The word that seems to be getting thrown around a lot in regards to the series finale of Breaking Bad is "satisfying". And "Felina" was certainly that. For a long-running show with such an enormous following (apparently over 10 million people watched this episode), there was, incredibly, very little grousing among fans about the final episode. The people responsible for Dexter can tell you difficult it is to accomplish that feat. Fans have invested hours and hours of their lives into these programs, not just watching them but endlessly dissecting every twist and turn on the internet and with friends. In the end, they want a reward for their devotion, and that reward, for most people, should come in the form of a series finale that goes exactly the way they want it to.
With "Felina", most fans got exactly that. Walt is dead (but he want out on his own terms). The Nazis and (perhaps most importantly) Todd are dead. Lydia bit the bullet (or drank the Ricin in this case). Jesse and the White family live on. If you had a taken a poll of Breaking Bad fans before this episode aired, asking exactly what fate they would prefer for each character, the results would likely have been very similar to what actually happened (except perhaps for a few folks who would have wished the fate of Walter and Skyler reversed).
But not only did those who deserved to die die, and those who deserved to live live, Breaking Bad, typical of a show so sharply-written, left no stone un-turned in it's pursuit to dot every 'i' and cross every 't'. Often, after a show as huge as this one ends, there are a multitude of individuals on Twitter and elsewhere asking questions like "but what about...?" and "so, in the end, what was the meaning of...?" Not so after "Felina" (with a few minor exceptions, such as the fate of poor Huell). It shouldn't be too surprising. Vince Gilligan and company, for better or worse, have never been above a little fan service. Reading interviews with Gilligan and other individuals behind the show makes it clear how acutely aware they were of the expectations of their audience in making "Felina". For example, they apparently never considered killing Jesse, essentially because he was so likable and his fans (including the showrunners themselves) had already been through enough over the course of the show.
That sort of thinking seems pretty unique among long-running dramas. For instance, I don't think David Chase gave even one second of thought to how fans would feel about the final episode of The Sopranos. And Damon Lindelof and crew seemed to actually get a kick out of torturing Lost fans by introducing more puzzles into the landscape of that show and never answering them. Love or hate the Gilligan approach, "Felina" certainly has a garnered a better response than either of those shows did in their final moments. Of course, there are a vocal minority who disliked the tidiness of the Breaking Bad ending. They feel everything ended a little too neatly. And those people may have a point. Breaking Bad to this point, was so unrelentingly dark, and so loaded with controversial plot twists, that "Felina" does seem a little out of character in that regard. Maybe that's why it feels like the episode falls just outside of the series finale Hall of Fame, currently inhabited by shows like Six Feet Under and The Shield.
In the end, though, while the ending may not have been as controversial or world-altering as some would have liked, it did feel right. And in the end, how much does the final episode of a show really matter anyway? All told, Breaking Bad gave us more hours of solid entertainment than any other show I've mentioned in this article. And probably four to five episodes that rank among the top ten or fifteen hours of drama on television ever. And two or more those episodes came in this season alone. Yes, the phenomenon that was Breaking Bad is finished. And I have no complaints. Now all that's left is to look back on the journey and remember the good (and the very bad) times. Thanks Walter. May you rest peacefully with thoughts of baby blue dancing forever through your mind.
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