Your Guide on How to Feel About the "Breaking Bad" Finale

Image via Complex Original

How you're feeling: Like you've experienced something great. Period.

Fellow team members: Andy Greenwald, Grantland; The Cajun Boy, Warming Glow

What it says about you: You're down to ride. You're also an optimist. Deep down, you've always tried to root for the monstrous Walter White, even as he's destroyed the lives of everyone around him. When Hank died in "Ozymandias," for instance, you weren't grieving the loss of A$AC Schrader or wondering how poor Marie would react—you wanted to give Walt a consoling hug. (He looked so sad!) So, knowing that Walt died on his own terms at the end of "Felina," after having done everything he'd set out to accomplish (i.e., leave Flynn millions of dollars, save Jesse's life one last time, kill the pseudo-Nazis and neurotic Lydia), that makes you happy.

(If you've never watched a single Breaking Bad episode, avoid pretending to have this opinion, lest you want moralists to question your conscience.)

How you're feeling: Like Walt's unfettered genius got to ride into the sunset, dying on his own terms and with a smile on his face in the lab of his beautiful blue—and that feels a little off.

Fellow team members: Alan Sepinwall, Hitfix; Linda Holmes, NPR; Willa Paskin, Slate

What it says about you: You love Breaking Bad, love the ride, but something felt off about the ending. The checklist feeling made you miss the adventure BB so often brought into your life (you also love street luging, right?) And you have misgivings about the implications of letting Walter White play the genius and die like a lonesome cowboy.

(If you're faking having seen BB, this is safest opinion to hold in terms of looking sophisticated at parties. But you'll have to explain yourself.)

How you're feeling: Like it would've been better had the season ended with "Ozymandias," the third-to-last episode.

Fellow team members: Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture; Alyssa Rosenberg, Think Progress; Mo Ryan, The Huffington Post; Willa Paskin, Slate

What it says about you: You're probably a downer at parties, and needed to see Walter White punished. Part of what makes "Ozymandias" so brilliant is how it reveals Heisenberg to be the ugly act of a desperate, selfish man, and then it leaves you with that feeling. If you've been troubled by "bad fans" and had misgivings about how the show instructed us to see Walt, this was the episode for you.

(If you'd like to come off as the contrarian among your friends, fake this opinion.)

How you're feeling: Like what you just saw only makes sense if it happened in Walt's imagination, as he froze to death in a Volvo, somewhere in cold, cold New Hampshire.

Fellow team member: Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker

What it says about you: You'd get along well with the Team "Ozymandias" folks, but you're also on some next-level imaginative tip. Maybe you do a little screenwriting in your free time? Or else you're just a careful TV viewer—who sometimes gets weird off the red wine at parties.

(If you haven't seen the show, you can't fake this one. Sorry. Join another team.)

How you're feeling: So torn up inside—how can anyone be arguing about closure when there's a man trapped in a seedy hotel somewhere, waiting for A$AC Schrader to help him?!

Fellow team member: Huell Babineaux himself, actor Lavell Crawford

What it says about you: You are likely a family member of Lavell Crawford and would follow him anywhere.