Fans can get attached to television series. Sometimes damned attached. And if the creators of the show don't explicitly say the main character dies at the end of the series, it can fuel years of speculation.
The Sopranos went off the air in 2007, and to this day fans still argue about whether Tony died at the end. Some shows like Dallas made entire movies out of the fate of infamous oil tycoon J.R. Ewing. Fans go nuts for that kind of stuff.
Breaking Bad was another series that moved its fans. There was just something addictive about watching a high school chemistry teacher making meth to pay for his cancer treatments.
The show aired its finale in 2013, with the last six episodes only increasing its viewership. (Aren't TV shows supposed to end after audience declines?) Each of those last few episodes increased viewers by millions, a real fever pitch. It seems everybody was tuning in, wanting to know what would become of Malcolm's father.
But when the finale aired, it didn't exactly, fully, completely 100 percent explicitly state whether Bryan Cranston's character lived or died. He'd been shot and left on a concrete floor bleeding with police sirens in the distance. Some fans argued there's no way he would have survived. Others argued otherwise.
Now that a movie will come out on Netflix, it seems fans have their closure thanks to creator Vince Gilligan. In an interview with Rich Eisen, he finally confirmed Walter White's death, saying, "Yeah, I'm gonna give you that one, Rich, because I love you so much. Yes, Walter White is dead. Yes."
There ya go. End of speculation. The creator issued the final word, and now hopefully fans can just enjoy the coming movie and whenever the spinoff Better Call Saul returns to the air. That, or maybe one of the producers will put out a book.
Editorial on 10/15/2019