Question: Has Breaking Bad ended?

Felina (Breaking Bad)

Felina (''Breaking Bad'')
"Felina" is the series finale of the American drama television series Breaking Bad. It is the sixteenth episode of season five and the 62nd overall episode of the series. Written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan, it aired on AMC in the United States and Canada on September 29, 2013.
The plot involves Walt evading a nationwide manhunt for him in order to return to New Mexico and deliver the remaining profits from his illegal methamphetamine empire to his family. He also avenges upon the neo-Nazi gang who double-crossed him, killed his brother-in-law Hank, took Jesse captive and presented a threat to his family. Knowing the cancer will soon kill him, Walt revisits his former acquaintances to settle his affairs and prepare himself for the conflict and his death.
Upon airing, "Felina" was met with widespread acclaim from critics. Several critics have called it one of the greatest series finales of all time.[1]
Plot
After leaving the bar, Walt (Bryan Cranston) departs New Hampshire in a stolen Volvo, with Marty Robbins' song "El Paso" playing on the tape deck. He returns to New Mexico and poses as a reporter for The New York Times to track down Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz (Jessica Hecht and Adam Godley) at their new house in Santa Fe. To circumvent the suspicions of the DEA and his family, he orders Gretchen and Elliott to give his remaining $9.72 million to Walt Jr. by camouflaging it as a trust endowed by them which Walt Jr. will inherit upon turning eighteen, saying this is their chance to "make things right" for minimizing Walt's involvement in Gray Matter. Walt claims there are snipers outside aiming at them, and red laser dots appear on their chests. Walt tells them that to ensure they adhere to his instructions, they will always be watched closely by the hitmen he has paid. They agree to his terms and Walt leaves, paying Badger Mayhew (Matt L. Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) for participating in his ruse by aiming red laser pointers at the Schwartzes. Walt learns from Badger and Pete that Jack Welker's (Michael Bowen) gang has been cooking and distributing blue meth and realizes Jesse (Aaron Paul) is still alive.
On his 52nd birthday, Walt purchases an M60 machine gun and retrieves the ricin from his abandoned house. He connects the machine gun to a pivoting turret inside the trunk of the old Cadillac Sedan DeVille he's now driving, which is rigged to the Volvo's remote unlock button. He interrupts Todd (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia's (Laura Fraser) regular meeting at a coffee shop and makes a business proposal, offering what he claims is a new formula for methylamine-free meth. Todd turns him down, but Lydia feigns interest to lure Walt into meeting with Jack, knowing he'll kill Walt. Later, Skyler (Anna Gunn) receives a phone call from Marie (Betsy Brandt), who warns her that Walt has been seen in Albuquerque.  After Skyler hangs up, it's revealed that Walt is already with Skyler. He leaves her the lottery ticket on which he'd encoded the location of his money. Following the shootout in the desert, the coordinates now reveal Hank (Dean Norris) and Steve's (Steven Michael Quezada) hidden grave, and Walt advises Skyler to use the location as leverage in negotiating a favorable plea bargain. Walt admits to Skyler that contrary to his previous claims that he only wanted to make money to support his family after his death, his life as a drug kingpin was for himself, and that he did it because he enjoyed it, was good at it, and it made him feel alive. Skyler allows Walt to see Holly while she sleeps. After leaving, Walt watches from afar as Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) arrives home from school.
Walt drives to Jack's hideout, and parks alongside the building.  He  meets inside with Jack and his men, but Jack refuses Walt's meth formula offer and orders him killed. Walt diverts Jack's attention by accusing him of partnering with Jesse, who is still forced to cook meth in an adjacent Quonset hut.  Jack responds by ordering that Jesse be brought to them so Jack can prove Jesse works for him unwillingly, not with him as a partner. Upon seeing Jesse, Walt tackles him out of the line of fire and uses the Volvo button to remotely fire the machine gun through the building's walls and windows. The gun fires until it's out of ammunition, and everyone but Jack, Todd, Jesse and Walt are killed. As Todd stares out the window in amazement at the now-empty machine gun pivoting on its turret, Jesse strangles and kills him with the chain attached to his handcuffs, and then frees himself by taking the key from Todd's pocket. After Walt picks up a dropped handgun, Jack attempts to bargain for his life with the location of the stolen money, but Walt ignores the offer and coldly kills him. Walt gives the gun to Jesse and asks Jesse to kill him. Jesse notices Walt was wounded from the machine gun's fire and refuses, telling Walt that if he wants to die he should do it himself. As Jesse and Walt leave Jack's house, Walt answers Todd's phone and speaks with an obviously ill Lydia. He informs her that Jack and his gang are all dead and that he planted the ricin in her stevia during the meeting at the coffee shop, leaving Lydia to die. Jesse and Walt exchange a farewell glance before Jesse flees in Todd's El Camino. He crashes through the gates, screaming and crying with joy.
Walt enters the Quonset hut lab and smiles nostalgically as he admires the equipment, holding a respirator and rubbing a kettle. His fingers leave a bloody trail on the kettle as he falls to the floor, collapsing from the wound. Police rush in with guns drawn as he lies motionless with a slight smile of satisfaction on his face. An officer takes his pulse.
Production

On September 18, 2013, it was announced that both "Granite State" and "Felina" would run 75 minutes, including commercials.[2] The actual runtime of the episodes is 55 minutes.[3] The episode was written and directed by series creator Vince Gilligan.
Title reference and music
The episode title, "Felina", is inspired by the character Feleena from the song "El Paso" by Marty Robbins, which plays a major role during the episode.[4] The writers changed the name from Feleena to Felina so that it would also be an anagram of Finale.[5][6] Moreover, the word Felina can also be broken up into three different symbols of chemical elements found in the periodic table: iron (Fe), lithium (Li), and sodium (Na). Since iron is a predominant element in blood, lithium is sometimes used in methamphetamine production, and sodium is a component of tears, the title was interpreted by some as "blood, meth and tears".[7] According to Eric Brown of International Business Times:
"In its pure form... methamphetamine is composed solely of carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and nitrogen (N), no lithium involved. However, there are multiple ways to synthesize meth from other ingredients, and several involve lithium. The Birch reduction, also called the "Nazi method," mixes lithium and ammonia to create a reaction. Another, called the "Shake 'n' Bake" method, involved throwing lithium and several other ingredients into a single pot to create the drug. Both methods are extremely dangerous, as lithium is a highly volatile element. Unfortunately, there's a big hole in this theory: Walt never uses a lithium-based synthesis in the show.... Walt uses two methods throughout the show: first the Nagai method involving red phosphorus and later a methylamine P2P reaction resulting in the famous blue meth. Neither one uses lithium at any point, shooting a big hole in this theory."[7][8][9]
Another theory is that "Felina" is a reference to Schrödinger's cat. Erwin Schrödinger was a pioneering developer of quantum theory whose approach stood in opposition to Werner Heisenberg, whose surname Walt used as his alias. Felinae is a subfamily of the cat family which includes the domestic cat. In Schrödinger's thought experiment, a cat trapped in a sealed box is killed by a flask of hydrocyanic acid, but by the principles of quantum mechanics is considered to be both alive and dead at the same time.[8]
Badfinger's "Baby Blue" is played during the final scene. According to series creator Vince Gilligan, this is reference to the high-quality blue meth Walt had produced over the previous seasons and his life as a drug kingpin which the main character at last recognizes he had enjoyed.[5] According to Rolling Stone, the music supervisors on the show disagreed with Gilligan's choice for the final song;[5] however, music supervisor Thomas Golubić stated that "journalists sometimes try to create drama where there isn't any" and that his quotes were "mis-represented".[10] "Baby Blue" became an obvious choice as the editing came closer to completion with Golubić describing the process of finalizing the song:
Before I saw the scene, I pulled together a number of ideas– one which I thought worked pretty beautifully against picture: The Bees' "No More Excuses"– but once I saw that beautiful shot, and saw the scene in context, I realized why Vince was so strongly attached to the Badfinger song. It's tricky for us as music supervisors in that we keep pulling together ideas and revising them. None of us know the right answer until we are at the very end of that process and have cut and locked picture to work with. Vince is just really talented at knowing what the final effect he is looking for, and knew early on that Badfinger's "Baby Blue" was the right choice for what he was looking to do. It took until the final picture was assembled that I was able to also see what a fantastic choice it was.[10]

Reception
Ratings
"Felina" had the highest ratings of any episode of Breaking Bad: 10.28 million in the United States, including 5.3 million adults aged 18–49.[11][12] The episode generated millions of online comments and Nielsen Holdings rankings established that it was the most-discussed episode on Twitter for that week.[13] The popularity of the episode resulted in a 2,981 percent increase of sales of the Badfinger song "Baby Blue" as well as a 9,000 percent increase in streaming over Spotify.[14]
Critical reception
Upon airing, the episode received nearly universal critical acclaim.[15][16] In her review of "Felina", Donna Bowman of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A rating, writing that "Walt's purpose is fulfilled, and he just stops".[4] Seth Amitin at IGN also praised the episode, calling it "fully satisfying" and awarding it a score of 9.8 out of 10.[17] Katey Rich agreed with these sentiments, calling the episode "a deeply satisfying and surprisingly emotional finale".[18] However, Emily Nussbaum, writing in the New Yorker, criticized the episode, claiming it so neatly wrapped up the series in Walt's favor that it seemed more like "the dying fantasy on the part of Walter White, not something that was actually happening".[19]
The MythBusters tested the machine-gun turret and proved that it was possible in real life.[20]
Awards and nominations




 at the official Breaking Bad site
 on IMDb
 at TV.com