"Breaking Bad" has always been an intense show, but as the series winds down, what little humor there used to be is long gone. The last few episodes have left viewers breathless — and in some cases, as grief stricken as the characters themselves.
Call it anguish fatigue — especially after Jesse's heartbreak at watching the murder of Andrea — but we need something to lighten the mood as this year's Emmy winner for best drama signs off for good Sunday. There's no doubt the series finale will amaze based on the current trajectory, but how about if we injected a little fun into it?
Here are some twists on classic finales that we'd like to see parodied for "Breaking Bad":
Breaking 'Buffy': So long, Albuquerque!
Being the chosen meth man in the biz is stressful stuff — there's the deterioration of one's moral code, there's the ever-climbing body count and, of course, there's the need to keep up the perfect true-blue product. Whew!
What's an emotionally isolated kingpin to do?
Worry no more. That's because all of the other potential kingpins — the chemistry teachers still struggling to get by week-to-week, the ones who've never even thought about bartering their morals for dirty drug money — they've suddenly realized their full potential (and how to make meth).
Now there's an army of Heisenbergs, and Walter… well, he's nothing special anymore.
"What are we gonna do now?" Jesse asks as Albequerque gets swallowed by a massive, nonsensical, metaphor-packed hellmouth behind them.
Walt just looks to the horizon and smiles.
Breaking 'Roseanne': Sorry, I made it all up!
Walt walks out of Denny's on his 52nd birthday and back to his car — just as he did in the season five premiere — and drives back to the lavish mansion he calls home. As he heads inside, he adds a new never-to-be-used Boberg Arms 9mm Luger to his collection and sits down at a giant, mahogany desk.
Running one hand over his too-long hair, he stares down at a leather-bound manuscript before finally opening it, and that's when his voice over begins.
"I never married Skyler," he informs the audience. "Hey, why would I? Right?"
He also never became a high-school chemistry teacher, never had lung cancer and never ever met anyone as horrible or wonderful as Jesse Pinkman. Everything you've seen the last five years? It was all a work of fiction from a man who gave himself a far darker tale than the one he lived.
Turns out the real Walter White never broke up with Gretchen. He stayed on board at Gray Matter Technologies and together, they became carefree millionaires many times over.
Breaking 'Under': Everyone's dead
Based on the penultimate episode, it's clear Walt's out for revenge after Uncle Jack popped a cap in Hank. (RIP!) But hey, this is Heisenberg those Nazi dudes are messing with. Homey don't play dat! Cue an "Expendables"-style shootout minus the muscles and bulging veins. But sadly, Heisenberg gets taken out by one of Todd's bullets before the kid bites it himself.
As Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" starts playing, the camera pans to Jesse lying face down in a pool of blood in his underground cell. A flash-forward scene then begins with Marie in a nursing home stealthily steals her fellow residents' little purple trinkets before snuggling up in her lavender throw and falling asleep, never to wake again.
"Have an A-1 D-- ...," a 55-year-old Skyler manages to tell a customer before keeling over at the cash register.
"*slurp* ... *slurp* ... *munch munch* ..." Walt Jr. — excuse us — Flynn is eating his 23,725th bowl of cereal on his 83rd birthday when he pauses, collapses and winds up face-first in his Lucky Charms.
Breaking 'Newhart': You won't believe the dream I just had!
Todd? Dead. Lydia? Dead. Jesse? Dead. (Ouch!) Skyler? So Dead. Marie? Holding a gun aimed at Walt (Sr., of course). Just before she hits the road with her nephew and young niece in tow, she pulls the trigger.
Fade to black — until a lamp clicks on.
Exhausted from a fitful night's sleep, Hal calls across the bed to his wife.
"Lois, you won't believe the dream I just had," he says, suddenly wide-eyed and amazed. "I was meth dealer, a criminal mastermind! Can you imagine that?"
"Good back to sleep, Hal!"
"It didn't make any sense," he adds. "I was teacher too, and I teamed up with one of my students."
"That's nice dear," Lois utters mid-snore.
"And I was married to this beautiful blonde," he raves. "At least I think she was. It all got a little fuzzy after her sister shot me in the head."
"Beautiful blonde?!" she asks. "Hal, go back to sleep before I shoot you in the head!"
Breaking 'Elsewhere': What's he thinking about?
One last flashback sees Walter White back where it all began, standing in the desert by the Krystal Ship — in his tighty whities.
The scene holds Skinny Pete's attention, as it always does. His ever-present caregiver simply shakes his head.
"Staring at that toy ... what's he thinking about?" Badger wonders, as he takes the odd glass orb away from his charge.
Badger sits it on a shelf, causing the icy blue flakes to float all around the Fleetwood Bounder, all the while thinking to himself, "Why would you put an RV in a snow globe? Seriously."
Breaking 'Sopranos': The end
"I'm gonna trick my pad out with some rockin' Confederate flags bedazzled with rubies and sapphires!" Jack declares as he pounds back some Jagermeister and slaps another $100 bill on the bar. "Bartender! Another round for my boys, and play 'Highway to Hell' on the jukebox, man!"
"Uncle Jack, maybe you should slow down there," Todd advises. "Uncle Jack?"
The old man is suddenly quiet, staring at the doorway.
Heisenberg is standing at the entrance with his M60.
The screen goes black.