Breaking Bad: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''Some straight like you, giant stick up his ass, all the sudden, age -- what, sixty? He's just gonna [[Title Drop|break bad]]?''}}
'''''Breaking Bad''''' -- [[AMC]]'s first substantial success with original programming -- debuted in 2008 with a seven-episode season (shortened because of the writers' strike) and soon found itself renewed for a second, full season. The show
Kindly Albuquerque, New Mexico high school chemistry teacher Walter White [[Your Days Are Numbered|receives a diagnosis of lung cancer]] after a meager lifetime of playing it safe; his world begins to fall apart as he realizes how the medical bills will cripple the finances for his family (a pregnant wife and a son afflicted with Cerebral Palsy). After going on a ride-along with his [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|lovable]] [[Jerkass]] DEA agent brother-in-law, Walter learns of the money to be made in the highly dangerous world of illegal methamphetamine. Later the same night, Walter enlists the aid of one of his former students -- who managed to escape the DEA raid by sheer dumb luck -- and hatches a plan to manufacture and sell crystal meth in order to provide for his family. As Walter's journey stretches forth, bodies begin to pile up, and dark, violent [[Hilarity Ensues]].
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How awesome is this series? It transformed Bryan Cranston -- [[Malcolm in the Middle|a man best known for playing a]] [[Bumbling Dad]] -- into the virtual lock for the "Best Actor" Emmy each time he's nominated. Cranston has already won three in a row, which ties the record set by [[Bill Cosby]].
It also proved awesome enough to secure a spinoff series ''and'' a movie. ''[[Better Call Saul]]'' is a prequel starring hotshot lawyer and bonafide [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] Saul Goodman, detailing both his own hero-to-villain transformation and the state of Albuquerque's pre-Heisenberg criminal underworld as a whole. Meanwhile, ''[[El Camino]]'' is a movie that ties up loose ends from ''Breaking Bad's'' finale while serving as its [[Grand Finale]].
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]: The Cousins' axe falls out of
* [[Abusive Parents]]: In season 2 Jesse encounters a couple of meth addicts who do nothing but rob people and get high living together in a filthy, dilapidated house -- along with their [[Tear Jerker|horribly neglected]] [[The Woobie|young son]]. He is [[Even Evil Has Standards|suitably]] [[Family Values Villain|disgusted]].
** Walt himself flirts with this trope. While he never hurts his own children (aside from a moment where he forced Walt Jr. to drink tequila to the point of vomiting purely to spite Hank), he's incredibly cruel to Jesse, who he sees as a foster son. He verbally and mentally abuses him, demeaning him and making him feel stupid on a regular basis. And when he ''does'' treat him nicely, it's usually under the pretense of manipulating him for his own ends.
* [[Affably Evil]]: Most notably, there is Saul Goodman, the cheerfully corrupt lawyer. Gus is a ruthless drug lord, but most of the time he comes off a polite, soft-spoken, genteel businessman (until you piss him off...). Also, Mike, a personable, world-weary grandfather who'll still straight-up murder you if Gus wants it done. And finally, Todd's sociopathy doesn't stop him from acting genuinely chummy towards his "friends" and family, albeit in a warped and twisted way.
* [[Ain't Too Proud to Beg]]: Both Walt and {{spoiler|Gale}} plead for their lives during the very end of Season 3. Jesse also breaks down and begs for help when Tuco's ready to kill him, at least before he fights back and turns the tables on him.
* [[Alliterative Name]]: Both father and son are named Walter White. The name was deliberately chosen for its blandness.
* [[Analogy Backfire]]:
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** Hank also makes references to ''Rocky'' that seem to ignore the fact that Rocky actually loses in the first film.
* [[And Some Other Stuff]]: Mostly done quite subtly, we're never shown entire recipes for anything particularly dangerous.
* [[Anti-Hero]]
* [[Ax Crazy]]:
** Tuco takes this trope [[Up to Eleven]]. He will take any and every excuse he can get to beat someone up, especially when he's high on meth. Walt tells him, "We tried to poison you because you are an insane, degenerate piece of filth and you deserve to die."
** The Salamanca Cousins, quite literally. One of them carries around a chromed fire-axe with which they kill several people. One of them even refuses to shoot
** Todd's flavor of [[Ax Crazy]] is closer to the Cousins, where he commits horrible atrocities such as torture and {{spoiler|murdering children}} without so much as blinking an eye. But instead of being a near-mute Terminator wannabe like them, he acts like any moderately friendly guy you'd meet on the street, which might make him the scariest of them all.
* [[You Fail Law Forever]]: In-universe example: Badger is tricked into believing the urban myth that undercover cops have to identify themselves as such when asked. He quickly learns that this not how the law works.▼
* [[Badass Boast]]:
** Walt: "I am the one who knocks!"
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* [[Bad Boss]]:
** Tuco. Shortly after we're introduced to him, we get to see him beat one of his henchmen to death.
** Gus is a much less psychotic, much more cold-blooded Bad Boss. While he doesn't go out of his way to abuse his employees, he can and will kill them in the most brutal way possible if they prove to be an active liability to his business.
** Bogdan is a more... well, maybe "common" example is better. While not a murderous druglord, he's about as bad a boss as any ''normal'' people are likely to have.
* [[Bald of Awesome]]: Quite a few characters. Hank and Mike are naturally bald, Walt shaves his head early in the show. Gus trims his hair almost down to scalp level. The Salamanca brothers also sport shaved heads. Jesse also crops his hair down after a traumatic event in an apparent effort to toughen himself up.
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* [[Berserk Button]]: Walt is incredibly defensive of his son in the first season. Jesse, on the other hand, gets protective of anyone's kids.
* [[Best Served Cold]]: Gus once saw his friend and partner murdered in front of him by the cartel. He then proceeds to bide his time and establish trust for ''twenty years''. Then, when the man who pulled the trigger is finally in his power, he ''still'' doesn't kill him, but visits him again and again, each time telling him that another one of his relatives has been killed, until he's the last member of his family alive.
* [[Big Bad]]: Tuco in season 1 and the very beginning of season 2, Gus in seasons 3 and 4. The two are polar opposites; Tuco is [[Ax Crazy|violent and erratic]] while Gus is [[Chessmaster|cold and calculating]]. Each time, Walt and Jesse come to believe it is necessary to kill the [[Big Bad]], {{spoiler|and each time they eventually succeed}}.
** Season 5, on the other hand, has something of a [[Big Bad]] pileup. There's Hank by way of being the [[Hero Antagonist]] who manages to pick up Heisenberg's scent, then there's the duo of {{spoiler|Jack Welker and his nephew Todd}}, both of which being very personal villains to Walt and Jesse for different reasons. And finally, Walt himself is responsible for a good deal of the season's conflict due to being too arrogant and greedy to know when to walk away from the meth business.
* [[Big No]]: Jesse delivers an impressive one the second he realizes that {{spoiler|Todd is going to shoot a kid.}}
* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: "Heisenberg" vs the Cartel. The Cartel is pure evil, there's no question about it, but Walt's far from a saint himself.
* [[Black Comedy]]: Comedy so black, ''no light can escape it.''
* [[Bloody Hilarious]]: In the first season, Jesse tries to dispose of a body using hydrofluoric acid. In a bathtub. It doesn't work out well for the body, the bathtub or the floor underneath. By the time the floor's weakened enough for the remains of the body to fall through, it's no longer recognizable as human. As long as you don't vomit, you'll bust a gut laughing. Also, the head getting crushed by the ATM.
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* [[Can't Kill You - Still Need You]]: The main plot of season 4. {{spoiler|Gus can't}} kill Walt and Jesse because he has no one else to cook meth for him. Enforced by Jesse in Season 3 when he {{spoiler|kills Gale so that Gus can't kill Walt}}.
* [[Car Fu]]:
** {{spoiler|Delivered by Walt to two child-murdering dealers.}}
** {{spoiler|Hank cripples one of the Cousins with it, with just one minute's warning.}}
* [[The Cartel]]
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** Walt makes a bomb, mostly from stuff he's got lying around.
** Walt makes ricin from the chemicals he's got in his lab.
** When Mike uses a plastic zip-tie to cuff him to a radiator in "Buyout", Walt tries to break a coffee pot and use the broken glass to cut himself free. Unfortunately, he knocks the pot too far way to reach. So instead, he bites open the cable and uses the ''wires'' to burn the ziptie off.
* [[Machiavelli Was Wrong]]: Subverted by Gus. He doesn't believe in using fear as a motivator as Mike suggests. {{spoiler|Season 4 on the other hand...}}
* [[Marijuana Is LSD]]: Jesse sees two men in white shirts who want to talk to him about Jesus as hulking, leather-clad thugs with machetes and hand grenades after smoking methamphetamine. Meth isn't a hallucinagen, but it can
* [[Meaningful Name]]:
** "Heisenberg", as in "Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle". Considering all the uncertainties surrounding Walt's character and that persona, it's a good bet the writers had that in mind.
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** A season later, Gus invites Jesse for dinner while Walt and Jesse are actively conspiring to kill him and Gus is trying to manipulate Jesse into letting Walt be killed.
* [[Noodle Incident]]:
** Something that happened on a 4th of July weekend at Gretchen's father's place that precipitated Walt and Gretchen's falling out. Vince Gilligan and Gretchen's actress Jessica Hecht later confirmed that Walt cut ties with Gretchen due to feeling inadequate after realizing that she came from old money.
** Gus's history in Chile causes the cartel to spare him even though they just killed his partner in front of him.
* [[Oblivious Guilt Slinging]]: A lot of it.
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** Walt and Jesse become examples as clock-in and clock-out meth manufacturers for Gus, despite being comparatively moral people. It's lampshaded by Jesse. As they walk in to the industrial laundromat that houses their hidden meth lab, he sees the line of workers punching a clock and says, "I'm surprised he doesn't make us do that."
* [[Pyrrhic Villainy]]: OK, so Walt has his money, earned it his way and has survived. But in the process he's killed several people, put massive amounts of drugs on the street, become permanently entangled with dangerous organized crime, and caused the wife and family he was earning the money for to leave him.
* [[Rage Against the Reflection]]: Walt, after finding out that {{spoiler|he's in remission}}.
* [[Ramming Always Works]]:
* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]:
** The house used as Jesse's house was sold during season two, so they made do with a set of the kitchen for a couple episodes (with the RV blocking the view out the window) before Jesse's parents kick him out. In the next season, they were able to use it again and Jesse moves back in.
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** Vince Gilligan originally planned on killing off Jesse in the first season, but Aaron Paul was so good in the role that he essentially became the second main character.
** Had it not been for contract issues with Raymond Cruz, Gus would never have been introduced, and Tuco wouldn't have been killed off.
* [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]: Many people complained that
* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: plays around with this. For starters, Jesse and Walt epitomize recklessness (youth) vs. calculation (experience). Hank and Walt similarly reflect this, mainly with the former's direct, almost obnoxious way of dealing with his family and job. However, Jesse plays Blue when dealing with his less smart cohorts Badger and Skinny Pete. Walt and Gus also flip this around: the first acts more out of emotion and concern for his family and (sometimes) Jesse. The latter, who has no emotional attachments the audience knows of (or at least living ones), conducts business the way only a cold-blooded monster would, taking extreme caution to keep his respectable businessman facade while not minding his underlings' (or anyone else's) deaths to keep his outfit operating.
* [[Reverse Whodunnit]]: An entire show of one.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: Gustavo's whole life since entering America seems to have been one long plan to position himself for revenge against the cartels. His final coup is quite impressive. He also visits Hector Salamanca regularly to gloat about it.
* [[Sad Clown]]: Hank suffers from panic attacks and later PTSD, but he hides his suffering with his gregarious personality.
* [[Sarcastic Confession]]: In the 3rd season premiere, brother-in-law Hank is helping Walter move out of his home after a falling out with his wife. One black duffel bag is heavy, and Walter isn't supposed to do any heavy lifting. Hank insists, and feels the heft. "What have you got in there, cinder blocks?" Without a drop of [[Irony]], Walter replies, "Half a million dollars in cash." Hank only chuckles and says, "That's the spirit." It happens again in season four, when Hank speculates that {{spoiler|the "W.W." dedication in Gale's notebook is "Walter White"}}. Walt jokingly "confesses".
* [[Scary Black Man]]: As polite and friendly as he may seem, Gus is still a drug kingpin and is every bit as brutal as you'd expect a man in his position to be. His henchman Tyrus is cut from a similar cloth, though he doesn't even bother to act friendly. And finally, Huell's not afraid to use his height and weight to intimidate people, though he's a far goofier take on this trope than Gus and Tyrus.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: Makes me want to live in New Mexico.
* [[Seamless Spontaneous Lie]]: When Skyler needs to justify the large amount of cash Walter earned from making meth, she spins a tale about Walt gambling that also explains the fallings-out they had. It's so good Walter himself begins to listen in awe.
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** The name of the last episode of season one is "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal", after a line from ''[[Fargo]]''.
** The season four premiere ends with [[Pulp Fiction|Walt and Jesse getting breakfast in a diner, wearing t-shirts after their other clothes got covered in blood.]]
**
** In Season 4 episode 4, Skyler remarks "Tonight's the night", a likely shout-out to [[Dexter]].
* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: Definitely towards the cynical side.
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** Saul Goodman = S'all good, man! Explicitly lampshaded in one of the 'Better Call Saul' promos for Season 4. Badger ends his account by saying that 'S'all good man, cause I called Saul Goodman.'
** Walt takes the name Heisenberg as his pseudonym. So the show is all about Heisengerg's principles.
* [[Stout Strength]]: While he looks the part of a stereotypical fat cop, Hank's in excellent physical condition and comes out on top in more than his fair share of fights. Huell is also every bit as wide as he is tall, and uses his girth to intimidate people into complying with the demands of his employers.
* [[Suicide by Cop]]:
* [[Suspicious Spending]]: Walt's attempting to justify his ability to pay his medical bills is a continuous problem. Finding ways to launder the money from his booming drug trade accounts for much of the conflict in many episodes.
* [[Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist]]: Hank is always in pursuit of the elusive "Heisenberg"...his brother-in-law. Yeah, he's never really close to figuring it out. Or Is He?
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** {{spoiler|Posthumously, Gale. Hank seems to believe Gale was Heisenberg.}}
* [[Taking You with Me]]: {{spoiler|Hector's final confrontation with Gus. }}
* [[Teeth-Clenched Teamwork]]: Walt and Jesse. They do get better over time though. {{spoiler|And then a whole lot worse.}}
* [[Tempting Fate]]:
** When she says, "Call me a [[Berserk Button|skank]] one more time," it is ''not'' an invitation.
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** In the first episode, Jesse uses the expression "break bad," and it also appears in one of the webisodes.
** Plenty of the episodes have title drops. See, for example, Season 4, Episode 10 - "Salud".
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Ted's absolutely ''refuses'' to pay his taxes, even when the IRS is preparing to audit him and Skyler practically drops the money needed to pay them off in his lap. {{spoiler|His stupidity ends up getting him crippled for life when he tries to flee from Huell and Kuby so he can cancel the check they forced him to sign, only to slip, fall, and bang his head.}}
* [[Took a Level in Badass]]
* [[Trailers Always Lie]]: The season 4 trailer ends with the narrator claiming that "Walter White is not in danger. He is the danger", echoing his speech in "Cornered". It's obvious since the season premiere that in this season Walt is totally, totally in danger.
* [[Trash the Set]]:
* [[Trauma Conga Line]]: Everybody. If they're not dancing the Conga, then they're playing the tune.
* [[Tropaholics Anonymous]]: In Season 3 Jesse and his cronies attempt to ''sell methamphetamine'' to people at recovery meetings. In the end, none of them can bring themselves to do it. "It's like shooting a baby in the face." In fact, Jesse's cronies end up actually [[Becoming the Mask|going into recovery]].
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** Walt and Jesse.
{{quote|''"I've got this... [[Honorary Uncle|nephew...]]"'' }}
** {{spoiler|Jesse and Mike}}
** Tuco, Tio and The Cousins make up an evil version.
* [[Ultimate Evil]]: The cartel. We rarely get exposition on how they relate to the story, and we often see the results of their acts rather than such acts themselves (like the tortoise incident). It's only in season 3 where they start taking an active role in the plot and we begin seeing glimpses of the inner workings of their organization.
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** In-universe, Hank described Gale as if "''[[Scarface]]'' had sex with [[Mister Rogers' Neighborhood|Mister Rogers]]."
* [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]: The Season 3 finale "Full Measure" is basically a protracted game played between Walt and Gus.
▲* [[You Fail Law Forever]]: In-universe example: Badger is tricked into believing the urban myth that undercover cops have to identify themselves as such when asked. He quickly learns that this not how the law works.
* [[Your Head Asplode]]:
** When it's shot with {{spoiler|a hollow point bullet}}, it does.
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