By Alex Zalben
Since "Breaking Bad" finished its run on Sunday, we've had plenty of other things to talk about: Miley Cyrus' stuff, some junk about the government shutdown or whatever, and of course, Spanish "Breaking Bad." Yet for some reason, people seem obsessed with talking about one of the most haunting, perfectly realized TV finales of all time.
Who are these people? Comedian Norm Macdonald, who seems set to continue our long national nightmare of fascinating and plausible "Breaking Bad" ending theories with one that posits... Well, spoilers after this point.
So remember when Walt is in the car at the top of the episode? MacDonald (as well as Emily Nussbaum, a writer for some sort of tabloid called The New Yorker) posits on Twitter that the late Heisenberg never made it out alive, and in fact the rest of the episode is nothing but a dream as he lays dying in his vehicle.
Beyond the fact that this would make the episode even more in line with the end of "LOST" than just the parallel ending shots of both series — and that LOST showrunner Damon Lindelof spent his entire review of the last episode of "Breaking Bad" talking about himself and "LOST" — Macdonald has some pretty good ammunition for the theory.
You can read his whole tweet-stream here, but the important points:
» Everything (except getting shot) goes exactly how Walt wants it to, up to an almost magical point, right after he shocks himself with the screwdriver in the car.
» Walt tells Skyler, "I WAS alive," past tense.
» And probably most telling, Marty Robbins "El Paso," which plays in the car and provides the title of the episode ("Felina") is – according to MacDonald – told from the perspective of a dead man.
There are a few holes in MacDonald's theory, including creator Vince Gilligan saying that the episode isn't a dream, and all really happens. Plus, there's the scene with Jesse Pinkman hallucinating being in a woodworking shop, which would be pretty hard for a dead guy to hallucinate (though MacDonald even has an answer for that – that Jesse's hallucination indicates that Walt is hallucinating).
But hey, theories are fun and all. Now can we get back to what's important: where's Huell?
BONUS: Here's a video of all the times Jesse Pinkman says "bitch" on the show (via Kotaku), which sadly, is not once an episode: