{"id":229,"date":"2014-02-02T16:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T22:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cuchicago.edu\/spectator\/?p=229"},"modified":"2014-02-02T16:00:58","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T22:00:58","slug":"breaking-bad-drawing-to-a-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/?p=229","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Breaking Bad&#8221; Draws to a Close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">\u201cAll Bad things must come to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">AMC&#8217;s hit drama series, \u201cBreaking Bad,\u201d is coming to an end after five seasons as one of the most popular shows on cable television. The final eight episodes began airing August 11<sup>th<\/sup>, nearly a year after the conclusion of the season&#8217;s first half. The series, which first aired in 2008, is set to end with the series finale on September 29<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_258\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-258\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-258 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cuchicago.edu\/spectator\/files\/2013\/10\/328257-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"328257\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-258\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teacher and pupil: Aaron Paul (left) and Bryan Cranston portray Jesse Pinkman and Walter White, respectively (Courtesy: AMC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cI am very proud of the ending,\u201d series creator Vince Gilligan told nydailynews.com. \u201cI can\u2019t wait for everyone to see it. I hope I\u2019m not wildly wrong in my estimation that I think most people are going to dig it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An estimated 5.9 million viewers tuned into the second-half premier, four times more than the number who watched the series premier, and nearly double the 3 million who watched the finale of the first half of season five.<\/p>\n<p>Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, <i>Bad<\/i> is centered around Walter White, a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher and family man, portrayed by <i>Malcolm in the Middle <\/i>star Bryan Cranston. After losing consciousness one day at a car wash, White is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and is given two months to live.<\/p>\n<p>Dying and desperate to secure his family&#8217;s financial future, White turns to a former student, Jesse Pinkman, portrayed by Aaron Paul, to help him enter the crystal meth business. Over time, with the help of his background in chemistry, White goes from a quiet man to a ruthless drug kingpin, going by the name \u201cHeisenberg\u201d and doing away with anyone he sees as a threat to him, his family or business, a transformation Gilligan refers to as \u201cMr. Chips to Scarface.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_263\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-263\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-263 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cuchicago.edu\/spectator\/files\/2013\/10\/vince-gilligan-300x230.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"230\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-263\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The mastermind: Series creator Vince Gilligan (Courtesy: deadline.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In addition, White must hide his second life from his family, in particular, his wife and Drug Enforcement Administration agent brother-in-law. Slowly but surely, things begin to unravel for White and all those around him, causing a dramatic turn of events at almost every corner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can&#8217;t imagine a protagonist darker than Walter White,\u201d stated John Landgraf, CEO of FX Networks, in an interview.<\/p>\n<p>Cranston has won three Primetime Emmy awards for his portrayal of the meth maker.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s the role of my life,\u201d Cranston said in an interview with DigitalSpy.com. \u201cI&#8217;ll never have a better role than that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As with the end of any TV series, fans are left wondering what fate many of the main characters will face.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with ScreenRant.com, Gilligan described the finale as \u201cpolarizing.\u201d Gilligan admitted to many sources that he cried while writing the final episode of the series. He also added that there would not be an ambiguous ending to the series.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the movie title goes, there will be blood,\u201d Gilligan hinted about the series finale to RawStory.com.<\/p>\n<p>With the fifth season quickly coming to a close, disappointed fans wonder why Gilligan decided to end the series after five seasons rather than drawing out the show\u2019s success with more episodes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs much as anything it was realizing that Walter White had reached a high point and how long can anyone stay at the top?\u201d asked Gilligan in an interview with RawStory.com. \u201cThat is always a good question, in fiction and in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_274\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-274\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/goodbye-breaking-bad.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-274 \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.cuchicago.edu\/spectator\/files\/2013\/10\/goodbye-breaking-bad-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/goodbye-breaking-bad-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/goodbye-breaking-bad-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/goodbye-breaking-bad.jpg 393w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-274\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Courtesy: crooksandliars.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAll Bad things must come to an end.\u201d AMC&#8217;s hit drama series, \u201cBreaking Bad,\u201d is coming to an end after five seasons as one of the most popular shows on cable television. The final eight episodes began airing August 11th, nearly a year after the conclusion of the season&#8217;s first half. The series, which first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31,44,98,106,278,715],"class_list":["post-229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","tag-aaron-paul","tag-amc","tag-breaking-bad","tag-bryan-cranston","tag-drama","tag-vince-gilligan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spectator.cuchicago.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}