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Breaking Bad Mashup
Walter White is going down. Probably. Maybe? The mid-season premiere of AMC's harrowing meth drama kicks off this Sunday, with only eight episodes to go before it all comes to end, one way or another. And if Scarface--a film the show has referenced more than once--taught us anything, it's that drug kingpins aren't immortal. And Tony Montana wasn't riddled with cancer. That can't be said for Walt (Bryan Cranston). Even if he does manage to get out of the meth game clean like he promised his wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), he still has a terminal illness to contend with.
Although the actuarial odds on Walt don't seem promising, show creator Vince Gilligan told New York Magazine in May that the show would have a "somewhat happy ending" and that it would be a "victory for Walt," though he warned that viewers "might see the episode and say, 'What the fuck was he talking about?'" (He later confessed that he was a little drunk during that interview. And the ominous, desolate teaser that was released last week didn't inspire what we would characterize as "hope."
(Spoiler alert: Spoilers for the previous seasons of Breaking Bad follow.)
During a (presumably more sober) interview with WIRED a few weeks back, Gilligan was predictably vague about how the show's final eight episodes would play out, but did note that they will "revisit old moments and old ideas and prior actions resonate and tend to prompt reactions -- at times delayed reactions – but reactions nonetheless." Does this mean that Walt's attempts to leave the drug game might prove to be (gasp!) unsuccessful? Might we see some familiar underworld figures come back to haunt him?
"You might, you might indeed as a matter of fact," Gilligan replied. "I apologize for being a little coy but, yes, I think it's safe to say you might see some old faces in these final eight."
It's safe to assume there won't be too many plot lines left dangling at the end of Breaking Bad, a series in which even the smallest detail—each color, visual cue, and casual reference—contains some deeper meaning. There are no throwaway lines, and every "Chekhov's gun" gets resolved.
So with that in mind, what familiar faces can we expect to see when the show returns? Many of Walt's main adversaries—Tuco Salamanca, Gus Fring—have been killed off and presumably won't return in the form of actual ghosts (unless Heisenberg starts getting high on his own supply). But Walt has wreaked a lot of havoc over the last five years, and there are plenty of wounded parties out there, just waiting for Walt or one of his associates to slip up. For every action, there is a reaction. Or, to paraphrase Walt's on-again-off-again partner Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), "It's just basic physics, yo."
Click through the gallery above to see some of the players Walt has (intentionally or inadvertently) wronged and the probability that they'll come back to play a part in Breaking Bad's final run.
