Dramatis Personae

...Everybody wins.
                        -Walt, 5x06, "Buy-Out"

                 If you believe there is a hell, I don't know if you're into that, but we're pretty much already going there, right?                     But I'm not going to lie down until I get there.

                                                                 -Walt, 5x07, "Say My Name"

I really believe that, in the final episode, we will see a similar scene starring Saul

AFTER THE MID-SEASON PREMIERE, We WILL USE THIS SPOT TO ANALYZE THE CORE ESSENCE OF EACH CHARACTER, getting at what makes them tick, and what they provide the show itself that makes...the-show-itself...tick.

We will also predict (i.e. a very vague and multi-tiered estimation) how each and every one of the characters alive at the point of the end of 5X08 WILL MEET THE BRUTAL CONSEQUENCES OF BOTH THEIR OWN (IN)ACTIONS AND ALL THE (IN)ACTIONS CAUSED BY THE CANCEROUS INFLUENCE OF WALTER WHITE (...but I mean, it coulda' happened to anybody, in other idiosyncratic ways...but Walt was just the kind of guy to really hit the ball out of the park[like the "New York Yankees" as far as the whole Anti-Christ-Figure thing goes).

Come back real soon....to this section, it'll be fun!

Characters, Rated on a Sliding and Not Always Relative Scale of Corruption and Corrosion (most of the awesome pictures courtesy of...insert link to Fan Art AMC sponsored site, exhibit...yada...)

Walt Jr.:

Why start with a character that always seems like some sort of figurant? Because he's not. There is a taboo impulse to just lambaste the (mis)use of Walt Jr. His breakfast mania is one of the few times the writers consciously responded to cultish-complaints. He and RJ Mitte all clearly, different.

So, how does the inevitable innocence of Walt Jr. end? Sure, he could figure out the type of things his father's been doing (deep down, Jr. knows something pivotal is amiss with his father.
But...unbelievable as it may sound, wouldn't it be haunting cosmic "irony" if Walt Jr. ends up being killed by Todd? 
Story wise it makes sense, but in considering the shows theme of failed and frail father/son relationships, there has to be at least a symbolic head butting between the blood-son-he-can-never-exist-with, and the . Both characters have obvious mental handicaps. There are each others ying and yang. One's "limits" allow them the luxury of having committed no sin (well, there was this one time....INSERT CLIP MONTAGE OF WALT JR. ACTING UP

See use of Mario in DFW's infinite jest...perfect through solidified imperfection, bodies as imprisioning liberations (Walt's literal/symbolic cancer switcheroo)

Jesse:

The show owes it to us to give Jesse the most noble and pure moments of redemption and salvation. However, this probably means he will have to die. Yo, do I even need to lay out all the christ-like imagery that is tossed onto Jesse's persona-within-the-shows-aesthetic? Even Badger is rocking the Urban Cross T-Shirt design (indicators of the

Hank:

Kills himself (maybe by accident; knowing what I've perceived, I suspected he could of even died during his panic-attack-drive.

 This is the outcome I feel most confident about (again, with this show, a feeling of understanding the specifics of the next moves are usually signs that the Chess Master has really gotten into your head without you realizing it). I'll drop the evidence soon...

He probably will get real mixed up in a feeling of unintended hypocrisy, once he realizes that Walt's manipulations and meth money were the things that psychologically and economically got Hank to recover from his anxieties/crush physical damage.

Marie needs to die "arbitrarily" to guarantee it...but why not? Maybe her and Lydia have a fight to the death. Really. Maybe she relapses hard into the kleptomania and gets shot running from some Macy's mall cops...I dunno...

Skylar / Mrs. Nowhere-Man:

Despite trying to prevent relapse and defend her husband's soul from Lydia in 5x09, this pusher of the pusherman...

Walt is a more stand-in for Superfly; he's more like Freddie (Jesse is definitely Freddie)

...she is still a co-dependent enable to Walt's most consuming vice; manipulation of truth and aversion to karma.

One theory says that Walt is going to kill Skylar. While I think (see BLANK for a refutation). Then again, it wouldn't surprise me. 

Though, the most crushing punishment for her has already been witnessed...the decayed remnants of her household. Everything is contaminated (...oh yeah, that cacophony of flies). Clearly she continued her track record of being unable to protect her family from the man who "protects his family."

Walter White / Heisenberg / Nowhere Man:

Okay, so maybe its the Ricin that future Walt definitely swallows (I think he actually does it subvertly right after he unleashes it from the holster of Chekhov's Gun ), which is the thing we'll presume kills him (because that scenario makes so much sense to me now, I'm hesitant); but I'd be shocked if we ever see a corpse (the possible red herring in the Negro y Azul Narcocorido may be the only time the audience gets). By the end, we will feel intense pity for Walt. His face going through a rare moment of acknowledging who he is and the hellish reality he created (an empire of misfortune and regret)

Saul:

Last man standing, will probably fill the type of role seen in the epi-graphic (the clip that followed the epigraphs). In most every major Shakespeare tragedy, when all the main characters are either dead or exiled from "civilized" "society," a figure representing the new order gives a pithy encapsulation of the lessons that can be learned. Since BB has a bittersweetly bleak few on the human condition, it would be very appropriate to have the pure embodiment of denial and aversion (
(it probably won't happen, but I could see a heroic couplet being used, since the "meta-metaphor" would be conceptually-inverted through the vehicle of cowardice.