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Check Out These Clever 'Breaking Bad' Allusions in the Season Finale of 'The Leftovers'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 8, 2014 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 8, 2014 |


I’ll have a full recap of last night’s phenomenal season finale of The Leftovers up on Uproxx shortly (follow me on Twitter for the update), but very quickly, I just wanted to point out a couple of allusions to Breaking Bad I spotted in the opening shot of last night’s episode, “The Return of the Prodigal Son.”

You can call it a stretch if you’d like, but recall that Damon Lindelof quit Twitter a year ago because of the Breaking Bad finale. His followers took the occasion of the BB finale to bash Lindelof on Twitter for not writing a Lost finale that stacked up. He ended up quitting Twitter, he admitted, because that criticism hurt his feelings.

So, when he put together the season finale of The Leftovers — a season finale he originally designed to be a series finale — I’m sure that the Breaking Bad finale was in the back of his mind, weighing heavily. And while Mimi Leder directed the episode, I’m sure that Lindelof had some input in the design of the shots.

With that in mind, did this opening shot remind anyone else of another iconic shot from Breaking Bad?

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Likewise, the spinning zoom out on Patti in the opening scene was very reminiscent of the final scene in Breaking Bad.


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It could be a coincidence, but considering Lindelof’s history with Breaking Bad and the iconic nature of those shots, I like to think that it was an intentional nod to one of the best finales ever.