With Sunday’s series finale, the acclaimed AMC crime drama “Breaking Bad” wraps up a modern-day Greek tragedy. Over five seasons, this Primetime Emmy winner for Outstanding Drama Series has watched Walter White (Bryan Cranston) evolve from an Albuquerque chemistry teacher dying of lung cancer to a methamphetamine kingpin. Walt claimed he entered the drug trade to provide rapid financial stability for his wife and two children, but his choices show he’s guided less by his heart than by pride.
Pride goes before a fall, the Bible says — and writers love it as a flaw. Walt’s pride borders on hubris, that extreme ambition and arrogance that the ancient Greeks feared drew divine retribution. Poseidon kept Odysseus away from home for ten years because of it. Victor Frankenstein thought himself a god and created a monster. Lucifer, in Milton’s Paradise Lost, rebelled against God in a bid for Heaven and wound up exiled to Hell.
Here, I highlight Walt’s poor choices, along with films where a character’s pride led to a downfall, such as “Citizen Kane,” “Rope” and “The Hustler.”
One more note about the title of this post: The final episode is entitled “Felina,” which is an anagram for finale. But at least one online commenter on Entertainment Weekly saw abbreviations from the periodic table in there, along with a message: “Felina = FeLiNa, iron-lithium-sodium. Some people think that means blood-meth-tears.”