Breaking Bad/YMMV: Difference between revisions
Moved the "Negro y Azul" entry to a more fitting trope.
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* [[Alas, Poor Villain]]:
** {{spoiler|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".}}
**
** While a grunting, dead-eyed cretin who did Gus' bidding without so much as the slightest bit of hesitation, {{spoiler|Mike}} was still one of the show's most sympathetic villains. And yet he dies a completely pointless death, right after {{spoiler|his attempt at making sure his granddaughter was financially set for life completely imploded.}}
** {{spoiler|Walt's death in the [[Grand Finale]]. In spite of all the awful things he's done over the course of the show, there's still something profoundly sad about seeing him die alone in a meth lab, having alienated almost everyone close to him due to his pride and ego overriding his genuine love and desire to provide for his family.}}
* [[Alternate Character Interpretation]]: Possibly the purpose of the show.
** It's hard to decide if Walt's "cooking" is retaliation
** Skyler. A good woman who's acting poorly due to her husband's action? 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?
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** 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]]?
** Was Gale merely a fanboy of Walt's, or did his admiration [[Ambiguously Gay|go a liiiiiittle bit deeper than that?]]
*** Likewise, did Gale know that {{spoiler|Gus was planning to kill Walt when he told him that he'd be [[Deadly Euphemism|dying from cancer soon]]}}, or was he well aware of what his boss was hinting at?
* [[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.
* [[Broken Base]]:
** Over [[Bottle Episode|"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 {{spoiler|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.
* [[Catharsis Factor]]:
** Tuco finally getting his just desserts in "Grilled" is ''incredibly'' satisfying after all the pain he put Walt and Jesse through. Whether it's Walt's ''vicious'' [[The Reason You Suck Speech|verbal takedown]], his screams of agony when Jesse shoots him in the gut and ''kicks'' the bullet wound, or Hank finishing him off Scarface-style, you'll be cheering as you watch this "insane, degenerate piece of filth" meet a gruesome end.
** Walt {{spoiler|tricking Mike into letting him order the murder of Gale}} isn't satisfying because of the act itself (if anything, {{spoiler|Gale's death}} is one of the show's saddest moments). Rather, it's because he makes {{spoiler|Mike}} look like a complete ''idiot'' after having to deal with his condescending, creepy attitude.
** {{spoiler|'''Jesse strangling Todd to death''' in the finale.}} {{spoiler|Jack's death}} is satisfying as well, but {{spoiler|Todd}}'s is especially so after all the shit he did to Jesse, as well as {{spoiler|his callous murder of a child}}. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue-lVK6Y5pI Just watch this crowd's reaction and try not to cheer along with them.]
* [[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 {{spoiler|1=[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b6sDY7hiB4 Gus walks into the nursing home in ''Face Off''] }}. It manages to convey the emotion of that scene perfectly.
** A more light-hearted example would be [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHF0xlf-bjY "Negro y Azul"], Heisenberg's catchy and goofy [[Villain Song]] from the cold open of the episode of the same name.
* [[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."
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** Also a literal example, as Walt grows himself a [[Beard of Evil|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.
* [[Harsher in Hindsight]]: Thanks to the events that take place in ''[[Better Call Saul]]'', many of this show's own events take on a whole new weight years later.
** Saul Goodman getting his law degree from the University of American Samoa (and from an online course, at that) and Skyler's incredulous reaction towards it is basically a punchline, a cute little joke showing just how shady and illegitimate of a lawyer Saul is. It turns out that he worked his ''ass'' off for that degree, and {{spoiler|Chuck, his own brother attacking his legitimacy as a lawyer by belittling it}} makes it come off as an unintentional [[Kick the Dog]] moment for her.
** Whether it's Jesse goofing off with the lab equipment or Walt's slapstick-laden war against a stray housefly, the sillier moments that take place in Gus' underground superlab feel weird with the knowledge that {{spoiler|they're happening directly on top of the shared grave of Howard Hamlin and Lalo Salamanca}}.
** When Walt and Jesse kidnap Saul Goodman so they can press-gang him into helping them build their criminal empire, his terror over "Lalo" potentially sending them after him is hilarious. It's a lot less funny in light of Lalo's ascension from a throwaway line to a fleshed-out character that quickly establishes himself as one of the series' most ''terrifying'' villains and leaves Saul traumatized by his actions.
** While Hector's refusal to look at Gus seems to stem from their tumultuous history together and Gus' psychological torture of the man, it truly seems to be rooted in the fact that the last time Hector looked him square in the eye, {{spoiler|it set off a domino effect that led to the death of his beloved nephew Lalo, the destruction of the Juarez Cartel and the entire Salamanca family, and him losing the respect of his bosses Don Eladio and Juan Bolsa}}.
* [[Hell Is That Noise]]: I'd like to thank Breaking Bad for ruining the simple call bell. Now I can't play Pit anymore!
* [[Hilarious in Hindsight]]: "The Fly" is an unconventional episode that has people split down the middle on whether they love it or hate it. It's meant to be a cerebral character study that sheds new light on Walt and Jesse's mindsets, and just so happens to be directed by Rian Johnson. This was nearly a decade before the release of ''[[The Last Jedi]]'', which was even more polarizing and hit a lot of superficially similar beats, up to being directed by the same guy!
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