The wall building between Breaking Bad fans and those who somehow live with what must be a horrible feeling of missing out has skyrocketed over the past few weeks. If you’re on the wrong side of this line in the reddened, Albuquerque sand (presumably living under a very large rock), might I advise you to click on, for spoilers lie ahead. Also, Netflix is only $7.99 a month, you know. Get it together.

As for the rest of us, while we continue to watch the harrowing parade of our worst fears realized with just one 75-minute episode to go, we reflect on what we’ve been through as an audience since the series premier back in January 2008, when Walter White was just a sap working two jobs as a high school chemistry teacher and a carwash attendant. Little did we know that 2013 Breaking Bad would beg to be accompanied by a Xanax.

We have Vince Gilligan to thank for, well, the existence of the entire series, cinematographer Michael Slovis for showcasing the breathtaking beauty of the New Mexican desert, and composer David Porter for his eerie, bone-chilling score. The Breaking Bad machine is made up of many parts (Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul: Emmys for life!), and music is a guiding force, though in a much more subtle, haunting fashion than that of the average primetime drama.

As the show’s music supervisor, Thomas Golubic, said in an interview, “If you have a compelling story, actors, cinematography, you don’t need music.” Check, check, check. That’s a humbling statement from a man whose pairings of song and scene made for some of the most memorable television in history.