Breaking Bad: Difference between revisions
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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 psycho cartel killer: Tuco's a [[Ax Crazy|barely-restrained lunatic]], the Cousins are [[The Sociopath|a pair of stone cold, near-mute butchers]], Hector [[Abusive Parents|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
* [[Bottle Episode]]: "And the Bag's in the River", "Four Days Out" and especially "Fly".
* [[Break the Cutie]]:
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** Also see the season 4 premiere we get Chekhov's Box Cutter and the final shot quit possibly gives us Chekhov's Folder.
** Subverted in the episode {{spoiler|"Crawl Space"}} when Walt tells Saul to set things up with the man that he said could help him disappear under a new identity if necessary. When Walt goes home to retrieve the necessary money {{spoiler|it's been given to Ted by Skyler without his knowledge.}}
*** However, {{spoiler|we finally ''do'' meet that man in "Granite State" when Walt gets a new identity and skips town. He's a very prominent character in that episode, too!}}
** Walter's {{spoiler|gun, literally}}, throughout all of Season 4. It is however used as a prominent prop in various scenes where its presence alone has either thematic or plot-relevant resonance. However, he doesn't actually use it until the end of the final episode.
** Subverted with {{spoiler|the ricin-poisoned cigarette}} in season 4, which {{spoiler|disappears. Walt makes Jesse believe that Gus used it on Brock, but he was lying}}.
*** {{spoiler|Much like with Saul's "disappearing guy", the ricin cigarette is finally used in Season 5. Walt uses it to kill Lydia as a way to tie up loose ends involving her and Madrigal.}}
* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: Seemingly one-shot characters would routinely come back with more importance to the story, such as Skinny Pete and Badger.
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Walt training himself to fast draw his pistol in season 4 apparently becomes a waste of time when he realizes he'll never get a chance to use this ability against Gus, {{spoiler|but then he uses it to rescue Jesse at the end of the season.}}
* [[Chessmaster]]:
** Gus is gradually revealed to be one of these, a reputation cemented halfway through Season 3 when {{spoiler|he architects the death of the leader of the cartel}}.
** Walt gradually becomes one as well {{spoiler|as
* [[Children Are Innocent]]:
** [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]]. Tomas is an 11-year old murderer, but he was coerced into it.
** Jesse strongly believes in this trope. For one, when Jesse's family's housemaid found a marijuana joint that his parents initially believed was his but actually belonged to his overachieving younger brother, he took the fall, and later stomped on it to prevent him from smoking it. Jesse also pulled out on selling meth to a woman he met in rehab when he discovered she had a child. {{spoiler|Both his exit from the meth business as well as his later betrayal of Walt are prompted by events where children were hurt: when Todd murdered an innocent boy for the former, and when he found out Walt poisoned Brock for the latter.}}
* [[Cliff Hanger]]: A number of episodes, though only season 3 has come close to having the season finale variety.
* [[Confess to a Lesser Crime]]:
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** Gus, who initially appears to be a nice friendly man who runs a chicken restaurant and sells drugs on the side to being revealed as {{spoiler|an utterly ruthless drug overlord who uses the restaurant as a front}} Of course, he's able to switch back and forth between his two personalities within the same scene.
* [[Facial Horror]]: {{spoiler|Gus' death.}}
* [[Fake American]]: Walt's former friend Elliot is played by Brit Adam Godley with a mostly flawless accent. He does slip up a few times, but only in {{spoiler|the finale}}.
* [[Fan Service]]:
** Jane does quite a bit of it in the second season, since she's often wearing clothes that flatter her figure or nothing at all.
** The boob shot in the pilot. An erotic sight, but it can also be a startling one if you're rewatching the series and forgot there was actual uncensored female nudity here since there isn't anywhere else in the show.
* [[Filler]]: Walt and Jesse spend an entire episode trying to kill a fly. There's a lot of characterization going on, but this is probably the closest this series is ever going to get to a pure filler episode (and textbook [[Bottle Episode]]).
* [[Fire-Forged Friends]]: Walt and Jesse.
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** Gus and Mike's henchmen Victor and Tyrus lack their bosses' many cool or likeable traits, and are cold, creepy dickheads who love belittling and antagonizing Walt and Jesse.
** While he's a white-collar criminal who never physically hurts people, Ted Beneke makes up for it by being spineless, cowardly, and moronic to ludicrous extremes. Whether it's hiding from Walt when he has an affair with Skyler, nearly destroying their lives as a consequence of being audited, or [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|being responsible for Skyler's cringeworthy "Happy Birthday" scene]], you will absolutely want to reach through the screen and ''strangle'' this idiot for making everyone's lives worse with his bullheaded stupidity.
* {{spoiler|[[The Hero Dies]]}}: {{spoiler|The show ends with Walt's death}}
* [[Heroic Blue Screen of Death]]:
** {{spoiler|Jesse when he finds Jane dead. He has to be slapped out of it by Mike who wants him to tell police that he "woke up, he found her, that's all he knows."}}
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** Some of this is probably deliberate, as they likely [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing|didn't want to give real life criminals ''too'' much help]]. Though that didn't stop a handful of [[Moral Guardians]] and [[Hate Dumb|complete idiot celebrities]] from claiming the show actually teaches people to make meth. The rest is likely [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]].
* [[Hollywood Silencer]]: Averted in Episode 313, "Full Measure."
* [[Hope Spot]]: Inverted with {{spoiler|Gus Fring's death. After Tio detonates himself, Gus Fring walks out of the gutted room, seemingly fine...and the viewer's stomachs drop as they think the plan failed. Then the camera pans to show half of Gus's face gone.}}
** Played soul-crushingly straight with {{spoiler|Jesse's attempt at escaping the neo-nazi compound}} in "Granite State". {{spoiler|He saws off his chains, slips out of the hole in the ground he's locked inside of, and makes a run for it... only to be met with a barb-wire fence and security cameras. Jack and his men corner him, but instead of the physical torture they inflicted him with earlier, they go for the emotional kind by killing Andrea as punishment. [[Tear Jerker|By forcing him to watch.]]}}
* [[Hot Mom]]: Skyler's definitely got it going on. The same goes for Andrea, Brock's mom.
* [[How We Got Here]]: The episodes "Pilot", "Crazy Handful of Nothin'", "Grilled", "Breakage", "ABQ", and "Bug".
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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 5 that list includes: {{spoiler|[[Sacrificial Lamb|Krazy 8]], [[Big Damn Heroes|Tuco]], [[Death by Cameo|Tortuga]], [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|Combo]], [[Worst Aid|Jane]], [[Boom! Headshot!|The]] [[Sickbed Slaying|Cousins]], [[Kick the Dog|Gale]], [[Blofeld Ploy|Victor]], [[Anticlimax Boss|the]] [[Perfect Poison|Cartel]] [[Kill'Em All|bosses]], [[Dying Moment of Awesome|Hector]] [[Suicide Attack|Salamanca]], [[C-List Fodder|Tyrus]], [[Out-Gambitted|Gus]], [[Would Hurt a Child|Drew Sharp]], [[Retirony|Mike]], [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|Declan]], [[Last Stand|Gomez]], [[Defiant to the End|Hank]], [[I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure|Andrea]], [[Karmic Death|Todd]], [[Killed Mid-Sentence|Jack]], [[Your Days Are Numbered|Lydia]], and finally, [[The Hero Dies|Walter White]] [[Redemption Equals Death|himself.]]}} Needless to say if you take a supporting role on this show you should probably keep your resume current.
* [[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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** 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.
** We get perhaps the show's grandest example in the series finale, where {{spoiler|Walt booby traps the trunk of his car with a mechanism that will fire sweeping rounds of ''automatic machinegun fire'' when he pops it open. He uses this to clear out Jack Welker's entire neo-nazi compound. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|And he ''succeeds!'']]}}
* [[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 cause paranoia and long periods of sleep deprivation, which ''can'' cause hallucinations.
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** Jesse took the heat for his younger over-achieving brother Jake after their housemaid found a joint that he smoked, and whose parents initially assumed it to be Jesse's.
** {{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]]:
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