Breaking Bad has got one of the best series finales ever. The last episode of the fifth and final season received critical acclaim from all around. However, the creator of the Walter White series Vince Gilligan didn’t have similar thoughts initially. According to him, the finale features one of his worst creative decisions of presenting Bryan Cranston’s lead with that machine gun.
The machine gun became a headache for the writers when they were planning to bring everything to a close. Vince Gilligan believes that he messed up by giving that machine gun to Walter White without any proper planning as to what would happen next.
Vince Gilligan regretted a decision he took with Walter White in the finale
Breaking Bad holds the crown of one of the best television series ever made. It is one of the pillars of television series that changed the game forever. Bryan Cranston‘s role as the chemistry teacher turned meth producer became an iconic name in modern pop culture.
In an interview with Variety, it was revealed by Vince Gilligan that he made one of the worst decisions in the finale. According to the creator, he wanted to start the last season with a bang and eventually find out something with the machine gun throughout 16 episodes. But things didn’t turn out so easy for the team.
“The biggest single fear we had was what to do with that damn machine gun. At the beginning of the final run of 16 episodes, we had Walt buy a machine gun in the trunk of a Cadillac. That was the thing I remember freaking us out the most because we did that, I committed to that. One of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my career was committing to the idea of Walter White buying a machine gun when we did not know what he was going to do with it. We had no clue.”
Gilligan revealed that he was completely freaked out and hit his head on the wall to think of something. While the whole team was concerned about him, the writers worked out an effective plan to utilize the machine gun in the finale.
The writers figured out the machine gun problem at last
According to the Breaking Bad creator, his plan of thinking about the machine gun later failed terribly. However, the director failed to reach a conclusive decision even when there were only five to six episodes left for the show.
But the writers worked hard to figure out what to do with the machine gun. It solved all the problems for Gilligan and the team who realized that Walter White had to win on some level.
“Once we figured out this machine gun, that was when the dam broke and things started slowly to click together. It was after that point that we figured he’s got to win. He’s lost everything because of his hubris and his pride and his ego. He’s lost his family, he’s lost his soul. But he’s got to win on some level.”
At the end of the finale episode, Walter White is shown using the gun to take revenge on Jack who was responsible for killing his brother-in-law. The machine gun also played a crucial role in his mission to save Jesse who was enslaved by Jack and Co. It can’t be denied that no matter how much “dumb” it is to Gilligan, both the series and the finale are equally satisfying and beautiful.
Breaking Bad can be streamed on Netflix.
