AMC announced yesterday that the second half of the fifth and final season of Breaking Bad will premiere Sunday, August 11. But with a year-long gap between the season’s first eight episodes and the final eight, it’s easy to lose your place. With that in mind, we’ve scoured the Internet to collate everything we know so far about what we can expect this summer. Refresh your memory, read through some mild spoilers, and make your predictions below.
Bryan Cranston’s shooting script was stolen
…but no spoilers have surfaced yet. We assume that means it’s so good — and so shocking — that even the thief couldn’t bear to ruin its surprises.
There’ll be lots of twists, turns, and cliffhangers
Well, duh. But this behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the final episodes shows Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and Bob Odenkirk emphasizing all the surprises in store, including a “really wild” Jesse/Saul scene and “a rollercoaster ride to hell.”
Walt Jr. will experience many changes, including adulthood
R.J. Mitt has said that his character “really is going to change and realize he can finally be an adult. He is really put in an interesting position this year.” (Mitte goes on to say that “when the first episode releases people are just going to be flipping out of their minds.” Sounds about right.) Will Walt Jr. learn the truth about his father and have to find a way to cope? Will the family have to live in exile in order to be safe, causing Walt Jr. to mature far faster than planned? Or is Mitte simply referring to the more normal changes of graduating high school and going off to college?
Walt may use that “disappearing” service after all
A few season back, when Gus was the biggest threat he faced, Walt got the info on a guy Saul knows who can create new identities for people and relocate them seamlessly. Because Skyler used the money Walt had saved for the service to get Ted out of her hair, he never used it, but now that he’s neck-deep in cash again, who’s to say he won’t reconsider? After all, the Season 5 premiere did provide a quick glimpse of Walt a year later, holding a fake ID and spelling out his age in bacon sans his family.
Jesse may want out, but he is definitely not out
Jesse, after yet again witnessing the murder of an innocent child, recognized the fragility of his mental state and decided to get out for good, fighting Walt for his share of the money. And while Walt eventually caved in and decided to quit himself, Hank’s bathroom revelation suggests the team might need to reassemble yet again and cover their tracks. Concerning Jesse, Vince Gilligan said that “he’s going to have plenty to do… it would not be the same show without Jesse Pinkman on it and Aaron’s wonderful contributions… he’s still got a lot of stuff to do yet.”
All loose ends will be tied up — including Walt’s cancer
In a Rolling Stone interview, Vince Gilligan tries his best to sidestep any spoilers, but he does manage to say that the cancer (which we see Walt getting tested for in the last episode) may very well come back, that the team will do their “best to address everything there is left to address in the final eight episodes, and the cancer is probably chief amongst those items on the list, because it is the plot device that got the show going in the first place.” He also hints that Todd, and his relations to neo-Nazi gangs, will mean big trouble and that the ending scene of the last episode is the “single biggest, most horrible revelation that this man in his 47 years on this planet has ever had, and all that goes with that is in play and can be expected, in some form or another, to drive the narrative going forward into the final eight episodes”. BOOM.