Breaking Bad/Nightmare Fuel

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


This is a show where a harmless school teacher takes a deep dive into the ugly, brutal world of drug manufacturing and takes a flying leap over the Moral Event Horizon along the way. Shock and horror absolutely come with the territory.


  • Tuco Salamanca may only be the show's first major threat, but he's easily one of the most terrifying characters that Walt and Jesse cross paths with. He's a hot-headed meth-addicted lunatic who is always a hair's breadth away from flying into a violent rage and brutally murdering anyone who's unlucky enough to be within arm's length of him. Anything can set him off, and once the fuse to this living powder keg is lit, nothing can save you. He even beats one of his henchmen to death for talking out of turn, all because a supportive comment somehow registered as an insult in his psychotic drug-addled mind.
    • When Walt meets Tuco, the man puts out a cigarette with his tongue. His tongue. Easily one of the show's most nauseating moments, and this is after the infamous bathtub scene!
    • The Season 2 premier starts with Nightmare Fuel right out the gate. After seeing Tuco's aforementioned pointless murder of No-Doze, Walt and Jesse are frightened for their lives. Thanks to the raw panic and anxiety in Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul's performances, it's hard not to feel scared with them as they frantically assess their options going forward. Sadly, they aren't able to put any kind of an exit strategy to use before Tuco kidnaps them and prepares to haul them off to Mexico, with plans to enslave them as meth cooks for the rest of their lives.
    • As satisfying as Tuco's death is, him preparing to murder Jesse while the poor guy's crying and screaming for his life will make your stomach turn.
    • If you think he's scary to watch, try playing the guy. Raymond Cruz was so disturbed by Tuco's sociopathy that he ducked out of the show, forcing all plans for the character to be cut short because he couldn't handle playing someone so horribly sick in the head.
  • The Cartel. A powerful, far-reaching organization that will brutally murder you and your loved ones for slighting them, but not before making a show out of your death. Just ask poor Tortuga. Or Gus's partner, for that matter.
    • Already suffering from anxiety after his shootout with Tuco, Hank is utterly broken by the horror show he bears witness to in El Paso.

"What's the matter Schrader? You act like you never saw a severed human head on a tortoise before! Cue the ear-splitting explosion of a bomb that kills several DEA agents, and tears the leg off another.

  • Walt strangling Krazy-8 with a bike lock. Did Krazy-8 have it coming? Oh yeah. Is it still uncomfortable to watch? Absolutely. Even worse is that it isn't a clean kill on Walt's end, since Krazy-8 manages to stab him in the leg with a shard from a broken plate.
  • The bathtub incident. After killing Emilio, Walt and Jesse need to dispose of his body and agree on dissolving it in hydrofluoric acid. Wince-worthy, but not scary. The scary part is when Jesse fills his bathtub with the acid and stuffs the body in it. Hydrofluoric acid is incredibly caustic and can eat through just about anything, save for things made of specific materials that can withstand it. Jesse's bathtub is very much not one of those things. Walt realizes how badly Jesse fucked up just in time for the acid to melt a hole through the ceiling and send the bathtub crashing down into the first story of Jesse's house, leaving a mess of wood, plaster, ceramic, acid, and Emilio's bloody, half dissolved corpse splattered all over the place.
    • Thankfully, the presentation edges into Fargo-style black comedy, so you're just as likely to laugh your ass off at it as you are to puke.
  • Gus Fring presents himself as the friendly, unassuming man in charge of a fried chicken joint, and even when Walt learns that he's secretly a powerful drug lord, he still presents himself as Affably Evil and reasonable. But make no mistake about it: the man is Nightmare Fuel personified. You must assume he knows everything about you because he probably does, and he's very good at keeping tabs on anyone who catches his interest. If you displease him or test his patience, he will threaten to kill anyone you care about in order to keep you in line. That is, if he doesn't simply murder you while never showing any emotions stronger than cold disinterest. Test this man's patience at your peril.
    • Already a tense episode from the start, "Box Cutter" climaxes with Gus Slitting Victor's throat with the titular instrument and showering Walt and Jesse in his blood by squeezing the wound, not saying a word beyond a cold "Get back to work." at the end. Even the similarly cold, unflappable Mike is horrified, and pulls his gun on his own boss purely on reflex.
    • Gus' death. He walks out from Hector's room after he detonates a suicide bomb seemingly no worse for wear. That is, until the camera pans around and reveals that half his fucking face got blown off. His reaction is even worse: he isn't scared, sad, or angry. He calmly adjusts his tie without a word and drops dead shortly afterward.
    • Not as graphic as the rest of these, but when Gus says "I will kill your infant daughter" to Walt, a shiver will run down your spine.
  • The last five minutes of Crawl Space, where a panicking Walt is desperately trying to find the money needed to save him and his family from Gus, only for Skyler to reveal that she gave it all to Ted Beneke. Oh, God, that laughter...
  • The couple who rob Skinny Pete in "Breakage" and own the creepy, disgusting house in "Peekaboo". They murder a store clerk for the hell of it, nearly stab Skinny Pete to death in order to get their hands on the meth he's selling... and their kid. That poor goddamned kid. He has to live with these psychos, and the effects of their neglect are immediately apparent.

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