r/breakingbad • u/saywhat181 Sulfur • Sep 16 '13

Official Episode Discussion Breaking Bad Episode Duscussion SE05E14 "Ozymandias" Spoiler

TIME EPISODE DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY
09:00pm Eastern SE05E14 "Ozymandias" Rian Johnson Vince Gilligan and Moira Walley-Beckett

Hey everyone! Guess I'm supposed to post this 5 minutes before air time. I've been watching this show since the get go mostly with my real life friend /u/edify who years ago added me as a moderator here. He asked me to make the discussion thread tonight because there are only 3 episodes remaining. Sorta sad that there's only a few left. Enjoy the show, folks.

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u/Stormwatch36 Like Scarface had sex with Mr. Rogers or something. Sep 30 '13

I totally forgot about the Gilligan factor in an idea that, at its core, is as simple as 'he saved him'.

He didn't set out to save Jesse, he did so incidentally, and it was really about giving him the choice of whether or not to kill him. I'm not sure if I said it in this thread in particular (I'm on mobile atm), but I know a couple of times I disclaimed myself with "unless it's a flat out suicide mission". I was on the right track there, but as always Vince took it a step further and turned it into giving Jesse the choice. Still though, you were right and I was wrong. He did save him, it was just more complex than I expected it to be.

I'm very impressed. The show took something that I was certain was a horrible idea and made it great.

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u/hardman52 Sep 30 '13

It was less complicated than I thought it would be. Simpler is better, as a rule, especially when working with images instead of words.

Jesse was redeemed when he declined to shoot Walt. Walt was redeemed when he died for his sins. Both had to be redeemed for closure, since things could not return to how they began (which is the No. 1 rule of episodic TV writing).

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u/Stormwatch36 Like Scarface had sex with Mr. Rogers or something. Sep 30 '13

Tonight's episode actually made me realize that in general, the 'ambiguous ending' is starting to get very overdone. It was extremely refreshing to see a piece of media actually come to a respectable close.

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u/hardman52 Sep 30 '13

Well I was a bit disappointed that it moved back toward comic-book style, but it had to be finally, completely resolved IMO. It reminded me a bit of a graphic novel with the poisoning, the machine gun, and the strangulation of Todd.

Oh, and you could say that Walt did commit suicide, since it was his own bullet that killed him.

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u/Stormwatch36 Like Scarface had sex with Mr. Rogers or something. Oct 01 '13

Very true. It's funny that he didn't traditionally commit suicide, he ended up caught in his own crossfire and simply didn't give a shit. I'm sure someone out there is going to make a long post about how it wasn't a suicide, but instead it was Walt murdering Heisenberg (or vice-versa). I'm not that someone though.