'Breaking Bad' finale

Despite the relentless killing and twists in “Breaking Bad,” no blood is shed in series finale “Felina” until the episode’s final ten minutes. Instead, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) spends the majority of the episode as a ghost traveling from one unsettled matter to another before finally using the M60 machine gun that was teased sixteen episodes ago in “Live Free or Die.”

Credit once again is due to creator Vince Gilligan who doesn’t leave the audience with any unanswered questions. In many ways, “Felina” is a crowd-pleaser and is realistically the closest thing the show could get to a happy ending.

Almost every major protagonist survives. Walt gets his revenge against Uncle Jack’s crew, and Walt Jr. (R.J. Mitte) will seemingly receive the money that Walt destroyed his life to accumulate.

Even fan favorites Badger (Matt L. Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) make a surprise appearance.

However, it’s not the fan service that makes “Felina” an incredible finale. “Felina” works because of how well these characters have been sculpted over the past five seasons under Gilligan.

Nothing in this episode feels cheap or out of character, and by staying true to its characters rather than going for a massive twist, Gilligan cemented the series’ legacy as a character-driven epic.

The cinematography and camera work go out on top as well, with every scene finding a way to wow you with impressive camera movements and flawless framing. As an amateur filmmaker, it’s difficult to not watch the show in awe of its   perfected craft.

No scene in the finale hits harder than the last meeting of Skyler (Anna Gunn) and Walt, in which Walt finally takes responsibility for his actions.

“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was alive.”

Just like that, Walter’s façade of “doing it for the family” is over. As a viewer, it’d been apparent that Walt was acting out of his own pride for seasons now, but to hear him finally come clean to Skyler is a moment so pure that you almost want to forgive Walt of his heinous crimes on the spot.

One character that doesn’t get the apology he deserves, though, is Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). As Walt hands Jesse a gun in the episode’s final scene, he gives Je sse the opportunity to take his life as retribution, but Jesse declines.

As thrilling as it is to see Jesse survive the series (especially since he wasn’t even supposed to make it out of Season 1), it would have been great to hear Walt apologize and recognize Jesse as the son figure that he is to him.

Perhaps their relationship is too damaged at this point, but their slight nods to each other imply some sort of mutual admiration.

Fittingly, Walt’s life ends in a meth lab, the very setting that ruined his life but also cemented the legacy that he literally killed for.

“Breaking Bad” may finally be over, but like Heisenberg’s meth empire, its legacy will live on forever.