One of the — if not the — central points of Breaking Bad is the short life left for main character Walter White. If it wasn’t for his terminal cancer, he wouldn’t have tread into the criminal world he’s now very much a part of. Between Walter’s short life and the DEA quickly closing in on his operation, I started wondering what could possibly be the next big move for the show. Here are a few of those thoughts….
Walter White gets caught — If Walter were to get implicated as the ringleader behind the blue meth, his life would be over. Even lawyer Saul won’t be able to get Walter off, with our without bribe money flying around. Let’s go a step further and say Walter does get off on drug charges — there’s no way he could possibly continue without eyes on him at every moment.
Walter White dies — This seems to be the inevitable conclusion to the show, as I can’t imagine the series would be able to continue without him. Even the title is all about Walter White. Then again, it is possible to transfer the term “breaking bad” to someone else on the show, someone who is just as new to being a bad guy as Walter was.
Hank joins in — Ever since the turtle bomb incident, Hank’s been on edge. His beer blows up in the garage and his wife is a kleptomaniac. His brain train is coming close to snapsville. What happens if he catches Walter? Would he let him go about his business, knowing Walter has little time to live, or would he take him in and close the book on him? Should Hank help Walter evade the DEA, we could stretch another couple of seasons out of the show. As I said in the previous item, Hank could possibly take over the operation after Walter dies for all we know — his current state of mind is unpredictable.
Walter moves on to something else — The drug trade is as new to Walter as any other illegal activity, so what if he reinvests his already-earned income to drop the drug trade altogether for something worth a lot more money. An area that will come to him with fewer (or no) “employees” to deal with and with a much faster return. Perhaps he uses his elite chemistry skills to build chemical weapons for terrorists, for example. Seems a stretch, I know, but he already doesn’t seem to care about what his product does in harming people, though I understand this is a lot different. With little time left to live, maybe Walter just doesn’t care at all.
Jesse takes over — Jesse’s bound to learn the tricks behind the blue meth soon enough, and shortly afterwards he’ll have a little devil in his ear (most likely his new neighbor/girlfriend) reminding him how he doesn’t need Walter anymore. This is where things could get really interesting — there are so many possibilities of where that could lead.
Got any thoughts on where you could see the show going?
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Apr 27, 2009 @ 17:00 EST5EDT
This show is really hitting it’s stride – I love it more after every episode.
I think the whole operation is going to get bigger and bigger, until it’s completely out of Walter’s control. That could take a couple seasons though…
What season is this show on? i hear all these great things about cable shows, but I never get into them, this is one I think I can get into.
This is the 2nd season. The 1st season was a short one last year due to the writers strike.
I loved Saul and the Godfather references. I was wondering if they would ever get to money laundering. I think Saul will be helping Walt with that. Maybe Saul will wind up ripping them off and skipping town if they ever get their shit together and make a bunch of money. As far as Walts cancer, I think he’ll keep getting treatment and get better for a while then get worse for a while and they’ll just keep doing that back and forth until he finally either dies or is cured at the end of the series. Maybe one day Walt will catch Walt Jr with some blue meth and it will really make him think about what he’s doing.