It might feel as though a lot of people have finally gotten over the final days of Breaking Bad and have let Walter and Jesse and everyone else go, but talks concerning the series still continue as people continue to make their way back to the show to this day. It’s almost as though people have an itch that needs to be scratched and keep missing the spot, or find that more phantom itches continue to spring up after they’ve figured out how to seek relief. There have been so many theories and deductions made based around this show that trying to think of all of them is simply too much for one article or even a novella to be honest, since everyone with an idea in their head has been chiming in for a while now and has just HAD to have their say in one way or another on this or that chat forum. It’s all good really, people voicing their opinions are how discussions happen and revelations are made at times. It’s very likely that shows such as Breaking Bad will continue to be discussed for as long as people remember them, especially since it would appear that someone manages to find something worthwhile to talk about every so often.
This time around the theory that’s being brought into focus is the moment that Walt left the watch that Jesse gave to him behind before finally heading off to what would be his last hurrah. Many people have come to roughly the same conclusion, and while Vince Gilligan, the creator of the show, and Bryan Cranston, aka Walter White, have both chimed in on the matter, the fact is that their explanations are more or less the same, but with different perspectives that people might take as a difference of opinion. But the ultimate meaning of Walt leaving the watch behind is that he was transitioning, that he was allowing everything that had kept him grounded to his old life fall away, and the watch was one of the last pieces of the old life he’d been sloughing off, the last vestige of who he’d been at one point in time. When looking at how Walt’s life had changed throughout the show it’s very easy to see that loss became a part of his life early on, as he’d been dealing with the idea that he might not be around much longer anyway. But finding a way to ensure that his family would be secure upon his passing created something he didn’t anticipate, a situation in which he would become both a burden and a threat to the family that he sought to protect. The knowledge that he had a death sentence was inescapable, but instead of accepting this as many have done throughout history, Walt found a way to deny the inevitable and discovered a way to protect his family from the financial ravages that his condition would cause. The unfortunate side effect is that he became the cancer, meaning he ended up destroying everything he touched.
At some point, Walt did realize this, but at that same point he was too far gone and knew there was no coming back. Shedding who he was, who he’d been, was the only way forward, and as much as people might want to debate about the idea that the watch was important or not, the fact is that it was one more piece of himself that he had to leave behind in order to make that transition. There’s a great deal of simplicity in that single act, but it also helped to seal the deal when it came to Walt widening the distance from the person he’d been to the person he’d become. By finally shedding everything that had been a part of that old life he was able to move forward. People are bound to debate this in a number of different ways since it’s all a matter of perspective and what it means to each individual person, but the truth of it is that Walt fought against what he was becoming for a while even as he sank deeper and deeper into the muck of the situation that he’d created. The abandonment of the watch was one of the final actions that he needed to accomplish in order to finally distance himself enough to move on. It’s fair to say that there are people out there that might not fully grasp the meaning of this, that might actually think it was just an artsy way to finalize things, but the truth is that as we move on in life we tend to leave things behind, sometimes without even thinking about it. Those things we leave behind are a part of who we used to be, and are transitions that we might not even realize are being made until it’s too late to look back. As meticulous as he was, Walt knew what he was leaving behind, and he did it willingly.
Follow Us
