MY COUSIN RICHARD TEXTS ME THE SERIES FINALE OF BREAKING BAD

A few weeks ago I entertained the idea of jumping on the wagon - riding out the wave - feeling what the people were feeling. Breaking Bad was ending and something about the show had not lost steam as I had hoped. From the scraps of television I was able to piece together I could see that maybe Breaking Bad was actually a significant cultural myth. But it was far too late. I briefly entertained a fanciful marathon-watching of the entire 5 seasons.   Following is a script wherein my cousin Richard texts me the entirety of the Breaking Bad finale. I consider my cousin Richard's 25-page text message a cultural broadcast twice removed (first from the visual show itself and secondly it's enrapt audience) and so believe this to be (momentarily half-digested) FERTILE CULTURAL GROUNDWORK. I present here a loophole victory exemplifying a kind of offline free cultural pirating. Richard's use of oral tradition (albeit in script) to pass on to me pertinent cultural information is a true gesture of cosmopolitanism  to ensure my 'survivability' in modern discourse. 

(needless to say, there are spoilers. . . )

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Richard: So you want me to tell you what happened?

Israel: Yes

Richard: Well, as you may know, Walt's bro-in-law figured out Walt is "Heisenberg"( Walt's drug dealer alter ego). Hank tricks Walt into showing him where Walt stashed his 60 million in the middle of desert. Walt calls for back up but then calls it off when he decides he should just turn himself on. Too late his hit-men gang come anyway, and kill Hank despite Walt pleading not to. Yadda yadda yadda, he rushes home, tries to get his family to pack their shit and get the hell out of town. But when he tells them that hank has been murdered, the family has enough. The wife tries to stab Walt. His loyal son who looked up to him?, turns on him when Walt and his mom get into a scuffle by calling the cops and telling him that he may killed somebody. So Walt runs out leaving his family behind.

Israel: Oh my god isn't that woman like so hated in television right now? like what a downer she is - the whole series she goes disapproving of walt and finally blowsup

Richard: Well she was kind of a downer even before she knew he was cooking. Like she dealt with depression and shit. HOWEVER, after finding out what her husband did/is doing, she did have his back pretty much until that point, covering for him and all that jazz. 

Israel: Is That how it ends? walt gets off easy?

Richard: Before I tell you, what would YOOOOOU have wanted to have happened to Walt?

Israel: Ok - he gets cornered somewhere so he smokes meth and kills everyone and then buries his eyes in the desert

Richard: Lol. You are bent on him smoking his own stuff. You'll be happy to know, he never smoked meth, he's only the brains behind the recipe.

Richard: Ok, last episode: Walt ends up paying thousands of dollars for some guy to hide him in the middle of nowhere USA. Walt is getting sicker and sicker, weaker and weaker due to his cancer. After a month or so of being in seclusion, decides he will go back one more time and tie up all his loose ends. First, he wants to find a way to leave around 10 million bucks to his family (which is obviously hard, cuz the FBI is watching the family real closely). So his first order of things, he goes to his old ex gf's mansion (who is filthy rich after she continued her and Walt's chemistry research and opened up a pharmaceutical company with her now husband.) Anyway, Walt tells them to "donate" this money of his to his family on "their behalf", as to avoid suspicion from the Feds (they recently donated 28 million dollars to drug rehabs so that's where Walt's angle/idea came from).  

Richard: Second order of things, he crashes a meeting between the corporate big wig who used to supply the methyl-amine to him. she was there with one of the guys who killed hank/stole his money/stole his recipe and currently taking over his business. Walt tells them he's got a NEW recipe that would make the meth even more potent. The big wig entertains his idea, but after he leaves, she tells her new partner she has no intention. (Later you find out Walt knows no such recipe, but used that meeting to poison the big wig, putting ricin into the sugar packets she obsessively uses throughout the series. She later gets flu like symptoms and Walt calls her a day later and let's her know she's going to be dying soon.) 

Richard:  3rd order of things, he goes sees his wife one last time. Tells her he's sorry for everything. And finally admits to her and to himself out loud that cooking meth wasn't about his looking out for the future well being of his family after he passes away. But rather, he simply "liked doing it". It made him feel alive. And he was good at it. 

Israel: OH MY GOD THAT IS SO FUCKED

Richard: What part? Lol

Israel: The poisoning part - so killer - i'm the kind of watcher that can't get spoiled even by spoilers.

Richard: Yeah I know. I think they did that so you don't start feeling for him. Like, leave having noooo sympathy for him. that even till the end, wants you to feel he has changed for the bad and will never be able to go back to who he used to be before his dealing days.

Richard: LAST order of things, he's coming after the guys who stole his money! (I mean for christs sake, he had 7 55 gallon barrels hidden, totaling 60 million that they stole from him immediately after they killed his bro in law.) You see Walt building this pulley-battery machine-erector set that is connected to his machine gun (the one you saw in that flashfoward at the diner?) He riggs it to a car alarm remote. Drives to see the guys on their secluded property at night.  they dont like that he's back from hiding, fearing he's a threat. They want to kill him. And it looks like its going to happen. But right before they are going to, Walt angrily says that they lied to him and went into business with Walt's partner Jessie, instead of killing him liked they promised. Pissed at being called a liar, the head hancho calls for Jessie who they have chained up as a slave in a basement cooking for them, beating the shit out of him daily for a month now. Bad guy says "See?! Does it look like we are business partners?" Right then, Jessie and Walt look at each other, and Walt attacks Jessie throwing him to the floor furiously. Walt then pushes the button on his remote, the car parked outside rear hood pops open, and the machine gun starts to shoot into the building left to right, over and over, killing EVERYONE. Walt being on top of Jessie protecting him, takes a stray bullet to the side. Walt asks Jessie (since he put Jessie through A LOT of shit) to kill him and end it, if Jessie wants. Jessie thinks about it, but decides not to.  Jessie jumps into his car and speeds off like the luckiest son of a bitch ever to be free and alive from 5 seasons worth of mental/physical torture. Walt walks around the property pensively, finds the barn where the new guys were cooking the meth and reflects on everything while looking at all the hoses and tanks and meters. He then pauses, catches his reflection in one of the tanks, another pause, and keels over. He dies. Police show up seconds later guns drawn.

Israel: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK OH FUUVUCK 

Israel: That was WAY better Than anything i imagined and oh my GOD - was that a wikipedia article SON - WAS THAT WIKI

Richard: No, that was RICHI lol. I wrote one long ass text, but decided to cut it into parts to build suspense for ya haha

Israel: THAT WAS CINEMA. TO ME THAT CINEMA. I'M EVEN WATCHING ANOTHER MOVIE RIGHT NOW.

Richard: I know!!! I felt emotionally drained after it was over. Like, literally felt I had just ran a marathon lol