this sunday night (july 15 at 9 p.m.), breaking bad fans will finally get the fix we’ve all been waiting for since last year’s stunning season 4 finale. with great anticipation, we’ve counted down the days to see what walt—the newly crowned king—will do now that he’s free from the grip of gus fring.

[if you’d like a recap of season 4’s finale—along with some video—go here to see my post from last october.]

season 5 will be (painfully, for fans) split into 2 mini-seasons. we’ll get the first 8 episodes this year and suffer through withdrawal until next summer when the final 8 episodes air. the important notation about season 5 is that it will be the show’s final season. so, quite a bit is in store for walt and his teetering empire.

how better to usher in the final season than to offer a few predictions. i’m gonna try to focus on the first half of season 5, but some of these will bleed into the second half.

1. a main character will die.

ok, this is a little open-ended, so let me narrow it down a little by ruling people out. it will not be walt (at least for the first half of the season). it will not be skyler. it will not be hank. it will not be marie. ok, so that leaves the following (main) characters: jesse, walt jr., saul & mike. i really want to go ahead and predict that jesse will die…but i think if that happens, it’ll be the second half of the season. either way, i think it’s safe to say that death will continue this season.

2. skyler will get just as dirty as walt.

season 4 saw skyler get involved with walt’s illegal activity and she quickly became adept at her crimes. skyler, much like walt’s original intentions, will be to protect her family. now that she knows about walt’s endeavors—both drug-manufacturing and killing gus—she’s fully culpable and knows she has to keep up the illegal activity to make sure her family is fully protected. much like walt has found, though, her attempts to protect her family will ultimately serve to harm them (in a number of ways).

3. walt will start a new lab.

at the end of season 4, walt and jesse destroyed the super lab. not only did they really have no choice, but it was there final declaration of their freedom from gus. walt, though, is the king now and his pride will force him to keep up. combine that with the fact that he’s running low on money (he had a lot of expenses last season) and i believe we’ll see the blue meth return very quickly.

4. mike will return and work with walt.

i don’t think walt and mike will have even close to the kind of relationship that mike had with gus, but mike is too deep into a life of crime to simply walk away just because his old boss is dead. keep in mind, also, that mike not only worked for gus, but was originally introduced as an associate of saul goodman. (this is a prediction that could go completely opposite. i almost predicted that he would come back and try to kill walt & jesse…which is highly possible.)

5. the mid-season cliffhanger will be hank finding out the truth about walt.

yes, it’s going to happen. it can’t not happen. hank will finally discover the identity of his coveted heisenberg. i think it’ll go something like this: hank will spend the first 8 episodes continuing to track the blue meth. in the final moments of the midseason finale, hank will finally get a big break about the source of the blue meth. when he discovers the lab, he’ll walk through the door, gun drawn, at the moment that walt rounds the corner, bringing them face to face. cut to credits.

alright, there you have it. i could be 100% wrong with every single one of these, but this is my story and i’m stickin’ to it.

of course, we’ll find it all out over the next couple months. it should be fun.