Breaking Bad

**Breaking Bad** is an American neo-Western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show aired on AMC from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013, consisting of five seasons for a total of 62 episodes. It was met with widespread acclaim and is widely considered as one of the greatest TV shows of all time.

## Plot

When chemistry teacher Walter White is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given only two years to live, he decides he has nothing to lose. He lives with his teenage son, who has cerebral palsy, and his wife, in New Mexico. Determined to ensure that his family will have a secure future, Walt embarks on a career of drugs and crime. He proves to be remarkably proficient in this new world as he begins manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with one of his former students. The series tracks the impacts of a fatal diagnosis on a regular, hard-working man, and explores how a fatal diagnosis affects his morality and transforms him into a major player in the drug trade.

## Why It Rocks

1. It has an incredible and fascinating premise: a man with cancer wants to create methamphetamine with one of his students.
2. The goal of the show is about how the good guy transforms into the bad guy, and the show achieved that goal well.
3. Great acting, particularly from Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, and Aaron Paul.
4. An incredibly well-written story with plenty of shocking moments and loads of character development, as well as a mature and tragic style that is maintained throughout.
5. Well-written and likeable characters like Hank, and Walter Jr.
	* Walter White starts as a high school teacher with a mid-life crisis. However, as the series progresses, he goes from genuinely wanting to take care of his family to making excuses for selling drugs and abusing his power. Moreover, his crimes are fittingly portrayed as crimes so the audience won't follow his missteps.
	* Jesse Pinkman. The master of street smarts, a man of impulse and hedonism, skilful meth cook, glorious lover of children and women, and the director of his new (post-*Breaking Bad*) life.
	* To make things better, Walter and Jesse have a good relationship and chemistry.
6. The cast is perfect and provided with a great depth of character to play on.
7. The villains in the show are very memorable and can be scary.
	1. Krazy 8 is the first villain who helps turn Walter White into a murderer
	2. Tuco Salamanca is a very dangerous psychopath drug dealer.
	3. The Salamanca cousins are two cousins who do everything together and rarely talk, if they have a goal in mind they achieve it without hesitation regardless of how many must die.
	4. Hector Salamanca may look like a helpless old man but he's the leader of the Salamanca drug business and tries to start things peacefully first until he uses force.
	5. Gustavo Fring is a calm businessman who secretly works as a drug dealer and loves to hurt his enemies in their wounds, even if it means killing children.
	6. Jack Welker is the leader of a criminal gang with white supremacist or neo-Nazi ideologies.
	7. Todd Alquist, Jack Welker's nephew, while he may look like a nice person, he's willing to shoot any witnesses, and didn't hesitate to shoot a child for it.
8. It has impeccable narration and deeply invested serialization than most of its contemporaries.
9. The plot is very well tied.
10. Good product placement for Pontiac Aztek, which has been a commercial failure.
11. It leaves behind a legacy of great episodic storytelling in the history of the medium.
12. The treatment of violence is so subtle.
13. The series finale **Felina** is considered one of the greatest finales of all time.
14. It earned a phenomenal prequel spinoff such as *Better Call Saul* and a film *El Camino*, which takes place after the original series.
15. The shoe has many parallel moments that connect with each other or even its prequel or the movie.
16. Very intense moments which keep the audience incredibly engaged.
17. This show has an incredibly large fanbase, especially a subreddit with over 1.5 million subscribers.
18. Both Walter White and Jesse Pinkman's costuming are extremely fashionable, well done, and downright inspiring.
19. Great backstories that really make you feel for the characters.

## Bad Qualities

1. Some of the characters, most notably Skyler, can be pretty unlikeable at times.
2. Depending on your view, some would classify the episode "Fly" as pointless filler, even if it did explore Walter and Jesse more and was made after the show went over-budget. Overall, it's a matter of perspective given how many fans think it's either one of the best or worst episodes.
3. Earlier versions of Breaking Bad on DVD, suffered from censorship. In which strong language and nudity got censored, in which doesn't make any since to censor the show since the show was for mature audiences in the first place. Thankfully later versions of the DVD had it uncensored.
	* The Amazon version however is censored.

## Reception

The first season received positive reviews, while the rest of the seasons recieved universal acclaim from both critics and audiences alike and this show is widely considered as one of the greatest and most influential tv shows of all time. It was one of the highest rated and most acclaimed shows on television throughout it's run. Overall, the show has a 96% critic rating and a 97% audience rating on Rotten tomatoes. On IMDb, the show has a 9.4/10. On Metacritic, the show has a critic rating of 87%, indicating "Universal Acclaim", and a user score of 9.2, also indicating "Universal Acclaim". The show's fifth and final season is currently one of the highest rated shows on Metacritic, alongside the fourth season of *Rectify*, The fourth and sixth seasons of *The Larry Sanders Show*, and the first season of *Murder One*.

## Episodes with their own Pages

* Felina

ction Shows]]