The Point Radio: BREAKING BAD The End According To Walt

The fans and the cast of the critically loved BREAKING BAD have one common question about these last few episodes – where is it all going? We get reactions to that very topic from, Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul and creator Vince Gilligan and you might be surprised at how they feel. Plus we finally get our “New Flash” on ARROW. THE POINT covers it 24/7! Take us ANYWHERE! The Point Radio App is now in the iTunes App store – and it’s FREE! Just search under “pop culture The Point”. The Point Radio  – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or on any other  mobile device with the Tune In Radio app – and follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

The Point Radio It's Mike Raub, welcome to The Point. Everybody's talking about Breaking Bad and we all want to know where it's going. We got the cast together to talk about

not only the destination, but the journey it took to get there. Including actor Bryan Cranston. And meanwhile on Arrow, it looks like we have our flight. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point.

The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio. Five seasons on the air, I'll both load a major buzz. And now Guinness calls it the most watched television show on the planet. That's how it all comes down at the end for Breaking Bad.

Where have these characters that we've known for so many years been for these last few episodes? And how do they get to that end point? I first talked to Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse. He sees that this isn't just about money for Walter White.

There's something else that's driving him through his madness. He gets a little terrified of him at a certain point. For Skylar White, Anna Gunn, her character has almost devolved over the last few weeks. And why is that? That's a good question because it's…

She did last season. There was so much of her as trying to keep control of an uncontrollable situation. Trying to make sense of something that makes absolutely no sense. She just kept trying and trying and trying. And feeling like she had done it at times.

Thought she did the right thing by, okay, I'll take care of the situation with Ted. I'll give him the money and then everything will be okay. And then she comes upon Walt down there laughing maniacally and thinks, oh my god, it's even now we're in a deeper pit than ever before. I think that she now literally is…

There's a feeling of being a hostage and there's a feeling of being trapped against the wall in a corner that is, for her, so horrible because she's always been an active person trying to pragmatically take the next step and do the right thing and do the next thing. And if we do this, will we finally be able to get out?

Will the family finally be okay? And now I think that there's a sense of now that she can't move, those emotional kind of cards that she was always holding very close to her vest because it was her way of keeping herself together, and I think there's no keeping herself together anymore,

and it just starts to sort of split open and crack open. And it's very interesting. And the season ends, plays off a moment that began the season. Actor Brian Cranston explains that. Yeah, I think the interesting component is that this was Walter White's opportunity to get out once and for all.

The lethal threat has been thwarted. It overcame all odds. I think Gus had all the cards. He had henchmen, he had money, he had video cameras. Walt was really the underdog, and he beat him.

And that's where he goes. Instead of opting out, he opts in. Walt says, I'm all in if we're playing poker. And he's like, no time for shrinking violets. His chest is now expanded.

He's a preening peacock, and it's like, let's play. Nobody has a better beat on Walter White or any of the characters than showrunner and creator Vince Gilligan. Walt is a man who has very, I think, grandiose visions for himself and his future. He has been drunk on power, and I think he, I don't think he loves the meth business so much, but I think he loves the feeling of power that it provides him that he has never felt in five decades on the planet.

So I think he's a bit addicted to the process, the world that he's living in. Vince said that one of his biggest jobs has been finding the best directors for these last few episodes. As a showrunner, you want to sometimes oppose him things. You want to hire the best people available, the best people in the world. The Ryan Johnsons, the David Slades, all the great directors that we work with.

And you will notice that we work with a pretty consistent and small, stable of directors that we fine tune over the seasons. The folks who really, and we've worked with a lot of wonderful directors who've only done a show once or twice, wonderful directors. But the folks who seem to get the show the most clearly are the folks we have back time and time again. It does not mean that they are better directors. It just means that they are perhaps a better fit for our particular show.

But yes, it is a tricky thing. You want the best folks you can find. You want the most creative, the most interesting in their shock composition, the most fresh and original people. And yet you want them to abide by certain basic, you know, I don't want to say rules. We try not to have rules in the show, but there are certain consistencies that you want a new director to abide by.

You want the show to look at least more or less like in a typical episode of Breaking Bad. There's a certain continuity of imagery of the ultimate you want to maintain. So it does get tricky at times. So outside the show, what's next? I asked Brian. The only thing that actors ever really hope to have in a career is opportunity.

We will audition. That's what we do. We will work on those things and we don't expect to have anything handed to us. But if we can't get in the door, we're screwed. So what's happened by virtue of this unbelievable show, the storytelling that Vince Gilligan was able to do, is that it's opened up a world of opportunities.

So now it's up to me to pick and choose the characters that I feel I can do well or scare me, risk taking, and a variety of… And then I'll do independent films. I'll do something and theatre. The chance to be able to relax and just focus on something and do theatre. It's a different way to approach it. In television, you have to have a good idea of how you want to play a scene when you walk in that stage.

Or you're really in trouble. Because we don't have the time. In stage, what's so wonderful about it is you don't have to know. In fact, the more blank you are, sometimes the better, I think, where you go, it's a world of possibilities. I'm going to take my time and try this avenue. And so it's a luxury. And of course, the big question, where does it all end? Aaron Paul said he has no expectations.

I just sit back and enjoy what they give me to play with. I 100% trust in them. I might have my own ideas and I'll drop a little hints. But no, I just enjoy good what they give us. And as far as Bryan Cranston's concerned… For me, I wanted to see it end exactly how Vince Gilligan wants to see it end.

I mean that. It's been this kind of thing. We don't ask him what's going on in the scripts. I read it probably five, six days before we start shooting an episode. I read the episode. Not before. But also, it's like this is a journey. This is a twist and turn kind of story. And I really don't have any designs or any thoughts on the outcome. I mean, I have some projections and ideas of what would be interesting.

That would be interesting in this over this. But I don't have any desire to have any kind of… I hope it's this or I want it to be that. Breaking Bad heads toward the end with the final episode on AMC on September 29. Now, Ben is the latest in pop culture. There's two more bits of news about the Superman Batman movie.

Oh, at least one bit of news and one sad little rumor. And neither one are making fans happy. According to the Warner Brothers CEO, Ben Affleck's portrayal of Batman will be as a tired and weary Bruce Wayne and Dark Knight. You can take that for what it's worth. And then, of course, there's that Justin Bieber tweet. The one with kind of made some people fall into the trap thinking that he might be Robin in the new film. Hey, you got to give credit to whoever thought that up.

And we're pretty sure it wasn't Justin. At least they know how to keep the pot stirred on this controversy and to keep the headlines. Coming effective this week. Carson Daly staying up a little later or getting up a little earlier, depending on how you look at it. He joins the NBC Today staff in something called the Orange Room, which will be a new digital social media hub to facilitate a more direct connection to the audience. At least that's the hopes of NBC.

The sci fi network, six annual 31 days of Halloween will now have six hundred hours of programming themed toward that holiday all through the month of October. They'll be Halloween themed episodes of Ghost Hunters, their Naked Vegas series. There'll be a scare tactics marathon and three original movies as well, including one called Zombie Night that rolls at the end of the month. That one has Daryl Hannah, Anthony Michael Hall and Shirley Jones in it as well. It all begins on the 1st of October and you can see more for the complete schedule at sci fi dot com.

Marvel's Origin 2 is now set for release in December. It was originally scheduled for November to be in comic stores. But more interesting than that will be the special acetate cover done by Adam Kubert. It's pretty cool with a base layer that shows the claws in, well, great detail. And Marvel also took a little shot at D.C. when they announced it, saying that they would have plenty of copies of this for retailers.

All that in light of the problems that D.C. had with their special 3D motion covers that were part of Forever Evil in September. Remember the cool Star Trek training cards from the mid 70s, the first ones that ever came out based on the series? Well, you can relive them all with a beautiful new book planned by Abrams called Star Trek, the original tops trading card series is 216 pages with all the cards and all the stickers reproduced in full color. Of course, could be a cool gift and retails for about 1995 and should be in stores in the next few weeks. Over the past few years, the Baltimore Comic Con has got nothing but accolades from both fans and professionals alike.

Now it looks like this year is no exception and there's talk that it might be going to a third day for the show in 2014. Meanwhile, we got a special taste of this year's convention for you. It is the Marvel Comics panel hosted by ComicMix's own Bob Greenberger, by the way. And it's posted for you right now in its entirety at GetThePointRadio.com. Here's a little more vet-athlet news that doesn't involve Batman. He's coming to television in a fashion.

The two-time Oscar winner is set to direct a pilot for the Fox series called The Middleman, which is also being created by Glenn Gordon-Kerrin. Do you remember from a number of things, including moonlighting? The Middleman is set in 1960s Boston and it centers on Rudy McKeeter, who's an FBI agent involved in taking down the Italian mafia. Production on the pilot is set to begin early in 2014. He's going from being a bad guy on Glee to being The Flash.

Grant Gustin has got the role in Arrow, the one that will hopefully spin off into a Flash television series. He'll appear first in episodes 8 and 9 of the second season of Arrow and then episode 20 will be the one where he returns. And that should be the one that propels him into what hopefully will be at least a pilot for The Flash. David Nutter, by the way, who directed the pilots for Arrow and Smallville will be back to direct that episode for Arrow. The Point Radio is what's cool.

Alright, when you hit the comic stores this week, amongst everything else, there are two new titles you need to check for. And the first of which is Buzzkill. It comes from Dark Horse and basically it's about a superhero who gets that way from continuously drinking. The concept alone deserves a look through and like we said, the first issue is out this week. Over at DC, Forever Evil continues with more tie-ins.

There are new editions of action comics, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman and the Dark Knight, Detective Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League, Justice League Dark, Justice League America, Superman, Teen Titans and Wonder Woman, all with tie-ins to Forever Evil. And if you crave more bad guys, there's a vintage collection of the secret society of super villains. That's it with that great 70s stuff and pretty much all in there, all the stories and all the issues,

all contained in one trade paperback for just under 20 bucks from DC. Finally, there are second printings in some of the Trinity Wars stuff, Justice League Dark, number 22 gets a second printing and also Justice League of America number 6. There's the new issue of Thunder Agents, second issue of that in case you haven't checked it out yet from IDW and another title that deserves a look that is Half-Fast Danger, five issues out, the newest one this week,

but they're not that hard to find and again it's worth a look. From Image, Cyberforce comes back with number 6 and three different covers by the way to this one, including one by Mark Silvestri, there's a second printing to Ghosted at number 2 and here's that other title you need to look for, it's called Zero, it comes with three covers as well for this first issue from Image and it involves spies, hitman, lots of executions and some action too.

Again, it's called Zero, first issue this week from Image. Over to Marvel for Infinity tie-ins, there's one in Captain Marvel 16, New Avengers number 10 and Thunderbolts number 15. You get the third issue of Infinity this week and a second printing of Infinity number 1 just in case you were late bloomer there. All this and more in comic stores near you, check them out with the Comic Book Locator Service online or at 1-888-COMIC-BOOK or you can also go to a site to find a comic store near you, it's called BuyMyComicShop.com

That's a wrap for right now but again we're back in a few days and on the way we'll be talking to Sean Hayes who had a pretty good summer with Hollywood Game Night and now has a brand new series where he saves the world for NBC. In the meantime, keep up on Pop Culture 24-7 and get to pointradio.com. Catch folks like Jimmy Palmagliati, Mike Gold and shows like Comic Geek Speak and Geek World 2. And you can listen on your desktop and your laptop at GIVEThePointRadio.com

or go anywhere with your iPhone or your iPad with a free app in the iTunes App Store under Pop Culture at The Point or on your Android or Blackberry with an app called Tune In Radio. Follow us on social media too, we're under The Point Radio. And the podcast turns up on websites like ComicMix.com, MichaelDavisWorld.com and in the iTunes Podcast Director. We'll see you back here in just a few days.