The most recent episode of “Breaking Bad” was titled “Ozymandias”, and after we collectively unclenched our posteriors for the week when the credits rolled, most of us wondered what it meant.

The show is known for it’s smart writing and brilliant references, so it’s no surprise that the meaning behind “Ozymandias”–a two-hundred-year old poem–plays right into the show.

“Ozymandias” was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and is based on a real person: Ramses the Great, in fact. The poem tells of a traveler who comes upon a broken statue in an empty desert, a likeness created of a man who once ruled his land with an iron fist but ultimately fell; everything he surveyed is gone, and the power he knew went with it. One can guess that this doesn’t bode well for Walter, then; if you’ve been keeping up with the show, you might have already suspected that. With only two episodes left in the series there are only a couple of ways the ending can go, and Walter, who has grown obsessive about what he does and has, many would say, become untouchable in his own mind, will certainly fall the hardest when the time comes.

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