Everyone seems to have a prediction on how “Breaking Bad” is going to end. The show has become a phenomenon since last summer (when the first half of season five ended) when DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) needed reading material while sitting on Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) toilet.
The bigger revelation in “Blood Money,” Sunday night’s premiere, was Jesse Pinkman’s (Aaron Paul) suppressed anger and discontent toward Walt when he came over to his apartment, not what Hank found in Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”
As much as we’ve seen Walt change over the course of the series, Jesse has gone through some dramatic changes as well. There are seven more episodes where we could see Jesse metamorphous into something totally unforeseen… Heisenberg, perhaps?
I’ve never made a public prediction before, but “Breaking Bad” is my favorite television show, so here goes: I think Jesse becomes Heisenberg by the final episode. Your probably asking yourself, “How can that be, Walt is Heisenberg?” Well, yes… or maybe not. Heisenberg could be more of a transferable pseudonym than an actual person.
Walt is Heisenberg to everyone that was in attendance at the “thousand gallons of methylamine” meeting in the barren desert at the beginning of “Say My Name,” episode seven of season five. Walt wants everyone to think he’s Heisenberg. He almost seems to relish in it. But Jesse, who Walt said was one of the two greatest meth cooks in America, could easily slip into the role of Heisenberg.
Heisenberg is an open alias for Jesse or Walt, because they’ve worked so close together producing a higher purity of meth; the “Classic Coke” of crystal meth, according to Walt.
In the flash forward at the beginning of “Blood Money,” lots of fans assume the teenagers who turned the White’s pool into a skate park or random vandals spray-painted “Heisenberg” on Walt’s living room wall. I think Heisenberg did it. Jesse, the new Heisenberg, did it to show Walt that he had been there and he’s still on his trail.
On Sunday’s episode, Lydia (Laura Fraser) told Walt that the product was at “68% and falling.” Will the drop in quality force Lydia to seek out Jesse to raise the quality? He’s the only cook in America who can equal Walt’s quality production. Lydia will have to make the business a “viable operation” again.
Jesse’s antipathy toward Walt will push him to take over the operation. It’s not about the money for him. I think Jesse gets the product back up to “99.1% pure” and becomes the boss of his own empire, out of a bitter spitefulness toward Walt. And then, perhaps to avenge Mike Ehrmantraut’s murder, he goes after Walt and his family to fully take the role of Heisenberg.
In the flash forward, I believe Walt has his family in a safe place and he’s finally come back to take care of Jesse/Heisenberg. How will he try to take Jesse out, with the M60 machine gun in his trunk or the ricin?
Sunday’s “Blood Money” scored 5.9 million viewers, according to preliminary Nielsen ratings provided by AMC. And that was just the 9:00 P.M. first run airing. The rating numbers will likely tick up as the September 29 final approaches.
One more prediction: Airing a week after the Primetime Emmys, where Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul and the show could all win big, the final episode of the series will get well over 10 million viewers.
Note: I’ve written pieces for Yahoo! Voices and Yahoo! Sports for over a year.