"JOHN CENA"

MEMES GALORE

"You're god damn right..."

Hello, internet! Welcome to Film Theory

a daily part of your balanced breakfast!

"Where's breakfast...?"

So go ahead, pour yourself some cereal and double-check your stevia for ricin

'Cause today, we're forever changing the way you look at the final scenes

of one of the greatest television shows of all time

As such consider this your [SPOILER ALERT]

Now breaking bad, is one my favorite television shows

one that truly pushed storytelling on TV

Main character Walter White's transformation

from a Mr.Rogers-esque chemistry teacher

to a meth kingpin of Scarface level proportions

is perhaps the most memorable character arc in television history

and what other televised drama can attest to starting so many memes from;

"I am the one who knocks"

To my personal pick...

"Yeah, science!"

The characters, the acting, the pacing, the artistic camera shots

everything about this show was perfect

Well, except for one thing: The ending.

Admittedly ending such an incredible show was an impossible task

There was no way it could satisfy everyone

I mean, Walter White was a character you either

love to hate, hated to love, love to love, or hated to hate

there was no middle ground with this guy; and after six (or I guess five and a half)

mind-blowing seasons, Breaking Bad ended with what a lot of people thought was a

cop out after getting complete closure apologizing to his wife Skyler

ensuring his children get the remainder of his drug money, killing off the rest of the

bad guys and rescuing his partner Jessie

Walt dies from a combination of a gunshot wound to the abdomen

and his returning cancer

all while surrounded by his beloved meth-making equipment, ensures the problem

a lot of people had with his ending is that Walt gets everything;

He wins!

there is no punishment or atonement for all of the awful things he

does throughout the series and let's be honest he does a lot of awful things

sure you may say, "Oh, he dies!" but he dies on his terms

it's a complete victory for Walter White and that understandably frustrated people

But what if I told you there was more to the story that Walt will face

trial and punishment for his crimes that the ending wasn't as clichéd and

clean-cut as we've all been assuming the last couple years

in short are we really sure that the man known as Heisenberg is dead in that final shot

'cause let me tell you: I've run the numbers, and he's not. I mean yeah,

He does get a gnarly stomach wound; collapses and lies motionless on the floor

for about 20 seconds as we hear some appropriate blue meth inspired a jab

but is that enough for us to hang our theorists' coats up and accept that he's dead?

NOT A CHANCE!

"You're god damn right"

Oh... gets me every time.

ok, so what am I talking about? well, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center

the three most important factors for determining a person's odds

of surviving a gunshot wound are:

1. The location of the injury;

2. The amount of blood lost; and

3. How quickly the victim is transported to a hospital

so let's take them point by point;

but before we dive into the location of the injury,

we first need to discern the nature of the injury itself, and I know what you're thinking:

"It's a bullet in his stomach, right?" well, not exactly.

let's recap the final showdown Walt comes to the neo-nazi compound with an

automated remote-controlled turret built into its trunk

he tackles Jesse to the ground click the button the trunk pops open and a mirage

of bullets killed almost all the neo-nazis inside but we are most

interested in is near the end of the attack when walt gets hit by *SOMETHING*

I mean it's kind of hard to tell honestly all we really do is see him

grunts now we know from the opener of season 5 episode one that won't purchase

an m60 machine gun with 7.62 millimeter NATO rounds pretty heavy-duty machinery

is evidenced by the fact that it blasted through the side of the trunk and the

wall of the neo-nazi rec room like it was nothing but let's look at the set up

here

it's highly unlikely that Walt was actually hit by one of these bullets

1. walt is too low to the ground

Walter's hoopty of death is a fifth-generation cadillac deville which

according to the manufacturer's stands exactly fifty six point seven inches

tall or about 1.4 meters

if we take this photo of Walt standing outside the car and apply some basic

algebra and pixel counting we can conclude

that the trunk is 42.5 inches off the ground or slightly over one meter

the m60 shoot slightly lower than the exact height of the trunk let's just say

it's an even 39 inches about one meter just to be safe

considering that the average width of a human being is about 9.5 inches or 24

centimeters even if Walt and Jesse were planning on top of each other toe to toe

forehead to forehead they would still be far lower than the line of fire

I mean you can even see the difference from the bullet holes in the wall

compared to their relative position on the ground so obviously it's not a

direct bullet hit maybe it's a ricochet seems like a solid possibility except

for one thing

according to my research it seems that higher powered bullets like a 7.62

millimeter nato round 10 not to ricochet the usually either crush into the object

they hit or break apart

ricochets are much more common with low caliber ammunitions such as a 22 or 177 most

likely culprit for injuring Walt then is either shrapnel or a broken piece of a

bullet entering from Walter side

why the side well because throughout the ensuing scenes we get a pretty good

glimpse at the front back wall jacket and there simply aren't any holes to the

right side is the only option

ok so we have a piece of shrapnel entering waltz love handle knowing this

let's look at our medical criteria number one the location of the

we never actually get to see the wound itself only the blood stain on the lower

right side of his shirts which is such a shame because i really love that shirt

on walt ;_; given the radius of the blood-stained we can only make an

educated guess as to where the entrance wound is the biggest risk associated

with a bullet wound to the abdomen is hitting either the lower aorta or some

of the major blood vessels

if such was the case though Walter would have keeled over and bled to death

VERY quickly but that's not what happens Walter walks talks and even

tells Lydia that he murdered her with relative grace for over 10 minutes

now you could potentially right off a lot of Walt's mobility as shocked but

even shock can't keep you alive for 10 minutes if a vital organ has been hit

your body now given the location of blood and waltz shirt it's likely that

the shrapnel got lodged somewhere in his large intestine and believe it or not

this is actually good news

quotes the main concern with gunshot wounds that involve the intestines or

stomach is not bleeding but infections that result from spillage of the

contents of those organs(EW!) and quotes in other words you were dead but it takes

days to die from your womb a study conducted by the medical journal the

annals of surgery looked at victims of gunshot wounds to the abdomen over a

period of five years between 1983

and 1987 the survival rate among victims that had no vital organs

hit was an astounding 88.3 percent that's incredibly high and with medical

technology having only gotten more advanced over the last 30 years Walt

would have a real chance at survival which means we should move on to the

second criteria amount of blood lost now blood loss is likely the factor that

causes wall to collapse onto the ground and stare blankly up at the ceiling

but the big question here is whether he died due to the blood loss or merely

passed out

well let's take a look although we can't realistically measure the amount of

blood that's ripped onto the ground or absorbed onto waltz clothes we can draw

some encouraging conclusions due to the fact that there's no blood on the other

side of his shirts which means the bullet didn't go through him

exit wounds leave a much bigger hole than entrance wounds thereby leading the

victim to bleed to death much faster

in other words this fact buys Walt some valuable time

now one thing that I haven't brought up that I'm sure it's on the tip of all

your theorists tongues is that Walt's lung cancer is back there by making his

body more fragile and perhaps more sensitive to blood loss but get ready to

HAVE YOUR MIND BLOWN

because there's research to suggest the exact opposite that his cancer would

have increased his chances of survival

there's actually a significant amount of research that suggests that people with

pancreatic cancer multiple myeloma and most importantly for our purposes

lung cancer are all more likely to form blood clots

according to dr. Jean Connors at the dana-farber cancer institute for reasons

not quite known the normal human body will keep a balance between Pro clotting

and anti-clotting activity

apparently cancer skews that balance in terms of pro clotting increasing

inflammation and compression of blood vessels creating more coagulation and

actually lessening internal bleeding

long story short there's actually a high probability that Walt's cancer is

limiting the amount of blood he's losing in these crucial minutes so we have not

a full bullet but a smaller piece of shrapnel entering waltz body in an area

with non essential organs walt's slow tour about the compound showing that the

injuries not really that critical in a situation in which blood loss is slowed

the only an entry wound it being in the intestine and Walt having cancer

that brings us to the final criteria of determining the likelihood of survival

speed at which the victim gets medical attention. If walt were alone somewhere

in the New Mexico desert this would be an open and shut case you would have

bled out and died but the final shot shows us a unit of police officers

descending on him almost immediately after he collapses.

Are they DA, Albuquerque PD? If we zoom in on the arm patch the shape and color

definitely indicate that it's Albuquerque PD.

According to code 02 - 11 of the Albuquerque Police Department procedural

orders manual : "department policy is to ensure that medical care is

provided to arrested persons intoxicated persons when such care is needed based

on approved medical and legal procedures" Do not only are the police obligated to

give Walt medical attention but let's not forget that the walter white case is

a national story

they want Walt the sea trial they want Walt to live so that he can confess to

all the unsolved murders he's been involved with it is in their best

interest to keep him alive so that these

cases can be concluded.

Add to that the fact that it's reasonable to assume that there's a

standard-issue trauma kit and at least one of those cop cars and most every

police officer is trained to dress a gunshot wound it's a waltz bleeding

would have been significantly reduced as soon as a minute after he collapsed and

if you're looking at this from a timeline standpoint he literally just

collapsed we even see the police cars rushing past seconds before he falls to

the ground and here's a big piece of evidence for you.

Why are the cops even there ? Who called them ? The pile of dead neo-nazis

certainly didn't, Walt and Jesse didn't do it, the most likely cases that someone

nearby heard the m60 gunshots and called the cops.

What that tells us is that although we have never given a real location for

Jack's neo-nazi de Kamp it means we're close to civilization based on the

length of that last seen it took 10 minutes for the cops to arrive at the

location that also means that there's likely a hospital in that vicinity so

looking at all the pieces of evidence considering the wound didn't hit any

vital organs was a smaller piece of shrapnel didn't leave an exit wound that

clotting was increased due to cancer and that help was on the scene immediately

after

collapse and Walt got medical attention somewhere in the realm of 20 minutes

from the time he was shot there is a high probability that Walt survives this

last scene of Breaking Bad but you don't have to believe me or all the research i

did just trust the creators of the show

if you look really really closely at that final moment you see the officer

reach out and check for Walt's pulse and then the scene cuts out before we get

his reaction.

We don't actually see the results of that test! Think this was a coincidence ?

Heck no! It was a purposely done moved by a creative team who thought through

every last detail of every shot in this show.

What seemed like a clear-cut and kind of clichéd ending is actually open to