Breaking Bad may be over — but as fans and critics alike continue to hash out its greater legacy in the TV landscape, YouTube user narvinek has delivered a stunning, Western-inspired tribute to Breaking Bad that serves as a powerful capper to the AMC drama.
The eight-minute tribute spans the full length of the series, highlighting many of Breaking Bad's most memorable moments and demonstrating the impressive synchronicity the show developed over its five seasons. The video is set to Ennio Morricone's "The Ecstasy of Gold," which originally appeared at the climax of Sergio Leone's beloved spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The frantic pace of the first half of the video — which highlights Walt's tentative steps into a life of crime — slows down at the midpoint, after Walt kills Gus Fring and assumes his place as a meth kingpin. "Never give up control. Live life on your own terms. Who's in charge? Me. That's how I live my life," says Walt as the video flashes through the beats of Walt's rise as a criminal (and commensurate decline as a human being).
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After so much epic underpinning, fans might be surprised to see that the video doesn't end with Walt's triumph over the Nazis at the end of the series' final episode, "Felina." Instead, it flashes back to a meeting with Saul Goodman, in which he tells Walt and Jesse a hard truth that might serve as the true epitaph for the series: "You two suck at peddling meth. Period."
