Breaking Bad: Difference between revisions
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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''
{{tropelist}}
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* [[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.
** Interestingly, {{spoiler|when Hank's about to die, he isn't the one begging for his life. ''Walt'' is, since he still loves Hank in spite of everything that went down between them. Knowing that Walt's pleas are useless against Jack, he simply tells him to [[Precision F-Strike|go fuck himself]] and demands him to just shoot him and get it over with.}}
* [[Alliterative Name]]: Both father and son are named Walter White. The name was deliberately chosen for its blandness.
* [[Analogy Backfire]]:
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* [[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.
* [[Big Screwed-Up Family]]: Where to begin? The drug-cooking school teacher, his attempted [[Stepford Smiler]] wife, the Gung-ho DEA agent brother-in-law, the kooky kleptomaniac sister... No wonder "Flynn" wants to change his name.
** The Salamanca family's worse, even if their familial bonds are stronger. Save for "Abuela" in ''[[Better Call Saul]]'', everyone's a different shade of cartel killer: Tuco's a [[Ax Crazy|barely-restrained lunatic]], the Cousins are [[The Sociopath|a pair of stone cold, near-mute butchers]], Hector instills family loyalty through child abuse...
* [[Blofeld Ploy]]: In the season 4 premiere "Box Cutter", Gus kills a mook just to make a point.
* [[Boredom Montage]]: Used in the episode "Shotgun" when Jesse begins working for Mike.
* [[Born Lucky]]: The amount of things that work out for Walt due to sheer luck are ''insane''. In fact, {{spoiler|when Jesse finally turns against him for good this is why he thinks arresting Walt and putting him away for good is hopeless. As he tells Hank and Gomez, he's pracically got the devil's luck on his side}}.
* [[Bottle Episode]]: "And the Bag's in the River", "Four Days Out" and especially "Fly".
* [[Break the Cutie]]:
** Jesse, over the course of the show.
** Skyler in the 3rd season.
* [[Break the Haughty]]: Hank and Jesse. Both go from gung-ho and cocky to grim and introspective as they're beaten down by traumatic moment after traumatic moment.
* [[Bribe Backfire]]: Walt and Jesse's first meeting with Saul.
* [[Bulletproof Vest]]: The Cousins purchase a pair from an illegal arms dealer.
* [[But He Sounds Handsome]]: Walt commenting on Gale [[What an Idiot!|to Hank]] who thinks he was Heisenberg, telling Hank that his "genius might still be out there."
* [[Butt Monkey]]: Jesse's first scene is him falling out of a window with no pants on. His humiliation grows with his success. Walt has been the [[Butt Monkey]] his whole life, but the events of the show make him more assertive and aggressive. Which is not really a good thing, it turns out.
* [[Call Back]]:
** In episode 2, Jesse fails to appreciate how important a plastic bin is when dissolving a body in hydrofluoric acid. Three seasons later, he finally gets to do it properly, saying "Trust us" when Mike questions if it'll work.
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* [[A Day in the Limelight]]: "Hermanos" in season 4 for Gus. The episode focuses more on him than any other character and gives a look into his [[Mysterious Past]] {{spoiler|and provides a lot of subtext for his relationship with the Cartel, Tio in particular.}}
* [[Description Cut]]: Done several times; one particularly notable one involves a couple of addicts who have stolen an ATM machine saying that they've committed a "victimless crime", followed by a cut to a shot of the clerk at the store from which they stole the ATM lying shot to death in a pool of blood.
* [[Despair Event Horizon]]: Walt seems to have reached one in the beginning of the episode {{spoiler|"Salud", after getting the shit beaten out of him by his surrogate son Jesse. However, his real son helps him through it.}} He promptly returns to it in {{spoiler|"Crawl Space", when he learns that Gus declared him and his family free game and all of the money they had was given to Ted Beneke by Skyler. And Ted is now dead, with the money given to the IRS.}} He slips into this one last time in {{spoiler|"Ozymandias", when he's forced to watch Jack Welker gun down Hank and goes catatonic as a result.}}
* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: Not related to the main plot, but honestly, can you say anything else about the end of "ABQ"?
* [[Dies Wide Open]]: {{spoiler|Jane starts choking when she's asleep. When she finally dies, her eyelids slide partially open. She's seen later with her eyes still open}}.
* [[Directed by Cast Member]]: As if being the best actor on TV wasn't enough, Cranston also directed the Season 2 and 3 premieres.
* [[Dirty Coward]]: {{spoiler|When Walt guns his gang down and Jesse strangles his nephew to death, Jack shows no concern for them in his final moments. He's shot in the middle of bargaining with Walt for his life. With that being said, [[Downplayed Trope|he does go out with some dignity since he keeps his cool even with a gun pointed at him.}}
* [[Disposing of a Body]]: Walter and Jesse dispose of bodies with acid, to the point that Mike decides that it's their specialty.
* [[Don't You Dare Pity Me!]]: When Walt refuses some charity from an old friend out of pride and a lingering grudge, the friend can only react with shock and pity. This enfuriates Walt into delivering a [[Precision F-Strike]].
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{{quote|"Walt, don't make me beg here. Just stick it in there!"}}
* [[Dramatic Irony]]: The show is absolutely ''filled'' with dramatic irony. It's difficult to count the number of times a major drug dealer or manufacturer has a casual, friendly chat with a DEA agent or someone they intend to kill.
* [[Dropped a Bridge on Him]] {{spoiler|Ted}}'s exit from the
* [[Dropped a Bridget On Him]]: [http://www.amctv.com/videos/breaking-bad/?bcpid=9787693001&bclid=69511873001&bctid=12064411001 Hank's prewedding jitter] Hank still doesn't seem to understand...▼
* [[Drowning My Sorrows]]:
** Walt dealing with the ''awful'' news that his cancer is in remission. Dragging his underage son into his tequila-slugging match is something of a [[Kick the Dog]] moment.
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** Walt attempts to do this with Mike as a way of cooling off tensions between them. Mike goes along with it... and then beats him up.
* [[Drugs Are Bad]]: A major theme of the film. Walter makes a deal with the devil to provide for his family after his death with drug money. As a result, he becomes a hardened murderer and manipulator, his relationship with his family is irreparably damaged, and his brother-in-law is nearly killed. Jesse, for his part, loses his family, kills a person, gets his girlfriend killed, and almost dies several times. Jesse's addiction and attempts to cope with his suffering also locks him into a downward spiral.
▲* [[Dropped a Bridget On Him]]: [http://www.amctv.com/videos/breaking-bad/?bcpid=9787693001&bclid=69511873001&bctid=12064411001 Hank's prewedding jitter] Hank still doesn't seem to understand...
* [[Dumbass Has a Point]]: When Walt and Jesse are stuck in the desert in the RV after the battery dies, Jesse starts throwing out suggestions including stripping down the vehicle to make either a robot or a dune buggy (he was a bit delirious). Believe it or not, this helps Walt strike on the solution that actually does save their lives.
* [[Dumb Blonde]]: Skyler pretends to be a ditzy, slutty secretary in order to keep Ted from getting audited by the IRS. Specifically, she acts like a complete idiot so the guy they sent will think his books were cooked by complete accident as opposed to willful malice. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|It works.]]
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* [[Justified Criminal]]: The main crux of the series, though pride is a big factor too, showing justification really only exists in Walter's mind. The show is arguably a [[Deconstruction]] of this concept.
* [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]]: Normally the [[Big Bad]] poisoning an about a dozen unarmed people in one sitting would be harrowing, but when it's {{spoiler|the governing body of the Mexican cartel}} its hard not to give him a pass.
* [[Killed Off for Real]]: Any characters that die on the show stay dead, though some return in flashbacks. As of season
* [[Kitschy Local Commercial]]: Saul Goodman's ads. "Better Call Saul!"
* [[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others]]: In "Fly," Walt tellingly adds the birth of his daughter as an after-thought, seeming to place more importance on the first million he made as a reason to have not dropped dead.
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** Mike delivers two impressive ones in Season 5. In "Buyoff", he tricks the DEA agents tailing him into thinking he left a dead drop, only for them to be left with a note saying "FUCK YOU". Then there's the end of "Say My Name"...
{{quote|{{spoiler|"Shut the fuck up and let me die in peace".}}}}
** And perhaps the most glorious example comes to us with {{spoiler|Hank}}'s last words.
{{quote|{{spoiler|My name is ASAC Schrader, and you can go fuck yourself.}}}}
* [[Pretty Little Headshots]]: Averted; use a hollow point and it gets messy.
* [["Previously On..."]]: Used to recap events seen in previous episodes, as well as give us brief events that are never seen in the show.
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* [[Tension-Cutting Laughter]]: Tuco is the master of this.
* [[There Are No Therapists]]: Walt is forced to see one after his fugue state incident, but it wasn't a psychological problem to begin with. On the other hand, Hank clearly suffers physchological trauma from his many violence job incidents, yet is never seen getting therapy. He'd probably pretend to be fine anyway.
* [[Those Wacky Nazis]]: Jack Welker and his gang are neo-nazis connected to the Aryan Brotherhood. While Jack is as cunning as they come and not without a few [[Evil Virtues]], his [[Mooks]], most prominently Kenny, are your stereotypical dumb and sadistic thugs.
* [[Title Drop]]:
** In the first episode, Jesse uses the expression "break bad," and it also appears in one of the webisodes.
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