ok for the people that didnt like the ending -thats ok everyone has a right to opinion and expectation but to say that it was contrived as coincidence clearly do not understand that this story or series in my opinion is an allegory based on the belief that all actions have consequences unintended/or intended-whether they are good or bad depends on ones outlook.i personally think that consequences are neither good nor bad-they just are logical conclusions.i think the entire show is about walter white losing what is is to be human and having a soul-and i think someone loses their soul when they no longer care about the people within their community-where the only thing the bad person cares about is what they want no matter who gets hurt in the process-thus asking the question-is walter white a sociopath?

I personnaly love it.

When you take the season in a whole, this plane crash is just some kind of metaphor to the consequences of all the crap happening around and sometimes "because of" Walt. (cf. Fredgarvin666 post).

So I really think this plan crash idea was really clever. Besides, everything is at place for the next season...Jesse's guilt, Skyler leaving with their familly, Gus aware of Walt's familly and his health situation, the DEA aware of Heisenberg not being in prison... that's a lot. I never have been able to imagine one of the character dying so this mystery was particularly stressful for me. I'm really happy it's nobody we know.

Damn! They really succeed to surprise me with this... it's been a long time I've been (well) surprise like this by a season final.

Can't wait for season 3.

Very good job!!

i personally have mixed fealing about the season finale. i think its a lil extreme to say that it was "sloppaly written" the show always has great writing and i have fate that the plane crash is going to tie in even more with the story line somehow. the only dissapointments i have is that when you get to season finales you expect at least some loose ends to get tied up but on this one there was just alot of biuld up and now your left hanging on for next season to see what happens. other than that it leaves the door wide open for more drama as soon as we jump into next season....cant wait i know it will be great

I liked it. I don't think it ws unrealistic that Donald and Walt were in the same bar, they had both been at the duplex, and the bar must have been nearby.

I'm not an expert on air traffic control, but that scene was a bit out there. The proximity alarms would have started going off for a while, I think. But planes do crash into each other occassionaly.

I think Pink63 is quite right about the conflict alarms.

Donald's supervisor would have been all over that way before it got to a midair. I'm assuming that both planes had TCAS and that their flight crews would also have been alerted.

At least now we know where the teddy bear came from.

From my time watching the show I've come to realize that the writers attempt to throw viewers off. I kept that in mind all season while hoping Walt and Jesse weren't going to end up dead in those body bags. A plane crash over Walt's house impossible? No, It's a small world and I've seen stranger things in real life. The only thing I don't like about the finale is waiting another year to find out what happens. Now I have nothing to look forward to all week. lol.

I liked the Finale, I think the people that might not of liked it are trying to hard to anticipate future events in the show instead of just allowing for the show to play out. Random events happen everyday, some are connected through people, sometimes these events are coincidental, so I don't think that Donald and Walt meeting at the bar is out of the realm of possibility at all. Now tra2360 makes a very pertinent point about TCAS, Bitching Betty would have been going off in both cockpits if these Planes were equipped and most commercial Airlines and commuter planes are equipped with this system (FAA Mandated). Just the same, this is a Television show and allowances for creative license have to be expected.

I was rather diappointed with the ending. As I mentioned in another post, this ending would have been more suited for a TV show like "24" perhaps, but not Breaking Bad. I was expecting something violent happening that had a more direct connection with the world of illegal drug manufacturing and distribution, which is what this show is all about anyway. Maybe something like some sort of retaliation from individuals whose toes Walt and Jesse stepped on, or some sort of confrontation from Gus, since he has to be "concerned" that Walt's brother-in-law is a DEA agent.

I'll go out on a limb and say (for lack of better words) it was a bit too far-fetched. I mean, Donald was an Air Traffic Controller. One of the most stressful jobs out there, guiding aircraft costing millions of dollars, full of people, in and out of a busy airport, and he wasn't under any kind of supervision upon his return to work after his child dies senselessly from a drug overdose? None of the other ATC's saw from their radars and equipment that a collision was about to happen?

I was expecting to be left hanging in a couple of the situations on the show. Such as what's gonna happen with Walt and Skyler's marriage and with her blooming affair with Ted, or about Hank and the DEA getting closer and closer to finding out where the blue meth is coming from, and who's making it, and of course reaction from Gus, who got a little surprise when he visited the DEA headquarters, and with Jesse being able to get over Jane's death, and possibly straightening himself out a bit?

In spite of what I think of this season's finale episode, I will continue to be a huge BB fan. I really love this show, and there never has been, nor will there ever be another TV show like it!

I was sure the parts from the plane had fell on Walt , . Little kids should have to see something like this in school to help keep them right. I have to smoke a cigarette to calm down everytime i watch and it get's crazy.

GIVE ME A BREAK! Perhaps "Desperate Housewives" is more to your taste.

To the disappointed posters-

This is a TV show, not reality. The writers have done an excellent job of carrying the drama in a forward direction this season. The holy grail here is that Walt will most likely never connect the dots of his involvement, depending on how season 3 is written. If the media covers the accident like I think they will, and the controllers face is shown, then perhaps Walt will suffer the consequences of his guilt- however if and only if this happens will I be disappointed, as the perfection of a believable plot here is in the mystery of the outcome (not that we don't know it, that WALT won't know his indirect involvement).

On a side note, I'm an airline pilot who fly's into ABQ all the time (even took B. Cranston there once, awesome guy!) and the way this scene was played out was VERY believable.

To the disappointed posters part II-

The other thing is that you don't know until season 3 EVERYTHING that fell out of the sky, and it's IMPACT on the ground not in terms of force but outcome. How do you know that Walt wasn't hit by debris and isn't in one of those body bags>? Not that I think he is, but that's my point. We won't know until season 3 who's in those body bags.. Most likely passengers, but....

-Chris

People have a hard time with coincidence in the framework of a novel, motion picture, or television show. They reject it as "far-fetched", but what we call coincidence happens all the time in real life. "Occurence together apparently without reason" is how my dictionary defines it. Keep track of all the coincidences, large and small, that you notice in your life for a couple of weeks and you will have a long list. How many couples do you know who met "by sheer coincidence"? It is so common that we don't think much about it. Different events and actions are playing out all the time and it is natural that some actions will overlap and have effect on other actions, like the balls on a pool table bouncing off each other at the "break". When an action that you consider unrelated to your goal or purpose has an effect on what you're trying to do, whether that effect is "good" or "bad", or just makes you adapt to the new situation, you call it a "coincidence". It is not far-fetched at all.

I expected the finale to be more exciting and suspenseful. Instead the overall tone was very melancholy. But I still enjoyed it. Love this show, can't wait for next season. I'll miss getting my BB fix every week.

I was trying to figure out how Walt is going to try to get Sky back. Maybe he can tell her he has a gambling addiction or something.

It's cool how the show doesn't glorify drugs because you easily see how Walt's life slowly unravels and he predictably ends up losing what he treasures the most in life.

In the scene where Junior, (Flynn ;) is being interviewed is really poignant. I could just feel how horrified Walt must feel with himself. And also it's disappointing that he can't enjoy finding out he's his son's hero because he knows he doesn't deserve it.

With all the foreshadowing , the writers tricked everybody into thinking it was going to be a couple of the main characters in those body bags

Not to mention the significance of the pink teddy bear, which turned out to only have a symbolic significance after all (the loss of Walt's innocence as he keeps becoming a more hardened criminal with every episode) Everyone thought it was going to be his kid's teddy bear and that his house blew up.

We needed those 7 weeks. We needed to see Skylar caring for a vulnerable Walt and the new baby plus the dinging of the bell and her shocked reaction to what she was learning. A blurb from Gus and the Lawyer. Walt weak as a kitten arranging for Jesse's rehab..

CHRIS: You are right about it all HASN'T been shown yet! We still don't know who could be in those bodybags. I really don't think it would be passengers on the planes - they got torched up in the sky with the collision, and if any of them made it to the ground they would be a little pile of hamburger. No, I'm thinking somebody on the ground got hit with debris, and the only ones that could be in the vicintity would be HANK coming over to help Walt move out as per Skyler's orders, and perhaps Hank brought along WALT Jr. since Marie picked him up from school.

Also I DO realize this is a TV show, but it is a VERY GOOD TV show, and has really kept itself to the realistic side, that is pretty much up to this air disaster. I do intend to continue to watch the upcoming seasons - I'm too good of a fan to bail on it so soon!

Brilliant writing, fast paced, all over the place. With this show, who knows, maybe Donald wasnt even the cause of the explosion in the sky. The plane hit a goose. Donald's off the hook. The plane wasnt that high. Hard to believe bodies survived the explosion in tact. Body bags are still a mystery.
Can't imagine anything happening to any of the main characters. Walt will fabricate another lie to get his wife back. Jesse makes good with donald, friendship develops. Rosco, or whatever his name is, devolops into a big player in season 3. Saul will mess up and get busted. gotta love the anticipation.

Actually, maybe the whole plane thing was walt dreaming. The bar scene between him and donald was just a set-up for the dream sequence. It allowed the writers to use donald in walts dream. Did Donald mention his profession at the bar?? I forget. If so, it makes sense. That makes the ending of the show not so un-believable.

I also considered that this all may not really be happening. If you notice, the whole scene was filmed in black and white except for the teddy bear which made me think that perhaps it was a dream or a fantasy that Walt was having. Guess we'll have to wait until Season 3 to find out for sure.

I'm a BIG fan of BB ... another show that I'm also loyal to is "Mayday". Mayday is a series based on true airplane crashes around the world , which usually includes real footage as well as simulations etc. If you get a chance to watch "Mayday" you will see that Mid-Air crashes do occur, AT controllers do F*@K Up and bodies can be pretty intack after a long fall from an aircraft. However after all that is said 'n done I don't think this lightly vailed homage to "the butterfly affect" is close to the writers best stuff. I chalk it up to their very very dark humor and hope that this "flight" of fancy doesn't become the norm !

Oh yea... one thing that was very unrealistic was the splash when the stuff teddy hit the water ... come on a 7 ft high splash from a stuffed toy !!

I think someone in the thread last week put it best about having very, very high expectations, and then feeling let down.

Still, overall it was a quieter episode than I was expecting even with the midair plane collision (the consequences haven't been shown yet, just the start of that whole sequence).

Everyone and everything seemed to be crumbling slowly: Jesse, Donald, Walt's marriage. Just a sad, loss-filled aura from start to finish.

If Breaking Bad's actors and writers don't all receive nominations, I will be stunned. Thanks for a magnificent wild ride! And please be sure to submit Raymond Cruz for a guest star emmny nomination - he was superb.

I had noticed on a second viewing how heavy the splash created by that cheezy dollar store pink teddy bear was. Leading me to believe (like others) that Gus is indeed using planes to export Walter's crystal to the surrounding states. I realize that a 737 is a commercial airliner and unrealistic to smuggle large quantities of drugs on, however, we don't know what type of plane the 737 crashed into do we? If Gus has all these chain restaurants he must have some sort of access to shipping methods that don't rely on ground transport. He's been fooling everyone for 20 years without issue. It would take something like that plane crash to trip him up, something out of his control entirely gets a guy like Gus caught.

I can see Walter discovering bears with meth inside them on his lawn, in the street, having a moment of realization and freaking out in a crazy panic. A more gut wrenching twist, if the writers want to lay it on thick, add in Walter watching a news report at some point on the crash, Jane's Dad, and his recently dead daughter being the cause and recognizing both the father and Jane. That ultimate realization of how responsible he is would be an awesome scene to watch.

As for the crash itself, if there is meth in those bears Gus is screwed. So is Walt, but for different reasons entirely, He'll no longer have distribution and depending on his mental state, Jesse to help move the product locally.

The reason Walt was so messed up looking when his son was being filmed was not just because of he realized that he was not worthy of his son's hero worship, but his abject TERROR of the publicity. Simply put, national publicity is the enemy of a drug dealer, yes?

The episode left me speechless. And breathless. I was stupefied it was so good.

I agree with everyone who says this is the best TV they have ever seen.

I wish I could personally congratulate the entire cast. If they do not every single one of them get the biggest award possible, then it is obvious that the awards are rigged.

Walt, snake bit by the 'truth serum" effect of the pain meds. Just the way stuff happens in real life. WOW. I cannot wait to watch this episode again. Can you IMAGINE when Walt's brother in law finds out who is making the meth? I mean really. I do not think he even suspects for a second the possibility it is Walt.

Maybe the show will finally make a dent in the true fact that Meth really does kill. It is ruining entire towns in this country for real. Man, that is some scary stuff. Poor Jesse. He is pretty messed up.

Holding breath till next season. Kudos to all.

This is my first post about this show. I really love it! There are some great post here that have given me some new perspectives to consider.

I have missed some parts of the show, so maybe I missed it, but did Jane's father cause the plane collision on purpose or was it an accident? I watched that part twice and couldn't tell. He looked as if he was sweating, but not panicing.
Why did he do that?

That national exposure means Heisenberg gets some facial hair (the goatee) - and I hate it! The baldness I can handle, the goatee - not so hot looking. Oh well, unless Walt starts getting plastic surgery, his goose is kind of cooked for who he's already had dealings with.

Since Tio watched tv so much, they might as well put a big neon arrow in Walt's driveway saying "Sky Blue Here - Get It Wholesale!". Can't believe the Juarez boys aren't going to see that somehow.

Debb It's not absolutely clear whether Donald intentionally caused the midair collision or it was simply an accident on his part due to grief, stress, inattentiveness, etc.

Nimrod1313 What network is Mayday on? Sounds interesting - never heard of it.

Dave - I also loved the scene with Walt sitting on the couch and his son telling the news what a great person he is. The look on Walt's face was priceless.

However I think personally the thing that bothered Walt the most about the situation was knowing he won't get any of the credit for all the hard work and risk he went through to make the money. Instead his family will think they were saved by the kindness of random strangers. Remember when he showed his newborn daughter the cash and said 'Daddy did that for you'? He was so proud of his accomplishment but the only person he could tell was the family member who wasn't going to remember and will grow up never knowing (in theory) that Walt was the true bread winner.

How would Walt ever be able to "get credit" for making all that money? It's only after he finds he will live longer that it becomes an issue. I don't think not getting credit for "earning" the money is one of his concerns; I think he's ashamed that the ill-gotten money is coming through his son's website (the son that idolizes him). Not to mention the humiliation of publicly asking for money. It's not clear if he ever thought through an explanation of the money. Was he just going to die and leave behind a load of unexplained cash?

One issue I've never understood (maybe I missed it early in season one): Walt is a public school teacher and must have health insurance: why isn't it paying for his treatment? (I know, I know--who cares at this point...the show is great!)

I think zengrl he opted (at Marie's urging) for a kind of treatment that his health insurance wouldn't cover. And, Skyler insisted that he get that treatment - he wasn't going to do anything, if I remember right. Just go home and die.

This is a great show and it was a great season. However, I do think the writers really blew it with elements of the last two shows.

The chance meeting between Walt and Donald -- followed by the plane crash -- was ham-fisted and contrived. Suspension of disbelief has been possible throughout other episode but these two things took me totally out of the moment.

Worse, the foreshadowing of the last scene throughout the whole season implied it was going to be something important. It is good to be able to provide twists and turns to the story, but this was too much of a gimmick.

I see this as a major blemish on some otherwise stellar story telling. I hope that this isn't the indication of the spot where the show "jumps the shark".

jamm54: I went back and looked again, and I saw how Donald was sweating and in a monotone state while he was doing his job guiding planes, but I think if he was purposely causing a mid-air disaster his face probably would have have taken on a more evil, twisted expression, wouldn't you think? I mean, judging by what I saw, you were witnessing a man who was in the process of wigging out. Seven weeks off work apparantly was not enough to deal with his daughter's overdose and death.

While he was working that really stressful job, it may have been going through his head "Geez, here I am back being responsible for keeping hundreds of people alive! I can't do this if I failed so miserably in keeping my own daughter alive!!"

burntteddy: You have to remember that stuffed toy that landed in Walt's pool just got finished falling 17,000 ft.! It WILL make a big splash when it hits. I don't think any of the blue meth would be in anything on board the planes. You can't get ANYTHING past the puppies at the airport that inspect baggage for drugs. And they don't accept payoffs from anybody to look the other way either. Plus, I think the 38lbs. of meth Walt sold to Gus was most likely already distributed to other states, as indicated by Hank at the DEA Headquarters.