Felina (Breaking Bad)
"Felina" is the series finale of the American drama television series Breaking Bad. It is the sixteenth episode of season five and the 62nd overall episode of the series. Written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan, it aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on September 29, 2013. It was followed by a sequel film, , which was made available on Netflix on October 11, 2019.
The plot involves Walt evading a nationwide manhunt for him in order to return to New Mexico and deliver the remaining profits from his illegal methamphetamine empire to his family. He also takes revenge on the Aryan Brotherhood gang who double-crossed him, killed his brother-in-law Hank, took Jesse captive and presented a threat to his family. Knowing the cancer will soon kill him, Walt revisits his former acquaintances to settle his affairs and prepare himself for the conflict and his death.
Upon airing, "Felina" was met with widespread acclaim from critics. Several critics have called it one of the greatest series finales of all time.
Plot
After leaving the bar, Walt departs New Hampshire in a stolen car. He returns to New Mexico and tracks down Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz at their new house in Tesuque. With help from Badger Mayhew and Skinny Pete using laser pointers to spoof weapon laser sights aimed on the couple, Walter coerces the Schwartzes to take his remaining $9.72 million and establish a trust fund in their name to Walt Jr., and as to "make things right" for minimizing Walt's involvement in Gray Matter. After paying Badger and Pete, he learns that blue meth is still being distributed, and deduces that Jesse is likely still alive.On his 52nd birthday, Walt purchases an M60 machine gun and retrieves the ricin from his abandoned house. He connects the machine gun to a pivoting turret inside the trunk of the car he is now driving, which is rigged to a remote unlock button. He interrupts Todd and Lydia's regular meeting at a coffee shop and makes a business proposal, offering what he claims is a new formula for methylamine-free meth. Todd turns him down, but Lydia feigns interest to lure Walt into meeting with Jack, knowing he will kill Walt. Later, Skyler receives a phone call from Marie, who warns her that Walt has been seen in Albuquerque. Walt, who is already with Skyler, leaves her the lottery ticket on which he had encoded the location of the money. Following the shootout in the desert, the coordinates now reveal Hank and Steve's hidden grave, and Walt advises Skyler to use the location as leverage in negotiating a favorable plea bargain. Walt admits to Skyler that contrary to his previous claims that he only wanted to make money to support his family after his death, his life as a drug kingpin was for himself. Skyler allows Walt to see Holly while she sleeps. After leaving, Walt watches from afar as Walt Jr. arrives home from school.
Walt drives to Jack's hideout and parks alongside the building. He meets inside with Jack and his men, but Jack refuses Walt's meth formula offer and orders him killed. Walt diverts Jack's attention by accusing him of going back on his promise to kill Jesse and instead partnering with him to continue the meth business. Jack responds by ordering that Jesse be brought from the Quonset hut where he is cooking meth so Jack can prove Jesse is a captive, not a partner. Upon seeing Jesse, Walt tackles him out of the line of fire and uses the remote unlock button to fire the machine gun through the building's walls; everyone but Jack, Todd, Jesse, and Walt are killed. Jesse strangles and kills Todd with the chain attached to his handcuffs, and then frees himself with Todd's keys. A wounded Jack attempts to bargain for his life with the location of the money he stole from Walt, but Walt kills him mid-sentence. Walt gives the gun to Jesse and asks Jesse to kill him. Jesse notices Walt is wounded from the machine gun's fire and refuses, telling Walt that if he wants to die he should do it himself.
As Jesse and Walt leave Jack's house, Walt answers Todd's phone and speaks with an obviously ill Lydia. He informs her that Jack and his gang are all dead and that she'll soon be dead too because he planted ricin in her stevia during the meeting at the coffee shop. Jesse and Walt exchange a farewell glance before Jesse flees in Todd's El Camino. Walt enters the lab and smiles nostalgically as he admires the equipment, before he falls to the floor, collapsing from his wound. Police rush in with guns drawn as he lies motionless, a slight smile of satisfaction on his face, and dies soon after.
Production
Production on "Felina" and the Breaking Bad series concluded on April 2, 2013, according to Cranston.On September 18, 2013, it was announced that both "Granite State" and "Felina" would run 75 minutes, including commercials. The actual runtime of the episodes is 55 minutes. The episode was written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan.
Title reference and music
The episode title, "Felina", is inspired by the character Feleena from the song "El Paso" by Marty Robbins, which plays a major role during the episode.The story of "El Paso" closely mirrors Walter White's character arc in the final season of Breaking Bad. Walt, who has become a notorious criminal, flees from Albuquerque, living as a fugitive. Despite this being a successful outcome in the context of the story, he finds himself increasingly isolated and dissatisfied. Because his desire for emotional closure outweighs his fear of capture and death, he is eventually driven to return to the scene of his crimes, where he finds the closure he seeks but ultimately meets his end. "El Paso" is on a Marty Robbins cassette in Walt's car, and is played during the episode. Additionally, Walt sings the song to himself while building his machine gun turret. The writers changed the subject's name from Feleena to Felina so that, when used as the title, it could serve as an anagram of Finale.
There are also a number of fan theories regarding the significance of the music: the word Felina can be broken up into three different symbols of chemical elements found in the periodic table: iron, lithium, and sodium. The title was interpreted by some as "blood, meth and tears" because iron is a predominant element in blood, lithium is sometimes used in methamphetamine production, and sodium is a component of tears. According to Eric Brown of International Business Times:
"In its pure form ... methamphetamine is composed solely of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, no lithium involved. However, there are multiple ways to synthesize meth from other ingredients, and several involve lithium. The Birch reduction, also called the "Nazi method," mixes lithium and ammonia to create a reaction. Another, called the "Shake 'n' Bake" method, involved throwing lithium and several other ingredients into a single pot to create the drug. Both methods are extremely dangerous, as lithium is a highly volatile element. Unfortunately, there's a big hole in this theory: Walt never uses a lithium-based synthesis in the show. ... Walt uses two methods throughout the show: first the Nagai method involving red phosphorus and later a methylamine P2P reaction resulting in the famous blue meth. Neither one uses lithium at any point, shooting a big hole in this theory."
Badfinger's "Baby Blue" is played during the final scene. According to series creator Vince Gilligan, this is reference to the high-quality blue meth Walt had produced over the previous seasons and his life as a drug kingpin which the main character at last recognizes he had enjoyed. According to Rolling Stone, the music supervisors on the show disagreed with Gilligan's choice for the final song; however, music supervisor Thomas Golubić stated that "journalists sometimes try to create drama where there isn't any" and that his quotes were "mis-represented". "Baby Blue" became an obvious choice as the editing came closer to completion with Golubić describing the process of finalizing the song:
''El Camino''
After the conclusion of the series, Gilligan had considered Jesse's fate, stating that rather than getting caught by police, he had envisioned that Jesse would end up in Alaska to start his life anew. He had mulled this idea over for some years, and as the tenth anniversary of Breaking Bad neared, became interested in producing a work to follow Jesse's fate after this episode. This ultimately resulted in the film , which first aired on Netflix on October 11, 2019 and had limited theatric runs that weekend. El Camino, named for the car Jesse escapes in, takes place immediately after the events of "Felina", and was considered by Gilligan to be a coda to the overall series to close out Jesse's story. Paul returned to star as Jesse, and the film includes brief appearances by Cranston, Plemons, Fraser, Jones, and Baker, among others.Reception
Ratings
"Felina" had the highest ratings of any episode of Breaking Bad: 10.28 million in the United States, including 5.3 million adults aged 18–49. The episode generated millions of online comments and Nielsen Holdings rankings established that it was the most-discussed episode on Twitter for that week. The popularity of the episode resulted in a 2,981 percent increase of sales of the Badfinger song "Baby Blue", which features prominently in the ending sequence, as well as a 9,000 percent increase in streaming over Spotify.Critical reception
Upon airing, the episode received nearly universal critical acclaim. In her review of "Felina", Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A rating, writing that "Walt's purpose is fulfilled, and he just stops". Seth Amitin at IGN also praised the episode, calling it "fully satisfying" and awarding it a score of 9.8 out of 10. Katey Rich agreed with these sentiments, calling the episode "a deeply satisfying and surprisingly emotional finale". However, Emily Nussbaum, writing in the New Yorker, criticized the episode, claiming it so neatly wrapped up the series in Walt's favor that it seemed more like "the dying fantasy on the part of Walter White, not something that was actually happening".In 2019 The Ringer ranked "Felina" as the 19th best out of the 62 total Breaking Bad episodes.