Breaking Bad/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • The extremely moving music as Gus walks to his death reminds you that he was once a similar guy to Walt, and he'll die failing to get his final revenge on the people who killed his "brother".
    • Simlarly, the sheer amount of anger and sadness in Hector's face as he looks at Gus before setting off the bomb that will kill both of them makes you almost feel sorry for him.
    • Walt's death in the Grand Finale.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Possibly the purpose of the show.
    • It's hard to decide if Walt's "cooking" is retaliation for a world that never cut him a break or a genuine desire to provide for his family. Not that they're necessarily mutually exclusive.
      • The series finale has Walt himself give the answer, and it's neither! He did it all because he enjoyed it, was good at it, and it made him feel truly alive.
    • Skyler. A good woman who's acting poorly due to her husband's action? Is she a victim of simple human frailty? A control freak who ran the family up until Walt's Break Bad and is now looking for any method to put him under her thumb in some form of twisted love?
    • Jesse, Book Dumb Anti-Villain or Villain Protagonist who's been using Walt?
      • Or neither. His actions make people's sympathy for him swing like a pendulum. In some instances he's actually shown to have one of the higher moral standard of anyone in the show (in regards to certain things, like kids).
    • The bathtub incident? Walter's fault, not Jesse's. Did it never occur to Walter to explain to Jesse why he absolutely needed to use plastic? Especially since the idea of an acid that eats through rock, glass, metal, and ceramic, but not plastic, is kind of counter-intuitive. Granted, using his own bathtub was kind of dumb, but only in that you wonder how he planned to rid of the slurry afterwards.
    • Jesse's parents: Long-suffering, well-intentioned people who just came to the end of any human's thread with their screwup son? Or faux-caring, shallow people obsessed with image who arguably caused his behavior by treating him as The Unfavorite?
  • Badass Decay: Justified with Hank. He goes through a Humiliation Conga that ultimately leads to Break the Haughty, leaving him rather helpless and emasculated in the end. He gets better though.
  • Because I'm Good At It: What ultimately keeps Walt cooking, his pride and ego from realizing that he has a unique skill that has created an empire that would rival that of Steve Jobs both in its value and impact on the meth industry. He's not a failure anymore and has become "the one who knocks."
  • Non Sequitur Scene: Averted. The Villain Song "Negro y Azul" is not actually a BLAM. It is a music video for a narcocorrido, a Mexican drug ballads. Though it might seem strange at first, music glorifying and talking about dealers or the Cartel is part of Mexican culture, and makes perfect sense in-story.
  • Broken Base:
    • Over "Fly". Much of the fandom seems to think that it's either the best or the worst episode of the show. It's either a brilliant character study, or a pointless Filler episode.
    • The plane crash at the end of season 2 is either a Contrived Coincidence that's a Cliffhanger Copout after all the vague flashforwards and build up or its a great metaphor for how Walt's actions have consequences he can't imagine.
  • Complete Monster: Jack Welker, leader of the Aryan Brotherhood. And Walt himself may have crossed the line into becoming one towards the end of the show, committing illegal atrocities purely because it makes him feel alive. If not for his concern for his family and Villainous BSOD-inspired atonement in the finale, he'd have been 100% far gone. But as it stands, he only made it 99% of the way.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The music that plays when Gus walks into the nursing home in Face Off. It manages to convey the emotion of that scene perfectly.
  • Dead Baby Comedy: Walt rationalizing that the airplane crash he inadvertently caused wasn't his fault... by hijacking a school assembly and making it all about himself. "It was really only the 50th worst crash in aviation history."
    • "Tied for 50th in fact."
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • No matter how badly the scale of his crimes escalate, plenty of fans will bend over backwards to make excuses for Walt's actions. Endangering innocent people? Manipulating and gaslighting Jesse? Murder? Poisoning children?! It's not his fault, it's everyone else's for never cutting him a break!
    • While he's more sympathetic than Walt and has clear lines he'll never cross, Jesse's often painted as an innocent angel who can do no wrong instead of the deeply flawed and troubled criminal that he really is.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Hank and Saul. Especially Saul, he even has his own spinoff now!
    • Mike's stone cold badassery, intelligence, and Hidden Heart of Gold made him a fan favorite. Even some of Walt's most ride-and-die supporters were soured on him when he killed him over what was basically a petulant fit of rage.
    • Jesse oddly enough fits a certain definition. Apparently, Jesse was originally supposed to die at the end of the first season but after seeing Aaron Paul's performance, they decided that it would be a huge mistake to kill the character off and by the middle of the second season, Jesse had become just as important to the show as Walt.
    • Badger gets quite a lot of love thanks to being a big, lovable dope responsible for some of the show's funniest moments. His buddy Skinny Pete also gets plenty of love for being just as funny, as well as having some mad piano skills.
    • Huell and Kuby, Saul Goodman's hired flunkies. Thanks to Lavell Crawford and Bill Burr's hilarious performances, their rare appearances are always a treat to watch.
  • Epileptic Trees: For some reason this series seemed to inspire a lot of pretentious attempts to reframe it as something else. Everything from the relatively mild "Most of the last episode takes place in Walt's mind as he succumbs to his cancer" to the ludicrous "The entire series is Hank's daydream about what his boring brother-in-law might get up to in his off time". This all despite the series never really giving any indication that what you see isn't exactly what you get.
  • Fashion Victim Villain: Good god, just look at some of Saul's suits.
  • Fan Nickname: Todd is "Meth Damon", due to the show's subject matter and, well, looking a lot like a version of Matt Damon who got kinda screwed up on meth.
  • Fridge Brilliance: The title of the final episode of season four, 'Face Off', suggests a direct confrontation between characters. It isn't until you've seen the episode that you realise the title means blowing Gus's face off.
  • Genius Bonus: Heisenberg. If you paid attention in chemistry, this would bring to mind the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • Many people agree that while it was tightly plotted, compelling and contained an incendiary performance from Bryan Cranston, Season 1 suffered from having its run truncated by the Writers' Strike. Season 2 picked up at exactly the point Season 1 left off and went on to exceed all viewer expectations, not only developing Walt and Jesse as characters, but giving ostensibly ancillary characters (from Hank, Skyler and even Tuco) an unexpected depth. Add to this the addition of Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman, and Breaking Bad became must-see television.
    • The pace of the show markedly picks up from the beginning of season 2, with every episode feeling like an 'end of season cliffhanger'. While season 1 was great, season 2 onwards is as addictive as, well...crystal meth.
    • Also a literal example, as Walt grows himself a suitably villainous goatee towards the end of the season.
    • Season 3 and 4 have both been improvements on the previous seasons. Lets just say that this show has grown more beards than ZZ Top.
  • Hell Is That Noise: I'd like to thank Breaking Bad for ruining the simple call bell. Now I can't play Pit anymore!
  • Holy Shit Quotient: All the freaking time.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Both Jesse and Walt qualify.
    • Hank, whose private pain is concealed by a willfully ignorant and obnoxious public personality.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Gus. The owner of Los Pollos Hermanos chain of chicken restaurants, and now the biggest Meth dealer of them all. Uses his chain as a cover, never been caught, and organizes anti-drug fun runs that means he associates with DEA agents that tell him all about their work. The Cartels respect him enough that he's able to call off a hit with but a single text message to two killers seeking personal vengeance. The only reason Walt is still alive is Gus can use him. Walt even figures out Gus is using him to break free of the Cartels to the point he's planning everything for his own advantages including Hank and the Cousins.
    • Walt himself has his moments of this, namely in the latter two seasons. He fully becomes one in the series finale.
    • Jesse displays some measure of this when he screws his parents over to get his aunt's house back. (How much of this was magnificent and how much of it was bastardly probably depends on what you thought of his parents' earlier actions.)
  • Meaningful Name: Heisenberg is the quantum physicist who came up with the 'uncertainty principle': Walt's diagnosis with cancer means his future is uncertain (and that of his family). Also, his nefarious activities and constant lies to Skyler indicate that his character is uncertain, even to those closest to him.
  • Misaimed Fandom:
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Depending on your view of Walt's morality and the severity of his actions, there are a ton of potential moments where he crossed this. For some, it's him letting Jane die by choking on her own vomit. For others, it's him nearly raping Skyler in a fit of adrenaline-fueled mania. Then there are those who think his entire treatment of Jesse constitutes as an ongoing MEH crossing due to all the verbal and mental abuse he subjects him to, as well as a healthy dose of manipulation and gaslighting for good measure. Some also site the murder of the harmless Gale Boetticher as well as using his elderly neighbor as bait to see if any of Gus' men are waiting in his house to kill him. But for all but his biggest defenders, him poisoning and almost killing Brock, a little boy so he could get Jesse to turn against Gus is absolutely the point of no return.
      • But even then, one could argue that the very act of breaking bad itself was when there was no turning back for Walt. Ignoring all the lives ruined by the meth he creates, Walt venturing into the dark and dangerous world of drug trafficking instead of accepting Gretchen and Elliot's offer to pay for his cancer treatments causes an untold amount of misery and suffering for everyone around him, all out of wounded pride.
        • TL:DR - If cooking meth is bad, and murder is worse, then the MEH is crossed in the pilot.
    • Several conversations between Walt and Jesse indicate that they felt completely justified in their actions right up until Jane's death, which they consider (for different reasons) to be the worst thing they've ever done at that point. On Walt's end, it's the fact that Jane's death leads to her air traffic controller father accidentally causing a deadly plane crash in his grief, before nearly committing suicide. On Jesse's end, he got a recovering drug addict hooked back on the hard stuff.
    • If beating Jesse so badly that he had to be hospitalized wasn't bad enough, Tuco definitely crosses this when he beats his loyal henchman No-Doze to death over showing his support the wrong way.
    • Jesse comes dangerously close to crossing it when he starts trying to peddle meth to his addiction support group. While he isn't able to go through with it, those less sympathetic towards him feel that he actually crosses the line for even considering it in the first place.
    • While Gus Fring is the presumed Big Bad of the show, he draws the line at killing children to Walt. However, some episodes later Gus crosses it when he tells Walt that he plans to kill his entire family, infant daughter included, if he continues to interfere with his business.
      • While Gus may not be willing to hurt children unless he's pushed too far, two unnamed drug pushers working for him have no such scruples and kill 11 year old Tomas when Gus orders them to stop using him to sell drugs.
    • As long-established cartel bosses, Don Eladio and Hector Salamanca undoubtedly crossed this at some point in the distant past. But in terms of on-screen actions, there's Eladio's callous murder of Gus' partner Max, and Hector forcing him to look the dying Max in the eye while he slowly bleeds out. From this point on, you'll be cheering on Gus in hopes of him getting his revenge, even if he is the show's current Big Bad.
      • Honestly, Hector could have crossed it even further in the past with his awful parenting. A flashback to the Cousins' childhood shows him almost drowning one of them just to prove a point to both boys, which is a mere snapshot of the abuse that would mold two innocent children into remorseless, sociopathic Mexican Terminators.
    • Todd guns down an innocent child in cold blood. Without even hesitating. That's your first big sign that there's something deeply wrong with this guy.
    • Even Skyler is subject to this. Taking up smoking whilst pregnant is the first step to making her completely unsympathetic.
  • Nightmare Fuel (and possibly Truth in Television):
    • The Cartel. "What's the matter Schrader? You act like you never saw a severed human head on a tortoise before! Then KABOOOOOOOM.
    • Walt strangling Krazy-8 with a bike lock.
    • Tuco punching his henchman to death for talking out of turn.
    • Gus in Box Cutter, climaxing with him slitting Victor's throat with the titular instrument. "Get back to work."
    • The last five minutes of Crawl Space. Oh, God, that laughter...
    • Gus calmly adjusting his tie with half his freaking face blown off.
    • Not as graphic as the rest of these, but when Gus says I will kill your infant daughter a shiver will run down your spine.
    • The couple who rob Skinny Pete in Breakage and own the creepy, disgusting house in Peekaboo.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Skyler for a lot of fans in season 3.
    • Hank starting in season 2 after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Oh lord do people hate Skyler...
    • Also during the first season Hank was a greatly disliked but after about the second episode of season 2 he gained some Hidden Depths, is now an Ensemble Darkhorse and Rescued from the Scrappy Heap.
    • Marie is easily the most annoying, obnoxious character on the show. Especially since she has an annoying habit of talking and talking AND TALKING when it's long past time for her to just shut the fuck up. Being Out of Focus is just about the only thing that keeps the fanbase from bitching about her more than they do about Skyler.
  • So Cool Its Awesome
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped: Drugs Are Bad, m'kay.
  • Tear Jerker:
    • During the I.F.T. episode, Jesse repeatedly calls Jane's voice mail just so he could listen to her voice. The Tear Jerking moment happens when the voice mail is finally disconnected. The look on Jesse's face, knowing that he will never hear her voice again...*cries*
    • And for that matter, Jane's death.
    • The entirety of "ABQ" is pretty depressing. But two things in particular stand out. The first is the scene where Walt finds Jesse in the drug den and Jesse breaks down in tears over Jane's death. The second is the utterly devastated look on Donald Margolis's face when he see's his daughter's corpse.
    • Walt's Speech during "Fly". He admits that he should have died, and at the end, he basically says that if he had died while listening to his wife and daughter on the baby monitor, then it would have been perfect. A tear falls from his eye when he finishes.
    • "You don't have to do this."
    • Walt crying to his son in "Salud".
  • Too Cool to Live: Tortuga
  • Wangst: Skyler at times. Marie seems to be following suit as of recently.
  • What an Idiot!:
    • Ted. "I just received a mysterious inheritance equivalent to the amount of back taxes I owe. What should I do with it? I know! Buy an expensive car and 'hold out for a better deal.'"
    • Gale. What kind of moron leaves his notes for cooking meth lying around in his apartment?
  • The Woobie: Jesse, among others.
    • Apparently, Walt thinks of Jesse as being a Woobie. According to Bryan Cranston on Inside Episode 12, in Walt's mind if something were to happen to Jesse, it would be like stabbing a puppy with a pitch fork.
    • Gale, poor Gale.
    • Walt himself starts as this, then becomes progressively less sympathetic as the show goes on.
    • The little boy in "Peekaboo".
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