What Does Walt Do and Why Does He Do It?

Walt (a.k.a Heisenberg) steals a car so that he can drive across the country to New Mexico. He breaks into the Schwartz’s home and threatens them into setting up a fund for Walt’s family, using Skinny Pete and Badger as stand-ins for hitmen. He sneaks into Skylar’s house and gives her the coordinates to Hank and Steve Gomez’s graves in order for her to use the information for a plea bargain. He uses ricin to kill Lydia out of revenge, and he sets up a machine gun mechanism to kill Jack, Todd and the skinheads to free Jesse from captivity. Walt does a tremendous amount of killing in this episode. In fact, his body count probably tripled in the span of twenty minutes in comparison to the previous seasons.

Lydia has a child, and Walt killed her; Todd views Walt as a father figure, and he kills him; Gretchen and Elliott Schwartz are average, although obnoxious, NPR-listening adults, and Walt threatens to kill them. Walt has a Uhaul truck’s worth of misdeeds and guilt collected through the series. Instead of clearing the cache, he uses the weight as momentum to propel him toward his destination, cranking the steering wheel in a different direction at the last minute. Like any start-up on the verge of collapse, he pivots. 

Are Walt’s Final Acts Good or Bad?

The answer to this question is that depends on who is observing Walt. If it is someone who believes in redemption, Walt’s final acts are atrocious. The most forgiving and charitable people accept someone’s past if they lead their lives free from “sin,” afterward. Walt, however, embraces his sins. He is a selfish man, as he alludes to Skylar in their final moments, and he hurts many people in pursuit of protecting what is his. His actions are positive for his family and Jesse, but a detriment to anyone who has what he needs in order to fulfill his last will. 

Avid TV watchers who are accustomed to prestige cable dramas and, thus, are susceptible to the charms of an on-screen psychopath were likely pumping their fists in the air as Walt stole from Elliott and Gretchen, laughing as Lydia realized she was going to die and let out a long sigh of relief as a dozen or so neo-nazis were mowed down at the waist. It just so happens that Walt put himself in a position where correcting his misdeeds involved killing other bad people, but these were certainly not objectively redemptive acts. 

In Conclusion

Did Walt redeem himself? To the faith-based and the higher powers that be, absolutely not. To fans of The Sopranos, this was the satisfying, near gushy conclusion left hanging in the air for six years. Altogether, Walt doesn’t care if he was redeemed nor does he care if others feel that way. He’s going to hell in a handbag, and he just wants to make sure that he’s in control of the way he goes. Plus, Walt’s final moments were a a lot more entertaining than playing board games in a winter shack.