@avclub-98ee3569ee1cc83f32587edbfb0b857a:disqus Being as how the deus ex machina device dates to the 1st century BC, I don't think a transporter device is necessary. A stolen car will do. Moreover, to your point that he drove to New Mexico: How do you know that? He was in NH, he made a call from somewhere, then he was…

Apples and oranges. Sure, a lot of fugitives stay gone. If Walt had stayed in his cabin, he may never have been caught. But Walt was in hot flight, wanted for questioning in the murder of two federal agents, just a few steps ahead of the cops in stolen car in land he didn't know. Without making a bunch of assumptions,…

@JudgeReinhold, As soon as the cop showed a photo to the bartender and ran the fingerprints off the glass, the money, the phone and the bar — which takes about 10 seconds — Walt was in hot flight.

Occam's razor holds that the answer requiring the fewest assumptions is usually the right answer. As any answer other than deus ex machina requires a dozen assumptions, it's pretty clear Gilligan just punted the NH to NM transition, which I think is an unfortunate way to end a superb series.

i'm not sure how much dough was in the trunk, but there was an M-60 w/ a pant load of ammunition. am i really supposed to believe that a guy in hot flight from a federal manhunt can connect with an illegal arms dealer to buy a machine gun? 
I'm as willing as the next guy to suspend disbelief — I'll give them a pass on…

Maybe, but there is an important distinction: Bulger wasn't running hot off the murder of two federal agents.

Of course, and just as sure, the cops set up a perimeter to contain the most wanted man in America but the car, like Jack Bauer's Magic Hoody, had the power of invisibility, which is an even weaker deus ex machina.

It is deus ex machina, I suppose, that the most wanted man in America can get from New Hampshire to New Mexico in a stolen car after beating it out of the bar just minutes ahead of the police. Weak cheese for a superb series that was executed with chemical precision from beginning to penultimate episode.