non-literal ghost of Mike and the knowledge that the man who committed the crime is still "the King." Jesse has has his own Ophelia as well: Jane, the love interest he drove to her death. But rather than drowning in a river, as Ophelia did, the former addict Jane choked to death on her own vomit after Jesse's substance abuse lead her back to heroin. And the news of her death certainly inspired a similar devastation in Jesse, who leapt not into a grave but into a squalid drug den. Plus, we've already seen Jesse start his descent into the sort of madness that consumed Hamlet with his conflicted feelings about how to react to the crime--to be, or not to be?--and his quiet acknowledgment to Walt that he knows exactly what he did. And while Jesse has been hesitant--or even unable--to confront Walt in the past, Jesse nearly shot his former chemistry teacher when he believed Walt had poisoned his girlfriend's son, Brock (which he may well have). If Jesse discovers the truth about Jane or Brock, it could very well be enough to propel him into a full-on Shakepearean quest from revenge. So what does the theory mean for Walt and Jesse in these final acts? If it holds true, pretty much everyone is going to die. Let's take a look at how it goes down in the play: After attempting to reason with Hamlet trying to get him to accept the new status quo--a familiar game that Walt is playing less successfully than usual already with Jesse--Claudius finally decides that he has to take out the troublesome prince whom he fears may expose his crimes. If Jesse keeps up his reckless, half-mad behavior, like throwing fat stacks of money randomly out his car window to assuage his guilt, Walt may ultimately reach a similar determination. But how would he take him out? Initially, Claudius tried to use Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (aka Skinny Pete and Badger) to deliver Hamlet to his death by sending them to England with a death warrant for the prince. Although the duo may not have known about the intent of the letter, Hamlet swaps their names for his--meaning that Jesse might take out Skinny Pete and Badger if he believes they have betrayed him to Walt. And Jane's father, who we know attempted suicide, may have died as befits Ophelia's father, Polonius, but perhaps he might also return as a sort of Laertes to exact revenge on Jesse for propelling his daughter to her death. Perhaps he'll even do it at Walt's urging, in the same way Claudius goaded Laertes to take out his problematic nephew. After all, Walt and Jane's father did have that bonding moment at the bar before her death. If Walt decides that it's time for Jesse to go, why not send someone with ample motivation to do the deed before getting his own hands dirty? Finally, it's notable how much poison is involved in the finale of Hamlet, especially since poison has been Walt's weapon of choice on several occasions since the first season. In particular, the play's final act involves a dose of poison that Claudius drops in a glass of wine meant for Hamlet, which ends up being taken by Gertrude at the tragic conclusion. Could this be the ricin that Walt retrieved from his house in the midseason premiere—and could a future attempt to poison Jesse with it end up killing Skyler? Update: While not perfect, several elements of the Hamlet theory have been on point. As predicted, Walt decided to turn on Jesse, attempting to eliminate the troublesome young man before he could cause any more problems. Jesse, in turn, tried to expose Walter's crimes by wearing a wire and entrapping him -- much as Hamlet did, by staging a play he hoped would reveal the king's guilt. Also, turns out that the real Rosencrantz and Guildenstern sent to take Jesse out were the neo-Nazis, though much like R&G, they somehow haven't finished the job. What happens next gets a little dicier, mostly because Jesse is now locked up by the neo-Nazis, which takes him off the table. The only way the Hamlet theory continues is if you substitute Walter White for the protagonist of the play, who at this point is equally maniacal and bent on revenge. Think about it: Hank's murder, which Walt insists is not his fault, could be equivalent to the accidental stabbing of Polonius. Hamlet thought he was killing the King, not Ophelia's father; when Walt called in the neo-Nazis, he thought he was killing Jesse, not his brother-in-law. Also, this was the act that finally got Hamlet banished to England -- and alienated Walt from Skyler and his family forever. What still remains to be seen is whether the finale will echo the final scene of Hamlet. You know, the one where everyone dies. Walter White is headed back to settle his debts with an automatic weapon and a vial of ricin, so there are bound to be some fatalities. And course, there's the small matter of what happens after everyone dies. With his dying words, Hamlet names Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, as his successor; when Fortinbras arrives on the scene he has Hamlet's body carried away while speaking of his respect and admiration for the poisoned prince. And there's really only one character in a position to become Walter's heir: Todd, the terrifying young man who's angling to become the next Heisenberg (and apparently can't say how much he respects Walter White too many times). —Laura Hudson

The Hunter-Gatherer Theory Originally posited by theorists on sites like Reddit and The Straight Dope, the Hunter-Gatherer Theory (as we at WIRED have dubbed it) picks up on subtle changes to Walt's behavior after murders someone: notably, that he takes on certain habits and idiosyncrasies of the people he puts into the ground. When Walt and Jesse are holding Krazy-8 hostage, for example, the dealer makes Walt cut the crusts off his sandwich; after Walt strangles him to death, he begins doing the same to his own bread. Mike and Walt order drinks early on in their relationship, Walt asking for his straight, Mike ordering his on the rocks. Once Walt kills Mike, he picks up the on-the-rocks habit (as well as Mike's preference for estate cars, as seen in the flash-forward). As of last Sunday's mid-season premiere, Walt also picked up the also-murdered Gus's neat-and-tidy habit of putting down a towel before kneeling in front of the toilet to ralph. It develops a minuscule but ultimately water-tight pattern that's hard to ignore when thinking about the show's conclusion. So what does it mean? Well, since we've already gotten a glimpse of the future, it may mean that there are clues about who Walt is taking out next--and the answers aren't pretty. Since the Season 5 opener starts with a flash-forward where Walt is (a) wearing a big-pocketed, army-style jacket that looks just like the one Jesse wears, and (b) not only breaks and rearranges the bacon on his plate the way his wife used to, but is currently using her maiden name as an alias, the theory holds that Walt will have killed both Skyler and Jesse by season's end. Update: In the show's final horror-throes, it's looking like the theory that Walt will kill Skyler and Jesse is far more symbolic than literal. As penultimate episode "Granite State" closes, Jesse is basically worse than dead: Andrea has been murdered for his escape attempt, and he's being kept alive against his will, like a zombie with a heart of gold, in exchange for the life of her son Brock. He may or may not get out of this physically alive, but either way, but spiritually, the deed is done. But we still have no idea what's going to happen with Skyler. Up to the last, Walt has clung to his "for the family" mantra, even as he attempts to separate his wife from his crimes in a wiretapped phone call. Now, Skyler is working at a taxi dispatcher part-time, trying to get her family's lives back together in the wake of Walt's disappearance. That's not exactly spiritual death, like Jesse's — but then again, she's also being pressured by the district attorneys to produce Walt's whereabouts or suffer imprisonment herself. By now it seems like we've already seen the worst confrontation tjat Walt and Skyler's relationship could produce: Their nail-biting struggle with the knife. Or maybe she'll die that same spiritual death that Jesse's already suffered: The death of one pink-dressed family member? Whether or not it'll happen by Walt's hand (spiritually, physically, whatever) is still entirely up in the air, so brace yourselves. -Devon Maloney

The Chekhov's Guns Theory The idea of a "Chekhov's gun" is more of a recurring motif than a proper theory, but the dramatic principle stipulates that nothing should be shown in a narrative work unless it has a purpose. If, for example, the audience is shown, say, a gun early on in a dramatic work, then that gun needs to have some resonance in the narrative later on. Otherwise it's useless. This trick has been used more than a few times on Breaking Bad, and often with objects other than guns (though usually, it's some instrument of destruction). Often the Chekhov's guns in the show have resolved themselves over an episode or two: the box cutter that showed up in Season 4 and was quickly used by Gus Fring to ice Victor, the special bullet that the Cousins acquire from an arms dealer that subsequently saves Hank's life. So did the Lily of the Valley, a plant shown early in the Season 4 finale before it was revealed to be the poison used on Brock. However, as the show has been heading into its final episodes the arcs of the Chekhov's guns have run over many, many episodes. The ricin vial--which Walt initially gave to Jesse to use to poison Gus in Season 4--is still around, and made a notable appearance in last Sunday's flash-forward. And then there's the M60 that Walt bought in the flash-forward at the beginning of Season 5 and has been ominously riding around in the trunk of his car ever since. After five seasons of training in keeping an eye on these kinds of things, fans now know the ricin and M60 have to lead to a big finish. But how? One of the going theories is that Walt will actually use the ricin to poison himself. His cancer may be back (or so he says) and he seems fairly ready to go out in a blaze of glory, but perhaps his ego is too big to allow him to die by anyone's hand but his own. Ricin poisoning can take hours, if not days, to kill a person (remember Brock was alive for a while during the time the doctors thought his Lily of the Valley poisoning was actually ricin) so Walt could ingest it at any point he felt the walls closing in. It's also possible he could still use it on someone else. One of the most famous ricin poisoning death cases, which Walt mentioned in Season 1, involved Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov being attacked with an umbrella rigged to inject a ricin pellet under his skin. It's doubtful Walt would pull the same umbrella trick, but rigging some other clandestine poisoning maneuver? That's right up his alley. As for the M60, the most obvious use of that weapon is to aid in the aforementioned blaze of glory. Who this showdown will be with is another story. Hank and the rest of the DEA? Some rival drug gang? Lydia and the rest of Madrigal Electromotive? Whoever it was that outed him as Heisenberg? It's hard to tell (and theoretically any of these folks could face a ricin death too). Walt's always been on a one-way street to Scarface, and even though he's using Rambo's weapon of choice (Scarface rocked a Colt AR-15) he might be out to have everyone "say hello to my little friend." Update: Yup, this theory is very much still in effect. The final episode of this series is going to be all about that ricin and that M60. Now, at least, we have a pretty good idea of the target he's locked his sights on: the neo-Nazis. Not only because they shot Hank, but also because they have Walt's money, and that's the third-most important thing to him. (His reputation is the second-most important thing to Walter White; the number-one most important, obviously, is family.) Of course, at the cliff-hanger of "Granite State," we discover another possible target: the backstabbing Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz, the couple who symbolize the Life He Might've Known. And then there's the ricin. Though we don't know exactly which lethal tool is meant for whom, it seems likely that tomorrow night, we'll finally see both of them deployed. —Angela Watercutter

The Ozymandias Theory Look on the works of Heisenberg, ye viewers, and despair. AMC recently released a trailer for the final episode of Breaking Bad where actor Bryan Cranston read "Ozymandias," a 19th century poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley that warns those who hunger for power and permanence that the former will never offer the latter. Ostensibly, Walt's transformation from mild-mannered chemistry teacher to drug lord was compelled by his cancer diagnosis and desire to provide for his family after his death—or at least, that's what he told himself in the beginning. But every time Walt skirted too close to danger and discovery, he would retreat back to the comfort and cover of his suburban identity, only to find it stultifying and inadequate. Over and over, Walt ended up getting pulled back into the meth game, not just because needed the money, but because he needed what his alter ego Heisenberg gave him: power and recognition. Walt doesn't truly want to hide in the shadows. He wants to tell vicious thugs to "say my name" and have them know the answer. He wants be recognized for his success and dominance in the meth industry as he never was in his legitimate endeavors, where he found himself on the outside of the fantastically lucrative Grey Matter Technologies company that he co-founded. He wants to be preceded by his reputation--and in the face of his own mortality, to be outlasted by it. It's no coincidence that Walt is sometimes referred to in promotional materials as "the King." He's prone to the same weaknesses and ambitions and weaknesses as most "great men": the desire to rule, to control, and in the face of the one thing earthly power cannot--death--to find a way to conquer that too. Some people, like his frenemies Elliott and Gretchen, create legacies by building companies, businesses, or huge buildings with their names on them. In ancient times, they constructed monuments to their greatness, like Shelley's Ozymandias (or the real-life Ramesses II statue the poem is likely based on), imagining that future generations would marvel at their power to the end of days. But the lesson of "Ozymandias" is that no matter how much power you wield, no matter how much ambition, ego or money you possess, or many people you control--death will ultimately take it all. And eventually, no matter how big a monument or an empire you build, all your accomplishments will ultimately be flattened to sand. So what does "Ozymandias" mean for Walt? The mid-season premiere last Sunday already offered us a flashforward into Walt's future, as he returned to the colossal wreck of the family home that so often served as his refuge. If Walt is to be Ozymandias, he may not need to wait for death to lose everything. Indeed, the moment when he sees the name "Heisenberg" spray-painted on his living room wall seems very much like looking on his works and despairing. And if "nothing beside remains," it likely means that Walt has lost not only his empire, but also his family; if Walt truly did it all for Skyler, Walt. Jr and Holly, as he so often likes to claim, the greatest irony of all would be for him to outlast them, and cause their deaths through his involvement with the drug trade--either directly or indirectly—and end up with nothing but ash. Update: Yeah, pretty much. Much like Ozymandias, Walter was a man of ego and empire, but for all the work he did to establish a legacy, it was all wiped out the instant the neo-Nazis rolled up in the desert. They killed Hank, destroying Walt's relationship with his family forever, and then took the fortune he'd buried in the ground. Yes, they left him one barrel, but even that meant nothing once Walt was forced into hiding, living in a remote cabin in New Hampshire with brief human contact only once a month. Walt has never been Ozymandias more than he was in that cabin, utterly alone, waiting for death to take him and knowing he would leave nothing of value behind. Or when he finally heads back to Albuquerque in a righteous fury after his role in Grey Matter is besmirched on national television, determined to keep the final stone of his life's work from crumbling to sand. Oh, and if you're looking for the "two trunkless legs of stone" mentioned in the poem, that's a great description for the pair of pants that Walt encounters while rolling his final barrel of cash through the desert -- the same pair that flew through the air in the opening shot of the series. —Laura Hudson

The Ominous Foreshadowing Theory Much like Ed's speech at the very beginning of Shaun of the Dead foreshadows how the entire film will play out, the characters on Breaking Bad have an eerie way of revealing their character arcs long before they've come to pass. Sometimes it seems as though these prescient moments are accidents—the things fans find to be revelatory only in hindsight—while others are like narrative Easter eggs too intricately placed to not be at least somewhat intentional. The most spine-tingling of these has to be the foreshadowing of the way Gus Fring died. Fring, you'll remember, was blown up by Hector Salamanca in a nursing home thanks to a bomb made by Walt. The bomb, of course, was triggered by Hector hitting his bell in rapid succession. It was a bell Gus had heard before, in an elevator after meeting with Hank and the DEA earlier in the season (see above). Back then it looked like the feds might seal his fate, little did he know it would be the old man. That, however, was just an echo compared to what happened to Jesse's dearly departed girlfriend Jane, who died after asphyxiating on her own puke during a heroin overdose (that Walt didn't stop). While she was still alive she made more than a few mentions of the ways she might go out, telling Jesse at one point, "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little." And in another instance she walked in on Jesse making her breakfast and Pinkman said, "You weren't supposed to wake up." Her response? "Ever?" Some eagle-eyed fans have even noted that earlier in the episode in which Jane dies Walt is putting his baby daughter Holly to bed and puts a towel next to her in case she spits up. There are other less poignant foreshadowing moments too, like the time Ted tripped over the same rug that would later put him in a coma, or when Gale tested his tea kettle with a laser thermometer in the same place the bullet that killed him would land. There's even the shot of young(er) Hector Salamanca sitting watching the Cousins play in a chair made out of wooden wheels long before he was ever put in an actual wheelchair. And there are likely many, many more that have yet to be spotted. There are also, likely, things that have been foreshadowed that have not come to pass yet. One theory—alluded to by Vince Gilligan himself on last week's Talking Bad—is that Walt's fate, like that of the crew in Shaun of the Dead, was laid out in Walt's speech to his class in the pilot. "Chemistry is, well technically chemistry is the study of matter, but I prefer to see it as the study of change," he said. "Just think about this. Electrons, they change their energy levels. Molecules change their bonds. Elements, they combine and change into compounds. Well, that's all of life, right? It's the constant. It's the cycle. It's solution, dissolution – just over, and over, and over. It is growth, then decay, then transformation! It is fascinating, really." Who will decay and who will transform should this quote prove to be prophetic still remains to be seen. However, there is one final moment that may be trying to tell us something – even if it is a bit on the nose. Gilligan has always said the premise of the show was to take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface. Well, in the last season we actually see Walt watching Scarface with his son, Junior. His thoughts? "Everyone dies in this movie, don't they?" Update: On last week's "Talking Bad," the mini-show spliced in the commercials of Low Winter Sun intended to add commentary from the cast and crew of Breaking Bad on the previous episode and also to force people watch Low Winter Sun, Vince Gilligan gave the only spoiler-hint he intended to give about the show's finale tomorrow: "Woodwork." That could very possibly mean that a previous appearance of wood –be it the walls of the White family home whence Walt retrieves the hidden ricin, or maybe the wooden wheels of the late Hector Salamanca's wheelchair – could have dire consequences in the end. Other possible foreshadowing moments in the last episodes: the double appearance of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, a movie about the owner of a toy store empire finding an heir that could signify Todd's succession to the meth throne; the beautiful shot from "To'Hajiilee" where the reflection of Walt's head forms around a bullet hole in the gas tank of the car he takes from the showdown, perhaps saying something about how Walt will meet his end. After all, the Scarface comparison might still be spot-on. —Angela Watercutter