BREAKING

I did not watch the acclaimed show Breaking Bad. I know of its premise and general plot line: an R&D chemist does breakthrough research, but gets let go. He winds up as a high school chemistry teacher until he is diagnosed with cancer. Fearing that he needs to provide for his family, he takes a local drop out under his wings and starts home brewing meth.

Walt, the main character, is a typical American anti-hero protagonist. When this series was concluding this season, fans knew that there were probably one or two standard endings for the show. And from the reaction in the media, Walt had his own indulgent swan song: he had a good bye moment with his family;  he went out and attacked his enemies in a dark redemptive message to himself that he needed to correct his bearings because he was going to die.

Being bad was the means for the main character to feel alive. He lived a lie but in the end  tells the truth. "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really... I was alive," he says.

Being Alive was a theme in LOST.   Walt's terminal cancer diagnosis wasn't so much a death sentence as it was a reminder to live. It just turns out that Walter including a dark footprint of  murders,  poisonings and criminal drug dealing. But Walt, like John Locke, wanted to be respected, and to have a  significant position that other people would admire in him.

This series wound up the way most of the show's fans thought it would - - - which means the show runners kept the fans along for the journey to a logical conclusion that everyone could clearly understand.