YMMV / Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul What IF

• Awesome Moments: "What If Mike Never Went to Belize?" shows that a Mike Ehrmantraut reduced to basics (a set of bugs, trackers, and a pair of guns) is still a dangerous adversary, as he runs rings around Walt and the Aryan Brotherhood before eliminating the latter in a gun battle, rescuing Jesse and Hank, and leaving Walt for the cops before disappearing.
• Fridge Horror: Good ending for Jesse in "What If Jesse Escaped Earlier In El Camino?", huh? Wait til he learns that he got Brock and his grandmother murdered.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • "What If Jesse Escaped Earlier In El Camino?": After narrowly evading a police officer, Jesse gets to bid goodbye to his friends and enter Ed's shop.
  • "What if Jesse killed Walt?": Jesse, Andrea and Brock managing to escape to Alaska and bidding goodbye to his friends, who promise to visit.
  • "What If Drew Sharp Survived?": Basically everything that happens in this timeline.
    • Just like in the show, Walt gives Jesse the opportunity to make his own lab so they can double their profits, but unlike the show, there's no ulterior motive there - Walt genuinely believes it's a good chance for them to double their output and believes that Jesse deserves it after all the effort and skill he's put in.
  • "What If Walter White Went To Prison":
    • At his trial, Walt takes the stand and continues to endlessly say that he did everything he did for his family. That is, until he looks at his family and sees their open hatred. Unable to lie to himself anymore, Walt confesses on the stand that he did everything for his own enjoyment and because he was good at it. While it gets him the hatred of Albuquerque, his honestly later lets him reconcile with his family.
    • While Walter is, well, in prison, he manages to make amends with Hank and Walt Jr., with Jr. promising to remember his father as the man he used to be and hugging him goodbye while Hank promises that he will always take care of Walt's family.
      Walt Jr.: You'll always be my dad and I'll never judge you off your worst mistakes, and I'll always remember you as the man you were and not the one you turned into.
  • "What If Mike Killed Tuco":
    • Howard survives his confrontation with Jimmy and Kim and Cheryl convinces him to retire. He still has a sullied reputation due to Jimmy and Kim sabotaging him, but Howard is alive, rich and has a second chance with the woman he loves.
    • Walt and Jesse retire from the meth trade after Gus is killed. Walt briefly attempts to talk Jesse into cooking again, but when he sees Andrea and Brock living with Jesse as a family, he is inspired to stop cooking and live the rest of his days out with his family, telling Jesse he is proud of what he become. Mike also gets to live his twilight years in peace knowing he's got his money for Kaylee.
    Walt: I'm proud of you, Jesse. Take care.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • "What If Lalo Salamanca Beat Gus?":
    • Lalo Salamanca executes Gus Fring in the superlab instead of letting him speak, averting his own death while proving Gus's betrayal to the Cartel. Expecting reinforcements, Lalo hides to ambush Victor and Tyrus, killing them quickly before forcibly recruiting Mike Ehrmantraut to his organization. With Mike and Saul Goodman cleaning up the mess in Albuquerque, Lalo returns to the Cartel and raises the Salamanca name to new heights, becoming Don Eladio's right-hand man. For years, Lalo runs New Mexico's Cartel work flawlessly, then breaks into the meth business by recruiting Heisenberg and rakes in profits for several months. After getting Hank's information to the Twins and killing Jesse Pinkman himself to avenge Tuco's death, Lalo is ultimately killed when Mike and Walt work together to stop him, but he goes down fighting and kills Walt before he dies.
    • Mike Ehrmantraut, despite being blackmailed into Lalo's service, works to undermine him immediately. Beginning by buying Dr. Caldera's black book in order to fake Kim Wexler's death, Mike spends years working to get close enough to kill Lalo with no success, proving such an invaluable ally that Lalo respects him enough to get him directly on the Cartel payroll. Maintaining his skills as a "private detective", Mike gets Lalo the information on both Walter White and Hank Schrader, ensuring the former is recruited and the latter is killed. When their first face-to-face meeting goes wrong, Mike works with Walt to wipe out the entire Cartel with poisoned tequila, even tricking Lalo into giving him Walt's shot to both save Walt's life and trick the Cartel into drinking it. Mike refuses to save his own life if it means risking the plan, and he ultimately dies after killing Lalo to ensure his family will be safe from his wrath forever.
  • "What if Hank Didn't Survive The Salamanca Twins Ambush?": Gus Fring chooses to let Hank Schrader be killed by the Salamanca Twins, then has Mike finish off the surviving Leonel stealthily while Gus throws a party for the police in the hospital lobby. Taking Mike's advice, Gus tells Walt and Jesse the truth of his past with the Salamancas, relating to their grief over loved ones being killed by the Salamancas while hiding that he's the reason for their loved ones' deaths. With Walt and Jesse in on the plan to wipe out the Cartel, the mass poisoning goes perfectly, and the trio kill Hector Salamanca together, completing Gus's thorough revenge against his worst enemy flawlessly. With no more adversaries, Gus turns his empire international with Lydia's help, lets Jesse leave the business provided he trains Gale as a replacement, and continues to rake in endless profits and never face justice for his crimes.
  • "What If Mike Didn't Go To Belize?":
    • Mike Ehrmantraut escapes his final encounter with Walter White and goes into hiding, managing to track Walt with bugs and trackers while successfully evading the Aryan Brotherhood's attempts to find and kill him. Spending months following Walt hoping to find an opening, Mike follows Walt into the desert and, predicting that Walt will get lucky, takes a sniping position before the Aryans begin a shootout with Hank Schrader and Steve Gomez. As the shootout ends, Mike singlehandedly wipes out the entire gang from afar, then rescues Jesse and shoots Walt in the shoulder before letting him be arrested. Predicting that Walt will sell them out, Mike uses Ed Galbraith's services to disappear to Utah, ending the video learning that Walt has died while planning to watch his granddaughter grow up with no enemies to track him down.
    • Ed Galbraith is the Disappearer, a vacuum repairman who moonlights in getting criminals new identities away from Albuquerque. When Mike, Jesse Pinkman, and Saul Goodman request his services, Ed comes up with three new identities for them overnight, sending them all over the country and hiding them so thoroughly that Walt is incapable of finding them after six months. When Walt tries to threaten him for their locations, Ed is utterly fearless, threatening to call the police to force him to leave.
  • "What if Mike was around During the End of Season 4?": Mike Ehrmantraut returns to Alburquerque after helping eliminate the Juarez Cartel and detains Walter White for 24 hours until Walter's brother-in-law Hank Schrader is killed by Gus Fring's men, forestalling all attempts to contact him. After Hank's death, Mike helps Jesse Pinkman persuade Walter to accept his firing as meth cook by telling him he's being given a ticket to escape a life of crime without dying. A few months later when Walter attempts to destroy the lab to avenge his pride, Mike stops Walter in his tracks, killing him and ensuring he's never found before placing himself in charge of Jesse, getting him to produce more meth than Walter ever did. When Jesse asks about Walter's disappearance, Mike tells him that Walter sealed his own fate through his crime addiction, then promises Jesse a way out and vets him properly as an asset to Gus' organization.
• Memetic Loser: Jesse Pinkman. Good lord, he cannot catch a break at all. Viewers of this web series have concluded Jesse will almost always die in these scenarios no matter what. Murge eventually released a video tallying every time Jesse has died so far, with the final count being 11. While it's not as many as you might think given how many what ifs Murge has made, it's still an insane amount and serves to prove Jesse was extremely lucky to be one of the few characters to survive the whole thing.
  Random Commenter: These videos really makes me realize just how much on thin ice Jesse was throughout the entire story.
  Second Random Commenter: homie was teetering over the brink
• Moral Event Horizon: Depending on when the change in the timeline happens, the characters who have crossed this in the main timeline will have crossed at the same time as they already did, but sometimes they cross it at different time or even cross a bigger one then in canon:
  • Walt and, of all people, Gretchen Schwartz cross it in a character sense in "What If Walter Accepted Elliot's Offer" when Walt repays Elliot's kind offer by sleeping with his wife, getting her to divorce Elliot and (after Walt divorces Skyler as well) marry him instead, and push Elliot out of the company entirely. While Walt is less terrible in this timeline than the main one and most others, he still breaks up his family and betrays Elliot.
    • Walt more traditionally crosses it in "What If Walter Outsmarted Hank & Jesse" and "What If Huel and Kuby Took Walter’s Money?" when he has Jesse killed.
    • Walt also crosses it in "Breaking Bad: The Lost Tapes" by kidnapping and torturing Tuco for weeks as revenge for Tuco killing Jesse. Even if it is Tuco, the fact that Walt is so deranged at that point that he could keep anyone locked in his crawl space while he slowly removes sections of their legs and fingers with the only way-out being suicide speaks volumes. This also directly leads to Walt Jr., Holly, and later Skyler's death later on, cementing Walt's own view that there is no going back for him.
  • Gus crosses this in "What if Hank Didn't Survive The Salamanca Twins Ambush?" by letting the twins kill Hank and then by using Max's death to get Walt on his side against the Salamancas.
    • Gus crosses an even bigger line than any timeline in "Walt's Perfect Death" when he has the Salamanca Twins kill Walt's grieving family so he can have the DEA kill them after notifying them about the attack.
  • Jimmy/Saul/Gene crossed it in "What If Gene Takavic Killed Marion?" by, obviously, killing Marion. While he came within a hair of doing it in canon, it mostly served as a Heel Realization about how far he has fallen. This time around, he commits to it remorselessly, showing that Jimmy McGill really is dead and gone forever.
  • Mike arguably crosses it in "What if Jesse Pinkman Sent Walter White to Belize? (aka What if Jesse killed Walt?)" when he frames Hank for being Heisenberg.
  • Krazy-8 crosses it in "What if Walter Let Krazy-8 go?" either by killing Walt in timeline A or by killing Jesse in timeline B.
  • Jane of all people crosses it in "What If Jane took Jesse's money?" by killing Jesse (noticing a pattern?).
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • "What If Walt Outsmarted Hank And Jesse": after Walt seemingly succeeds in taking care of his family, Skyler and Walt Jr. are murdered one night by the Neo-Nazis on Lydia's orders.
  • "What if Saul Goodman Killed?": Gene's murder of Marion is portrayed as a brutal affair, him coldly strangling her.
  • "What If Mike Killed Tuco:" In an otherwise relatively upbeat ending, Gus, his goons and Gale are all executed by Eladio's poolside, with Gus being forced to drink multiple shots of his poisoned tequila before being stomped to death by Eladio.
  • The entirety of "What If Walter White Kidnapped Tuco?" is this.
    • Jesse's death. For starters, when Tuco brings Jesse and Walt to his house and before he gets them, Jesse actually tells Tuco to kill him already, since he knows who Tuco really wants and he’s only delaying the inevitable. But in the end, Tuco makes Walter kill Jesse. The former obviously doesn't want to do it, but Jesse actually begs him. To which he does.
    • After Walt killed Hector, and wounds Tuco, he proceeds to kidnap the latter to make him suffer and proceeds to trap him in the crawl space and torture him slowly over the next few weeks. He force feeds him, cuts off multiple joints (including one of his legs) and cauterizes them with a blowtorch, all the while having him tied to a shotgun that he could trigger at will to end the pain. And Walt is casually conversing with him the entire time, enjoying this. And this is just Season 1-2 Walter White. Not even his future self in Season 5 would be this cruel. This is Jigsaw levels of cruelty....
    • And Tuco doesn't even pull the trigger even after all of this, not allowing Walt to have the satisfaction.
    • Walt Jr. eventually finds Tuco, whom he thought was an innocent civilian as he gives him water. Tuco recognizes him as the son of Walt when he saw the family photo. At which point, Tuco would grab him and trigger the shotgun, killing them both, with the bullets flying around..
    • Walt and Skyler come home to see their bodies. They are both horrified when they spot their corpses in the crawl space. Walter tries to apologize, but Skyler isn't having it as she tries to call 911. The two get into a fight with Walter pushing Skyler on the ground with her pregnant stomach first….
    • Walter, realizing what he's done and the result of his torture, goes to Holly's nursery and grabs whatever money he can. As opens the door to leave, he looks at a crying Skyler whose blood is pouring out from her dress, as he apologizes and shuts the door, making a run for it.
    • Unlike other videos, where the title was typically: "What if_______? A Breaking Bad/Better Call Story.", it was formerly titled "Breaking Bad: The Lost Episode", a name just enough to give off chills. It's exactly like the title of a Creepypasta story.
    • Unlike the other What Ifs in this series other than Walter shooting Hector, or Skyler having a miscarriage, every concept here was actually supposed to happen in the original series. But thankfully, the Writer's Strike and Aaron Paul being a damn good actor put a stop to these ideas.
  • "What If Jack Let Hank Live?" is basically a textbook case of Be Careful What You Wish For. Good news: Walt manages to talk Jack into letting Hank live. Bad news: This effectively signs his and Jesse's death warrants. After strong-arming the location of his money out of Walt, and after forcing Jesse to experience a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown due to ratting to the DEA, Jack decides to have them both killed at the first opportunity. Jesse dies the second Jack sees him out Todd on Hank's confession recording, and Walt dies after he teaches Todd the recipe for Blue Sky; after all, he failed to let Jack know his brother-in-law was in the DEA. In fact, Todd is the one to pull the trigger. And to add insult to injury, no one will know what happened as Jack has their corpses dissolved in a barrel of acid. And despite the fact that the public starts to suspect that Hank and Gomez were secretly dirty, and the video ends with Walt Jr. discovering Walt's "confession" recording, it really goes a long way to say that Hank still won out here in comparison.
  • "What If Mike Never Went to Belize?" takes the opening from "Ozymandias and reworks it into a replay of the shootout from "Bagman": Gomez is dead and Hank is wounded with Jack about to pull the trigger. Then a gunshot rings out ... and Jack crumples, a hole blown through his head. Then the shooting starts up again between the Aryan Brotherhood and the unseen sniper, and now Walt and Hank are in the same position that Saul was: unarmed, immobilized, unable to find cover, and praying to God to survive. When the shooting finally stops, Jack's crew is wiped out, with the sole exception of Todd, who sports an Agonizing Stomach Wound. Then Mike arrives from his vantage point, and Walt is left begging and quailing with fear at his enemy through the whole scene before getting shot in the shoulder and left to be arrested.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "What If Jeff Was Genes Half Measure": After Jeff alerts the cops to his presence, Jimmy commits suicide with a gun at the back of his car, Chuck's dismissive words playing in his head.
  • "What If Lalo Salamanca Beat Gus": After Skyler and Walt Jr. are killed by the Cousins, Gomez has to inform Marie that her sister and nephew have been murdered, leaving Holly as her only surviving family member.
  • "What If Mike Killed Tuco:" The generally uplifting resolution ends with Kim divorcing Jimmy over his involvement with Walter White.
  • "What If Walt Outsmarted Hank and Jesse?": By the end, all of Walt's loved ones are dead, rendering his crimes All for Nothing.
  • "The Lost Tapes". While "Part 1" was mostly Nightmare Fuel, Parts 2 and 3 illustrate the tragic aftermath of Walt's actions:
    • Holly dies in the womb from the fight Walt and Skyler had in "Part 1". When Skyler wakes up after she is removed from Skyler, she is horrified and saddened. Then, the police suspect her of being a willing accomplice to Walt's monstrous actions, with the media condemning her and basically making her a social pariah. She is unable to take it and kills herself.
    • Gus using the Salamanca twins to kill Hank and almost Walt. Walt narrowly escapes after realizing it's a set-up, but he discovers his wife is dead in the process through an article in a stray newspaper.
    • Months later, Walt is just done, and goes to his condemned home to kill himself, apologizing to his dead family. He only stops when he finds a bunch of methheads smoking his meth in the backyard and deduces that Gus is using Gale to cook blue sky.
    • Walt's appearance in "Part 3" is just sad. His hair is long, gray, and unkempt, he has a long beard, he is getting weaker due to the cancer slowly eating him away, and he works as a grave digger in the same cemetery his family is buried in.
    • Walt killing Gale. Gale is totally unaware that Gus tried to get Walt killed and starts talking about how they can start cooking together again like old times. Walt, realizing Gale can't be trusted not to say anything to Gus, is forced to kill the only friend he has left. He can only apologize over and over as he plunges the knife through Gale's heart.
  • "What If Jack Let Hank Live?" has Walt's one victory of getting Jack to spare Hank not amount to shit: Jack forces Walt to reveal where his money is in exchange for letting Hank live, he later kills Jesse in front of him the second he learns he ratted Todd out to the DEA, Walt is then himself killed by Todd no less due to Jack no longer trusting him due to keeping Hank's employment a secret, the public becomes convinced Hank was secretly dirty, resulting in Hank being taken to court, Walt Jr. effectively cuts ties with his entire family due it now being impossible to actually prove Walt was a drug kingpin, and as a final twist of the knife, Walt Jr. stumbles across the fake confessional recording Walt made, pinning all of his crimes on Hank.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Howard Hamlin is spared by Lalo in "What If Lalo didn't kill Howard?", only to be immediately killed by a trigger-happy henchmen of Gus anyway, with no look into how his survival could have impacted the remainder of the timeline (especially given his vow to expose Jimmy and Kim) or any substantial change to the timeline save for Jimmy getting a smaller sentence.
    • In "What If Mike Killed Tuco", Howard is finally spared, but rather than going through on his vow to ruin Jimmy and Kim, he retires from HHM to fix his relationship with Cheryl.
  • Kim's death in "What If Kim Wexler Died in Season 6?" doesn't affect Jimmy's arc aside from him briefly grieving her, bottling it up and ultimately taking the deal offered to him in the finale, never actually confronting her death.
• The Woobie: Skyler in The Lost Tapes. After finding Walt Jr. and Tuco's corpses, she gets into a fight with Walt that results in a miscarriage, then she is seen as a suspect in the murder due to the police finding Walt torturing a man for days without being found out unbelievable despite it being the truth, and the media plays her up as the worst mother in the world, ruining her reputation. It ends with Skyler committing suicide.