Breaking Bad Blog: S4 Finale
By Andrew Voerman
Breaking Bad's fourth season is finished, and so is Gustavo Fring. His death came in stunning fashion; a bomb exploded right in front of him and even then, we were teased with the prospect that he might still be alive. Would anyone have been surprised if, after he'd straightened his tie, he'd walked away and just gone about his business? It would certainly have been in character for his brain to keep on working, even when his body was half-gone. Alas, his genius doesn't extend to breaking the laws of physics, and the straightening of his tie will be his last act.
It was also fitting that Walt couldn't do the job by himself; as last week showed, Gus was never going to be defeated by one man. To team up with Hector, who had once tried to have him killed, was a big leap of faith; made clear by his visit to the D.E.A. Was he going to turn Gus in? Or maybe even turn Walt in, in an ironic betrayal? That it was just a crude ruse to draw Gus into the open was typical of Breaking Bad, injecting humour into its tensest moments.
Killing Gus also meant killing Hank's investigation. As far as Hank knows, he was right on the money with regard to Gus, only someone else delivered justice before he could. If there was one surprise, it was that Gus was the only major fatality. Brock managed a full recovery, and with Gus gone, the Schraders no longer have anything to worry about, nor do most of the Whites. Skyler, however, is not so lucky, because she alone knows that Walt himself is something to worry about. While everyone else was watching the news of Gus's death with amazement, she was terrified, because she knows the identity of the man behind it.
Walt tells Skyler on the phone that he has "won," which seems an apt description. Gus is gone, the D.E.A. are seemingly off his trail, and he and his family are safe. Behind that veneer of success, though, his conscience must be surely eating away at him.
Hatching a plot that involved a suicide bomber (albeit, a willing one), would have been his most amoral act yet, but then came the season's final revelation. It was Walt who poisoned Brock last week, using a flower plucked from his garden. That means he won Jesse's allegiance with a lie and thus they teamed up kill Gus under false pretenses. Even if the end result was for the best, the way at which was arrived is undeniably wrong.
That's now two big lies which Walt has Jesse believing, and they'll surely come back to haunt him one day. There's also the question of Mike, presently recovering somewhere in Mexico, who will surely be looking to avenge the death of his boss. For the moment, Walt is sitting pretty, but you just know the fifth and final season isn't going to be a case of sitting back and smelling the roses.