Walter White, high school chemistry teacher turned evil drug lord, aka Heisenberg
Disclaimer: This post is mainly based on the second, third and fourth seasons, which I watched.
“Breaking Bad” (2008-2013) is an American television show about Walter White, a white, middle-class suburban family man who has “broken bad”, becoming an evil drug lord. The show has won seven Emmy Awards, five for acting, two for film editing.
The show was created by Vince Gilligan of “The X-Files” (1993-2002):
I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for Biblical atonement, or justice, or something.
In “Breaking Bad” sins are punished in this world.
Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is one of the world’s greatest minds in chemistry – he has done Nobel Prize winning work, but because of a love triangle, all the fame and fortune went to his colleague. He is now 50, a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has a wife, a disabled son and a girl on the way. Then bad news hits: doctors find that he has lung cancer, that he has six months to two years to live.
To provide for his family after his death, he turns to a life of crime. He uses his knowledge of chemistry to make the best meth known on either side of the Mexican border. With the help of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a former student turned drug dealer, he enters the drug trade under the name of Heisenberg. What White lacks in experience he makes up for with his quick mind.
Oh, and one more thing: Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), his brother-in-law, is a DEA agent, someone who tracks down drug traffickers and throws throws them in prison – if he does not kill them first. Bit by bit he pieces together the terrible truth.
It is a study in moral character. At each point White makes decisions based on
- staying alive,
- pride,
- staying out of prison,
- loyalty,
- greed.
In that order. He knows right from wrong but does not care. He is Machiavellian, sociopathic, evil, morally broken. He is a wonderful example of how evil is not simply a matter of “intentions”.
Unfortunately for White, he does not live in God’s universe but Gilligan’s: Each “reasonable” (yet morally broken) decision creates, piece by piece, a hell on earth for him and everyone his life touches.
Like a train wreck, you cannot not look.
Like Stephen King, it mixes the ordinary with the terrible.
Imagery:
The Salamanca brothers patiently wait for Walter White to finish his shower so they can axe him to death.
- The Salamanca brothers coming from Mexico to kill White, carrying a long-handled axe.
- Gus Fring, an evil drug lord, walking slowly into a hail of bullets.
- The one-eyed teddy bear in White’s swimming pool, representing what is becoming of White himself
Walter White looking at the one-eyed teddy bear floating in his swimming pool
Race: Almost all the action is set in New Mexico, which is 41% non-Hispanic white. Of the 11 main characters listed in the Wikipedia article, 91% (all but one) are non-Hispanic white. The exception is Gus Fring, a black man from Chile, played brilliantly by Giancarlo Esposito.
Gus Fring in the cross hairs of the Mexican drug cartel
See also:
Abagond 
I watched breaking bad from season 1 to season 4. My friend recommended i watch it and said i would like. I did and was hooked but haven’t watched the new season, which i think is season 5?
Haven’t been compelled to pick it back up as of yet.
abagond, are you a fan of the show? Maybe just making a post on it?
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i dont like meth
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What do you mean by, “evil is not a matter of intentions” ? Doesn’t he intend to provide for himself and his family, maintain social status, enjoy himself, etc?
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@ Sondis
“Fan” might be too strong a word. Like you, it was recommended to me. I saw seasons 2,3 and 4 – the ones that were easy to get from the library. I thought 2 and 3 were excellent, 4 not so much. I have no huge urge to see 5, yet I do want to see how it ends. Presumably it will be some kind of showdown between White and his brother-in-law. Gilligan promises the ending will be satisfying, unlike the end of “The Sopranos”.
If I were writing the ending, I would have Walt killed by his brother-in-law, knowing that everything he had done was in vain – losing all his money, his wife going to prison, Jesse dead, etc.
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abagond:
Oh, i see…gotcha!
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@Sondis
How is this show like? I have heard so much about it it is unreal.
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Do you see any significance in the racial composition of the show? It “feels” right in the sense that I suspect NM is white people in a sea of Latinos but that might be my western cultural programming talking. I’ve watched the show religiously and with the exception of Gus I don’t know if I remember even seeing one other black person in the entire run of the show. Wait, there was one brother in like S3 who was Gus’ enforcer. I don’t think things ended well for him. What I mean is BB doesn’t feel as forcibly white as most other shows where you walk the streets and see zero people of color in a major metropolitan area which is basically impossible.
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“Adeen
@Sondis
How is this show like? I have heard so much about it it is unreal.”
Well, in my opinion, i think its a very good show.
There are lots of twists and turns, that kept me on the edge of my seat and biting my nails. *_* I recommend to start from season 1 and work your way up to seas 5. You’ll like it…. ^_^
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@Sondis
Thanks for the review. I want you to help me with something.
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@ Nazgul
There were at least two other black characters – Tim, a police detective who handled the murder of Gale, and there was also Walt’s doctor. Gus is the only black character who is fleshed out.
Having a main cast that is 91% non-Hispanic white in a place like New Mexico is nuts. But given that it is told from the point of view of a white, suburban schoolteacher, his social world might realistically be just that segregated.
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@ Paige
Some people think that they cannot become evil so long as they “mean well”. Well, Walter White “meant well” and left a trail of bodies and bit by bit becomes a monster. His evil comes not from how good or bad his intentions were. It comes from how he lets the ends justify the means.
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@ Nazgul
To me it did not “feel” right that most of the Latinos were either bad guys or worker bees. In what I saw there were only two Latinos we were made to care about – and only because a white character cared about them: Jesse’s girlfriend in S4, whose name I cannot even remember, and her son Brock, who was poisoned. There is also Hank’s partner, Steve Gomez, but he is never fleshed out.
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I love this show.
Hank’s co-worker/friend is Hispanic. He’s a regular but definitely not a main character.
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Giancarlo Esposito was a standout in the show. His chillingly stoic Gus Fring character was my favorite.
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Never watched this show. No interest in seeing it. Just me. But based on the way some people talk about it I get the impression that some of the audience consider him a hero for making money any way he can. To me that is strange when the same people will judge a real drug dealer harshly. That fact alone makes me not care to see it. Sorry if I sound obnoxious.
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I haven’t seen any of this series, but
Just as Kiwi said, we have shows with 95% white cast set in the Bay Area or LA (or NY or Texas or DC). And when non-whites appear, they are almost always just props (eg, the person at the reception desk or at the nail salon or one of the guys in the classroom), the very sort of role that a white person might encounter them in. Otherwise, they are just extras roaming the streets.
People have been noticing this for about 40 years now, and it hasn’t really changed. Maybe what needs to happen is alternative video entertainment (maybe internet based?) that would pull 60% of the viewing audience away from the Hollywood shows – something like a Montgomery Bus Boycott phenomenon. But then, you all are still watching this white programming.
Now, blockbuster movies have a slightly different focus as the audience is increasingly non-American. But those kinds of movies focus on action and special effects, something that translates easily overseas. They still are not bent on portraying non-white Americans as realistic full human beings.
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Love the show, just started watching this year – went back and watched all the seasons up to the beginning of season 5. Normally I’m against the characters that are outlaw and that is one of the reasons I like the show – how the writers make me identify with a drug manufacturer. If he was a drug dealer, you might see more of the devastation that meth brings to users and their families, but as a manufacturer, obsessed with quality and consistency, he (Walter White) appeals to me – and that is the irony. I find myself rooting for him, until he does something heinous. But I’ll be on his side again before the episode is over.
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I didn’t watch the series until recently. I streamed the entire series over the past month and picked up the last episode right after it aired. I didn’t have a problem with most of what Walt did. I’ll explain.
I personally oppose drugs because they’re self destructive. But so is alcohol, cigarettes and high fructose corn syrup. Therefore, I don’t use them. Problem solved.
Drug cartels whacking each other? If you don’t like it then don’t join a drug cartel. But you can’t willingly join a high stakes poker game and then complain about the stakes. People accepted the risks when they decided to play.
No doubt Walt is a sociopath but he only hurt people out of necessity and as a last resort. Except for the kid, no one he hurt was an innocent bystander. They were all willing participants who knew the risks and accepted them.
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Coonskin ( Adult Cartoon )
(http://youtu.be/zwjLV-RkPfg)
Every black person needs to watch this Black, Afrocentric Cartoon. Beware, there’s a lot of profanity in this cartoon, its not for kids.
Don’t be fooled by the movie style beginning, it turns into a cartoon.
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I enjoy the show a lot. Although White is the protagonist it becomes increasingly clear that he is a really evil guy. The entry into the meth world was done out of desperation but it also reveals who he was all along. Over the seasons I think any sympathy most viewers might have had for Walt vanishes.
http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2012/09/movie-reviews-breaking-bad-season-4.html
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@ abagond
Oh, okay, That makes sense.
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“Adeen
@Sondis
Thanks for the review. I want you to help me with something”
What do you need help with?
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Walt deliberately poisoned one kid and has gotten worse since that time..
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@ abagond, a general question regarding:
I haven’t seen this TV series, but could you, or someone else explain to me how come the ideas about what makes a person “evil” and a “sociopath” are banded around so freely in the US, and why such mental disorders are seemingly so prevalent there?
I heard that evil and extra-evil sociopaths are rare in East Asian countries, in contrast.
What I have also heard, again and again, is that sociopathy among Americans is actually on the rise in the US, and not uncommon. Why is that?
It can’t be down to genes or neuro-biology, really, can it?
Doesn’t that suggest that this is something bred into a society that so greatly values individualism and exceptionalism?
Perhaps this kind of Criminal Minds profiling is so prevalent these days because it’s become part of everyday (TV) culture, so anyone, absolutely anyone, can fancy himself/herself as a Criminal Psychologist.
Is there validity to that?
Perhaps The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is published by the American Psychiatric Association is the source book and legitimating-reference for the very
“..common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders The DSM is used in the United States…..
The DSM is comparable to a dictionary; mental illness concepts and definitions change over time, just as words do. As data confirming hypotheses of mental illness is replicated, concepts and definitions of mental illness change. It is used or relied upon by clinicians, researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the legal system, and policy makers…
The DSM evolved from systems for collecting census and psychiatric hospital statistics, and from a United States Army manual…”
(from Wiki) (My emphasis in bold.)
Defining definitely mental disorders of fictional characters is hardly an exact science. LOL.
One criticism of this supposedly scientific approach ^^ is its Euro-American bias!
Another is “dis-ease mongering”, a kind of over-seeking and over-enthusiasm to pathologize behaviours which are not “abnormal”.
But, should we actually ask who does this defining, and why?
Sure, white male fictional character-criminals like Tony Soprano, Dexter and Cranston are the stuff of fantastic, fascinating telly. But isn’t it also a spectacle to hear and see just how the language of their fictional monster-dom becomes part of common currency that — somehow — we don’t question…? How does that happen?
One psychiatrist who used to write about culture, mental disorders and the uses of labelling people by using psychiatric terms, was Arthur Kleinman.
He was a medical anthropologist and cross-cultural psychiatrist.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Really-Matters-Living-Uncertainty/dp/019533132X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379003468&sr=8-2&keywords=arthur+kleinman
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Best drama on TV in years! Plus I had a crush on beautiful Gus Fring, (Esposito.) I always fall for the unavailable ones!
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i liked the one where he blew the bull up with the fake blue crystal the fulminate or whatever
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Anyone who has not checked it out, Breaking Bad, it started with little fanfare, but by season 3 it was being called one of the best dramas of all-time. Now at it’s end a full mania over the show has taken over. There was a run on buying old junk from the show today. Walt is virtually a legendary tv character, most people think of Walt’s alter ego when they hear “Heisenberg.” How many know of the real Heisenberg and his contribution to chemistry and physics? Of course I am not bothered by this since I have been a fan of the show since day one and love it. The characters are well written and clearly established by now. Lately the praise for the show has hit the stratosphere. I have heard it called the best show in television history. I believe it! My favorite bad guy was (forgive my memory) the cartel guy who would spazz out everytime he tried some if Walt’s meth iDave
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I watched a couple of seasons of this online and then I had to stop because the usual hierarchies were in place….white is good, black is bad, Latino is stupid or definitely not as smart as white…or can always be tricked by white people.
That it took Hank so long to see what was right under his nose but he simply refused to believe and stayed willfully blind to was typical of everything I know to be true about white people.
I gave up on this show and never looked back except as an exercise in exploring extreme white privilege.
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ThatDeborahGirl
That it took Hank so long to see what was right under his nose but he simply refused to believe and stayed willfully blind to was typical of everything I know to be true about white people.
I gave up on this show and never looked back except as an exercise in exploring extreme white privilege.
Riverside Rob szid
I love this comment! What is extreme white privilege? It’s anything you want it to be. Deb, you’ve just proven that anything at all, can be laid at the feet of white supresion in this country. Gongratulations.
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@ThatDeborahGirl yeah maybe you right
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kinda like the dutch novels tho too, not sure im not sure about that it is kind of ‘extra societal’ know what i mean the drug empire thing but i see your point
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she’s saying hank didn’t bust him, they’re not blood, a difficult thing to navigate
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I think the show in plainly boring to me. I never got past the first 3 episodes. I tell you one thing those. These are the type of tv shows the enforce the idea that drug dealing is easy and lucrative.
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http://venturebeat.com/2013/09/17/business-lessons-breaking-bad/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Venturebeat+%28VentureBeat%29
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David Paulsen
My favorite bad guy was (forgive my memory) the cartel guy who would spazz out everytime he tried some if Walt’s meth
That was Tuco. He was awesome
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_khIl-8b9FY)
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I watched season five all the way up to last Sunday (Episode #14). I want to watch the series finale live (Episode #16, September 29th) since I know that by the next morning I will osmoticalliy know how it ends whether I want to or not – just like with “The Sopranos”.
Season 5, like Season 4, starts out slow but picks up by Episode #8. Last Sunday’s episode was stellar, one of the best things I have ever seen on television.
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@ abagond, what does “I will osmoticalliy know” mean?
I have never known the outcome of a TV series since who shot JR.
You haven’t answered my question to you about this subject upthread — I am not sure why — but I remain curious.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/breaking-bad/#comment-191862
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@Riverside Rob – “extreme white privilege”, in my purview, is having all your actions explained away and given the absolute benefit of the doubt despite all evidence to the contrary, merely because you have white skin and the right connections.
It’s in the very first or second episode that Walter should have been busted – every single piece of equipment used is from his lab at the high school – Hank doesn’t even consider Walter despite confronting him, questioning him and matching all the equipment right back to Walter having sole access.
After all he knows Walter. Walter would never do anything like that. They’re related for goodness sakes.
This simply does not happen for black people, no matter how well connected they are. It just doesn’t. We’re always suspect.
And just FYI, I’m not the only person who’s ever connected “extreme white privilege” to “Breaking Bad” or “Weeds”. But black people always imagine white privilege and racism anyway, right?
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I have been following this thread for days now and I get it. A lot of followers of this guys blog think Breaking Bad is highly suspect in reality and demographics. In other words some of you think the casting is bad and things wouldn’t have occurred they way they are going down. My question is what would anyone of you who feel this way done differently with this highly successful and original show? I have watched it from its fanless beginnings in season one to the mania following it now. In my opinion this is the best show ever on television!
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@ David
I prefer to see it as to each it’s own. I think it is just boring plain and simple. Then again I never made it past his cheating wife that for the life of me just disgusted me( could be why I hate it). My husband on the other hand just loves it. I am more of a sons of anarchy kind of chick or The walking dead.
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@ Sharina: cyberfist pumps on “Walking Dead”.
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@ Mary
Good to meet another fan!
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Well I am watching Malcom in the Middle, Bryan Cranston has some serious acting chops. He goes from playing the goofy dad in that show, and transforms himself into the character of Walter White. I admire artist that are good at their craft.
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With my days off, I have been watching this Breaking Bad.
It’s good, really, but not on the level of say…. “I, Claudius”, way back when, a BBC drama about the Roman Imperial family based on the Robert Graves book. Now THAT was banquette of brilliant drama…
Snippets:
How to deal with a wife who has sexual relations with dozens of men in an orgy, offer her the knife or have your soldiers decapitate her:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9PSmuKpAQY)
Or, after Caligula cannibalizes his own unborn child taken from the body of his sister… and is assassinated, his uncle, Claudius, the stuttering half-wit is made Emperor:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQe28wNe6SU)
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^^ I still remember — vividly — probably every episode from this tv series from the 1970s. It has not suffered for that. Will Breaking Bad stand the test of time?
I, Claudius was much more than fiction or something great on the telly.
It is like an universal and shocking Epic.
Like Breaking Bad, it also charts a clever but thwarted man’s rise to power.
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