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So, here's me thinking (at far too great of a length) about the way each finale seems to solidify the season into one cohesive arc, and trying to think about Walter's arc as a character.
Season One: Meet Heisenberg
The first season was cut short by the strike, so it's a little hard to come up with a full arc for this season. But in general, this is the season where Walt started to realize exactly what he was capable of, and more importantly, exactly how much he was starting to enjoy it. That's not surprising - even early on, we get the sense that Walt is tired of being "kept" by his wife, disrespected by his students, ordered around by everyone - he wants to be his own man, and this area allows him to do that. He comes up with the alter ego Heisenberg in this season, and uses Heisenberg to pull off his ballsier moments, as though he still doesn't quite want to take credit for what he's doing, even if it's something awesome like the "This is not meth" moment. Had the season completed, I think Walt would have turned into Heisenberg completely, becoming a ruthless killer at the top of the meth game by the end of the season. It would have been way too much, way too fast, and I think the strike may have been one of the best things for the show.
Season Two: Actions Have Consequences
Given how much he's enjoying himself by the end of season 1, and with Tuco being removed from the picture so early on, you'd expect season 2 to be about Walt flexing his wings and starting to break bad more and more as it goes. And, to Walt, that's how things should go...but season two is all about the fact that Walt doesn't act in a vacuum, and everything he does has consequences he doesn't foresee. He can't just be kidnapped and disappear - his family freaks and he has to fake a fugue state to get out of it. His brother can't just come and save him; there are some serious PTSD consequences from that. And by the season's end, Walt is responsible for the death of Jane, the mental breakdown of Jesse, the loss of his family, and the airplane disaster that takes so many lives - and he knows all of that. By the end of the season, when that bear slams down into his pool, Walt is forced to confront the fact that his actions cause death, destruction, and negative impacts wherever he goes.
Season Three: Meet the New Boss...
For the first part of season 3, Walt is trying to pull himself out of the game, finding himself unable to live with the consequences - or so he says. He certainly doesn't make many apologies to Skylar when they meet up and he confesses, his speech at the school about the airplane tragedy is a hilarious display of self-justification, and as the money starts to show back up, he certainly doesn't turn it down. And so, without much coaching - which says quite a bit about how guilty Walt did/didn't feel - Walt finds himself embracing his life wholeheartedly again, ignoring the consequences in favor of stroking his own ego and making his life successful again. Even when his actions lead to the crippling/near death of Hank, there's no signs of guilt or stopping - just a nod and a quick apology before moving on as if it never even happened. (That's not entirely true - there are glimpses of Walt's humanity in "Fly" - but they're quickly buried, almost escaping despite themselves in a Shakespearean monologue of sorts. But it's worth noting that that depression occurs when he's at his lowest, feeling governed by Gus and Skylar and feeling as though he's done all this for nothing. I wonder if his guilt isn't at what he's done but rather at how little it's gotten him - not his family, but he himself.) In fact, Walt has it all...except that he's back where he started. He's a kept man, he's not allowed to make his own decisions, his lab is governed by Gus, his partner isn't trusted, and his wife is telling him what to do. And so, Walt does what he does best: he rebels against that, asserting himself in a big way and essentially telling Gus that he's really in charge, not Gus, not Skylar, no one. He runs down the dealers and orders the death of Gale in kind of the ultimate "gently caress you, you're not the boss of me". Heisenberg's back, more or less, and for a moment, it seems that Walt is master of his own destiny, which is what he really wants out of all this - more than the money, more than the prestige, more than anything else, he wants to be his own boss.
Season Four: The Death of Walter White
Here's the thing: Walt gets away with what he gets away with at the end of S3 because Gus didn't take him seriously. Now he does, and Walt's trapped, and in a lot of trouble. I think the line from The Wire is "If you come at the King, you best not miss", and Walt missed. He assumed that Gus would fall in line and recognize his natural superiority, since (obviously, to him), he's smart and essential. Gus thinks none of that, and quickly outplays Walt on every imaginable level. He blocks every assassination and confrontation attempt. He kills a man in front of Walt just to make a point. He starts driving a wedge between Walt and Jesse. He makes sure Walt knows that his time is ticking. And every time Walt tries something else, he fails miserably, getting shot down, getting more and more angry (if there's one thing Walt hates, it's feeling powerless) and isolated. And ultimately, he tries one time too many, and Gus gets pissed, and time is up. And here...well, I want to crib from Sepinwall for a moment:
Alan Sepinwall posted:
"Crawl Space" ends with Walt underground, cackling hysterically, having completely broken from reality after the confluence of bad news he receives. He's framed through the trap door as if he were a dead man in a coffin about to be buried, and you can look at that as the show portraying the death of Walter White and the full-time birth of Heisenberg.
And that, I think, is what season four is all about. If season 1 is about Walt embracing his dark side, season 2 is about the consequences of that choice, and season 3 is about learning to live with those consequences and demanding more and more, then season 4 is about the death of "Walter White" and the full "rebirth" of Heisenberg. I would say it's unlikely you'll see many more soliloquies like those from "Fly" - at this point, Walt has realized that the only way to play this game is to play it in as cold, manipulative, and vicious a fashion as possible, which he does again and again in the finale. He's willing to kill his neighbor to stay safe; he shoots a man with no hesitation; he's willing to blow up a nursing home to kill Gus; and, of course, he's willing to poison a child to get Jesse away from Gus.
And is there any guilt at all?
"I won."
Nope. As he drives out, he even smiles at Gus's car, proud of what he's accomplished. And why not? By the end of Season 4, Walt is on the top of his game. Tuco is gone. The cartel is gone. Gus is gone. He and Jesse are the best meth makers in ABQ, and there's no one to hold them back. His brother assumed that Gus was Heisenberg, and now Gus is dead, meaning that Hank should have nothing else to go on.
I definitely understand why some people are frustrated by the cigarette plot (although I would argue that by boiling the story down to getting the cigarette from Jesse, getting the berries to Brock, and convincing Jesse that Gus did it, that streamlines things a lot), if only for the way that the show seems to have skipped over some steps in the process, but the process isn't the important thing - it's the end effect. S4 is all about taking Walt from the overly cocky man at the beginning of the season to the heartless bastard he is at the end, and it's only by playing against a master opponent - Gus - that he's pushed to that point. I don't think that redeems him, but I would say to those who are defending Walt that I think it's unlikely he would have ever ended up poisoning a child on his own. He ends up there out of desperation, but that still leaves him as a man who would poison a child so that he can stay alive. And that says a lot about Walt, really.