AMC’s Breaking Bad kicks ass, takes names, throws rocks through windows and plays loud music late into the night. And, thanks to the power of logic and reason, the pulse-pounding saga of crystal meth concocter Walter White has a defined end, as AMC agreed to terms with Sony to air the show’s final 16-episode season.

As series creator Vince Gilligan points out: “This is a great gift to me and to my wonderful writers. It’s knowledge which will allow us to properly build our story to a satisfying conclusion.” Shows like Breaking Bad require a beginning, a middle and an end, but networks, eager to make money at the expense of their actual product, so often milk that middle ground to death. It happened in Lost, it happened in Weeds, but, thankfully, it appears that Bad… won’t be traveling down that road.

Rarely do things pan out in a predictable manner in Breaking Bad, one of the series’s best traits. To be completely honest, season four has left me underwhelmed. It could (and probably is) the proverbial ‘calm before the storm,’ and I’ll probably look stupid for saying this, but the show has recycled a couple of plot devices (one of the ‘bad guys’ kills his own man to prove his insanity to everybody, Hank perpetually being on the cusp of busting Walt’s bubble) that worked well in the past but leave me scratching my head now.

Let’s hope Gilligan’s classic returns to form sooner than later.

[Inside TV]