SPOILER ALERT! This article contains immense spoilers regarding the end of season five of Breaking Bad! If you haven’t seen up until season 5, episode 14 – titled “Ozymandias”, read no further! But if you, like me, are up-to-date and still in shock from the latest episode, then read on…and let me shock you a little more with my prediction!
(All gifs are from Uproxx)
This theory has been formulated based on three scenes from season 5 of Breaking Bad. The first is the scene which opened the season: Walt, a year into the future and with his hair grown back, visits a Denny’s on his 52nd birthday. Skyler is absent and Walt is living under an assumed identity. He briefly meets with his former arms dealer, who sets Walt up with an M60 machine gun and ammunition.
It’s a scene that asked a lot of questions but offered no answers. Where was Skyler? How did Walt come to be living under a new identity? Who was he going to shoot with the gun? We now know some of the answers thanks to the latest episode. Skyler is absent because she’s done with Walt and his lies. She refuses to be complicit in his criminal schemes, and so he’s left to write his age in bacon on his own. We also learn how Walt gets his new identity, as he drives away with Saul’s “clean slate” identity eraser contact at the episode’s close. But we still don’t know who the gun is for.
The second scene that left everyone wondering who was going to die came in season 5’s 9th episode “Blood Money”: we see Walt, still in the future, return to the White family home to find it trashed and “Heisenberg” painted on the wall. He retrieves a ricin pellet from a hiding spot. Who is the ricin for?!
Many viewers thought (or still think) that the ricin is meant for Skyler, as the series established her as a smoker long ago. I don’t think this is the case. No, I have a much darker scenario in mind.
Finally, the third scene is this one, from “Ozymandias”.
Jesse is captured by Todd and the White Power gang and imprisoned, tethered in a lab and forced to cook meth under the threat of Andrea and Brock being killed. Ready for the theory now, guys?
I think the machine gun is meant for Uncle Jack and the neo-nazis, because they failed to deliver on their promise to kill Jesse. Even after the trauma of seeing Hank killed, Walt was insistent that Uncle Jack off Jesse according to their agreement. Jack said he would, but it looks like he’s gone back on his word so that he can get his meth business running smoothly again.
My prediction is that the finale will play out as follows: One year in the future, Walt discovers blue meth on the market and realizes that Jesse is still alive – trapped and cooking meth for them a year later. He buys the machine gun to take out Uncle Jack, Todd and the others…and saves the ricin for Jesse. Maybe Jesse and himself, I haven’t quite decided that part yet. I could very easily see Walt and Jesse sharing that cigarette as the walls crumble around them. Maybe they don’t kill all of the neo-nazis, and the survivor runs and finds backup somewhere. I don’t know. But I feel like all the pieces are in place for this to be the big, emotional, climactic ending that the show has been building up to. Anybody think I’m right?