The fate of the man who is arguably America’s most popular TV villain will be unveiled on Sunday in the feverishly awaited finale of the series “Breaking Bad.”
A week after the five-year-old show won the best drama award at the Emmys, soft-spoken high school chemistry teacher turned ruthless, cancer-ridden drug lord Walter White will appear one last time.
Awaiting White, played by actor Bryan Cranston, could be a showdown with allies turned enemies, although theories about how the curtain will actually come down are a dime a dozen.
The critically acclaimed series has won over millions in America and abroad with its cocktail of meticulously crafted plot, fine acting and camera work and a stunning metamorphosis — that of just another Joe Blow into a veritable monster.
The day after it won the top award at American television’s equivalent of the Oscars — the penultimate episode aired that same night, and scored very high ratings — Breaking Bad chatter was trending on Twitter.
Other measures of its success abound, too.
Sales of the trademark black hat White sometime wears when trying to look street-tough — sort of like a fedora, but not as tall and flat at the top — are booming.
The show’s ardent fans include investment oracle Warren Buffet, R’n'B star Rihanna and fictional cartoon protagonist Peter Griffin of “Family Guy”.
The Economist magazine has called the series “one of the best studies available of the dynamics of modern business.”
Forbes for its part says the asking price for a 30-second commercial during Sunday’s last episode is a handsome $ 250,000.
White, in crystal meth-cooking gear and with his now signature shaven head and wire rim glasses, even appears on the cover of the latest edition of The New Yorker.
He looks on aghast as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of gassing his own people, plays chemist with beakers and tubes.
“Seems like there’s never a shortage of real life villains to make even the most conscience-free fictional character look comic in comparison … alas,” the magazine quotes the vignette’s creator Barry Blitt as saying.
Threaded throughout the show are questions of morality.
White becomes a methamphetamine manufacturer — a legendarily good one at that — upon learning he has terminal lung cancer at age 50 and with his bank account all but empty.
He feels justified because he wants to pay for his treatment plus leave a nest egg for his family: his wife Skyler, who is pregnant with an unplanned baby at age 40 and their teenage son Walter Jr., who has cerebral palsy.
But as White’s business thrives, bodies of rivals and innocents alike pile up.
And it becomes harder and harder for White, his hands stained over and over with blood, to digest what he has become and pretend that his original mission statement still stands.
And for the most part, as he amasses huge wealth right under the nose of his anti-drug agent brother-in-law Hank, White is denied any good taste of the fortune he is sitting on: a sofa sized pile of cash stacked in a rented storeroom. Crime, it seems, does not pay.
Cranston, who started off doing toothpaste and aspirin commercials in his early days as an actor and then did consistent but second-role work on TV series, has said the role of Walter White is the role of his life.
Thanks to it, he has won the Emmy for best actor three times.
At a party this summer celebrating the start of the final season, 57-year-old Cranston said Walter White will go with him to his grave.
“I anticipate that eventually when I die — hopefully that is many, many years from now — that will be the lead in the obituary, ‘Breaking Bad’ star explodes [or] however it is going to happen,” Cranston said. “I am proud of that.”
