NOTE: The following is SUPER-SPOILERIFFIC. Seriously. If you haven’t already seen at least Season 4 of Breaking Bad, you are urged to stop reading now.

Even with the above disclaimer, I’m going to be circumspect here. As Season 4 of Breaking Bad drew to a close, one of the plot points generated a fair bit of discussion among the show’s fans. In what Clive Thompson called “a great example of modern talmudic video-parsing via Tivo and Youtube,” a YouTube user named Jcham979—apparently the real-life identity of that user is still not known—cracked one of the central puzzles of Season 4 a few days before the airing of “Face Off,” the Season 4 finale, on October 9, 2011, posting an intelligent and carefully argued case positing a particular theory of the action. By the time the episode was over, Breaking Bad‘s viewership had been treated to a shocking revelation—but Jcham979, at least, wasn’t surprised.

A video like Jcham979’s is emblematic of what it is to be a devoted fan of a TV series today. It isn’t just the shows anymore, it’s recaps and online communites poring over every relevant detail. The shows are now clearly being made with this mode of consumption in mind.

We at Dangerous Minds wish all of Breaking Bad‘s fans a satisfying conclusion to the series tonight!
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Best scene in Breaking Bad?
Addicted to ‘Breaking Bad’? Here’s an EPIC four-hour interview with series creator Vince Gilligan