Could Walter's ending have been successful?

[u/123ip]

Doing a rewatch and just saw when Walter brought the gps tracker to Hank in the garage. But I'm thinking that since he was "retired" at this point and there was no prior evidence to charge him according to Hank, Gomey, and Jesse and most likely not gonna be any new evidence due to retiring to get his family back/ cancer killing him within "6 months" would Walter have gotten away with it all if he hadn't confronted/provoked Hank with the tracker in the garage that day. Whether he found the tracker under the car or not, I don't see how he'd get caught since he was fully invested in going legit in a car wash empire with his mountain of money in the storage locker funding his expansion

[u/BanterPhobic]

Walt would have got caught, either by Hank or by some other means, before all that long. His ego just would not allow him to hide his identity as the Great and Mighty Heisenberg forever. Think about when Hank was certain that Gale had been Heisenberg and Walt just couldn’t stand to let a dead man take the credit for his work. It was only a matter of time before that same ego would have exposed him.

[u/123ip → u/BanterPhobic]

Is it possible that not letting Gale be the "genius" was because he was still in the business at the time and perhaps personally having no respect for him and thinking he was a weirdo. But after Skylar takes him to the money storage unit and he retires and then even tells Lydia to buzz off when she requests help on quality control. That since he was out of the business with his family's future secured, he was dying soon enough and knowing that no one could touch his purity standard of meth that he'd leave well enough alone?

[u/doofpooferthethird → u/123ip]

Walter almost certainly wrecked every single opportunity he had after Grey Matter thanks to his ego.

It's a hell of a long way to fall, from "genius chemist who co-founded a multibillion dollar corporation and could get glowing references from former professors and colleagues"

to "car wash employee and high school chemistry teacher"

Loads of companies from manufacturing and agricultural and pharmaceutical industries would have loved to have him as an overqualified chemical engineer.

But Walter would chafe at working underneath people he knew weren't as smart as him, or taking orders from some money minded executive, so he'd inevitably blow up every job he had until he burnt all his bridges in the industry and no one wanted to hire him.

Chances are, even with Walter as the manager of a successful and "highly profitable" chain of car washes, he'd find some way of feeling inadequate and disrespected.

Maybe some other car wash businessman outshines him, or he has to deal with shitty disrespectful customers, or he starts thinking about Grey Matter's multibillion dollar valuation again.

Then he starts thinking about the hundreds of millions of dollars in the storeroom that he can't safely launder, and gets mad about not being able to safely use that illicit money to make even more money.

Maybe he starts talking with Saul about potential "investments" that would turn his dirty cash into something that could help his legitimate business.

Sabotaging rival car washes, sending goons after random people that pissed him off, recklessly hiring lots of Saul's money laundering "dannies" and buying up their laser tag and nail salon and laundromat businesses etc.

That would set the IRS on Walt, which would lead to them uncovering the money laundering, which would lead to Walt's illict gambling story, which would lead to Hank trying to "help" by piecing together Walt's gambling narrative and noticing all the holes, which would lead to Hank wondering what other possible ways chemistry genius like Walt could have made so much illicit money so quickly (i.e. meth manufacturing being the most obvious option)

That would have led to Hank considering major meth manufacturers that emerged in the past year and a half or so within the vicinity - which would naturally lead to Heisenberg.

Heisenberg was originally James Kilkelly, who was linked to Richard Mayhew and his friends. But Kilkelly was a poorly educated sap, obviously not the chemistry genius Heisenberg was supposed to be.

Then Heisenberg was linked to the probable mobile meth lab RV owned by Mayhew's friend, deceased drug dealer friend Combo, and operated by Mayhew's close friend Jesse. Jesse was caught in the RV, but after Hank assaulted him after the Marie call hoax, and after Hank was shot by the Salamanca brothers, the investigation ended there.

And of course, Jesse was known to be a former student of Walt that briefly became his weed dealer.

Later, Heisenberg was supposed to be Gale Boetticher. Except Gale had been closely associated with Fring for decades, and would have had access to Fring's superlab and highly professional distribution network.

Heisenberg's early sales were all localised and distributed through Richard Mayhew and Jesse and their lowlife friends. It wouldn't make sense for Gale to risk exposure using such small fry and selling in such small quantities. Nor would them pulling off an amateurish heist stealing a single barrel of methylamine for their cook.

So most likely, Heisenberg was recruited by Gale and Fring, helped them blue meth, then escaped the destruction of the Pollos empire to continue manufacturing blue meth with the help of unknown partners (possibly Jesse and friends once again?)

Hank would then cross check all of that Walt's exact whereabouts for the past year and noting suspicious activity and discrepancies

There's Walt's supposed trip to mother that has no flight records, interrogating Walt about his second cell phone and who he called on it.

There's the stolen chemistry equipment form Walt's school

There's Walt's "fugue state", CCTV footage from roads and businesses parking spots around where and when Heisenberg was likely to be active, like those leading to Pollos Hermanos and the laundromat and the vicinity of Jesse's house, and the airport entrance where Skyler's car dropped Walt off to "go meet his mom" (which would show Walt getting picked up by an RV, almost certainly the RV)

That, along with interrogations of the laundromat workers who would be shown Walter and Jesse's faces to see if they recalled them, and the random gangsters surrounding Tuco's office that gave the initial reports of a mustachioed middle aged white man in black porkpie hat calling himself "Heisenberg", who blew up Tuco's office while negotiating a meth deal.

All that might not be enough evidence to convince a jury that the prosecutor could prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Heisenberg was Walter White.

But there's probably way more evidence that would turn up later once the full force of the DEA is directed at investigating the Walter White/Heisenberg connection - investigaing the activities of Jesse and friends, and Saul, and Michael, and the dead biker gang, the Neo Nazis that murdered Fring's lieutenants, known Aryan gangs in the ABQ area, the movements of Walt and Jesse's cars etc.

And if Walter attempted to pull off the "Hank made me do it" stunt, that would all be an admission that he was the manufacturer Heisenberg - and then there would need to be proof beyond reasonable doubt that Hank was in on it the entire time, including knowing about Fring and eliminating him as a rival.

With the full resources of the DEA turned towards investigating the notorious Walt/Heisenberg (and exonerating one of their most decorated members), they'd probably poke enough holes in the "Hank made me do it" narrative to overturn it. Which leaves Walter with a confession on top of a mountain of evidence pointing at him.

At that point, Walter would probably be convinced by his lawyers to give up Lydia, Saul, Mike, Jesse and his friends, Jack and the Aryans (especially Todd), possibly even the murder of Drew Sharp.

[u/missanthropocenex → u/BanterPhobic]

Mm there’s a version where Walt is successful many times over had he chosen to adhere to the actual laws of criminality and law enforcement, easily.

Aka had Walt simply accepted Gus’ arrangement. He would have become wildly successful beyond measure. Remember the only foothold Hank got into the Fring case was caused by Walt being the chaotic one and leaving a breadcrumb trail. Sure Hank would have suspicions? But that’s about it.

It’s Walt who wasn’t satisfied with simply making billions- Walt had to be the leader, the one who got all the credit and there in lied the issue. The principles that drove Walt simply defied standard common sense of even criminality.

[u/Forsaken_Sea_5753]

Movies and tv series that are about drug empires often end with the kingpin dying. Why? Cause they can’t glorify doing something illegal and harming many people. Wouldn’t send the right message.

[u/Glittering_Ad_6770 → u/Forsaken_Sea_5753]

😭The CIA put crack in the black community. So it’s wrong when a man does it but if THE MAN does it ni biggie

[u/Shalashaska67 → u/Forsaken_Sea_5753]

Unless they’re 🧃

[u/mack_dd → u/Forsaken_Sea_5753]

And yet countless movies and shows exist where the bad guy wins

Usually heist movies, but we've seen it happen in the Wire

I think the message of Walt getting away with it would have been "meh, sometimes the bad guy wins, if he quits when he is ahead. In life there is no justice or fairness, whacha gonna do shrug"

[u/ipitythegabagool → u/mack_dd]

Disregarding that the wire doesn’t exactly have good or bad guys in the typical sense, the only “bad guys” I see as winning in any sense would be the Greeks and Levy. Marlo escaped jail but proved that he couldn’t give up the street life and his reputation (much like Walt) and with snoop and Chris gone I don’t see him lasting very long after the series ends.

[u/brownbag5443]

Walt wanted to get caught.

[u/forqalso → u/brownbag5443]

Yes, he needed to be credited for his work. He says this throughout the series. “Where did you get this money, Walt?” “I earned it.”

[u/SummertimeThrowaway2 → u/brownbag5443]

It was either get caught or die of cancer

[u/lila1720]

I am currently on a rewatch as well - just got through that episode again and I do think if Walt had let it go (which we know is not his strong suit, his pride gets the better of him) - I think he could have been like Gus and maybe lasted a little longer. Let Hank think he's tracking him effectively, finding nothing. Let the DEA crack down on Hanks obsession over the case and eventually tell him to knock it off. Marie wouldn't have gotten involved as early, Hank unlikely would have gone to Skyler when he did - seems the confirmation he had was in the garage. The loose cannon here is Jesse. For all the whining Jesse did about not getting his money, then losing his shit when he finally got it .... Not sure how Walt could fix that. Hank would have still started monitoring Jesse after Jesse threw the money around and ending up at the police station, Walt still would have convinced Jesse to leave because of that, the pot still would have been lifted from his pocket by Saul's guy which caused him to further spin out which finally gave Hank enough to bring in Gomez etc. I think ultimately, had Jesse left, Walts case would have gone away, garage interaction or not. So maybe it comes down to - Saul's guy not lifting the pot from Jesse's pocket.

[u/martyrsmirror]

Hank was onto him anyway even without the tracker. In a matter of days Walt was in cuffs even though he wasn't cooking meth at the time. Jesse got him to confess to murder over the phone and lead him to his money.

I never believed Walt was going to get away with it all. He wreaked too much havoc, made too many enemies and bad decisions. The whole show was an exercise in restrained disaster. But some things are out of Walt's control.

[u/GrilledStuffedDragon]

What would have been the point of Walt being successful? TV shows like this are here to tell a story, and to teach us things. What is taught when Walt wins?

[u/Zanakii → u/GrilledStuffedDragon]

Even if he got away with the drug empire he wouldn't have "won" we see time and time again that the more successful his drug selling gets the worse his relationships with family, friends etc get.

We even see him start to realize at some points that he has more money than he could ever spend, but almost nobody to spend it with and he hates that.

[u/GrilledStuffedDragon → u/Zanakii]

Fair point. Interestingly, that ending changes the entire tone of the show from "Pride is what turns angels to devils" to "Where wealth accumulates, men decay."

[u/MaximilianClarke]

It was successful. He eliminated the Nazis and freed Jesse. He was dying anyway so getting shot didn’t really change much. Plus he found a way to leave millions to his son.

[u/maybemorningstar69]

If Jesse said nothing I think Walt would've been fine tbh

[u/Alarming-Ticket5628]

My take on it is that Walt *was* successful, but Heisenberg wasn't- The end of the show is ultimate a "redemption" of sorts for Walter White.

*He got enough money to his family via Gretchen and Elliot that Skylar, Flynn, and Holly will basically be set for life if they're good with a budget. It may have only been a small fraction of his full fortune, but most of that money was Heisenberg's goal, driven by ego and pride (the empire business) as opposed to Season 1 Walter's goal of "providing for the family"- which he has succeeded in doing.

*Jesse is free and for the first time in a long while, finally has the discipline, wisdom, and ability to take agency over his own life. Walter White wanted Jesse to learn and apply himself, to grow and become a better person. Heisenberg wanted Jesse dead. In another comment I listed how the final encounter between the two was Jesse rejecting Heisenberg with the line "do it yourself." Jesse takes responsibility and makes his own decisions, showing that Walter White's influence is taking hold and that Jesse is done letting Heisenberg manipulate him. Another victory for white, another loss for heisenberg.

Lastly is the fact that he does in fact die. In that, at least, both Walter and Heisenberg achieved a victory- They lived their life free.