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We already know his retirement won't be that easy. At the end of last year's final episode, Walter's DEA-agent brother-in-law Hank (Dean Norris) finally found evidence that Walter is Heisenberg, the mysterious criminal genius Hank has spent months chasing. And in a flash-forward last season, we saw Walter, a year older and haggard, drifting back into New Mexico after an absence with a machine gun in the trunk of his car.
Will the gun go off, per Chekhov's law? Will Walter go down? It's likely that fans will judge Breaking Bad largely on its ending, and his. TV finales imply a worldview (Lost's spiritual afterglow vs. The Sopranos' existential cut to black), which is one reason they're so divisive. Like it or not, Gilligan and company will be making a statement about whether their world is one where evil is punished.
Complicating that job is the question of exactly what would even constitute an appropriate punishment. Death for Walter, either from cancer or his enemies, might be a kind of blessing, returning him to the status quo ante of a dying man telling himself that everything he did, he did for family. (At a low point, in the Season 3 episode "Fly," he wished for exactly that kind of death.) It might be more devastating for him to be exposed and live with the knowledge that his children will remember him as a monster--but his family would be collateral damage.
It will be a neat trick if Breaking Bad solves this dilemma. But I'd rather see it end in a way that's true to its characters--that's as brave, thrilling and moving as the past five seasons--than contrive a flawless punishment. Whatever happens to Walter, after all, murderers will still be acquitted and corporate sleazes given bonuses. We in the real world have to live with that knowledge and keep our moral bearings anyway.
That's why great crime dramas aren't the ones that pass the most perfect sentences but those that best help viewers understand an imperfect world. Breaking Bad can do a lot of things to Walter White, but it can't deliver his verdict. You and I watching, the multimillion-member jury of Walter's peers--that's our job.