The A.V. Club
It does make sense, if you can overcome your…

I agree with you that this was still ultimately about his family.  In the end, getting his family the money while giving the Schwartzes another moral "win" was more important than one-upping them.

Wikipedia says that ricin, if ingested orally, can be survivable.  That's why Walt's victory lap was a little annoying for me.  He gave her a chance to survive.

The more I think about it, the more it seems Walt Jr. really gets the biggest kick in the balls here.  He gets absolutely no happiness.  If there's one thing I felt this episode needed, it was for the truth - pure and unfiltered, ugliness and all - to get to Walt's son.

Had Jesse not been there, he would have had no reason to hit the ground and duck the bullets.

You're crazy.  And not the first person to the idea.

As others have said, Walt only attains a measure of "triumph" (it you want to call his ending anything near success or fulfillment) after completely humbling himself and tearing down all his mythology.

But can you rig it up to auto-fire on a garage door opener?

So, how long before we get a Mythbusters episode featuring an M60 in the trunk of a Volvo?

Whoa, that would be a pretty major development.

I like to imagine a scene between Jesse and Walt Jr where he reveasls the whole, unfiltered truth - all the evil, but the good as well.

I was thinking he was going to die.

I didn't like that he gloated about the ricin, only because if ricin is ingested, it is possible to make a recovery. She could have sought medical attention.

@avclub-f16faf5d680d7b88e2e157c1c137c497:disqus I loved that they only gave Walt some redemption after making him own up to his true self.

"Crawl Space" was the moment I realized I was watching one of the greatest shows of all time.

Remember the story about the kid with cancer who died not wanting to know how the story ends?  He recommended a change to Gilligan about something in season 5B and Gilligan agreed that it should be changed.

And, to bring this thing full circle, Walt literally takes a bullet for Jesse.

This isn't intended to spark a big, stupid pro-Skyler/anti-Skyler debate, but I can't help notice the connection between her smoking and Walt's lung cancer.

Nobody was even slightly surprised by Walt's intentions with Eliot and Gretchen?  Really?

I did love when his character seemed to realize how badly he's bombing and had a bit of an existential crisis for a brief moment.