The only question that needed answered was whether he would turn out to be Saul or Jimmy in the end. To an extent, Chuck was right-he'll always be Slippin' Jimmy. Walt echoes that sentiment with a gut-punch line in his beautifully acted flashback. And the finale agrees with them, but like everything in this show, it's not that simple.
Jimmy knows he'll never be the straight-edged man his loved ones wanted him to be; he never wanted to be that himself. Jimmy wanted to be on top, wanted to be admired, wanted to win. When he was caught and was forced to make a decision about who he would be, he realized that the only person left who loved him would disown him if he committed to Saul. What would life after prison be without Kim? Petty crime? Back to jail? He experienced mundanity at Cinnabon, at Davis and Main-and he hated it. He escaped it by causing chaos. And the chaos has caught up to him.
So he chose to follow Kim's path of punishment, and he found that in some twisted way, he would still be on top. Even behind bars.
The finale redeemed him while staying true to his character. It gave him a semblance of a happy ending while maintaining Breaking Brad's karmic universe. Jimmy chose McGill over Goodman, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world will. But that's okay, because this show was always one thing first and foremost: a character study. Jimmy's character arc was never over until he finally made that one right decision he outran until this point, from stealing from his parents' cash drawer to building a meth empire: admitting he was wrong and accepting the consequences.
Slippin' Jimmy would never come to this conclusion on his own. His confession in court was not to do the right thing, to bring a criminal to justice. It was to redeem himself to Kim and to come to terms with the guilt he felt over Chuck's death. His biggest regrets, the ones he'd fix with a time machine, were not becoming Slippin' Jimmy or descending into Saul. It was dismissing his brother's olive branch and letting Kim roll around in the muck with him.
This ending gave him his time machine in the most nuanced, karmic, heartbreaking way possible.
Jimmy knows he'll never be the straight-edged man his loved ones wanted him to be; he never wanted to be that himself. Jimmy wanted to be on top, wanted to be admired, wanted to win. When he was caught and was forced to make a decision about who he would be, he realized that the only person left who loved him would disown him if he committed to Saul. What would life after prison be without Kim? Petty crime? Back to jail? He experienced mundanity at Cinnabon, at Davis and Main-and he hated it. He escaped it by causing chaos. And the chaos has caught up to him.
So he chose to follow Kim's path of punishment, and he found that in some twisted way, he would still be on top. Even behind bars.
The finale redeemed him while staying true to his character. It gave him a semblance of a happy ending while maintaining Breaking Brad's karmic universe. Jimmy chose McGill over Goodman, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world will. But that's okay, because this show was always one thing first and foremost: a character study. Jimmy's character arc was never over until he finally made that one right decision he outran until this point, from stealing from his parents' cash drawer to building a meth empire: admitting he was wrong and accepting the consequences.
Slippin' Jimmy would never come to this conclusion on his own. His confession in court was not to do the right thing, to bring a criminal to justice. It was to redeem himself to Kim and to come to terms with the guilt he felt over Chuck's death. His biggest regrets, the ones he'd fix with a time machine, were not becoming Slippin' Jimmy or descending into Saul. It was dismissing his brother's olive branch and letting Kim roll around in the muck with him.
This ending gave him his time machine in the most nuanced, karmic, heartbreaking way possible.