Reprinted with permission from www.survivingcollege.com

The final season begins with a flash forwards. A newly-bearded Walt arrives at his former home, which has long since been abandoned. Someone spray painted “Heisenberg” on the living room wall, and bugs inhabit Skylar’s once-clean kitchen countertops, and kids are skateboarding in an empty pool. Walt retrieves a small vial from behind an outlet cover in the bedroom that I assume contains ricin. On his way back to the car, he sees his neighbor. “Hello, Carol.”

And now we’re right back where we left off last season—with Hank in the bathroom, where he makes the “WW” connection and possibly a number two. He emerges from the bathroom shaken yet determined, shoves the book in his bag, and comes up with a flimsy excuse to get himself and his wife away from the White residence. Hank’s anger rises as he drives, and soon he is unable to focus on the road. He crashes into a yard and has a panic attack. Once home, Hank gets to work matching handwritten notes from his file to the inscription in the book. He quickly confirms that yes, his nerdy chemistry teaching brother-in-law is Heisenberg.

Walt is visited at the car wash by Lydia, who feels like she got a raw deal because he left her with a shambles of an operation. She wants him to “get the ship back on course,” but Walt insists that it is no longer his concern.  As they are talking, Skylar spots something fishy about Lydia—she’s washing a rental car. After confirming with Walt that Lydia is part of the business, she tells her to get out and never come back.

Hank has a few boxes delivered to his garage. It’s the Heisenberg file, and he’s looking at it with fresh eyes. The dots are starting to connect when Hank gets a flas of recognition from the grainy video of Walt and Jesse stealing a barrel from the factory and that doodly sketch of Heisenberg…it’s Walt. It’s definitely Walt.

Jesse is watching his buddies get baked. As Dummy #1 tells Dummy #2 about the Star Trek script he’s writing (it involves space and blueberries, possibly together), Jesse walks out with his duffle bags of cash and heads over to Saul Goodman’s office. Jesse tells Saul that the bags contain $5 million and instructs him on who gets what, including Mike’s granddaughter because “it’s what Mike wanted.” Saul tries to talk Jesse out of his charitable giving campaign since it will surely set off too many red flags, but Jesse won’t budge. Once he leaves, Saul calls Walt.

Walt pays a visit to Jesse and returns the duffle bags. He also gives Jesse a pep talk. “This is your money! Come on, you earned it!” Jesse is dressed in black, Walt is dressed in white, and only one of them can move past the darkness. Jesse thinks Mike is dead, and that Walt knows it. Walt just flat out lies to his face, convincingly.

With the Jesse problem semi-contained, Walt goes home to have dinner with his family. But he doesn’t even make it through the meal without running to the bathroom to vomit. While praying to the porcelain god, he notices that his Walt Whitman book is missing. Sklyar laughs off Walt’s suggestion that Junior took it because kids don’t steal literature. Later that night, Walt goes outside to think. In a moment of panic, he searching underneath his car and finds a tracking device. That’s when he knows that his days of freedom are numbered.

A homeless man wanders through a parking lot and finds Jesse sleeping in his car. Jesse gives the man a wad of cash and drives off. He then chucks cash at every rundown, decrepit-looking house in the neighborhood like a strung-out Santa Clause.

The next day, Walt pops in on Hank. He sees the boxes in Hank’s garage and knows that he knows. In a bold move, Walt asks Hank about the GPS tracker on his car. In an even bolder move, Hank shuts the garage door and the two men have an evil eye staring contest before Hank takes a swing at Walt. “It was you. All along it was YOU! You sonofabitch.” Walt tells Hank that his cancer is back and in six months there won’t be anyone to prosecute, so “what’s the point?” He makes a good argument. Hank shows a bit of fear and says that he doesn’t even know who he’s talking to anymore. In the coldest moment of the episode, Walt tells Hank that if he really doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, “maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.”

Well I never do this, but here are my predictions for the rest of the season: At some point soon, Walt will need to kill Hank. Unable to do it himself, Walt will try to recruit Jesse for the miserable task. Jesse will half-ass the job (or farm it out to Dummy #1 and Dummy #2), leaving Hank alive. That’s when Walt packs up his family and ships them far away and stays behind to finish off the job himself. With the ricin, of course. Wacky antics ensue, the final episode is a musical with a rousing final number called, “Meth Is Blue,” and, somehow, Saul Goodman ends up with all of the cash and none of the authorities on his tail.

All images via AMC

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