I always see people rate fictional pieces of media that are critically acclaimed 10 out of 10 just so that they won’t get cyberbullied by fans, but I have seen people confidently rate “Breaking Bad” 10 out of 10, not for fear of not getting bullied, but for genuine reasons like the character development, plot pacing, writing and set pieces. And, without a shadow of a doubt, I can wholeheartedly agree. This is truly a masterful piece of art. But I can’t provide my rating yet, I need to discuss everything else it does right. So, without further dillydallying, let us get into Breaking Bad!

Part I - The Plot

I recently reviewed A Clockwork Orange, which was my first review as well. I believed that the plot was really disturbing and ending with the villain winning was a bold move, but it succeeds in conflicting the audience. I think that Breaking Bad is really similar to that phrase. Obviously these two are completely different things entirely, one is a modern crime series about drugs, while the other is a dystopian drama about rape and violence and psychology, but still, they’re both disturbing in terms of storytelling and they both end with the villain winning (debatably).

In a nutshell, this show is about a chemistry teacher named Walter White who becomes diagnosed with terminal lung cancer on his fiftieth birthday and attempts to hide it from his family. He then runs into an old student from high school, Jesse Pinkman, after going with his brother in law, Hank, to a drug dealer’s house to raid. He runs into him when Hank and his assistant, Gomez, go into the house and Walt spots him sneaking out of the house. He travels to Jesse’s house later that night and offers to cook meth with him, or else he’ll turn him in. Jesse reluctantly agrees, and the two, unknowingly, dive deep into lives they never wanted to live.

The series is much more complicated than that though; characters spiral into horrible situations, revelations and plot twists occur, you’ll occasionally be on the edge of your seat and there is lots and lots of character development, which is likely my favorite aspect of this show. Walt starts as a relatively good man in the first episode, but transforms into a cold, vicious drug lord with the nickname Heisenberg. Walt’s wife, Skyler, becomes depressed and slightly suicidal too and cheats on Walt with her colleague, Ted. She proceeds to sing him happy birthday in a scene so corny you want to beat your computer screen so that you won’t have to listen to her hideous singing. Jesse’s development is easily the greatest though. Sure, Skyler becomes depressed in a visible way, but Jesse’s depression is so much more real and disturbing. He is forced to shoot an innocent man in the head to save himself and Walt toward the end of season three, and that’s the moment I believe Jesse truly walked down a dark path. You can hear it in his voice, see it in his movements and his face, but one of my favorite shots in the whole show is also one of the most disturbing. He turns up the music volume on his large speaker and collapses right next to them, holding his hands by his neck as his face turns red from sadness and we see the camera pan away further and further. If that isn’t the face of an alive but dead inside man, I don’t know what is.

Part II - Color in Breaking Bad

I’m sure that most people who have seen Breaking Bad are unaware of this, because most people just casually view it and then either forget about it or like it but just don’t want to dive into the theories, fanbase and hidden details within the show. But trust me, it’s worth at least learning about the color detail, which is absolutely genius. Each color means something in Breaking Bad, each color is a symbol of foreshadowing and if you follow the colors with a keen eye you can tell what the scene that you’re watching means.

Let’s start with yellow. Yellow, in this show, is a symbol of meth and the aftermath of the usage of meth. For example, Jesse is seen wearing a yellow sweatshirt in the first episode while cooking with Walt and when Walt is choking Krazy-8 to death, Walt is wearing yellow and so is Krazy-8, and the piece of plate Krazy-8 attempts to kill Walt with is yellow too. And why is Krazy-8 being killed by Walt? Because of meth. A famous example among Breaking Bad fans is Jane’s dad saying “when was the last time you’ve seen her in a yellow dress?” when picking out her burial dress. You know, the burial dress for his daughter who was a meth and general drug addict. Purple is another interesting color in Breaking Bad. It symbolizes safety and protection. Marie, Skyler’s sister and Hank’s wife, is commonly seen wearing purple. In fact, it’s her signature color. She’s pretty much never in danger in this entire show. She’s always at home, safe within her bed or just sitting around. If a character is surrounded by purple, that means they’re way more likely than not safe. But, my favorite colors in Breaking Bad are pink and red. Pink symbolizes youth, innocence and tragedy. In the infamous episode, ABQ, the one with the plane explosion, a pink teddy bear falls from the plane’s smoky remains and into Walt’s pool. This teddy bear likely belonged to an infant, which applies to the youth section of pink. Another example of this is in the episode, Ozymandias (the best episode, fight me), when Walt leaves his infant daughter, Holly, inside of a truck to be found. She is crying innocently and she’s obviously young. And what is she wearing? A pink blanket, of course! Then there’s red, which symbolizes blood, murder, criminality, aggression and violence in general. Tuco Salamanca is wearing red when he abducts Saul in, yes, Better Call Saul, but it’s just an example. But I have more. Lydia, one of Walt’s associates, is seen wearing red high heels while Jack and his group kill some of Walt’s previous dealers. Another famous example is the “I am the one who knocks!” scene. Walt is wearing a red t-shirt and begins a creatively crafted rant about why he is the killer, not the victim. So, this applies with aggression.

Part III - The Cinematography

Breaking Bad’s effects, camera shots and set pieces are just perfect. My favorite scene in the entire show is when Hank is shot by Jack, and the camera cuts to a shot of Walt’s face as pure sadness and disbelief covers him. He begins collapsing to the floor and we are forced to look at Walt bawl his eyes out without any audio. This scene is heartbreaking because not only do we see a fan favorite character being shot right in our faces, but we see the greatest reaction in all of video in my opinion. Walt is a total asshole throughout the show, no doubt about it, but when we see this scene, we know that he truly did have emotions. He did care about Hank (even offering Jack eighty million for his release in fact), and that’s actually kind of wholesome to me. So, yeah, the camera shot of Walt is easily the greatest in the series in my opinion. It absolutely shocks me that this is the scene that produced the most memes, especially considering it is the most devastating scene in the series or is at least one of them. Another masterful scene is joined alongside Hank’s demise in terms of my favorite scenes within the entirety of Breaking Bad, and that is the bloodcurdling explosion scene with Gus Fring. Gus is the perfect villain for a show like Breaking Bad. He is a silent psychopath who rarely commits something truly horrific on-screen unlike most praised villains, like Joker or Darth Vader (who I love by the way), who kill commonly. Sure, Gus does too, but not directly to his victims in person… until he slits a man’s neck in front of Walt and Jesse unexpectedly, which shocked me and caused me to realize that Gus was an unexpected monster. Pure gold. And every villain who is planned to be killed off deserves to go out with a bang. And for the love of god, Gus goes out with the biggest bang ever. Hector, the old man in the wheelchair, is assisted by Walt to set up a bomb on his wheelchair to blow up Gus when he is near Hector and when Hector rings his bell, leading to the bomb (sorry if that was a handful). When Gus enters Hector’s room in his old folks home, he looks Gus in the eyes before ringing the bell, leading down to the bomb, and Gus shoots up from his seat, shouting, as the camera cuts to the outside of the room and we see everything within the room blasting out of the door, and, miraculously, we see Gus walk out of the room as he eerily and awkwardly ties his tie on his suit as we see two staff members from the home run toward him in shock and fright. It seems as though he’s unscathed, until the camera twists and we see the aftermath of the explosion. Half of his face is blow right off. The image of the blooded skin and the parts of the skeleton likely shocked the living shit out of people, and man did they succeed! Giancarlo Esposito, the actor who portrayed Gus, claimed to have been more and more horrified as he viewed the mirror in the makeup room. The realism of the makeup evened scared the actor, so you know it’s bad… or wait, no, it’s good! Great, in fact. The only aspect of this scene better than the actual anatomy of Gus’s half blown off face is the moving of the camera. The way it moves horizontally to the left and then shows the aftermath is genius. I know I’ve already mentioned that a thousand times but I still can’t get my words straight and clear while writing about this masterful scene! Another brilliant shot involves Skyler in the backyard. Walt is discussing his diagnoses with Hank and Marie before Skyler lifelessly and emotionlessly walks into the pool and Marie shouts her name, hoping she’ll get out. But as we look inside of the premises of the pool, Marie is presumably proven wrong. Skyler, very well portrayed by Anna Gunn, is seen underwater with an eerie, somewhat glad and or happy face for a grueling few seconds that feel so uncomfortable and it’s so much more effective when you realize that the scene is only twenty seconds long, despite the fact that it feels like an eternity. Like when Skyler sings happy birthday to Ted, her colleague, which feels like an eternity on steroids.

There are so many other scenes I’d love to touch on, but I’d like to move on to another topic. I’ll perhaps go into more in a future page here on the website.

Part IV - Character Development

I touched on the character development mildly when discussing the plot but now I want to go in depth. Walt, as mentioned, starts off as an average man and evolves into a drug kingpin. People argue about the moment Walt became Heisenberg, his alternate character, which just proves that his development is absolutely fantastic. Bryan Cranston portrayed Walt in such a perfect way and I honestly believe that no other person could’ve acted as Walter White better. If Bryan Cranston was younger, he would be my vote for Gordon Freeman in a Half-Life movie if that ever happened… unrelated, yes, but still, I just wanted to get that out there. As for when I believe Walt became Heisenberg? Well, I believe he “broke bad” initially in the clothing shop in the first episode when he damages a man’s leg who is mocking his son who has a stutter. I think that’s the moment he first engaged in abnormal activity that is similar to Heisenberg’s emotions and decisions. I know that’s only in the first episode, but it’s a first sign if you ask me. But honestly, I believe that when he became Heisenberg isn’t the cream of the crop. One thing I loved more is how he became Heisenberg in the first place that I love so much. Ask yourself why instead of when. Another thing that I love even more is the evolution of him. Obviously. Shaving his hair symbolizes Heisenberg to me. I know I mentioned the clothing shop scene, but there’s no other Heisenberg symbol than that classic bald head and that iconic hat. Also, did you know that Bryan Cranston himself recommended the hat for Walt, mainly because his head got cold when they were filming outdoors, but little did they know it’d spawn an iconic item that any Breaking Bad fan will recognize. Next up is Jesse. I mentioned his depression lightly but now I’d like to dive deep into it. Again, Jesse is forced to shoot Gale in the head to save himself and Walt, which clearly brings him down a pathway of darkness. But that’s not the only time we see Jesse go down the way of depression. When his girlfriend, Jane, dies, he obviously becomes a rather gloomy person, but Gale’s death is really what begins his dark journey. The speaker scene is still absolutely chilling and horrific by the way, no doubt about that. Anyway, after these events occur, Jesse’s once childish and comedic humor dies down and he becomes more adult and aware of the effects of drugs, which is a really good message. Never do drugs or else it can drag you down a pathway that’ll ruin your life. It can cause major depression and suicidal thoughts. I’m not an expert, and this is fiction, but this does depict something that everybody should follow. Sorry for becoming a therapist, let’s keep going. Jesse’s transformation is far more different from Walt’s, in fact, it’s the exact opposite. Walt started as a kind of depressed man who works too hard to make too little money and becomes a drug kingpin who works hard, but not very hard, for tons and tons of profit. And then Jesse starts as a man who’s on top of the world, cooking meth with Walt and making lots of money before losing two girlfriends and getting tortured for months on end. Speaking of which: Andrea is Jesse’s second girlfriend, whom he meets at a drug discussion and healing meeting. They seem to be in a stable relationship and Andrea’s son, Brock, is a great little friend for Jesse and I’m sure Brock looked up to Jesse as a surrogate father for him for a while… until Jesse is kidnapped by Jack and Todd’s gang and we see him being tortured continuously each day, for example, being forced to sleep in a cage and is attached to a chain and is forced by the group to run from end to end of the lab which causes him to fly up in the air each time like a zipline and two men giggle and cheer poor Jesse on… which is in the movie but I’ll count it because this is my review not yours. Listen, I know Jesse is a bit of a jerk in the first season and he retains his snarky attitude occasionally while also, most majorly, selling meth to damaged people, but he isn’t a bad man. He’s on the fence between “antihero” and “hero”. He sure does commit crimes, almost always involving meth, but he always has good intentions. This is practically proven when we discover his care for children. Whenever something bad happens to a child, he loses it and does something over the top or seems to have a deep, deep care about the matter. When a boy is shot by two cartel members that Walt later runs over with a car, Jesse offers Andrea a pile of money to move out. Also, when Brock is poisoned, Jesse goes out of his way to, in a fit of pure rage, dash around the hospital to suggest the possibility of a poison to Andrea and confront Walt, becoming extremely injured in the process and then he also beats the ever living shit out of Saul as well to discover the truth. Another example of this is when Todd shoots the teenager Drew mercilessly and Jesse completely flips out (rightfully) and punches Todd and argues to kick him out of their group but Todd ends up staying. Jesse is visibly destroyed after Drew’s death and he is seen crying once he is watching television and sees the story about his death. I love this about Jesse so much and the amount of personality in his character, actually, screw it, pretty much every character in this show is stunning.

Walt and Jesse are all I can mention for now, but did that just prove to me and hopefully you that this is a banger of a goddamn show. But that took a while, that sure was a couple of sentences. I’m twelve, what am I doing? Absolutely nothing wrong, so let’s keep going onto the part I didn’t want to approach…

Part V - The Things I Didn’t Like

Okay, this was hard, but here it goes. I was actually tempted to leave this area blank as a troll but I have to mention some things whether I like it or not because this show is damn near perfect, but does it have some cons I usually like to forget about.

Firstly, Marie. Marie is just… Listen, she’s fine. She does what she is out to do, be a total dickhole to everyone and complain all of the time and be nosy and steal, but aside from my babyish complaints there, I must say “MATURELY” that she should’ve been more detailed. I know that’s hypocritical to say after literally stating that everyone in this show is extremely fleshed out and their personalities are amazingly crafted, but that was slightly false… Anyway, yeah, Marie is portrayed as the stereotypical nosy, bratty and annoying character. Actually, she’s usually very supportive of her family and especially Hank, but, she is already seen stealing and being bratty in the first episodes. For example, she just decides to steal a pair of shoes from the shoe shop and in season five she full on slaps Skyler in the face for working with Walt. I mean, yeah, that’s certainly illegal, but you shouldn’t slap your sister like that! And my least favorite example that happened right after the slap by the way which was so devastating and horrible to watch was the scene where Marie tries to take Holly away from Skyler to bring to her house against her will and Holly is crying for Skyler as Skyler screams in agony to give her back until Hank finally convinces her to give her back. That move was purely evil, change my mind. Even if your sister was working with a drug dealer doesn’t give you the right to steal her literal infant baby! So, yeah, she’s bad, but you may be asking why I wanted more from her? She seems to have ticked all the boxes for what she had to do, right? Wrong, for me. I know this would’ve taken up more time, but I still wanted to see some character growth in Marie. Maybe have her in actual danger for once? Maybe add a new personality trait? She seems more like a prop than an actual character most of the time to keep the story rolling. The only situations where she’s recognizable as a decent character is when she accomplishes being rude or nosy, because that’s who she’s meant to be. Other than that, she felt like a prop.

Now, a character that didn’t feel like a prop that I absolutely adore is Tuco. Tuco is such an absolutely brilliant character who I thought would be a main villain for the majority of the series, but Hank proved me wrong when he shot him in the head. His voice and the way he speaks is so villainous and gangster-like and the way he injures and kills people feels so believable for a drug dealer like him. He literally beats a man’s head in with his bare fist without any hesitation and then proceeds to boast about his action and cheers. So, he has a great voice, he is believably evil for a drug dealer and he seemed to run a good business when he was onscreen, so, it’s not unbelievable at all to assume that he’d be the main villain, right? Well, no, but that’s the wrong assumption. Seriously, why was Tuco killed off so quickly? Yeah, I know he was in Better Call Saul for about three episodes before pissing out! He satisfied me excessively and I really wanted to see more from him, no doubt about it.

Well, that’s all really. I mean, if I thought really hard I could likely come up with something else, but screw it, this show is almost perfect. So much so that if Tuco was onscreen for about thirty minutes more than he is canonically then this would be a 13/10.

Part VI - Verdict

So, in conclusion, Breaking Bad is a legendary landmark in cinematography and crime dramas, hell, dramas in general. Hell, shows in general. The characters, set pieces, storyline and pacing are all there and I am not biased when I say that this is the greatest television series of all time. Breaking Bad gets my perfect score of 10.