The guns are loaded, the chips are on the table: Just three nights remain until we find out, once and for all, how Breaking Bad will end. Surely there’s room for just one… more… theory.
You guys have already listed some great theories about how you think the show will end. This new one, from Andi Teran at Previously.TV, might take the cake.
Spoilers follow!
Teran bases her entire theory (which she allows is “crackpot”) on the name of the series finale, “Felina“. Breaking Bad veterans know that the show’s episode titles have historically had a great deal of symbolic significance to the events of the show itself, so it’s not that much of a stretch to make a guess about the the title means and go from there.
The theory here is that “Felina” is a reference to Marty Robbins’ song “El Paso”, which you can listen to here:
The full lyrics can be found here, but the gist of Teran’s theory (which you should really read in full) is that Walt is the narrator of the song, swept up by his love for “Felina”, a dark-eyed woman. Felina, of course, is a symbolic stand-in for Heisenberg and for Walt’s ambition, and eventually leads to his ruin.
The song is loaded with very Breaking Bad-ish lyrics like:
And away I did ride,
Just as fast as I
could from the West Texas town of El Paso
Out to the bad-lands of New Mexico.
Back in El Paso my life would be worthless.
Everything’s gone in life; nothing is left.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen the young maiden
My love is stronger than my fear of death.
I saddled up and away I did go,
Riding alone in the dark.
Maybe tomorrow
A bullet may find me.
Tonight nothing’s worse than this
Pain in my heart.
The song’s protagonist kills people for Felina; he sacrifices everything. Teran finds lots of parallels with Breaking Bad, some of which feel like a stretch — Big Head Todd and the Nazis manage to make an appearance — and others of which line up with the way the show has teased ideas out of its episode titles in the past.
At the end of the song, the song’s protagonist (Walt, remember) flees dying, clutching at his side. Until… at the end… Felina appears to him in the desert and leads him into death.
And then we come to the meat of the theory: If the song declares that Walt dies at the end, than who is this “Felina” who kills him? I’d make sense to me if Felina remained Heisenberg, that Walt’s unquenchable ambition was what undid him in the end. But Teran goes one further:
Who is the “Felina” in the series finale? Is she related to the Felina of “El Paso”? Is she a whirling feline dervish with a wicked glint in her eye? Is she both the ruin and the saviour of our wayward cowboy? This is a totally crackpot theory, but what if “Felina” is Marie (Betsy Brandt)? In Sunday’s episode, Marie stares out the window of a police vehicle. She’s in protective custody, being driven home in the wake of Hank’s death, only she doesn’t get to go home and is whisked away when her escorts discover that her house has been broken into. If anyone on Breaking Bad has truly lost everything as a result of Walter White’s choices, it’s Marie. She’s lost her husband, her sister, and now her home. She is alone, swathed in black, and no longer comforted by the warm violets of her environs. Interestingly, in desert gemology, the colour purple signifies purpose. And if anyone deserves a shot at Walt — possibly more than Skyler and Jesse — it’s Marie, the only utterly blameless victim in this whole mess. Also, not that I have that much time on my hands, but what is Marie’s maiden name? LAMBERT. Will she be the Felina kiss of death?
I don’t know about you, but I love that. Marie! Marie takes down Heisenberg! It’s perfect. And, yeah, it may just be another crackpot theory, but hey, who knows?
Three nights and it’ll all be over. Any final predictions for what’s gonna happen in the finale? Any last guesses? Sound off below.
(H/T Pamela Ribon)
Comments
2 responses to “One Last Crackpot Breaking Bad Theory… That Just May Be Right”
Or Felina is just an anagram of Finale
Or Fe (Iron) Li (Lithium) Se (Sodium) = Blood, Meth, Tears
Or Walt goes postal on Grey Matter and the nazis + Lydia, saves Jesse, Jesse kills Walt, Walt’s lotto ticket wins which gives his family legit money or Skylar throws it in the garbage without knowing.
Or ala Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium Walt’s legacy lives on through Walt Jr
Or Holly (the baby) kills everyone
Or It was an autistic kid’s dream
Or Walt gets arrested and put on trial and it becomes a clip show
Or Walt was actually just your average mild mannered dad but was possessed by BOB
Or it cuts to black and we get no ending because the creator pussied out
Walt will die, I think that’s a given. He may have some minor redemption by saving Jessie or resolving things with Walt Jr, but he will most certainly die at the end.
How….. Do you get Meth out of Lithium? That doesn’t make any sense to me….
They’re both used as drugs?
Less on the topic of ending theories, but on the topic of songs that remind one of Breaking Bad; does anyone listen to the band Something For Kate? When I first heard the song “The Kids Will Get The Money”, Breaking Bad and Walt were the first things I thought of. I know Paul Dempsey is a huge fan of the show, and has taken influence from his favourite works before (for instance Safety In Numbness, on his solo album, was inspired by David Foster-Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest) – obviously if it WAS referencing the show, it would be doing so pretty obliquely, but then that’s how Safety In Numbness does it too. Maybe it’s crazy and wrong and it never crossed his mind, but it certainly crossed mine. AFAIK it would’ve been written around s3 time. If you think of it as being from Skyler’s perspective…well anyway, here’re the lyrics for The Kids Will Get The Money:
you’ve taken all that you could get
you’re grinning like a fugitive
and everything’s been going right for you
you drag me by the collar
been dancing like a liar
I follow in your empty footsteps
you’re never gonna put the blood back wherever it came from
you’re sleeping like a baby (x4)
right before my very eyes
the pride and the vanity
the blank cheques for sympathy
you’re sleeping like a baby
it doesn’t matter what you do
there’s one thing you know is true
you’re so unlike everyone like you
you’re sleeping like a baby (x3)
the kids will get the money (x3)
right before your very eyes (x3)
the kids will get the money (x2)
the kids will…
Well, maybe we’re all crazy but, I think we should put on our tinfoil hats anyway to be safe! 😉