SPOILER ALERT
Yes, I have been watching Breaking Bad for the past 2 years. I found it online and caught up. The first episode I was iffy but after 3 episodes I was sold. I could tell what the writers were doing. I have been asked by some, how can you watch a show where the main character is a bad guy? I have also been told its a show where they try to gray the lines between good and bad.
This is my take having seen all of the episodes.
Breaking Bad reminds me of Oedipus, Antigony, or the Odessey.
These were sad stories where the main character paid grave consequences for their decisions and sometimes not even because of their own decisions but the decisions of those around them.
Odysseus Angered Poseidon
Oedipus thought he was above everyone else, even the gods, and that he could escape his fate.
Walter White? What did he do? Did he deserve cancer? No. But it reminds me of Job's wife when Job was being tested. She challenged him to curse God and die. Is that not what Walter White was doing?
I challenge you that the show had nothing to do with Meth and everything to do with a man, his pride, and his downfall due to his pride.
Walt was too proud to tell his family about his cancer. He, a genius scientist, looked at his life where he had been cheated by his friends out of a fortune and worked as a high school science teacher who got no appreciation where the school was making cuts in sallary so he had to work a second job at a car wash. He worked hard and always followed the rules. Pride came in when he found he had Cancer.
Walt asks himself. Cancer? On top of all of this? No. I refuse to admit it. I refuse to lay down and die. Im going to build an empire and Im going to leave something for my family. Im not going to be Walt who just lets life control him any more. People wont remember me as the cancer victom. Im going to control my life. Im going to have power and people will fear when they hear my name "Heisenberg".
His excuse was always "I did it for my family" but in the end when what he has done has destroyed him and his family he admits the real reason he did it. "I did it for me. I liked it and I was good at it."
I retained judgement of the series for the final episode. Does Walt get what is coming to him or does he get away with all of it... again? That was the question I wanted answered and the answer depended on weather I liked the show. Did I feal for the fictional character? Did I relate to him at first on some level? Yes. But very quickly he went too far.
I knew why I was watching when I saw the episode where his brother-in-law, the DEA, figured it all out. Hank struck him and before I realized it I did a fist punp and said "Yes! Get him!"
I wanted to see Walt get what he deserved. He had gone from a guy that I sympothised with to being a monster. He had to go down. We see his humanity again in the last episode where he comes to terms with his sins and the consequenses of them. He knows the final outcome and has accepted his fate.
And the show ends with a song: Badfinger's "Baby Blue".
Guess I got what I deserve
Kept you waiting there, too long my love
All that time, without a word
Didn't know you'd think, that I'd forget, or I'd regret
The special love I have for you
My baby blue
One other note: Did you like the use of the song at the end? It was almost too perfect, I thought.