About Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is an America television drama series created and executive produced by Vince Gilligan. The show is set almost exclusively in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Breaking Bad tells the story of Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston), a stressed high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and given two years to live at the beginning of the series. Faced with his own impending mortality, Walter begins to manufacture and sell methamphetamine with former student Jesse Pinkman as a way of securing his family’s financial future before he dies.

While describing the character of Walter White, Vince Gilligan stated that Breaking Bad is attempting to do what no other show has ever done, which is turn a character from Mr. Chips to Scarface. Indeed, Walter’s transformation from a mild mannered, high school chemistry teacher to a drug kingpin who has no second thoughts about killing people himself or ordering the brutal prison deaths of multiple people is nothing short of remarkable. From season one onward, Walter’s actions becomes darker and more complex.

Furthermore, throughout his transformation Walter manipulates people who are closest to him and edges further and further away from protagonist to antagonist. In fact, Walter’s manipulations extend not only to his partner Jesse Pinkman, but also include his wife, brother in law, and almost anyone else that he comes in contact with during the course of the show. Walter’s wife Skylar ends up helping him to launder the drug money even though she initially wanted to create as much distance between herself, her children, and Walter as possible. Walt’s manipulations and cunning eventually wins over though and Skylar becomes a participant, reluctant as she may be, in Walt’s criminal empire.

Walter’s manipulations of Skylar, while devious, pale in comparison to his manipulations and mind games that he plays on Jesse. The most glaring example of this manipulation occurs during season four when Walter cynically uses Jesse’s love for his girlfriend’s young son to convince Jesse to help him (Walter) kill his rival Gus Fring. Walt’s ultimate success in eliminating Gus, the one man who seemed capable of matching wits with Walter nearly step for step, demonstrated Walter’s ruthlessness and the lengths he would go to in order to get what he wants. Overall, Breaking Bad is a heart pounding, psychological thriller that tests the audience’s philosophical and moral bearings. The show’s writers succeeds in challenging the audience’s sense of right and wrong by consistently pushing the show’s main character further and further away from good towards evil.