Why Some Breaking Bad Fans Were Upset With The Ending

The AMC drama "Breaking Bad" was met with high audience and critical acclaim during its five-season run on the cable network. The character-driven crime drama is all about a high school chemistry teacher named Walter White (Bryan Cranston) who turns to a former student named Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) for help in manufacturing and selling drugs to fund his cancer treatments. It still holds a 9.4 out of 10 on IMDb and boasts a 97% audience approval rating and a 96% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes. It was popular enough to spawn an equally-popular spin-off, "Better Call Saul," as well as a Netflix-exclusive spin-off movie, 2019's "El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie."

But in spite of that widespread acclaim, not every fan of the show liked the way "Breaking Bad" ended. In particular, fans who congregate at the program's subreddit have a bone or two to pick with the way the show wrapped up. Here's how they feel about how it all concluded.

In a post on the "Breaking Bad" subreddit, u/vujadejunkie refers to the series finale as a "fail" because it lacked punch as a "morality tale." "So long as you're persistent, committed, and ruthless enough, you can accomplish your goals? Where are the tragic consequences? Where's the moral, the judgment?" they asked. While calling out the audience's moral culpability, they added that Walter got exactly what he wanted when he hatched his drug manufacturing scheme and claimed that the show backed off of its plunge into Walter's dark heart.

u/DanThron agreed with u/vujadejunkie, saying, "A friend of mine posted this link to FB, and I wrote this in response: "'I agree with a huge amount of this: especially the part about our moral culpability.'" u/ceruleanic vehemently disagreed with them, however, saying that, "You're the one that invented that it was morality tale and a tragedy, and therefore fails as a morality tale and as a tragedy."

Meanwhile, u/rbean44 posits that many of the finale's plot points were telegraphed from the beginning of the season — from Lydia's ricin poisoning via a Stevia packet to Walt unloading the M60 on the Nazis.  "It didn't live up to the high-quality narrative that was so consistent throughout the rest of the series," they said. u/elbruce disagreed with u/rbean44, saying "There's more to story than surprising us" and predicting the show might hold up better when rewatched. u/ethanthefishman agreed, adding, "The ending was predictable, yes. But I think it was better that way." But u/Melomaniacal agreed with u/rbean44, finding Jesse's story arc "weak" and saying, "'Too tidy' is exactly my feelings about the finale."

It goes to show that even the most popular of shows will always have their critics.