(Spoilers for the entire series. I would recommend reading this post only after you’ve watched the entire series.)

The final episode has aired, and it is a good time to reflect on one of the great shows on TV. In Breaking Bad, a mild-mannered, middle-aged, high school chemistry teacher learns that he has inoperable lung cancer. He is faced with a variety of decisions: how will he tell his family, what course of treatment will he choose, how will he spend his remaining days, and how can he provide for his family after he is gone?

In another country or another era, Walter White might have resigned himself to his fate, quietly and uneventfully. It is Walt’s decision to fight where Breaking Bad departs from the conventional and traditional and sets itself squarely in contemporary America. Walt does not let his cancer, his family, his friends, or the bounds of the law dictate what he can and cannot do. Walt relentlessly pursues his goals, and he will not quit or let anyone else quit. As Walt memorably says in season 5, “It’s not over … until I say it’s over.”

In order to navigate his numerous foes, Walt has to remain a clever strategist, knowing when to lie, when to silence an enemy, when to form an alliance, when to backstab, and when to face the music. As Walt faces more sophisticated enemies, he has to tap deeper into the inner game theorist and push the boundaries of morality to win the game. Often in the show it seems like Walt is trapped and he has absolutely no way out. But time and again, Walt manages to rise up, but in an inglorious and ugly fashion. Here are some examples of the strategic situations in Breaking Bad that illustrate game theory.

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"All will be well if you use your mind for your decisions, and mind only your decisions." Since 2007, I have devoted my life to sharing the joy of game theory and mathematics. MindYourDecisions now has over 1,000 free articles with no ads thanks to community support! Help out and get early access to posts with a pledge on Patreon. .

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The Pilot: 6 main strategic themes of the series

The remainder of this post will focus on game theory models and how they appear in situations in the show. But to begin, consider the very first episode of the series, in which many of the elements for Walt’s transformation are present.

The first scene in the show has Walt making a farewell video to his family, after which he grasps a gun in his hand, points it at the road ahead, as he awaits for the police to arrive, with Walt literally preparing to “face the music” of the emergency sirens in the background.

Walt finds himself in this situation after a series of ill-thought out decisions and strategic moves. These are 6 themes that repeat throughout until the very finale, and so they are worth summarizing now.

1. Finite timeline: The revelation of lung cancer is the catalyst for Walt’s behavior. Surely Walt had dreams of providing for his family and building an empire earlier in his life. But now he has to act fast. He reflects to his doctor, “best case scenario with chemo, I’ll live maybe another couple years.” Walt knows that every day that passes he has less time to reach his goal, driving some of impatient and erratic behavior (in the second season, episode 9, “4 Days Out,” Walt fears he is receiving very bad news and frantically plans to cooks meth for two days straight). Walt reaches his preliminary goal of money in season 2, but then he changes his mind to plan for more treatment to live longer in season 2, episode 10, “Mandala.” Walt is constantly weighing having money now versus having health to make more money.

2. Credible threat: This is the first of the many times that Walt manipulates Jesse. In order to get Jesse to work with him, Walt threatens to turn him into the police. Walt was the only one who saw Jesse escape the crime scene. Jesse is trapped in a corner, and he believes that Walt will rat him out, so he acquiesces and agrees to cook with him.

3. Forging an alliance: Krazy 8 and Emilio threaten to kill Jesse and Walt after Emilio suspects that Walt is a nark. They put guns to both the heads of Walt and Jesse. In theory, Walt could have gone at it alone here, offering to save his own skin by teaching them the recipe. But he knows he needs Jesse in order to cook, and he includes the condition they must spare Jesse’s life too. For a normal person, this does not seem so surprising to offer to save a friend. But later it is seen Walt is not always looking out for Jesse’s interest: he cares about Jesse mostly as it concerns to his goal. The allegiance with Jesse turns out to be quite important in the series.

4. Using leverage: Walt knows that Krazy 8 and Emilio really have no reason to spare his life. He is a competitor, and he really can’t be trusted. So Walt offers the only thing he has: the knowledge to cook a highly pure meth. In general, characters that have leverage in the show are spared and offered better deals. Characters without leverage (say Jesse) often end up beaten up and their fates decided by those that have leverage.

5. Silencing the enemy: But Walt knows he can’t just give up his knowledge: once he teaches them to cook, he’s dead! The only way out of the situation, in Walt’s mind, was to trick Krazy 8 and Emilio by making a deadly gas and trapping them. There is no going back and no forgiveness to be bought: Walt silences them forever (when he takes care of Krazy 8 in the third episode).

6. Running/not facing the music: In the video recording he makes for his wife and kid, Walt explains to law enforcement officers that the video is “not an admission of guilt.” Of course not. Walt doesn’t feel guilty about his actions because he always rationalizes that he had no other choice to reach his goal. Walt also does not reveal his health to his family, nor is he willing to face the criminal charges for cooking meth and killing (in self-defense) two drug dealers. Walt nearly kills himself with the gun–but the safety was on. Then it turns out the emergency sirens were for fire trucks for the brush fire started from Emilio’s cigarette. Quite luckily, Walt gets to run and pursue his dream for another day.

Strategic Decision-Making

In the third episode, “And the Bag’s in the River,” Krazy 8 is a prisoner after Walt’s botched attempt to poison him in the RV. What should Walt do?

Here we see the signs that Walt is a man of science and thinks his actions through. (I had to paste two screen captures together for this; pardon my weak photo-editing abilities)

Walt lists many moral reasons not to kill him. But he lists only one practical reason to kill him. Walt wants to be good, and he is even sorry for what he has to do, but his choice reveals the way he thinks as he “breaks bad.”

Mutually Assured Destruction

Walt finds himself in a bind in the sixth episode of the first season, “Crazy Handful of Nothin'”.

Walt desperately needs money for his cancer treatments and he refuses to take charity from anyone else. He dreams of expanding his meth business, which is how he ends up having to do money with Tuco Salamanca, a badass thug who replaced Krazy 8.

Jesse’s attempt to do business with Tuco fails miserably. Jesse is supposed to get money up-front for the current batch. Instead, Jesse ends up getting robbed and beaten to a bloody pulp.

How is Walt going to get his money and conduct business with Tuco? In a dramatic scene, Walt demonstrates that he too can be a badass by turning the situation into a game of mutually assured destruction.

Video: Walt’s business meeting with Tuco

Walt demonstrates his threat is credible by unleashing the destructive power of a small nugget of mercury fulminate. He’s holding a large bag in his hand: does anyone want to find out how crazy he is?

Tuco respects Walt and offers to meet his demands. Walt then realizes his negotiating power and ups the ante to demand money up-front and that he will deliver 2 pounds. Tuco obliges, and the threat of mutual destruction begins the unlikely business alliance between Walt and Tuco.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Why do drug deals happen in public places?

In the final episode of season 1, “A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal,” Jesse and Walt wait for Tuco at a junkyard.

Jesse is livid with the plan.

Jesse: A junkyard? Let me guess, you picked this place? Walt: What’s wrong with it? It’s private. Jesse: This is like a non-criminal’s idea of a drug meet. This is like, “Oh, I saw this in a movie. Look at me.” Walt: Yes. So where do you transact your business? Enlighten me. Jesse: I don’t know, how about Taco Cabeza? Half the deals I’ve ever done went down at Taco Cabeza. Nice and public. Open 24 hours. Nobody ever gets shot at Taco Cabeza. Hell, why not the mall?[…] Skip the part where psycho-lunatic Tuco, you know, comes and steals my drugs and leaves me bleeding to death.

A single drug transaction is a typical case of a one-shot Prisoner’s dilemma. You can either trust the other party or you can cheat them. If the other party is going to cheat you, all the more reason to cheat them first. If the other side is going to trust you, then you’re even better off robbing from them.

The act of being in the public changes the game for both sides. Now the drug dealer and the client need to follow the rules of the deal to keep up appearances and avoid unwanted attention.

Jesse’s fear ends up being well-founded: an enraged Tuco ends up killing one of his own henchmen, which leads Jesse and Walt to wonder if Tuco is going to kill them.

With drug transactions, trust is built by mutual distrust/threats or long-term interactions. In a later episode, “Mandala” (season 2, episode 9), Walt meets Gustavo Fring for the first time at Los Pollos Hermanos. Gus initially refuses to give Walt a chance for associating with Jesse. He says Jesse is bad company because “You can never trust a drug addict,” a drug addict being someone who is focused on short-term pleasure at the cost of long-term health.

Level-k reasoning

Consider a simple beauty game. Imagine everyone writes down a number from 1 to 100; the guess closest to 2/3 of the average wins. Someone who doesn’t think will write down any number from 1 to 100. Someone who realizes the average can at most be 50 is thinking one level ahead: never guess anything more than 50. A second level of thinking is to realize everyone knows this, and therefore no one will write a number higher than 50. Therefore, the average won’t ever be higher than 25. And so on. This type of thought process is known as level-k reasoning, and it is akin to the skill of a chess grand-master to think several moves ahead.

In “Seven Thirty-Seven,” Jesse reveals he thinks ahead, but not far enough ahead. He fears that Tuco’s murder will be the end of it all. As he explains to Walt, “We are witnesses. We are loose ends. Right now, Tuco’s thinking, ‘Yeah, hey, they cook good meth, but can I trust them?’ What happens when he decides ‘No'”?

Jesse has bought a gun and wants to waste Tuco. It is here that Walt points out the weakness in the plan. Jesse has only thought far enough to understand the circumstances (level-one or first order thinking). But he has not thought through this assassination step by step in terms of how Tuco’s henchmen will respond (second order thinking, third order thinking, etc.)

Walt: How would you do it? Jesse: What do you mean how would I do it? Walt: Specifically, how would you do it? Step by step. Jesse: All right. Say we set up one last sale. This is providing he doesn’t decide to waste us before then. Now every time we bring in a new batch, he always tests the product, right? So, as his head is down, you know, as he’s giving it a snort, just: Pop, pop, pop! Walt: Pop, pop, pop. So three shots? Jesse: Yeah, three shots. Or I don’t know, two. Walt: No wait, is it two or is it three? Jesse: I mean two would probably work, yeah. Walt: Okay, so two shots in the chest or two shots in the face? Jesse: Man, come on. Walt: I’m just trying to understand how this works. Okay, all right, we’ll–put a pin in that. But by now, the big guy, Gonzo, he’s probably coming at you, right? Jesse: Yeah. Walt: So you turn toward him. Jesse: Yeah, just wheel on him– Walt: How many shots for him? I mean, he’s a big guy. How many shots does that take? Jesse: I don’t know. Three shots. Walt: Okay, three shots. Okay, Tuco and Gonzo. Two men down. Now, is there anyone else there? I mean Tuco is usually with someone else, right? Maybe even a couple of guys. His dealers, his posse. All right. So we’ll put a pin in that one too. Now at this point how many shots have been fired. I mean, you’ve got to be running low, right? How many bullets does that gun even take? Jesse: Well, let me see. It’s not–[even opening] Walt: How can you suggest we will a man, and you can’t even open the gun? It’s not that easy, is it?

At the same time we see Jesse’s impatience, we learn of how much of a criminal mastermind Walt can be. Walt then spends some time concocting a better plan: poisoning Tuco with ricin when he tastes the meth. It is a better plan on paper, but that too does not turn out so well.

Another example of level-k reasoning happens in “Buried” (season 5, episode 6), Marie goes through a series of steps to deduce that Skyler was in on the plan longer than she admitted. She puts the facts together of Skyler’s weird behavior of running into the pool…the death of Gus Fring…the unexplained money from “gambling”…the purchase of the car wash…that was all a cover. She questions, “Did you know since before Hank was shot?” Skyler says she is sorry, admitting she knew.

Walt also demonstrates how far he can think ahead pretty much every time he covers up his tracks to his family. An example in “Rabid Dog” (season 5, episode 12), Walt needs to cover up Jesse’s attempt to burn down his house. First Walt wants to discourage Jesse from doing this again, so he gets the doors rekeyed. But he doesn’t want his family to suspect anything, so he tells the locksmith there should be no key change. Walt was unable to get the gasoline smell cleared, so he had to concoct a story. He douses his clothes and car seat in gas and then claims it was a pump malfunction. The unbearable smell also is reason, he explains, to move the family out of the house (to keep them safe). None of this, however, impresses Skyler: she cannot find the flaw in the story, except she knows Walt too well and calls him out.

Common knowledge

An event E is common knowledge if I know E, you know E, I know that you know E, you know that I know E, I know that you know that I know E, etc., ad infinitum.

The fact that everyone knows something can be a great boon: that we all stop at red lights, and we know others cars will generally stop is what allows for traffic signals to work. When common knowledge breaks down, however, there are a lot of interesting scenarios that take place as each side speculates on the truth and what the others know.

Such a situation happens when Tuco sends Gonzo to cover up his murder of No-Doze at the junkyard. Gonzo botches the job and ends up getting crushed under cars himself. Only the police uncover what happen: to Jesse, Walt and Tuco, the disappearance is mysterious.

In the second episode of season 2, “Grilled,” Jesse and Walt fear that Tuco is taking care of witnesses to the scene. But they have no time to react to the news as Tuco kidnaps them to the desert in the shack of his uncle, Hector Salamanca.

Tuco then reveals that he suspects Gonzo was snitching to the DEA, and that’s why he went missing. A news report on TV shows that Gonzo died at the junkyard as well. Walt then fears that Tuco will think he and Jesse were snitches, so Walt realizes he needs to keep this knowledge secret. So long as Tuco doesn’t know the truth, Walt and Jesse have an asymmetric knowledge advantage.

(Not that Tuco trusts Walt very much. During the kidnapping, Tuco takes possession of Walt’s knowledge and learns who he really is. He is happy to see Walt has a wife and a child: “I like doing business with a family man. There is always a lot of collateral.”)

Walt and Jesse misfire on the opportunity to poison Tuco, but they do strike a blow at Tuco, which allows for their eventual escape.

Throughout the series, Walt is generally the one with the knowledge advantage: he knows how to cook, he sees the threats against him, and he knows when to run away. The one time he fails to understand the situation is his downfall. In “To’hajiilee” (season 5, episode 13), Walt falls for a series of bluffs. Jesse claims the rental van used to bury the money had a GPS (it didn’t); then he says he is looking at the money (a fake barrel stuffed in Hank’s backyard); and finally he threatens to burn $10,000 per minute (made credible since he threw away his share of the money). The entire gambit is made possible because Huell reveals there were 7 barrels of money: when Walt sees the picture and hears they know the number of barrels, he is fooled into believing the rest of the lie.

The double-edged sword of the fugue state

Walt needs to find a suitable explanation for why he’s been missing for days. He concocts the idea that he had amnesia and experienced a “fugue state.”

While this explanation covers up his track, it eventually leads him into more trouble. The doctors won’t release him unless they are sure the fugue state won’t repeat. And they have no psychological or physical reason to explain why it happened in the first place.

Walt ends up stuck in a vicious circle: he needs the lie of the fugue state to cover the truth, but if he sticks with the story, the doctors will never find anything and he’ll be held indefinitely (and surely won’t be able to cook meth in secret).

Walt uses a strategic move to take advantage of another information asymmetry: he tells the psychologist he was lying about the whole thing–he just needed to get away from his family. His lie is protected by patient-doctor confidentiality, and he is set free to go home.

During this time, Hank has planted the plausible explanation that Walt is having an affair and using a second cell phone to do this. When Walt returns he thinks nothing has changed, but his family’s perceptions and belief in him are slowly eroding. Trust can shatter quickly.

Reputation for being tough

In “Breakage,” season 2 episode 6, one of Jesse’s dealer’s is robbed by a couple of junkies. Jesse wants to chalk this as the cost of doing business, like the “breakage” of merchandise at K-Mart.

Walt counters that it’s a reputation game, “What happens when word gets out, and it’s open season on these clowns you’ve hired, hm? Once everyone knows that Jesse Pinkman, drug lord, can be robbed with impunity. Man, come on. You think Tuco had breakage? I guess he did. He broke bones. He broke the skull of anybody who tried to rip him off.”

Jesse is fixated on the $1,000 they lost to the robbery. Walt suggests he take care of business. Jesse fumbles with the execution in the next episode, “Peekaboo,” but he lucks out that one of the robbers kills the other.

Jesse is terrified at the death and smokes pot to cope. But Walt explains he can use it to his advantage. No one on the street knows better, and they all think Jesse is capable of smashing someone’s skull with an ATM machine. Jessie should take the opportunity to be a “blowfish,” a small predator that can scare off larger fish.

The facade only lasts for a little while, as eventually the whole town learns Jesse was not responsible for the murder. Blowfish eventually deflate.

On the other hand, Walt’s reputation as Heisenberg keeps getting grander and tougher. He reminds other drug dealers in “Say my Name” (season 5, episode 7) that he’s the one that killed Gustavo Fring. This also helps Walt in “Buried” (season 5, episode 10) when he needs to move all of his cash. At the storage unit, Huell considers stealing all of Walt’s money and going to Mexico. Kuby reminds him that Walt whacked off 10 people in jail within a 2 minute window. How would they fare?

Gustavo Fring: an almost perfect strategist

Seasons 3 and 4 reveal just how manipulative, scheming, conniving, and strategic Gus Fring is. He is running a successful meth distribution business while hiding in plain sight as the owner of Los Pollos Hermanos. But he has bigger ambitions and is vulnerable to the Mexican cartel demanding a larger share.

The Mexican cartel wants to enact payback for the death of Tuco Salamanca, choosing Walt as its target. The only reason Walt stays alive is that Gus protects him so that he can learn how to make his product. Gus has already learned Walt has lung cancer and might not have long to live.

Gus hatches the nearly brilliant plan (Walt later notes that Gus “was playing a much deeper game”): he has the Mexican assassins go after Hank–as the true killer of Tuco, he offers Walt $3 million for 3 months of work so that his chemist Gale can learn his methods (after which Walt is disposable), and he alerts the authorities of the cartel’s intention to go after a DEA agent. If all goes well, Gus ends up disposing of the cartel while producing a superior, more profitable product.

Neither plan ends up working: the cartel proves to be more resilient and hits back hard, and Walt ends up realizing that he’s disposable once he teaches his method. Walt’s only way out was to take care of Gale. After Gale is killed, Gus admits he has lost in “Box Cutter,” and he takes out his security guard Victor to demonstrate he’s willing to kill even the person who might replace Walt (it was also a pragmatic move: Victor was spotted at Gale’s apartment).

Gus realizes he’s lost and in season 4 he has to hatch another plan to take care of the Mexican cartel. He does this dramatically by pretending to surrender to them and then secretly poisoning their celebratory drink–he thinks far enough ahead that they will make him drink first–so he takes an activated charcoal tablets and induce vomiting before he gets poisoned.

Gus also tries very, very hard to take care of Walt by trying to gain the loyalty of Jesse. He almost wins, except for the small detail that Jesse’s allegiance to Walt is too strong. Even when Walt poisons Brock, Jesse suspects it is Gus.

The other mistake Gus makes is that he underestimates Hank’s obsession with the case. When Hank bugs Gus’s car, Gus is very careful to only drive to and from work in the car that is bugged. A normal DEA agent might just let it go. But Hank feels this is a signal itself: “A guy this clean has got to be dirty.”

(On a slight tangent, there are remarkable similarities physically between Gus and Walt. Both have shaved bald heads, wear glasses, are similar heights, and they both pad their knees with a towel before vomiting in a toilet.)

A game of chicken

Two cars are driving straight at each other. The driver that loses his nerve swerves away is the loser. But if neither swerve, they end up crashing and both die. Being reckless is a strategic advantage in such a game of chicken.

In the seconds and third episodes of season 3, “Caballo Sin Nombre” and “I.F.T,” Skyler has had enough of Walt’s rage and antics and fears for her children. She requests a divorce, beginning a terrible game of chicken. Who is going to flinch first?

Walt is furious and scared he might never see his kids. He goes to Saul to ask for some legal advice. Saul points out that Skyler is in a terrible bargaining position. If she divorced Walt due to knowledge that he’s cooking meth, she would be a conspirator to the crime, and the Feds would confiscate the house and all the money. Plus, she has a DEA agent for a brother-in-law: that would be the end of his career for missing this. There’s no way she would go through with a divorce, Saul says, “She’s bluffing.”

Walt is comforted and challenges Skyler by not moving out and staying at home. Skyler calls the police to have Walt removed, but they admit they cannot do anything unless he has been physically abusive or done something illegal. Skyler does not want to lose everything and she ends up losing her bluff. A divorce lawyer suggests it is a simple decision: Skyler should snitch on Walt. But she again is not comfortable losing everything and having Walt Jr. know the truth.

Walt thinks he has won, but Skyler figures out a move she can make to punish Walt. He has an affair with her boss, Ted Beneke, later revealing it was not out of love or a true passion to live with him. She does hurt Walt, who blows up at Ted Beneke’s office. Walt later moves into a condo after he accept Gus’s offer of $3 million. He knows the job is dangerous: he signs the divorce papers and wants the money to be for him and the kids.

The game of chicken resumes in “Fifty-One,” (season 5, episode 4) when Walt celebrates his 51st birthday. Walt’s erratic behavior of selling his old car and then buying two new cars–one of him, one for Walt Jr.–has Skyler absolutely terrified. She decides that she wants to keep the kids away from Walt. Hank and Marie agree to look after the kids temporarily, thinking it will give Walt and Skyler time to work out marital problems. Eventually Walt has enough and confronts Skyler: “What is the plan?” She realizes she has very few options: she can’t call police on abuse (Junior will think dad is wife beater), she can’t get Junior to boarding school, she can’t hurt herself (she’ll be admitted), and she can’t run away. She admits she doesn’t have a good plan. She ends with the salvo: she can only hope for Walt’s cancer to return. Walt knows he can’t win in the long-run.

When is the perfect moment to die?

When you heat water on a stove, the water will go from room temperature to boiling. For any temperature in between, there will always be a Goldilocks moment at which the water is not too hot and not too cold. Such is the mathematics of continuous functions.

But life is not continuous: it has many jump discontinuities. In “Fly” (season 3, episode 9), Walt reflects upon his life’s work and wonders why he was never content. At some points in his life he would have family but not enough money. Now he has plenty of money but not family. When was the perfect moment for him, he wonders?

Walt holds on to the hope he can repair his damaged relationships. Then, and only then, will he be ready to accept death.

How do you threaten someone when it’s all illegal?

Skyler is cooking the books at her car wash, and she was helping Ted Beneke cook the books in her previous job. When Beneke explains the company is being audited and is facing a big fine, Skyler freaks out. She cannot have her car wash under the scrutiny of the IRS as the money laundering might be uncovered.

Skyler secretly arranged for Ted to receive the amount of the fine as a fake estate inheritance. Skyler now faces the issue of commitment: once the money is in Ted’s possession, he has no reason to pay the fine. He can use the money to revive the business, and hopefully he can pay off the fine in time.

Saul saw this problem coming and warned against it. Skyler won’t let it go: she needs Ted to do this, but she has no legal recourse. So what does she do? It’s again her turn to break bad. She hires two of Saul’s goons to threaten Ted and sign over the check. Ted tries to run away and in a freak accident paralyzes and nearly kills himself.

Bargaining power

In the last episode of season 4, “Face Off,” Walt desperately needs to contact Saul. He bursts into the office and asks the receptionist where he is, offering to pay $1,700.

She smartly realizes the urgency and quickly raises price to $20,000. When Walt waffles, she knows that she can extract even more money. She raises the price to $25,000. Walt realizes he better pay up or she’ll raise the price again.

A similar negotiation happens in “Granite State,” season 5, episode 15, when Walt has vanished and is being protected by the vacuum cleaner Ed. Walt only gets human contact once a month in the small visit Ed makes to bring supplies and administer the chemotherapy. Walt requests if Ed could stay for 2 hours, offering $10,000. Ed stingily reduces the time to 1 hour, to which Walt accepts and they play cards. Walt requests if Ed will at least deliver the barrel of money to his family after he dies. Ed answers, “If I said yes, would you believe me?”

There is also an example in “Buyout” (season 5, episode 6), when drug dealers make an offer on the methylamine. The buyer does not want to use it, but rather to corner the market on meth by removing the high quality “blue stuff” from off the market. His value in the deal is that he will gain market power over the buyers, who will have nowhere else to go. When Walt explains he is not selling his 1/3 share, the drug dealer realizes that buying only a fraction of the methylamine has little value: he’ll still have to complete with the high quality meth and he’ll have no increased bargaining power in the market for meth.

Fair division

It seems to be innate in human nature: whenever a bill needs to be split, or profits need to be divided, people are going to argue over it.

Walt and Jesse have a long history of disagreement. They begin as 50-50 partners, but at some point each side wonders how valuable the other person is. Initially Jesse is doing all the legwork of collecting the Sudafed, piecemeal from hundreds of stores, he’s helping Walt with the cook (and getting berated for being stupid), and he’s swinging the meth all night. Instead of being grateful to Jesse, Walt simply berates him for not thinking grand and selling enough!

The tables quickly turn as Walt aspires to sell more and they need to deal with Tuco. Jesse suddenly turns fairly worthless: he isn’t able to cook by himself, he almost kills them by accidentally draining the RV battery, and he can’t help with distribution as he gets robbed and beaten to a bloody pulp by Tuco. Walt wonders exactly what Jesse is doing and occasionally mutters how Jesse’s problems (and losses) are just that: his problems. But Jesse insists on his fair share: “Fifty-fifty partners. That’s our business model” (“Down”, season 2, episode 4).

When Walt’s family life starts to fall apart, he sees that Jesse is all he’s really got, a son figure of sorts. Walt begrudgingly mentors Jesse, but he also pushes him to avenge when Badger gets robbed in “Breakage.” Walt never truly feels Jesse is a 50-50 partner capable of making decisions. It is for this reason Walt tries to withhold a payout of $480,000 to Jesse in “Phoenix,” (season 2, episode 12) explaining Jesse would probably blow the money on drugs and overdose within a week. But Jesse reveals this to his girlfriend Jane Margolis, who then threatens to extort Walt unless he pays Jesse his fair share. Poor Jane: she didn’t know that people who threaten Walt/Heisenberg almost never survive.

Jesse proves useful to Walt again in season 3 after Hank beats him to a bloody pulp. Jesse can end Hank’s career and reveal everything about Walt, which he threatens to do. Walt offers up $1.5 million–half of his share from Gustavo Fring’s offer–and brings up the idea of them being equal partners. Money talks and Jesse stays silent.

But even then Jesse is unhappy with the split! He notes that Gustavo is making $96 million to their combined share of $3 million. Why aren’t they getting more? Walt says Jesse should be content to be a millionaire. Jesse decides to steal small amounts of meth so he can make some extra cash, which is much in line with research that employee theft is often a result of employees who feel they are undercompensated. Walt notices the drop in yield and warns Jesse to stop. Luckily Jesse ends his pilfering, as Gustavo later implements new security procedures to have his guard double check the weight of the final product.

In season 5, fair division becomes a topic again even though Walt, Jesse, and Mike are supposed to be even partners. Mike explains that they all need to chip in for “hazard pay” to keep the jailed associates from snitching. Walt protests and reluctantly agrees to pay them off. This plants the seed in Walt’s mind to eliminate Mike and the nine jailed men.

In the final episode, Uncle Jack mockingly refers to his slave Jesse as his “partner,” 50-50. Does this small phrase perhaps rekindle some memories in Walt that ultimately save Jesse?

The value of leverage

One of the best ways to stay alive in the drug game is to have leverage: the ability to offer something of value.

Jesse frequently finds himself in trouble due to lack of leverage: he often seem to be at the mercy of someone who has leverage over him (his ignorance makes him vulnerable to Walt, his sympathy for children make him vulnerable to Gus, Walt, and later the neo-Nazis, and his rap sheet leaves him vulnerable to the DEA). Even the cops abuse Jesse. In “Rabid Dog” (season 5, episode 12), Jesse is ready to rat out Walt. But what’s his leverage? He has no physical proof: it’s his word against Walt’s. There is no physical evidence of bodies, money, drugs. Hank sets up Jesse with a wire to trap Walt. Agent Gomez wonders if it is putting Jesse in trouble. Hank replies he doesn’t care about Jesse: either Jesse gets the evidence, or Walt kills him and that will be their evidence. The old Jesse might have walked into the trap. The new Jesse realizes he’s vulnerable. He leaves the scene and concocts a plan to finally catch Walt: by using the leverage of the drug money to smoke Walt out.

In contrast to Jesse, Walt is much more careful about having leverage. He explicitly mentions leverage in his plan to eliminate Gale and save his own life: “The cook can’t stop. That’s one thing I’m certain of, the production cannot stop. Gus can’t afford to. So if I’m the only chemist he’s got, then I’ve got leverage, and leverage keeps me alive,” from “Full Measures,” (season 3, episode 13).

In season 5, Walt repeats the concept of leverage to Lydia: “You’re a smart businesswoman. You understand the concept of leverage. You have none.” It turns out Lydia is aware of leverage, and counters with a business proposal to heist a train. Mike is skeptical of plan, for fear that it will not end well: “There are 2 kinds of heists. One where the guys get away, the other where they leave witnesses.” Lydia again understands leverage in “Gliding All Over It” (season 5, episode 7), when she refuses to name Mike’s 9 jailed men that Walt wishes to eliminate. She explains that once she says the names, she is dead. She secures a business deal with a Czech buyer. She was right: Walt had the ricin ready, but now he needs her for the deal.

Leverage is again an issue in the penultimate episode, “Granite State.” Saul and Walt are both running away. Saul offers some friendly advice, saying Walt should stand trial, offer drug money, and confess to all. The drug money could be leverage to yield some clemency. Besides, how much time does Walt have left, he points out. Otherwise, the Feds will go after Skyler. Walt protests that he call he made to her after stealing the Holly exonerates Skyler and she is a victim. Saul responds that the call was good, but it will only buy her a year and a half. And the fact that she knows nothing works to her disadvantage: “Well too bad for her. Then she’s got nothing to trade.” The Feds will seize the house, the condo, all of the bank accounts. Hank can’t provide money either — everything is tapped and traced.

How do you threaten a dead man?

One of the reasons Walt increasingly takes greater risks is that he knows his time is limited. In “Blood Money” (season 5, episode 9), Hank has learned of Walt’s true identity and confronts him about Heisenberg. Walt tries to deny it and says he is just an owner of a car wash. Besides, what is the point of furthering the investigation? Walt explains his cancer has returned and he only has 6 months to live. Even if Hank pressed charges, Walt would likely never see jail cell, and it would ruin both of their families. Hank is told to “tread lightly.” Hank doesn’t care: he has been obsessed with catching Heisenberg, and he will pursue justice even at his own peril.

Hank tries to convince Skyler to rat on Walt: “So believe me when I tell you that your best interest and mine are the same.” But Skyler knows they are not the same and she asks for a lawyer. She too is counting down the days for Walt. Hank is stuck in a no-win situation: if he tells the DEA about Walt, he looks bad since it’s his family. Marie points out if he doesn’t tell the DEA, and they find out, he might even serve jail time. Walt enhances this fear when he makes a fake video confession that it was all Hank’s idea. And now the fact that Walt pays for Hank’s medical bills looks even worse: it was from drug money.

Hank takes a different approach when he is faced with death. In “Ozymandias” (season 5, episode 14), Uncle Jack has a gun pointed to Hank’s head and asks Walt why he should not shoot him. Walt pleads for Hank’s life. He first tells that Hank will stay quiet. Hank refuses. Then he says there is $80 million he will pay if Hank stays quiet. Hank again refuses. He says Uncle Jack made up his up mind 10 minutes ago, and Walt has foolishly revealed the cash he has. Hank cannot be threatened; he dies a hero.

Felina: 6 strategic themes revisited

Two years from his initial lung cancer diagnosis, Walt finally admits, “It’s over.” But he really means to say it’s over once he wraps up a few loose ends. Watching Elliot and Gretchen on Charlie Rose hurt Walt’s ever so frail, damaged ego. He’s going out with a bang.

Walt returns to his home prepared to come clean with his wife, provide for his family, and take vengeance on Uncle Jack and the neo-Nazis that stole his money and killed his brother-in-law. That they are making blue meth recipe tweaks Walt even more: no one makes his product.

Walt hatches a plan to take care of business, a plan in which all 6 main strategic themes play a role.

1. Finite timeline: In the very first episode of the show, Walt was aware he had about 2 years to live: “best case scenario with chemo, I’ll live maybe another couple years.” The final episode is fittingly set on Walt’s 52nd birthday, precisely 2 years from his 50th birthday when he was diagnosed. Whatever Walt wants to do or have done in the future, he needs to do it now. He has no time to get more money, and not enough time to mend the wounds with his son. Walt makes the best use of his time by methodically tackling his goals one by one. At one point Uncle Jack begs for his life, offering the remaining $70 million they stole from him. A younger Walt would have surely cared. Now Walt knows the money does him no good: there’s no way he can send it to his family; it’s over.

2. Credible threat: Walt needs Elliot and Gretchen to pass on his money in a trust to Walt Jr. on his 18th birthday. They are so scared of him that he can probably trust them to keep their words. But he feels they have backstabbed him before with Grey Matters, and Walt relishes in tormenting them. Walt signals outside and two red laser dots are focused on Elliot’s and Gretchen’s chests. Walt explains he’s used $200,000 to hire the best hit men West of the Mississippi. If they do not live up to the promise, the hit men will strike. Not right away, Walt says, but some time when they least expect it. This last part is because Walt knows the hit men are fake. He doesn’t want them to catch on to that, so he makes up this lie so they will always live with some fear of retribution. With terrorism, the fear of terror can be just as strong as the terror itself.

3. Forging an alliance: Walt wants to leave with the idea that someone may be grateful to him. Perhaps in time wounds will heal and people will understand some of his motivation, if he comes clean. Walt explains to Skyler that he did not do all of this for his family, it was for himself. He enjoyed doing it and he was pretty good at it. Walt explains he didn’t kill Hank and offers the GPS coordinates to the burial site. Will she believe him? Walt also tries to make right with Jesse by saving his life and giving him the chance to take out his rage. Jesse is not sure how to feel about the man who abused him and called for his assassination. But for Walt, that feeling of ambiguity is itself something of a win: Jesse is not completely angry with the man who ruined his life.

4. Using leverage: The only thing Walt can offer is his knowledge. He realizes Todd is running low on methylamine and offers that he will teach him a new method to cook without it. Lydia feigns interest and arranges for Walt to meet Uncle Jack. Both Lydia and Walt knew the offer was a thinly-veiled cover, as both are planning to take the other out. Nevertheless, that Lydia agrees allows Walt the small opportunity he needs to unleash the explosive force of the M60 rigged up in his car trunk.

5. Silencing the enemy: Lydia fears that Skyler has seen her at the car wash and might tell that to the authorities. She has already sent Todd over once to threaten her. Walt can’t have his family live in fear any more: he does what Mike never did and takes out Lydia.

6. Running/not facing the music: For once Walt does not run. But he’s not going to face the music either. Ever since his cancer returned, he knew he would never have to see the inside of jail cell. Walt has never felt control of his life, never felt that he made his own choice. In this way, Walt ends his life on his terms.

In “Grey Matters,” (season 1, episode 5), the family has an intervention to convince Walt to take treatment for his cancer. Walt explains his point of view:

These doctors, talking about “surviving,” one year, two years, like it’s the only thing that matters. But what good is it to survive if I am too sick to work? To enjoy a meal? To make love? For what time I have left, I wanna live in my own house. I wanna sleep in my own bed. I don’t want to chose down 30 or 40 pills a day and lose my hair, and lie around, too tired to get up. And so nauseated that I can’t even move my head. And you, cleaning up after me. And me? What…some dead man, some artificially alive, just marking time. No, no. And that’s how you’d remember me. That’s the worst part. So that is my thought process, Skyler. I’m sorry. I choose not to do it.

For what it’s worth, Walt did take treatment and got to live out those final two years largely on his terms. But in all those strategic decisions and maneuvering to provide a future for his family, Walt turned into a monster that would stop at nothing to reach his goal. What Walt got right is that what he did for the first 50 years of his life doesn’t really matter. The main thing his family will remember is how he lived in the final two years. And that’s the worst, but perhaps also the best part for Walt, who dies looking content and feeling like he got what he deserved.

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If you liked this post, you will enjoy my article on Game Theory in the Dark Knight.

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