Breaking Bad / Tropes A to B

Tropes A-B | Tropes C-D | Tropes E-L | Tropes M-R | Tropes S-Z | Main Page

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These are the tropes that knock:

• Abandoned Area: The White family residence at the very end.
• Aborted Arc:
  • It's been hypothesized that Hank was originally intended to have an ironic drug problem, as in the first season he was much more animated and could be seen periodically sniffing. By Season 2, he's noticeably less animated and the sniffing is gone.
  • Marie's kleptomania just falls by the wayside and never gets fully explored or resolved. However, it does come back into play briefly during the final season when she attempts to take Holly away from Skyler after finding out about Walt and Skyler's criminal deeds.
  • In the episode "Peekaboo", after Spooge repeats his claim that the ATM theft was a "victimless crime", the scene cuts away to show the actual crime scene, which includes a dead body, lots of blood, and a baggie of Jesse and Walt's signature blue meth. Nothing ever comes of this, and it is not mentioned again; it seems to only drive the point home that the Heisenberg meth has gained a violent following or set him up as an Asshole Victim before the ATM gets dropped on his head.
• Absence of Evidence: When Hank plants a tracker on Gus' car, Gus is careful to only drive it between home and Pollos Hermanos. However, this raises Hank's suspicions even more; he finds it suspicious that not only did Gus not drive anywhere besides work and home, but he also drove exclusively to the same store every day when he's in charge of well over a dozen.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Cousins' axe falls out of his hands and cuts into the asphalt far enough to stay upright. It wasn't even swung downwards — it just fell about 7 feet and landed on the blade.
• Abusive Parents:
  • In Season 2, Jesse encounters a couple of drug addicts who do nothing but rob people and get high living together in a filthy, dilapidated house — along with their invokedhorribly neglected young son. He is suitably disgusted.
  • A flashback shows how Tio Salamanca raised the two terrifying hitmen the Cousins became in Season 3. When one of them yells in the midst of a sibling squabble that he wishes his brother was dead, Tio takes him at his word and proceeds to hold his brother's head under ice water until he fights his uncle off to save his brother. The treatment did, however, seem to instill an undying family loyalty in the brothers.
  • Walter to his surrogate son, Jesse, in later seasons. While Walt does have a genuine paternal kind of affection for Jesse, Walt also repeatedly emotionally manipulates Jesse and even actively makes his life worse to keep him close by.
  • Walt is also one to his biological son Walt Jr. a few times, including manipulating him and especially during the scene where he basically forces Junior to drink until he pukes.
• Accidental Child-Killer Backstory: While in rehab, Jesse hears his group leader talk about accidentally backing a car over his own daughter while under the influence. The leader now spends his time trying to help others keep from making the same mistakes.
• Actor Allusion:
  • DJ Qualls, who played Toby Loobenfeld, who played Sheldon’s ‘cousin Leo’, appears as an undercover cop trying to buy meth. In other words, the second time he pretends to be a drug addict for a living.
  • Mark Margolis played a ruthless cartel enforcer in Scarface (1983). He's also in the Production Posse of Darren Aronofsky. Not only that, in Scarface, his character tried to assassinate someone with a bomb. Hector himself ends up suicide-bombing Gus successfully in the Season 4 finale.
  • What happens to Ted is almost exactly the same as the fate of Christopher Cousins' character in Terriers.
  • Around the same time Kevin Rankin starred as violent Neo-Nazi Kenny, he also appeared as violent Neo-Nazi Killick in White House Down. These roles served as a nice follow-up to his role as violent Neo-Nazi Devil in Justified.
• Actor/Role Confusion: The intense hatred for Skyler ended up spreading to her actress, with many people (particularly on Twitter) openly stating they would attack Anna Gunn if they met her in real life. An article by Gunn revealed she even received death threats by idiotic fans who couldn't separate her from her character.
• Affably Evil:
  • Saul Goodman, the cheerfully corrupt criminal (in more ways than one) lawyer.
  • Mike Ehrmantraut is gruff but personable and loyal, as well as a loving grandfather, but he'll murder you without hesitation if it meets his superiors' interests or his own.
  • Todd has a very mild and friendly personality, but is also a cold-blooded criminal who kills without hesitation or regret. The dichotomy is best seen when he apologizes to his murder victim immediately before shooting her in the head, and brings an enslaved Jesse two flavors of ice cream (since he didn't know which Jesse prefers) as a reward for good work.
  • Jesse himself, especially in the early seasons before Break the Haughty really set in and, ironically, before he did the worst things. He's actually still a nice, immature guy who seeks approval even as he convinces Walt to kill Krazy-8.
  • Walt, in the early seasons, and in the finale.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Jack gives Todd an affectionate noogie (still holding a gun) during the Tension-Cutting Laughter after he asks Jack not to kill Jesse because he's still trying to impress Lydia with their cooking.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg:
  • Both Walt and Gale plead for their lives.
  • In "Ozymandias", Walt begs for Hank's life. Hank refuses to, at least in part because he's resigned to the fact that Jack has already decided to kill him.
  • And then in the finale, Walt begs Jesse to Mercy Kill him. Jesse refuses, telling him to do it himself.
  • Inverted in season one, when Walt refuses Elliott and Gretchen's offer to pay for his treatment.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • In "Face Off", the extremely moving music as Gus walks to his death reminds you that he was once a similar guy to Walt, and he'll die failing to get his final revenge on the person who killed his "brother".
  • Similarly, the sheer amount of anger and sadness in Hector's face as he looks at his target, Gus before setting off the bomb that will kill both of them makes you almost feel sorry for him.
  • It's debatable as to how much of a villain he was, but Mike was still a stone-cold murderer and by no means a good man. Yet his death comes at the exact moment that he is escaping the business after leaving his fortune to his granddaughter, at the hands of Walter in a fit of prideful rage. His last words are telling Walt to let him die in peace.
  • Walt himself in his last moments. He dies knowing he has secured his family's future in the long run, and accepts his impending death, stating he deserved it. But, none of his family members will know it was him who secured their future and, excluding Skyler, that he tried to save Hank rather than ordering his death. He also saves Jesse from the Neo-Nazis too after gunning them down, and even offers Jesse the chance to kill him, but he refuses. After that, Walt finally dies alone in a meth lab, surrounded by the things he liked to do.
• All Just a Dream: Played for Laughs in the alternate ending from the complete series DVD. Turns out Hal just ate deep-fried twinkies before bed.
• The Alleged Car:
  • Walter's dull green Pontiac Aztek was a deliberate choice on behalf of Vince Gilligan due to the Aztek being considered one of the worst cars ever made (see the main trope article for the reasons why) yet has notoriously protective owners, to make Walt seem more pathetic. In "Fifty-One", Walt sells it to his mechanic for 50 dollars.
  • In "Salud", on Walter Jr.'s 16th birthday, Skyler is thrilled to surprise him by finally buying him a car she picked out... unfortunately, it's the infamously terrible and stupid-looking Chrysler PT Cruiser. Walt Jr. has a very hard time trying to hide his disappointment. (He had his heart set on a Dodge Challenger.)
  • All the cars in the series have some significance to their owner as this article points out.
• All for Nothing:
  • After two years in the drug business, Walt ends up hiding from the police alone in a cabin in the New Hampshire wilderness. He's been shunned by his family, the neo-Nazis have stolen most of his money and the one barrel of cash he has left he cannot spend or pass on to his children. He's on the verge of turning himself in, until he sees Gretchen and Elliot being interviewed about him on television.
  • Mike was trying to put together a huge nest egg for his granddaughter. In the end the DEA is able to seize the money and Walt kills him. Jesse tries to get money to Mike's granddaughter, but Saul quickly points out that the DEA would just seize that as well. The issue is never brought up again so it's likely she'll never get the money.
• Alliterative Name: Both father and son are named Walter White. The name was deliberately chosen for its blandness. Lampshaded by Hank at one point:
  Hank: W.W., who do you think that is, huh? Woodrow Wilson? Willy Wonka? ... Walter White?
• Alliterative Title: "Breaking Bad".
• Alternate History: A very downplayed example that results solely from a writing oversight, but despite the episode "Gliding Over All" being set in 2010, Jack Welker seems to suggest Osama bin Laden was already killed by the United States, something that wouldn't happen until 2011 in our timeline (and had already happened when this episode was written). It's possible, however, that he may have subscribed to the then-common conspiracy theory that the US had already killed Bin Laden and was hiding the news from the public.
• Always a Bigger Fish: To Walt and Jesse there's the Salamanca cartel, to them there's Gus' empire, to him there's Lydia as executive of Madrigal in the US, to her there's Peter Schuler as head of Madrigal fast food division and it may go even higher.
• Ambiguous Situation: The reason Gus executes Victor, which various characters expound on. Was it because Victor let himself be seen at Gale's murder scene, thus jeopardizing Fring's operation? To send Walt and Jesse a message (as Jesse believes), or because Victor "flew too close to the sun" and presumed he could become the chief meth cook (as Walt believes)? All of the above?
• Ambiguously Gay:
  • Gus, whose unusually strong attachment to his initial meth-distributing partner (even twenty years after his death) has provoked audience speculation as to his sexuality. Word of God even states that this is a legitimate interpretation of their relationship. He references a wife and kids, but they never show up onscreen and thus may not even exist (although given how meticulous Gus is, it seems unlikely that he would lie about something so easily disproven).
  • Gale worships Walt and gives him a copy of Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman, who is believed to have been gay, that he signs "To my other favorite W.W." The rest of his tastes and personality, especially in his home, brush against some gay stereotypes, although there is never any confirmation either way.
• Amoral Attorney: Zig Zagged in interesting ways by Saul Goodman, Walt and Jesse's lawyer and financial advisor. The archetypal image of a skeevy lawyer, he has so many criminal clients he can't even keep track of them. However, his amorality is exclusively limited to the kinds of clients he takes on and his willingness to adhere to the law. To his clients he is outstandingly loyal, refusing to take bribes or double cross them and respecting their confidentiality even when physically threatened.
  Jesse: Going gets tough, you don't want a criminal lawyer. You want a criminal lawyer, know what I mean?
• Ambulance Chaser: Saul Goodman will take advantage of any client that is desperate.
• An Aesop: A simple one. Pride is a deadly sin, and will blind you if you cannot control it.
  • Walter turned down Gretchen and Elliot's offer of a well paying, legitimate job that would pay for his cancer treatment and provide for his family, because of his Pride.
  • He then took it a step further, cussing out Gretchen, his former friend, for showing concern over Walter's unwillingness to accept her and Elliot's offer.
  • In Season 5, when Walter comes to Mike asking for the names of his incarcerated colleagues, Mike calls out Walter for exactly what he is, Claiming that his Pride and Ego is what caused his entire operation to collapse, and that if he had simply known his place working for Gus, he could've made all the money he wanted. Walter gets so offended by this he kills Mike in a blind rage.
  • In "Granite State", when Walter is prepared to turn himself in, he catches Gretchen and Elliot on TV diminishing his accomplishments in Grey Matter. And this time, for once, Walter's pride actually ends up driving him to do some good, as he coerces the two into providing a nest egg for his family, and avenges Hank's death by massacring Jack's gang. And, notably, he also manages to let go of his pride in two important ways - his plan of laundering his money through the Schwartzes ensures that no one will ever know it came from him, and he finally admits to Skyler that he ultimately did what he did for himself.
• Analogy Backfire:
  • Hank talks about how he wanted to bring Heisenberg in himself, like Popeye Doyle. Walt points out that in The French Connection, Doyle never successfully arrested anyone.
  • Hank makes references to Rocky that seem to ignore the fact that Rocky actually lost in the first film.
  • Mike explains his Start of Darkness to try to talk Walt out of a half-measure attempt to save Jesse. Walt references it again after killing the two men Jesse wanted dead, and Mike is less than pleased.
• And Some Other Stuff: Mostly done quite subtly, we're never shown entire recipes for anything particularly dangerous. Any time Walt and Jesse are shown cooking meth, there's a montage of them manipulating lab equipment, adding ingredients, pouring out results and occasional CGI shots of reactions at the molecular level, but nothing practical to follow. According to the producers, the recipes for making meth, methods for disposing of bodies and such are deliberately either incomplete or incorrect, because the writers didn't want to educate viewers who might be... let's say, criminally motivated.
• Animal Motifs: Tortuga is commonly associated with tortoises. His name is Spanish for tortoise and the cousins kill him by severing his head and placing it on a tortoise.
• Anti-Hero: Walter and Jesse are deeply involved in the methamphetamine industry, and are often forced to commit gruesome acts to survive. At the same time, Walt is motivated to provide for his family should his cancer claim him, and Jesse is really just in the business because it's what he does best. By the time season five starts, Walter is motivated only by greed and power, while Jesse is more conflicted than ever. The intention of the showrunners is for the character to "start as Mr. Chips and end up as Scarface."
• Anonymous Public Phone Call: In "Felina," Walt makes his way back to New Mexico as a fugitive; part of his plan involves calling the Schwartzes' secretary from a payphone, claiming he's a journalist scheduling an interview, so he can find out when they'll be home.
• Anyone Can Die: Any character that dies on the show stays dead. Throughout the entire show, the list includes: Emilio, Krazy-8, Tuco, Tortuga, Combo, Jane, the Cousins, Gale Boetticher, Victor, the Cartel bosses, Hector Salamanca, Tyrus, Gus, Drew Sharp, Mike, Declan and his crew, Gomez, Hank, Andrea, the Nazis, Todd, Jack, and WALT. Lydia ends the series with, at most, a few days to live. Needless to say, if you took on this show you should have kept your resume current.
• Arc Words: "Apply yourself."
  • This was written by Walt on Jesse's chemistry test when he gave it a bad grade.
  • Jesse would later say this to his friends after inviting Skinny Pete, Combo, and Badger to his new home.
  • Walt says this to a student after rejecting their pleas to let their failed test "slide".
  • Walt said this to Jesse's successor Todd as they prepared to make their first batch of methamphetamine.
• Arms Dealer: Two Gangland Gun Runners have been seen so far:
  • A genial yokel with a van full of serious hardware who sells a couple of Bulletproof Vests, handguns and some hollow-point bullets to the Salamanca Twins. They test his own vest out before paying up, but luckily for him he sells good merchandise.
  • An even more genial vendor (Mr. Ellsworth from Deadwood, no less) who meets Walt in a motel room and gives him a brief lesson in Gun Safety and proper use. He's later seen in a flash-forward selling a now on-the-run Walt a stolen car with an M60 in the trunk.
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • A rhetorical question backfires badly on Jane's dad, Donald when it does this to Walt in "Phoenix". He tells Walt, 'You can't give up on [family]. What else is there?' This results in Walt going to see Jesse one more time to try and get through to him. Where he sees Jane choking on her own vomit, chooses to let her die, and ruins Donald's life in the process.
  • In "Ozymandias", Skyler realises that something is terribly wrong when Walt grows increasingly irate when she asks him, "Where is Hank?"
  • In "Granite State", Walt realizes it really was All for Nothing when Flynn screams at him "Why are you still alive?" although it's a rhetorical question as he follows it up with "Just die already!"
• Armor-Piercing Response: When Walt is reprimanding Skyler after he finds out that she smoked while pregnant, she pointedly responds that maybe she did it while in a fugue state; this stuns Walt as he realizes that she doesn't actually believe his excuse for his disappearance.
• Artistic License – Chemistry:
  • If Walt's meth were actually as pure as it's said to be, it probably wouldn't appear blue; methamphetamine itself is colorless, so any color in meth is inherently from an impurity (in Walt's case, presumably the <1% that isn't meth). It's handwaved in-story as a byproduct of Walt's particular chemical synthesis, but it's pretty obviously just a convenient way to make Walt's meth stand out so that the police can track it to him more easily.
  • Starting in Season 1, Walt and Jesse make meth from a combination of phenylacetone and methylamine. While it's established that they had to covertly steal their methylamine from a chemical company (since it's a controlled substance that can't be bought openly without alerting the DEA), they're able to make phenylacetone by refining it from phenylacetic acid. No explanation is ever given for how they got their hands on phenylacetic acid, even though it's also a controlled substance. Further: as at least one article has pointed out, a chemist of Walt's caliber could synthesize methylamine pretty easily himself. Presumably, the writers could have just had Walt and Jesse steal their phenylacetic acid too—but that would raise questions, since the cooks at the Mexican lab are depicted as synthesizing their own phenylacetic acid, and the head cook correctly points out that any college sophomore could make it. Methylamine is (if anything) even easier to make with non-controlled substances than phenylacetic acid is.
  • Several uses of chemistry in the series were investigated in Mythbusters in a special episode about Breaking Bad. The scenes where the hydrofluoric acid ate through the tub in "Cat's in the Bag" and where mercury fulminate was used to blow up a room in "Crazy Handful of Nothin'" each wound up being busted. In response, Vince Gilligan cited Artistic License as justification. He also suggested a potential Hand Wave when the MythBusters couldn't set off the Hg fulminate with an impact: Walt used more volatile silver fulminate as a primary explosive.
  • It's extremely unlikely that a high school chemistry lab would have hydrofluoric acid sitting around to begin with. HF is highly dangerous (in deceptive, not-necessarily-immediately-apparent ways) and not actually all that useful in the sorts of experiments that are commonly done in high school or even in college (at the masters/doctoral level, maybe). By contrast, hydrochloric acid is extremely common and is a staple in high school chemistry.
    • The acid bathtub scene was famously reviewed by Professor Martyn Poliakoff in a periodic videos episode, in which he pointed out this peculiarity alongside others. While he praised the accuracy of the show's plot point of HF eating through a bathtub but not plastic, he also pointed out that the amount of acid Walter obtained would not be enough to fully dissolve a human body, especially one with clothes on; as HF eats through organic material, it gets used up. Furthermore, Emilio's clothing might not dissolve fully if it were made of synthetic material (as clothes tend to be). To make matters even more unrealistic, by the time Emilio's corpse would have been reduced to the gruesome mess it was, there would not even be enough acid left to burn a hole through the bathtub and the ceiling, at least not to the degree shown. Also, when HF dissolves flesh, it bleaches it white, so Emilio's remains would not look as bloody as it did. The professor concluded the video by pointing out that Jesse and Walt could have avoided this whole situation if they used the plastic kiddie pools at the end of the episode as a vessel for the acid instead.
  • In the opening sequence, the electronic configuration for barium is wrong. It is actually [Xe] 6s2, but the electronic configuration of bromine (2-8-18-7) is used. This also occurs with Chromium (whose electronic configuration is [Ne] 4s1 3d5) in the "Created By" screen. The former error was fixed in the later episodes, as well as modern versions, but the latter wasn't.
• Artistic License – Explosives:
  • As mentioned below, the mercury fulminate explosion Walter causes in "A Crazy Handful of Nothin'" should have killed Heisenberg, if not left him seriously injured afterward. He ends up walking out of the building without so much as a scratch.
  • The most infamous example of this trope is in "Face Off". Hector's bomb somehow manages to blow a door off its hinges and completely obliterate both his and Tyrus Kitt's bodies, but somehow only blasts half of Gustavo Fring's face off, and nothing else. In real life, he would be a pile of Ludicrous Gibs at best. Even if he were lucky enough to merely lose half his visage, he certainly wouldn't have the brain functions to remain standing for long, much less walk outside and straighten his tie.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • In "Shotgun," Jesse and Mike are picking up cash from blind drops around the city, and stop at the old Albuquerque trainyard twice, though it's implied to be different locations. The second time, after they get ambushed and Jesse escapes, Mike is seen walking a brief time later at roughly Central Avenue and Rio Grande; this location is several miles from the trainyard, and Mike is actually walking back towards it.
  • The coordinates for Walt's stash of money are given down to the integer second of arc. This is only accurate to about 100 feet (30 meters) on the ground, making it unlikely that Jack's group, or anyone for that matter, would be able to locate the stash so quickly. While the GPS system can provide location data to fractions of a second, Walt's handheld device appears incapable of giving a more precise reading, so it's unlikely that Walt buried the money at the exact spot he noted.
• Artistic Licence – History: Walter White tells the story of the Schwerer Gustav (the Gustav Gun) and makes the claim that allied bombers could bomb the thing for days on end without disabling it, ending the story with stating a US commando with a small bag of thermite managed to finally destroy it. The problem is that the not only was the artillery piece highly vulnerable to bomber attacks(to the point where an entire anti-air battalion had to accompany it everywhere) but the gun was destroyed by the Nazis themselves, to prevent the slow moving artillery piece from falling into soviet hands; and yes they had to use a lot more than a small bag of thermite to permanently destroy it.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • Saul Goodman asks Walt and Jesse to give him a dollar each, claiming that it's a retainer and he's therefore forbidden from revealing anything they discuss because of attorney-client privilege. Anyone who knows how attorney-client privilege works knows it doesn't apply here since Saul is himself part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy. However, he might have been twisting the truth so they would stop threatening him and start trusting him, and in any case, he does intend to keep everything confidential because not betraying his clients is one of his few good traits.
  • Occasionally, methamphetamine is misclassified as a Schedule I substance on the show — it's actually Schedule IIB. This is easiest seen screen captures of the newspaper clippings on Walter's wall while he's hiding away in New Hampshire.
  • The divorce attorney Skyler speaks to claims that attorney-client privilege allows her to not disclose if Skyler tells of any criminal activity. In fact, this is precisely where the privilege does not apply. Any discussion about an ongoing or planned crime is not privileged. Furthermore, any lawyer who learns of such a thing should report it to law enforcement immediately. Keeping it secret is considered a disbarrable offense, and may further lead to the lawyer being charged for criminal coverup.
• Artistic License – Medicine:
  • When Walt starts taking chemotherapy, he only loses the hair on his scalp, not his facial hair.
  • Ricin poisoning doesn't cause flu-like symptoms when it's ingested — it causes severe digestive distress, including but not limited to vomiting and defecating blood. Additionally, Lydia's dose of ricin in the finale is treated as a death sentence (and El Camino confirms that she's unlikely to survive), but in reality, given that the ricin has been in her system for less than a day, proper medical attention would be more than capable of saving her life.
  • Marie's advice to during one of Walt's hospital trips to get an X-ray:
    • She encourages him to try to talk to the radiologic tech taking the X-ray and try to get the guy to give Walt an interpretation of the X-ray. Technicians/technologists are trained to never make a diagnosis or give medical advice based on their radiographs, as they are not qualified to do so and could contradict what the actual doctor says. The tech does rebuff Walt's questions, so Marie might simply be incorrect in-universe.
    • She claims that doctors often consult with techs as part of making a diagnosis. This isn't true. Radiologic doctors only observe the images themselves and compare them to patients' medical data. The only need they might ever have to question a tech is when an image has an anomaly and they ask about the position the patient was placed in that might explain the anomaly. It's worth noting that Marie also works as a radiologic tech, and may simply be overestimating her own abilities and importance.
  • The scene where Peter Schuler commits suicide with a defibrillator would be impossible in Real Life, because the device that he uses is an AED (Automatic External Defibrillator). As the name implies, an AED is automatic, and it's designed so that it only works if it detects an arrhythmia that could potentially be fixed with a shock to the heart. If it were possible to intentionally induce cardiac arrest with an AED, that would defeat the point of the device—because it's supposed to allow laypeople to induce defibrillation without worrying about whether it's safe or medically necessary.
  • In one Season 2 episode, when Walt sneaks out of the hospital at night and later sneaks back in, he reinserts his PVC (peripheral vein catheter) to hide the fact that he's been missing. A PVC is actually designed so that it can't be reinserted after being removed from the body; the needle is removed after the initial insertion, and the rest of the catheter is soft plastic that can't penetrate the skin. Otherwise, PVCs would be dangerous to use, not to mention painful for the patient.
  • In the same episode, Walt's psychologist says that doctor-patient confidentiality means that he can't reveal anything Walt tells him to anyone, with only one exception: if Walt threatens to kill someone, he can tell that specific person. The general idea is accurate, but the rest is not; there are plenty of cases where doctor-patient confidentiality can be broken, especially regarding the police (for instance, most states require doctors to report all gunshot wounds to the police, as a gunshot almost always warrants a criminal investigation). Even the one hypothetical situation he gives is wrong; if Walt makes a threat to another person (or even to himself), the doctor would be required to report it to the police, not tell the specific person.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • During the heist, Walter mentions that methylamine has 9/10th the density of water, meaning that water is denser and therefore would sink to the bottom. This happens rather quickly, and the water being added to displace the stolen methylamine would likely drop to the bottom within maybe 10-15 seconds. Since water is being added more or less directly above where the methylamine is being siphoned, they would be significantly diluting their own haul.
  • When Mythbusters tested the mercury fulminate explosion in "A Crazy Handful of Nothin'": According to their tests, Walter White being at the epicenter of an explosion of that size should have left him seriously injured if not killed him outright. In the series he walks away with a few superficial scrapes.
  • Season 5 Episode 1 features a large electromagnet destroying a police evidence room from the outside. Due to the inverse-square law, this is not possible. While adding more electric current to the magnet will make it stronger, it does not increase the range at which is effective. Mythbusters Jr. tested this with a scale mock-up of the scene and found that the magnet would have no effect. The reason why the magnet can be used to pick up cars is because it is placed close enough to exert its force. Note how in this same scene, none of the nearby vehicles are moved despite being a few feet away.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Mike, who starts out as a One-Scene Wonder in the Season 2 finale, becomes a regular in Season 3 and is one of the show's most central characters by Season 5.
  • Todd worked his way up this ladder in Season 5, starting out as just an underling in Vamonos Pest. Two episodes later, he helps the guys in their train heist, and two episodes after that, he becomes Walt's new lab assistant. In the second part of the season, he becomes Lydia's new primary cook when his uncle's crew massacres Declan's.
  • Hector Salamanca starts off as a seemingly minor character in two episodes towards the beginning of Season 2, but returns in Seasons 3 and 4 in arcs that gradually reveal him to be not only an important player in the Mexican cartel, but in the Backstory of one of the main characters.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Oh so many. Tuco, Todd, Lydia, the neo-Nazis, the Cartel Dons, Gus, Uncle Jack, Krazy-8, Spooge, and perhaps even Walt, to name a few.
  • A non-fatal example in the form of Ted Beneke, who embezzled at his company, slept with a married woman, and then, while facing a major audit from the IRS that Skyler helped him with, chooses to refuse to pay them off and instead put both himself and Skyler at risk. This results in her having Kuby and Huell strong-arm him into signing the check. He tries to flee to save himself, only to trip and slide into a counter with devastating force and end up paralyzed from the neck down.
• As You Know: Subverted. In Season 2, Gretchen and Walt have a discussion regarding their past, where both of them bring up Walt's exit from Grey Matter. This should be an example of two people talking about something they already know, except Walt delusively skews the events in his favor by suggesting that they cut him out and profited off of him; Gretchen has to correct him by pointing out that that's not how it happened, giving the actual story, and then asking if Walt genuinely believes that his version of the story is how it actually went down. This begins the process of Walt becoming an Unreliable Narrator regarding his backstory and misfortunes.
• The Atoner:
  • Jesse in the later seasons, after being increasingly driven to kill and seeing the fallout of his products firsthand. Later, the murder of Drew Sharp gives Jesse the out from the business.
  • In the series finale, Walt himself, in a dark manner. He's clearly regretful of the role he played in the destruction of his family and Hank's death, but he doesn't back down from his initial stance and it's indicated that he'd still do it all again if he could.
• A-Team Firing: In Season 5, the episode "To'hajiilee" ends with a shootout where none of the people involved seem to hit anything. This is cleared up in the next episode.
• Audit Threat: The risk of the IRS discovering the shady bookkeeping practices of Beneke Fabricators is attention that Skyler is determined to avoid in season 3.
• Awesome, yet Impractical: Tuco Salamanca's drug empire fortress is really cool and is heavily armored enough to withstand even the heaviest of criminal attacks (even going as far as having guards outside the fort search people before entering), but it has three major issues:
  • The first issue is that the guy running it is Tuco Salamanca, a guy who can be easily baited into letting random people inside as long as they have drugs or cash to offer; meaning a wire, a bomb or some poison can easily be smuggled in.
  • The second issue is that the guy running it is Tuco Salamanca, there is no way in hell a petty criminal or rival gang is going to risk attacking his personal den; so any would be attackers would have to be heavily armed and very determined...
  • The third issue is that the guy running it is Tuco Salamanca, a well known criminal that is a prime target for the D.E.A since he is Albuquerque's known main distributor of crystal meth (a fact Tuco is very eager to remind everyone) and his fortress is not only a giant middle finger to law enforcement, but is no match for an organised police raid and gets quickly shut down when they have an excuse to go after him.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Tuco Salamanca is a drug dealer with a methamphetamine addiction who is always just a few moments from flying off the handle. He will take any and every excuse he can get to beat someone up, especially when he's high on meth. As Walt tells him in season 2:
    Walt: We tried to poison you because you are an insane, degenerate piece of filth and you deserve to die.
  • The Salamanca Cousins. One of them carries around a chromed fire-axe with which they kill several people. When they ambush Hank, Marco refuses to shoot Hank in the face when he had the chance, choosing instead to go back to the car to get the axe. That decision works out about as well as it usually does, as Hank manages to get the drop with Leonel's gun before Marco gets a chance to axe him.
• Baby's First Words: Played for Drama with Holly; her first words are calling for her mother after being kidnapped by her father Walt.
• Back for the Finale: Gretchen, Elliot, Badger, and Skinny Pete all pop up in the finale after not being seen for a long time.
• Badass Boast:
  Walt: Let me clue you in. I am not in danger, Skyler. I AM the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks!
  • Something of a subversion in that his initial aim is to reassure Skyler, but just ends up panicking her all the more as she realizes for the first time that her husband may very well be a murderer.
  • Walt becomes quite the boasting machine. One of his underappreciated greatest hits: "Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decided to stop going into work? A business big enough that it could be listed on the NASDAQ goes belly up." And also, this one: "If you don't know who I am, your best course of action is to tread lightly."
  • Mike, after taking out some cartel goons sent to pressure one of Gus' suppliers, talks with Gus:
  Gus: [The Cartel is] Probing for weakness.
  Mike: Well, they didn't find any.
  • Gus, after poisoning the cartel, makes one to the remaining people in the Don's mansion, who promptly flee.
  Gus: Don Eladio is dead! His capos are dead! You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace. Or fight me and die!
  • In "Crawl Space", Gus delivers one to Héctor Salamanca at the retirement home, saying that he killed off all members of the cartel and Jesse killed his grandson, making him the last of the Salamanca line.
  • Walt gets a one line Badass Boast in the season 4 finale after pulling off a double Batman Gambit and defeating Gus: "I won".
• Badass Family: The Salamanca family, a Mexican crime family willing to defend their position in the cartel with violence.
• Bad Boss:
  • Tuco. Shortly after we're introduced to him, we get to see him beat one of his henchmen to death for reminding Walt that he works for Tuco.
  • Gus is a cold-blooded, Faux Affably Evil Bad Boss. Kind of. He slits a mook's throat just to make a point (and incidentally to punish him for carelessness in being seen at the scene of a crime). On the other hand, he is generally respectful of Mike and seems to be grooming Jesse for a more responsible position. Giancarlo Esposito has an interesting take on this here: Gus treated Victor as a member of his "family", but had to kill him because he jeopardized it. Basically, Gus will treat you well as long as you don't piss him off (as Walt did) or make a mistake you can't fix (as Victor did).
  • Walt himself as the series goes on. He becomes more narcissistic and convinced that only he knows best (in fairness, partly out of necessity or danger), which leads to him refusing to listen to others.
• Bait-and-Switch: In "Confessions", Walt is seen sitting down with a video camera in what he states was his confession before the show cut to a commercial. Hank and Marie receive the confession after meeting with Walt and, to their surprise, it's not a confession of Walt fessing up to the sins he committed while in the drug trade, but a carefully constructed lie meant to frame Hank.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Granted, a Lighter Shade of Black and a Pyrrhic Victory, but still. Walt manages to get his revenge against the Neo-Nazis and dies on his own terms, never ultimately facing legal repercussions.
• Bald of Evil: Quite a few characters. Mike and Tio Salamanca are naturally bald. Walt shaves his head early in the show, but that's due to the chemo drugs he is taking. The Salamanca brothers also sport shaved heads. Jesse also crops his hair down after a traumatic event in an apparent effort to toughen himself up. The trope is even exploited in the Season 5 episode "Rabid Dog," in which a paranoid Jesse is spooked by the sight of a tough-looking bald man near where he is supposed to meet Heisenberg. Jesse, believing that the other man is a hitman, flees the scene in fear; right afterward, it's shown that the bald man is just an ordinary man waiting to meet up with his wife and child.
  • It's further telling that during the last 2 episodes of the show, Walt sports a full head of hair again, and at a morally high position since the last 2 seasons.
• Ballistic Discount: Subverted. The Salamanca brothers meet with a gun dealer and test out the Bulletproof Vests he's selling by shooting the one the dealer is already wearing. After checking to see that the bullet in fact did not penetrate through the vest, they actually pay the dealer and leave him groaning on the floor.
• Battle Trophy: Hank receives Tuco's grill as a gift.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Two of epic proportions in the last two episodes of season 4 by Walt. First, he gives Brock a poison with ricin-like symptoms and steals Jesse's ricin cigarette; Jesse storms his house wanting to kill him, since only the two of them knew about the ricin, but Walt convinces him at gunpoint that he would have nothing to gain and that it's a ploy by Gus to gain Jesse's compliance in killing Walt. When his initial attempt to kill Gus fails, he acquires Hector Salamanca as an ally, convinces him to talk to the DEA so Gus will think he's snitching, then booby-traps his wheelchair. This plan hinges on the hopes that a) Héctor hates Gus more than he hates Walt, b) Gus will insist on killing Héctor in person and c) Héctor is willing to kill himself to take Gus down with him. Amazingly, it all works.
  • In Season 5, Jesse and Hank manage to scare Walt into driving to exactly where his money is hidden with a falsified picture, and Jesse egging Walt on so he won't stop and try to reason out whether or not Jesse actually has the money. It works so well that Walt ends up driving so recklessly he probably broke every New Mexico motor vehicle law on the books. All it took was knowing what Walter really cared about, even more than his family. The only thing they didn't account for is Walt getting spooked enough to sic Uncle Jack's gang on Jesse.
  • The series finale is one long Batman Gambit as Walt executes several complicated plans in order to get revenge on Elliot and Gretchen, Lydia, and the Nazis.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: In "Cornered", Jesse wants to entice some meth heads, who have stolen some Blue Sky, out of their home. How does he do this? He grabs a shovel and starts digging outside. One of the meth heads comes outside and asks what he's doing. Jesse tells him he's digging and asks him to take over, leaving the house open and unguarded.
• Beard of Evil: Walter, Declan, and Gaff are all antagonistic characters with beards. Walter's beard is particularly distinctive, as it grows between seasons.
• Because I'm Good At It:
  • What ultimately keeps Walt cooking, his pride and ego from realizing that he has a unique skill that has created an empire that would rival that of Steve Jobs both in its value and impact on the meth industry. He's not a failure anymore and has become "the one who knocks." In the series finale, Walt admits this, saying "I was good at it."
  • In Season 4, Jesse says he wants to continue working with Mike and Gus because he feels useful for once. Mr. White was a constant reminder of Jesse's failures. Positive reinforcement from Gus goes a long way toward winning over Jesse.
• Becoming the Mask:
  • Jesse has his two drug-dealing cronies, Skinny Pete & Badger, pose as recovering addicts and join a 12-step program to sell meth to the other members. They can't bring themselves to do it and end up going sober for a time.
  • Season one: weak Walter White pretends to be the ruthless Heisenberg. Season four: ruthless Heisenberg pretends to be the weak Walter White. In season five, he doesn't even bother pretending anymore, and willfully scares the shit out of everyone around him.
• Being Evil Sucks: Manufacturing crystal meth is highly lucrative, but it's also a brutal business full of violent and unstable sociopaths. Moreover, they also have to contend with ongoing DEA investigations and the difficulties of laundering their drug money without attracting the attention of law enforcement. Walt's activities lead to Hank's death, destroy his relationship with his family and end up costing them everything. Jesse loses everyone dear to him and by the end is so broken he cannot even enjoy the money he made from it. Almost every major character involved in the illegal meth trade is dead by the end of the series. Although Walt lampshades that it was Worth It, and will repeat it again if the opportunity presented itself.
• Being Good Sucks: Lampshaded at least once in season 2. Saul tells Jesse and Walt that Badger is going to sell them out to the feds after he gets busted, and recommends they just have him shanked in jail. His alternate scheme to get Badger off by giving Jimmy In'n'Out to the cops as a Heisenberg stand-in will cost $80,000. When they choose the latter option, Saul says, "Conscience gets expensive, doesn't it?"
• Beneath the Mask:
  • As the series progresses, we see flashes of just how much pent-up anger, bitterness, malice, and wounded pride had always lain beneath Walt's harmless veneer. Viewers are invited to wonder: what sort of man had Walter quietly, secretly become even before his 50th birthday? How much of his gradual "transformation" into Heisenberg amounts to the surfacing of personality traits that were always there? How many of us remain good people on the surface, but end up becoming ripe for the sort of trigger events that launched Walt's career?
  • Hank is introduced as a wisecracking, blustering oaf. However, as the stress and danger of his job increases we see that he is a Sad Clown, riddled with self-doubt, but also has more grit, integrity, bravery and intelligence than he seems to give himself credit for.
  • Gus Fring. A mild mannered, charming restaurateur who graciously supports the DEA and the community, who uses his restaurants as a front for his crystal meth trafficking ring, and ruthlessly murders enemies and subordinates alike to protect his interests.
  • Todd Alquist. An affable pest-exterminator and loyal subordinate, who also is a sociopath who murders women and children without remorse, and has connections to one of the most dangerous gangs in the country.
• Berserk Button:
  • Walt is incredibly defensive of his son in the first season. Jesse, on the other hand, gets protective of anyone's children, like Spooge's son, or Brock, or Tomas Cantillo, or Drew Sharp.
  • Eventually, Walt's biggest Berserk Button has nothing to do with his family, but with his Pride. Attacking his massive ego becomes the absolute most dangerous thing you can do, as Mike and Jesse discovered.
  • Do NOT call "Spooge's Lady" a skank if you value your life.
  • Tuco Salamanca has several; his employees speaking out of turn, demanding payments up front, insulting his family, etc. Almost anything can set him off, especially when he's under the influence of Walt's meth.
• Best Served Cold: Gus once saw his friend and partner murdered in front of him by the cartel. He then proceeds to bide his time and establish trust for twenty years. Then, when Tio, the man who pulled the trigger, is finally in his power, he still doesn't kill him, but visits him again and again, each time telling him that another one of his relatives has been killed, until he's the last member of his family alive.
• BFG:
  • In season 5, Walt gets his hands on an M60 machine gun, a weapon so huge it was nicknamed "The Pig" during the Vietnam War.
  • One of Jack's gunmen uses an AA12 automatic shotgun.
• Big Bad:
  • Season 1: Tuco Salamanca is introduced near the tail-end of the season as the first major player in the drug trade Walt and Jesse encounter, whose tendencies towards unhinged violence make him just as much of a threat to his "partners" as his enemies.
  • Season 2: Gus Fring is introduced near the end of the season as Walt's new distributor after Tuco is killed in the first two episodes. The next season reveals that members of his drug empire murdered one of Walt and Jesse's own dealers, which was what pushed them to go work for him in the first place.
  • Season 3: The Cousins, Leonel and Marco Salamanca, are Disc-One Final Bosses brought in by their uncle Hector to avenge Tuco's death, initially targeting Walt before Gus points them towards Hank. Gus and Mike Ehrmantraut (The Dragon for Gus) use the havoc they cause to bar the rest of the Cartel from operating in the southwest, and try to have Walt replaced as their chemist once he and Jesse prove to be too volatile.
  • Season 4: Gus and Mike continue to act as the main antagonists, strengthening their hold over the drug trade by slaughtering the rest of the Cartel while driving a wedge between Walt and Jesse in the process. Don Eladio, the head of the Cartel, is introduced as the Greater-Scope Villain who had Hector murder Gus' former partner, motivating Gus to orchestrate most of the events of the series to get revenge.
  • Season 5: For the first half and most of the second half, Walter White / Heisenberg himself occupies this role with his brother-in-law Hank Schrader serving as his main antagonist for most of the season. However, after "Ozymandias", he loses the position to Jack and the Neo-Nazis when Hank is murdered, most of his cash is stolen, and he's forced to go on the run as his identity is exposed. Eventually, Walt returns and wipes out both the nazis and the last remnants of his empire.
  • El Camino: Neil Kandy, one of Todd's former colleagues, is Jesse's biggest obstacle in getting the money needed to flee to Alaska. Todd himself is the posthumous instigator for much of the conflict as the source of Jesse's trauma from being enslaved, as well as the prior owner of the money Jesse and Neil are fighting over.
• Big Bad Wannabe: After spending years working alongside Gus and seeing exactly what goes into running a drug empire, this is how Mike feels about Walt's attempts to take over.
  Mike: Just because you shot Jesse James, doesn't make you Jesse James.
• Big "NO!": Jesse before Todd shoots the kid at the end of "Dead Freight".
  • Also, Jesse after Todd shoots Andrea.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Where to begin? The drug-cooking school teacher, his attempted Stepford Smiler wife, the gung-ho DEA agent brother-in-law, the kooky kleptomaniac sister... No wonder "Flynn" wants to change his name. And later changed his name after his parents' crimes become headline news.
• Big "SHUT UP!": A truly epic series of them from Skyler to Marie that verges on a mental breakdown.
• Birthday Beginning: The show starts on Walt's 50th birthday (when he gets the news that he has cancer) and ends on his 52nd birthday, with his death.
• Birth-Death Juxtaposition:
  • "Phoenix" is the episode in which Walt's daughter Holly is born and Jane dies.
  • Similarly, the previous episode "Mandala" (a Sanskrit term referring to the circle of life and death), opens with Combo being killed, and ends with Skyler going into labor.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • Hank's stint with the DEA in Texas demonstrates his main problem there (not speaking Spanish) by neither translating nor subtitling much of the Spanish lines other characters around him are saying.
  • Season 5 contains a whole lot of German, some of it untranslated. Both the grammar and the contents are actually surprisingly correct, but the stilted delivery and overly formal vocabulary suggest the actors either aren't native speakers or made a point of using as little slang as humanly possible.
  • The Milanese song Gale is singing along to in the final episode of Season 3 is called "Crapa Pelada", which translates as "Bald Head", and the lyrics are based on an old folk rhyme about a greedy cook, the lyrics loosely translate as "Bald Head who makes dumplings, but he does not give them to his brothers, his brothers make an omelette, but they do not give it to Bald Head", foreshadowing the cartel/Gus situation much later in the series.
  • Tio Salamanca tries to warn his nephew about the poisoned food by ringing his bell three times quickly, three times slowly and three times quickly again. This is Morse Code for "SOS."
  • The episode "Caballo Sin Nombre" means "Nameless Horse" in Spanish or, less literally "A Horse With No Name"; like the song by America Walter White was listening/singing along to in the episode.
• Binge Montage: A flashback showing how Jesse lost the money he was meant to buy the RV with.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The finale of Season 4, Walt has killed Gus, protected his family, and come out on top through a superb double Batman Gambit, but to do so he had to make more compromises and put more innocents in danger than ever before, including setting off a bomb in a nursing home and even poisoning a small child.
  • The Grand Finale as well. Walt is dead, his family has completely disowned him, and the world knows that he's Heisenberg... But he died on his own terms, effectively eradicated Blue Sky, he's managed to rescue Jesse from the Aryans, Jesse passes up a chance to kill him, and he manages to get his money, over 9 million, to his children via Gretchen and Elliot. He gives Skyler the coordinates to Hank and Steve's bodies ensuring that they'll have a proper burial, and Skyler may be able to get the feds off her back in exchange for the information. Jesse is free from slavery and all ties to the meth business, and might actually make the most out of his life having had aspirations of being a carpenter during his enslavement. And Todd, Jack, Lydia and the Aryans have all gotten their just comeuppance.
• Black-and-Grey Morality:
  • "Heisenberg" vs the Cartel. Season 4 gives us Walt vs Gus. Though this became Evil Versus Evil by the end.
  • From Season 5B, Hank versus Heisenberg quickly became this, as Hank's pursuit of Heisenberg proves to be not without its own compromises.
  • Uncle Jack's crew of Neo-Nazis versus Heisenberg.
• Black Comedy: Comedy so black, no light can escape it.
  • The first season was especially reliant on it, although the comedy became more subdued in later seasons as the series took a grimmer turn.
• Black Dude Dies First: Look at the list of names under Anyone Can Die — the deaths in the series overwhelmingly happen to the Hispanic characters. Among the main characters, Gus is the first to die. All of the main characters to survive the series are white.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Played with in a conversation between Ted and Skyler. He doesn't want to use the money she gave him to pay off the IRS since he will still lose his business, house, etc. and would rather try to dig himself out. When he explains this to Skyler, she assumes that he's asking for more money. He insists it's not blackmail, but she continues to try to get the amount that he's aiming for before realizing that he's telling the truth — he doesn't actually want more money.
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: Marco Salamanca's axe when Hank shoots him before he can deliver a Coup de Grâce.
• Blatant Lies: Jesse's parents tell him he has 72 hours to vacate his aunt's house, but his mother is there the next morning.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep:
  • Walt killing Krazy-8. It's his first kill not in the heat of the moment, and he's also gotten the chance to bond with his victim, so he breaks down after doing the deed.
  • Jesse killing Gale. Well, it's more of a "weep and bleed 'em" scenario.
• Blofeld Ploy: In the season 4 premiere "Box Cutter", Gus seems about to discipline Walt, but instead kills an underling and departs without a word. His motivation is left ambiguous. However, the underling, Victor, was seen at the scene of a crime and could have led authorities back to Gus. Walt, on the other hand, suspects that Gus killed Victor for cooking a batch of meth, taking on more authority than Gus had given him.
  • Although that scene could be interpreted this way, Gus' motivations aren't exactly cloudy: Victor revealed that he was ready to replace Walt if need be, meaning that Gale's death at the end of the previous season was not enough to bring Walt the security he wanted. Gus then gives Walt the Radish Cure by killing Victor, showing Walt how consequential gaining that security is.
• Blood from the Mouth: Subverted. Walt starts coughing up blood in "4 Days Out" and assumes the worst for his cancer, but the end of the episode confirms that he's in remission and the blood is from a separate, treatable condition.
• Bloody Hilarious:
  • In the first season, Jesse tries to dispose of a body using hydrofluoric acid. In a bathtub. It doesn't work out well for the body, the bathtub, or the floor underneath. By the time the floor's weakened enough for the remains of the body to fall through, it's no longer recognizable as human. As long as you don't vomit, you'll bust a gut laughing.
  • Also, Spooge's head getting crushed by the ATM in "Peekaboo."
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The neo-Nazis. They are a particularly despicable lot who have no qualms about murdering women and children and are even crueler than Gus, but they find the state of the U.S. utterly dreadful:
  Kenny: Nanny state. I see a kid with a bicycle helmet on, I want to smack the shit out of him — like for his own good.
• Bluff the Eavesdropper: Right before Walt goes on the run, he calls Skylar and, realizing the police are listening in, goes on a rant and essentially states that her involvement in his criminal activities was minimal and under the threat of death. It seems to work to get her out of trouble, as when he returns a year later she's not incarcerated.
• Bluffing the Authorities:
  • Gus Fring is questioned by the police about the murder of his one-time criminal underling Gale Boetticher after trace evidence showed that Gus had been at Gale's house not long before his death. Gus, being The Chessmaster and a Villain with Good Publicity, spins the story and claims that after years of not talking, Gale had contacted Gus recently, invited him over, and tried to get him to invest in something that seemed shady. Gus refused, and then read about the murder several days later. Because Gus has such good publicity and is so methodical about covering his tracks, everyone except Hank buys it.
  • The IRS starts to catch on to Ted's cooking of the books at Beneke Fabricators and sends an agent to investigate. Skyler, knowing that a full scale audit would bring her own finances under investigation, poses as a Brainless Beauty who was hired for reasons other than her accounting skills. The ruse is successful; although Beneke is hit with a big bill for back taxes, the IRS believes that any inconsistencies were due to incompetence rather than fraud.
• Boarding School: Skyler brings up sending Walter, Jr. to one, if only as a way of getting him away from Walt.
• Book Dumb: Jesse, who's occasionally shown to be pretty smart (if irresponsible and naive) but under-educated. Contrasts with Walt's Science Hero, and often fills the role of The Watson regarding Walt's chemical wizardry.
• Book Ends:
  • In series finale "Felina," Walt arrives at the Neo-Nazi compound wearing the same outfit he wore in the first episode, "Pilot": pastel jacket, green button-up shirt, white undershirt and beige slacks.
  • For most of the series, Walt is in remission and shaves his head. However, in the final season, his cancer comes back and he lets his hair grow back out, mirroring his state in the first season, albeit a lot more disheveled.
  • Both Hank’s introduction scene and death scene feature him making backhanded compliments about Walt’s intelligence and attending slight lack of social craft. Both are clearly made out of love but in very different situations.
  • Both the first episode and the final episode has Walt hearing sirens coming to his location.
  • In the pilot episode, Walt is diagnosed with lung cancer on his 50th birthday, and is given 2 years to live by the doctor. In the final episode set exactly 2 years to the date on his 52nd birthday, Walt gets a bullet in his lung, which ends up killing him.
  • With the exception of Season 5, the first and final episodes of each season has at least one person dying.
    • Season 1: Emilio Koyama is killed by phosphine gas in "Pilot", No-Doze is beaten to death by Tuco in "A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal".
    • Season 2: Gonzo is killed off-camera in "Seven-Thirty-Seven", accidentally crushing his arm in a pile of cars at the junkyard trying to recover No-Doze's body and bleeding out. 167 people are killed in the Wayfarer 515 crash in "ABQ".
    • Season 3: 10 Mexican migrants and their smuggler are killed by the Cousins in "No Más". 4 cartel thugs are killed by Mike in "Full Measure", Gale is shot by Jesse in the same episode.
    • Season 4: Victor is killed by Gus in "Box Cutter", slitting his throat with the titular tool. In "Face Off", Hector Salamanca kills Gus, Tyrus, and himself in a murder-suicide after his wheelchair was rigged with a bomb by Walt. Walt also shoots two of Gus' guards at the Superlab.
    • Season 5: This is the only season with no deaths in the first episode. "Felina" however has Jack and his Neo-Nazi gang gunned down by Walt, Todd is strangled to death by Jesse, Lydia is poisoned by ricin planted by Walt, and finally; Walt himself dies of a gunshot wound in Jack's lab just moments before police arrive.
  • The first episodes of seasons 1 and 5 both feature Walt on his birthday, having bacon arranged in the number of the age he's turning.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • Hank kills one of the Salamanca twins with a hollow-point bullet to the head.
  • Gus' companion in founding Los Pollos Hermanos, Max, gets offed in this fashion by Tio right before his eyes.
  • What Uncle Jack gives to Declan and Hank.
  • Todd kills Andrea in this fashion to penalize Jesse for trying to escape Jack's compound.
  • Walt delivers the final blow to Uncle Jack this way.
• Boredom Montage: Used in the episode "Shotgun" when Jesse begins working for Mike. In "I See You," he kills time in the lab waiting for Walt to arrive.
• Bottle Episode: "And the Bag's in the River" and especially "Fly", which features only Jesse and Walter, and only one location (the basement lab), and only one story — Walter and Jesse trying to kill a fly. For the whole episode.
  • "Four Days Out" was supposed to be this with the majority of time spent in the RV with Jesse and Walter. However, more scenes required shooting out in the desert or in completely different locations to make the episode work, so it ended up being one of the more expensive episodes of the series.
• Bottomless Magazines:
  • Tuco and Hank zig-zag this trope in their shoot out. Both of them reload after exchanging shots, but both of them fired more shots than their weapons should've been able to before so.
  • Again in Hank's shootout with the Twins, Marco fires 11 bullets from what appears to be a .45 1911 before the slide locks open. Leonel fires 9 times at Hank from his own 1911, Hank then picks up Leonel's gun and fires 5 more times at Marco. The standard magazine for a 1911 holds 7 rounds, which would only allow it to be fired 8 times before reloading.^note While extended magazines with up to 15 round capacity are available for the firearm, they extend well below the bottom of the grip and are clearly not being used in the scene.
• Brandishment Bluff: Walt does this in the finale to Gretchen and Elliot. To ensure they pay the money to his family he tells them he hired a couple of hitmen to watch them while having two laser sights pointed at them. Turns out it was just Skinny Pete and Badger with a couple of laser pointers.
• Breakout Character:
  • Saul Goodman. He proved to be so popular that he received a spinoff called Better Call Saul which detailed how he went from being Jimmy McGill to Saul Goodman.
  • Mike, as he features in Better Call Saul as the deuteragonist, and Gus, who gets a subplot revolving around him in Season 3 of the aforementioned show.
• Break the Cutie:
  • Jesse, over the course of the show.
  • Skyler in the third season. It got much worse throughout Season 5.
  • Really, just about every central character who isn't dead by the end of the series qualifies for this, since if they haven't died, then they've definitely gone through hell and back dozens of times. And then there the people who've died, such as Hank, Mike, and countless others. And then there are minor characters or one-off characters, such as Drew Sharp's parents and Donald Margolis (if his suicide attempt wasn't successful).
• Break His Heart to Save Him: Walt's call to Skyler in "Ozymandias" has shades of this. On the surface, he appears to be ruthlessly and cruelly raging at her, but a closer reading shows that he's taking the blame for all the crimes, for the benefit of the police listening in. It also has the effect of emotionally severing himself from Skyler, Walter Jr., and Marie, allowing them all to see him as the villain and themselves as fellow victims, so they can salvage their relationships when he's gone.
• Break the Haughty:
  • Hank and Jesse both experience extreme pressure that cracks their arrogant facades.
  • Walt goes through this in "Ozymandias": Hank's death at the hands of Jack's crew, Jack's crew taking his money, his family abandoning him, and even his baby daughter wanting her mother over him, finally makes him realize what he's become.
  • Walt's crushing continues in the following episode "Granite State": Saul's new-identity man sets him up in a remote shack where the cancer eats at his strength. He keeps starting the eight-mile walk to the nearest town, but even the Heisenberg hat can't give him the power to do it. He can't get any of the money — all that remains of the legacy that justifies any of this business — to his family without suspicion, and when he tries to send them some through a friend of Walt Jr., his son angrily rejects him.
• Bribe Backfire: Walt and Jesse's first meeting with Saul.
• Brick Joke: In season 1 Hank, thinking Walter Jr. is smoking pot, takes him to a decrepit motel to observe Wendy, a meth-addicted prostitute, as an example of how drugs can ruin your life. She totally misreads the situation and thinks that Hank is trying to arrange a sexual encounter between herself and Walter Jr., which she quickly rebuffs due to his age. One season later, Hank is interviewing her regarding Jesse and she recognizes him, exclaiming "It's you! I know you.... You wanted me to do that kid!"
• Briefcase Full of Money: Lots of characters, though usually not in an actual briefcase; it's more likely to be a backpack or duffel bag, and in one scene there's a shipping pallet full of money. In the end, the totality of Walt's fortune is contained in seven plastic 55-gallon barrels full of money.
• Bring My Brown Pants: One of Mike's first victims (that we know of) soiled himself after the former roughed him up and threatened to kill him should he hurt his wife again.
• Brown Face:
  • Mark Margolis is of Eastern European and Jewish descent, yet plays Mestizo Hector Salamanca.
  • Giancarlo Esposito is half Italian half African-American and plays Chilean Gustavo Fring. This one is a bit more justified though in that Gustavo's real identity is a bit of a mystery.
• Brutal Brawl: In the Season 4 episode "Bug," tensions boil over between Walt and Jesse and they engage in a furious fistfight, wrecking Jesse's living room. Surprisingly Walt, a 50-year-old cancer patient, gives as good as he gets, throwing Jesse around the room and giving him a vicious kick to the face. In the next episode, Jesse sports visible facial bruises and Walt is bedridden from being beaten.
• Buffy Speak: A hysterical Tuco orders Walt to give CPR to the dying No-Doze. Not remembering what it's called, he just makes the chest-pressing motion with his hands and shouts at Walt to "do that... that thing!"
• Bulletproof Vest:
  • The Cousins purchase a pair from an illegal arms dealer. Played realistically: one of them shoots the dealer in the chest to test the vests — he survives, but one of his ribs is broken and he's left moaning in pain as the Cousins walk away.
  • Saul wears one under his suit after Huell suddenly goes AWOL in "To'hajiilee."
  • Jack's crew wear them when tooled in "To'hajiilee."
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Hank, of all people. He's a blowhard, maybe even to Jerkass with a Heart of Gold levels, but notice throughout the show that in general, he's a very good detective.
• Burner Phones: Several phones are snapped in half and otherwise disposed of to cover up criminal activity over the course of the series:
  • In Season 2, Walter manages to deflect Skyler's suspicions about him having a second cell phone. That is, until Walter is being sedated for cancer surgery in the finale, Skyler asks him about his cell phone, and Walter says, "Which one?" This leads to Skyler finding the burner phone and unspooling Walter's entire web of lies.
  • Saul has a whole drawer full of different cell phones. Walt Lampshades this after he has difficulty calling him in "To'hajiilee":
  Walter White: "Is your phone broken? All 200 of them?"
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Jesse's first scene is him falling out a window with no pants on. His humiliation grows with his success. One consistent element through the first few seasons of the show was Jesse taking a severe beating when someone was pissed at Walt. It almost grew to Running Gag status.
  • Walt has been the Butt-Monkey his whole life, but the events of the show make him more assertive and aggressive. Which is not really a good thing, it turns out.
• Button Mashing: Jesse light-heartedly accuses Brock of this as they play a Sonic game with the wonderful line, "You're just pressing buttons and it makes you do magical stuff."

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