The TV phenomenon Breaking Bad has ended for good.  With a record breaking 10.3 million viewers, it became the highest viewed finale of all time on basic cable.

Within its five year running time, the show gained a dedicated, and growing, fan base. But even diehard fans didn’t catch the small, symbolic details the writers had hidden in the show.

It started off with Walter White’s surprise 50^th birthday party, during which he watches a local report about a methamphetamine drug bust and is impressed by the money recovered by the dealers. The next day, he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and is told he has two years to live.  Because of his financial situation (his job as a chemistry teacher doesn’t provide enough money so he has to take up a second job in a car wash), he secretly considers cooking meth to provide money for his family.

He joins his DEA brother-in-law, Hank Schrader, in a drug bust against “Cap’n Cook.” While waiting in the car, White sees a former student, Jesse Pinkman, fleeing out of a window, and successfully comes to the conclusion that he is the dealer the DEA is looking for. Using school records, White tracks Pinkman down and blackmails him in order to join the drug trade.

The two then develop a partnership where Walt cooks the meth and Pinkman distributes it. They begin to encounter issues with their distributors and have to resort to killing each of them in order to survive.  This is just one of the ways they were “breaking bad.”

The symbolism is clear right off the bat when you notice that each character has a designated color that reflected their mood or personality, which changed along with the characters as they developed, so Marie’s constant usage of purple actually means something.

Walter wears green to show his greed and craze with money. At first, Jesse wore a lot of yellow to symbolize his cowardice but after his first murder, with Gale as his victim, he begins to wear red to represent blood and violence.

The colors in Walter and Jesse’s last names pay homage to Reservoir Dogs, and they even have a standoff that comes straight from the movie. The ‘white’ in Walter White is suppose to stand for innocence, since they start off as a good, clean family; however, white is also the easiest color to stain.

The ‘pink’ in Pinkman is used to represent how naïve and young he was in the beginning of the show; Holly White, Walter’s baby daughter, can also be seen wearing pink numerous times.

Further symbolism derives from one of the stranger episodes, “The Fly.” In this episode, Walter and Jesse attempt to get rid of a fly that is “contaminating” their lab.  Many people quickly dismissed this episode as merely filler and pointless.

However, the episode actually holds more meaning than believed.

The fly is an archetype in the show as a sword of Damocles, showing that Walter and Jesse are always in imminent danger and something bad can happen at any time. It’s also been theorized that the fly is really Jane; it’s constantly watching them after her death in season 2. Much like his guilt for not saving Jane, Walter can never escape or get rid of the fly.

After two years of lies, deception, and manipulation, it ended with the inevitable: Walter’s death.

The chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-kingpin’s regime finally came to an end.

The bloodbath that took care of the neo-Nazis allowed White to avenge Hank and left him face to face with his former partner, Pinkman. Upon seeing his wound (a bullet to the stomach), Jesse allowed him to live, refusing to kill White, something he was so willing to do, especially after finding out he was the one who gave Brock ricin.

As stated, “All bad things must come to an end.”