So I’m watching season 5 for the first time. Is it just me or is this just.. bad? I’ll not spoil anything but so much happens that just seems out of character for the characters we know. The flow of the show is completely different too, Which I find odd considering it was ended on their own terms and weren’t rushed to wrap up. (The production company wanted more.) it’s almost like a season is missing. We get stuff so left of field after the great seasons 1-4. I just finished episode 7 but yeah. I’m really not enjoying this season as much as the others.

So I am watching breaking bad, watched the first two seasons a few years ago but am now watching it in full.

One thing I am noticing is a consistent theme in the show that I don’t see get talked about too often (but probably quite a bit and maybe I’m just terrible at researching).

So everyone knows that most of Walt’s issues would’ve been solved had he taken the job offer from Gretchen and Elliot, but there are some caveats to that choice that I think actually sing throughout the shows story.

Walt is a 50 year old man with a disabled son, a wife with a daughter on the way and absolutely no way to take care of them in the way he would want to given what he has accomplished in life. I mean Walt was a key part of groundbreaking research that made Gretchen and Elliot millions. Many people will look at this situation, and believe Walt doesn’t take the offer due to ego and jealously. But I think there’s a different reason.

Walt sacrifices so much of his time, even his heart to Gretchen, and now his mortality as there is a strong possibility his chemistry research may have lead him to develop this very aggressive cancer. His life pursuits have seemingly left him in a situation where his family, the one thing he has going for him in his eyes, will also burn down in horrible devastation. He has given so much, and yet received little in return.

With Walt now seeing that all he has left to give his family is either insurmountable medical debt, or crumbs and scraps of what he was essentially owed given to him out of pity. Gretchen and Elliot want to give Walt the job not out of genuine recognition of his contributions. They did it, from Walt’s perspective, to soothe their superiority complex which everyone around him suffers from on some level.

Think about it, what stopped them from giving Walt ANY of the earnings throughout the years while they drive a 200,000$ Bentley to his house just cause they find out he’s sick. They could’ve helped him with disability care for his son, and possibly so much more given the situation. I mean it’s literally his intellectual property they are making MILLIONS off of. Honestly, Gretchen and Elliot are pretty horrible when you consider all the factors. Really they seemingly never gave Walt a morsel of what he gave them until they have an opportunity to save their “poor, old friend” and soothe their egos with their feigned altruism.

And about the superiority complex, just look at his family. Hank and Marie both have egos as Marie is a radiologist who seemingly makes a decent amount of money, while Hank is a chauvinistic asshole who constantly needs to lead the room with his lust for dominance. When Walt starts getting mad at Hank for seemingly taking the father role figure from him, you see him utterly enraged because Walt made so many more sacrifices for Walt Jr. than Hank ever did. Marie’s judgmental and quite rude nature plasters almost every scene she’s in.

And this is where I end up at my main point, the idea that sacrifice is the more ultimate theme than just about how power is the ultimate drug. Walt just keeps giving for everyone, and everyone only seemingly came to his heed when he was dying of cancer. It’s almost like Walt wasn’t a factor in anyone’s life before he got cancer. Now everyone starts to worry about him and treat him like a fragile, frail old man who in their eyes failed due to his own faults. However, Walt sees his failure mainly come from how crappy all of his investments came to be. Walt doesn’t want a giant pity party to be the last thing he sees before he dies. He hates the image of “poor, old Walt” because he feels this is the image the world has projected onto him, not vice-versa.

For a man like Walt, why not try to have control and have everyone see him in a new light. He’s now in an industry where his talents and hard work have a better chance of being appreciated than ever before. When things don’t turn out that way though, Walt succumbs to the anger and becomes a full on menace with nothing but vengeance on his mind. Vengeance for the hand he was dealt with in his shitty life.

Anyways, there’s just my thoughts. They’re not anything really special, but I get excited when I talk about shows I like and their themes so I figured why not have some fun.

Thank you if you read this :)

Hi, it's my first time watching breaking bad ever. I started this week and I'm already on season 3 it's so good and the pacing is amazing. My question is why do the cartels hate Gus because he's south american rather than mexican? I know they dislike him already because of that Hector says, "Never trust a south american" when his nephews are running around in a flashback. I know they only tolerate him because he makes a crap ton of money. But why the bitterness because he's from south america rather than latin america?

In Felina, where Walt hires the "two best hitman west of the Mississippi", Badger and Petes' hands are so still. Like they were at least 30 meters away, using a laser pointer and accurately pointing it onto their body for minutes. They definitely have some real hitman potentials.

I'm watching breaking bad again and noticed walt is just a real piece of crap with no redeeming qualities, everything he does is greedy, selfish and stupid. I used to love walt on my first watch and never got why people hated him in season five, I always cheered him on and thought skyler was just a "bitch wife", but holy shit does walt suck (not as a character but as a person). Season 2-5 is just miserable to watch him, YES he is smart as hell but he always uses it to manipulate others (Loved ones included). I try to think of BADASS moments that walt has but the best one I can think of is "Say my name", which also make him out to be an egotistical asshole craving to be like gus. Skyler is right and should be afraid of walt, as he brushes of killing gus as a must but in reality that makes him a killer, and she knows it. She knows her husband is a maniac killer and she has the right to stop loving him and make the kids safer, especially after the hitout on hank at the end of season 4. I love walt's character and I think that the manipulations he makes, while tragic and unjustified, are absolutely genius and fun to watch, but he is NOT a good person trying to do right for his family, he is a bad person that would have done anything to not die a "loser", even if it means hurting others.

(Noted: ONE of the best, NOT the best)

So this is probably around my 3-5th time watching BB, and I just now realllly noticed this episode. We get the intro of Saul, the whole DEA vs Badger vs Saul type thing, the absolutely GORGEOUS shots of the NM desert with the Crystal Ship. Just absolutely fantastic.

I honestly feel like this is one of my favorite episodes. The entire 45 min is just great between the story and the cinematography.

Badger being busted, Walt going to BCS, Walt and Jesse holding up Saul in the absolutely GORGEOUS ABQ desert in the very late night/early morning hours, Walt and Jesse breaking up the DEA’s bust of Badger with Jimmy In-And-Out. The entire episode is a fucking master class.

This is my first post here, and it’s thanks to this episode, one of my favorites of the whole series…and I won’t lie…it’s 70% because of those 2 absolutely PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL shots of the NM desert behind the Crystal Ship

Thats why he seemed so familiar!! Only noticed when rewatching Scarface. Great performance in both. Surprised he hasnt been in more movies

Thinking over the various characters who have disabilities at some point during the show; Flynn with CP, Hank in the wheelchair, Hector speechless and in a wheelchair, a Salamanca twin with a crushed lower body. I’m trying hard to figure out the relationship between masculinity and “impotence” (defined here simply as not having a body that functions like everyone else’s, no more.) The whole series is centered around what it means to be a “real”man/father/son, so impotence is a big deal that turns the tables on characters in a big way. Are there other characters who are (temporarily or not) disabled?

Do they fit into this matrix?

edit: posted in the comments!

hey guys, i have a whole bullet list of symbolism i discovered while watching this show. i’ve watched it a few times but the list i created really excited me. if anyone wants to see it lmk!!!

I'm on my umpteen rewatch of this show (I come back to it more than I should honestly) and I've been wondering about how, at least at the beginning, pretty much every character other than Walt is shown to be a bit unlikeable to some degree. All of this is stripped away by the end for the most part, but it makes me wonder, is there some element of personal bias at play? Like... are we seeing things as they actually are or are we seeing things the way Walt sees them? We know Walt's pride is through the roof and he has this deep resentment not just to those around him but his life as a whole.

Imagine if what we see is a slightly warped reality from Walts perspective. Not in the sense that anything plays out differently but maybe their negative traits are ever so slightly amplified and made more clear to us as viewers than what the reality could be, because Walt is actually constantly keeping score, constantly aware of every slight, he's bitter and resentful, so these little things are either made more clear to us as viewers in the acting direction - or maybe we are shown small negative moments in Walts day when actually, other things we're not shown could be more positive.

There's a one scene I was watching from Season 2 where Walt talks to Carmen and there's this undertone of ambiguous flirting on her part. Now, what if, instead of the reality, we're seeing things just a little bit more from his perspective than what is the reality. He thought she was flirting with him, so that's what we're shown as viewers. It makes his pass at her later more sympathetic to us to a degree, but the idea that maybe a lot of this stuff is in his head due to his inflated ego I think would be interesting and would make sense for his character.

I'm not seriously thinking this was the intention Vince had when doing the show, but I do think it's an interesting idea at least.

Walter White has done messed up things in practically every episode, but when I watched this scene I couldn't wrap my head around what could've sparked that idea in his head. Especially how he had that evil, kind of smug, smirk on his face while pouring the drinks.

The only thing I can sort of come up with is that he was losing his emotions due to his secret drug occupation, but why do that at the party, in front of Hank, to your son?

Does anyone have any theories?

Edit: Episode 10

For those wondering, A Hollywood era is what I like to call when shows are starting to become household names and the show knows that they're getting popular, so they thrown in more blockbuster action, above and beyond storylines and tons of pop culture references.

With that out of the way, I feel like Breaking Bad was also affected by this, throughout S4-5, Breaking Bad was littered with pop culture references, in S4 alone, there's references to House M.D, Left 4 Dead 2 and World At War, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, even Samuel L. Jackson contacted AMC to have a small cameo as fucking Nick Fury.

In Season 5, they had a whole In-Show advertisement dedicated to Chrysler and Dodge, even the stories were getting more octane and blockbuster-ish, with a episode dedicated to a train robbery, mass poisonings, walt driving recklessly in the streets while calling Saul, and shootouts cranked up to 11 in S5, where almost every episode at least had one gun pulled out or fired.

Watching BB for the umpteenth time and this episode is sad..Mike, even though he is ruthless in his job, he is also probably, out of all the characters the most moral from the criminal scene in the series..Upsetting when he gets killed..My favourite character if I am to be honest…

My best guess as to why it was in the show was to showcase the butterfly effect i.e. Walter's actions have unintended fat reaching consequences into the future. Any other perspectives?

I’m asking in terms of IQ. He can easily do multiplication in his head, and he’s very sharp socially too (for example, he quickly realized that his house was bugged regarding the Skyler/Ted situation). I just want to understand if his IQ is over 150–160, something like that

🚨 SPOILERS 🚨

Man it always hits me in the feels when Jessie shoots Gale, the way Gale looks when he realises there’s nothing he can say that will change Jessie’s mind.

There’s a few deaths in the show that are really sad, Gales is in that list for me!

I rewatch this series every year and my next watch will be coming up soon. I saw a random episode recently and seeing skinny, bald Walt in his porkpie hat really made me laugh - it's so of its time and gloriously cringe. that logo was EVERYWHERE back in the day, I look at it now and it reminds me of This Man wearing a hat and sunglasses.

Skylers song to Ted aside, what are some of the cringiest, funniest moments in BB I should look out for? again, I love this show, it's just funny sometimes.

shout out to the advert for those cars he buys for himself and Flynn, with the jump cuts and the revving in the driveway. kills me every time. the dubstep! lmao

So season 1 Walt was a heavily flawed person who chose to enter the drug trade to maintain his pride, when he could have just taken Elliot and Gretchen’s offer to fix his family’s financial problems. And lots of people in the fanbase will use this moment to show how Walt was always a monster. He chose to enter the drug trade and criminal world without being forced to. But, that also applies to pretty much every single criminal in the franchise. 

It applies to Jimmy, Mike, Jesse, Nacho and even smaller characters like Skinny Pete, Badger, Combo, Huell, Kuby. Some people might argue Mike needed to do it for his family, but he laundered 200 thousand dollars for his family by the end of season 3 of Better call Saul, and still keeps working for Gus after that. 

But what exactly makes season 1 Walt a worse person than Skinny Pete or Badger? Every other character doesn’t have better motivations for becoming a criminal than Walt does, but he seems to be the only one judged as a day one monster for his actions.

I always assumed it was the gleam from walter whites glasses which were placed at angle on his head that might shine. Is that not it ?

I have a friend who just got really into breaking bad, they absolutely love it. They’ve got to season 3 of Better Call Saul and love it as well. They mention it constantly! Christmas is coming up so I’m wondering if there are any fun gift ideas I could give them

Gus tells Hector that his entire family is dead. The fat body guard Tuco had working for him was his brother in law, which means Tuco has a sister, which means Hector has a niece.

As a BB fan, I have struggled to find a likable rhythm or connectivity to Better Call Saul. I have labored. But as a Vince Gilligan fanatic, I sledge on. Season 4 begins.

Question- Can anyone determine if any parts of BB and BCS plot time lines over lap? According to the plot does the BCS S4 happen during S1 of BB

And Last— What am I missing?

So the episode/season begins with them offering up a picture of Heisenberg for some sort of ritual thing. However I don’t remember them coming in contact with salamancas besides dead Tuco and Hector, who cannot speak.

Why do they want him dead/how do they know what he looks like?

After the election, I’m just kind of binge-watching Breaking Bad to chill out. I just got to the part where the cousins show up in Texas. Why do they blow up that hay truck? I guess the easy answer is they didn’t want to leave any evidence, but they still left that guy in the field with a bullet. Was that just to make sure there were no witnesses because of their cartel connections? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!

Bitch.

Through the entire Breaking Bad series Jesse Pinkman said "bitch" 55 times.

This comes out to an average of 11 bitches per season, or 0.887 bitches per episode.

The bitchiest episode was Season 2, Episode 6 "Peekaboo", with a total of seven bitches.

The longest bitchless streak was between Episodes 5 and 13 in Season 5, totalling a gap of eight bitchless episodes.