Pop Culture Corner

*If you are not up to date on AMC’s Breaking Bad, and are passionately trying to catch up, I would recommend skipping your dose of Pop this week. If you (frankly) don’t care, read on!* This is the end, folks. On Sunday, around 10:15 p.m., the Internet will explode. Fireballs, mortar shards, broken windows, Twitter in flames, etc. By that time, we will know the fate of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Todd, Uncle Jack, Skyler, Flynn- (sorry, I mean “breakfast”) and all the other players in this demonic chess game that has been consuming my life for the past five to six years. If you are a bit lost as to what’s going on, no worries. I don’t blame you. Here’s the entire series in a paragraph:In the ye olde (2007-ish) desert Southwest (specifically Albuquerque, New Mexico), high school chemistry teacher Walter White, 50-something, happily married (Skyler) with a teenage son (Walt Jr.), learns he has cancer. And that he has about a year or so to live. As he is a teacher, and therefore makes no money (sorry, teachers), he applies his chemistry to the more lucrative field of cooking methamphetamine with former student, Jesse Pinkman, in order to provide for his family after he dies. Sweet, right? But there are some “lol” facts about it: his brother-in-law (Hank) is the head of D.E.A. and the other kicker that cooking / distributing meth is a felony! What a pickle Walt is getting himself into.“Screw one pickle, let’s do the whole jar!” Yeah, it gets worse. A whole lot worse. As the seasons progress, Walt gets a visit from everybody, from a merciless Mexican cartel to a meth kingpin / local fried chicken celebrity. Walt ends up taking a plunge down the moral elevator shaft, so to speak, taking a turn from a well-meaning father into the murdering, scheming, conniving “Heisenberg,” his meth-king persona.We eventually end up here: Hank and his partner, after at last catching Walt (he had the cuffs on him)are killed in a shootout with one of Walt’s old cooking partners, Todd, Todd’s uncle Jack, and Jack’s neo-nazi militia, their bodies buried in the middle of the desert. In addition, Uncle Jack and company have taken roughly 80 million dollars, stuffed into 52-gallon oil drums, from Walt, his entire life’s savings, meant for his family (...it is, still, right? right?) They also have former partner Jesse Pinkman enslaved in their compound, cooking Heisenberg-style meth for them to profit from. But anyway, rough situation for Walt. He goes back home, and after a terrifying knife fight with his wife-cum-co-conspirator Skyler in the episode “Ozymandias,” he learns he has lost his family too. He is forced to flee to a secluded shack in northern New Hampshire (woot) to live out the rest of his days, before the cancer takes him for good. So yeah. Bright stuff. Last episode, however, Walt leaves the safe house to a local bar to call his son, to mail money to help with lawyers, but to no avail. He calls the DEA hotline, and leaves the phone dangling from the receiver. All hope is lost. Watching TV casually, he sees his old business partners, Elliott and Gretchen, (from season one) on Charlie Rose. When Walt is referenced, they adamantly deny he had any involvement in the company (although he was one of the founding chemists), saying “he only contributed the name.” At this point, I roared with anger at the computer. So did many others. Walt did so, figuratively, of course. He abandons the bar right as the troopers arrive, guns in the hand, ready to arrest him. Now we are ready for the big finale. He may have lost his money and his family, but he is determined to defend his name.We know from a flash-forward earlier in the season that Walt makes his way back to New Mexico, with an absurdly huge tommy gun in tow. We also know he retrieves that one last ricin cigarette from his abandoned house. Which could only mean a few things. Death, revenge, or absolute destruction. Or all three. The obvious choice is that Walt goes to the neo-nazi compound and shoots all the bad guys, and rescues Jesse. That way Jesse can escape with his freshly-executed lover’s son, Brock, and start a new life. (A glimmer, of hope, that’s all I ask.) Or there’s the other popular theory that Jesse will be the one to kill Walt, for all the truly awful things that have happened due to him (“I watched Jane die”). One prediction is that either Todd or foreign meth coordinator Lydia will get the ricin as a substitute for sugar in their tea. Then the DEA get Uncle Jack and company. Will Skyler or Marie kill Walt, to avenge Hank? Will Flynn- (again, “breakfast”) be the one to do it? Baby Holly? Walt himself? We can’t help but root for the protagonist, the murdering yet pitiful Walter, and hope that he can make sure people remember his name.Known as a show with no loose ends, we can be assured that by 10:15 p.m. this Sunday, the world will know the thrilling last act of Walter White and company. Tune in at 9 on AMC. ~K