Over the course of five seasons, Breaking
Bad told the tale of Walter White, a man whose
cancer diagnosis drove him to cook and sell
meth.
Now, we’re going to dig deep and explain
the story of the timid chemistry teacher who
finally broke bad.
In the first episode of Breaking Bad, high
school chemistry teacher Walter White is diagnosed
with terminal lung cancer.
After finding out from Hank Schrader, his
DEA agent brother-in-law, how profitable cooking
meth can be, Walt teams up with a former student
named Jesse Pinkman to cook meth so that he
can make enough money to provide for his family
after he's gone.
Unfortunately, Jesse and their batch of newly
cooked meth are snatched up by a pair of dealers
named Krazy-8 and Emilio.
The two force Jesse to take them to the RV
where Walt and Jesse have been cooking, presumably
to kill the two and to take their materials.
Walt poisons the two of them, but Krazy-8
survives long enough that Walt is forced to
kill the meth dealer himself.
Soon after, Walt's family pushes him to pursue
chemotherapy rather than just accept his fate.
Ultimately, Walt agrees to seek treatment,
even though the cost would put his family
even further into debt.
Walt and Jesse make their partnership official
with a simple division of labor: Walt will
cook, while Jesse will sell.
"The chemistry is my realm.
I am in charge of the cooking.
Out there on the street, you deal with that."
Jesse reaches out to a local crime boss, Tuco
Salamanca, to see if he'd be interested in
buying larger quantities of the pair's high-quality
meth.
To put it simply, negotiations do not go well.
Walt moves in to handle Tuco, using his chemistry
skills to prepare an explosion to intimidate
Tuco.
Impressed and amused, Tuco agrees to work
with Walt and Jesse.
The two make a deal with Tuco that they'll
make meth for him to sell, while he pays them
enough to make it worth their while.
To keep his identity a secret, Walt adopts
the persona of "Heisenberg," and it seems
like Walter will be able to keep his "second
job" a secret from his family.
Unfortunately, Tuco is about as stable as
a meth kingpin can be when said kingpin also
indulges in his own product.
After a paranoid fit in which he believes
that the DEA is closing in on him, Tuco kidnaps
Walt and Jesse to force them to continue cooking
meth for him.
While being held hostage, Walt and Jesse nearly
manage to poison Tuco with ricin, but Tuco's
mute, wheelchair-bound uncle, Hector, alerts
him to their plan.
Luckily, they're saved when Hank stumbles
onto Tuco and shoots him dead during a shootout.
Having barely survived their run-in with the
real criminal underworld, Jesse and Walt try
to take a break from the meth business.
Jesse shacks up with a friend of his to provide
an alibi when the cops come looking for him,
while Walt feigns stress-induced amnesia to
explain his extended disappearance.
Walt tries to reconnect with his family when
they become worried about his health after
his "fugue state," but that only brings up
more underlying issues with his pregnant wife,
Skyler.
Meanwhile, Jesse finds himself kicked out
of his aunt's house and out of friends after
the double whammy of being kidnapped and drawing
the interest of the DEA.
On the other side of the law, Hank's killing
of Tuco leads to a sizable promotion for him,
but it also causes a heaping amount of stress
and anxiety after the shootout.
Walt and Jesse try to establish themselves
as serious contenders in the power vacuum
created by Tuco's death, operating as cooks
and distributors within Tuco's former territory.
A series of accidents leaves Jesse with a
reputation as a cold-blooded killer, which
seems to establish "Heisenberg" as a genuine
power player.
On the home front, things have gotten complicated.
As a cover for all his meth money, Walt has
been telling Skyler that his former business
partners, Gretchen and Elliott, have been
paying for his cancer treatments.
But when Gretchen finds out about the lie,
she tells Skyler than she won't be paying
for any more therapy, leaving Walt to search
for another cover story.
"We'll get through this, okay?
I mean, they've already paid for most of my
treatment, right?"
On top of all that, Walt and Jesse end up
attracting attention from the law after Badger,
one of their meth dealers, is arrested.
With the help of Saul Goodman, a local criminal
lawyer, they devise a plan to trick the DEA
into arresting a fake "Heisenberg," freeing
Badger and taking the heat off Walt.
The plan goes smoothly, although Hank remains
convinced that something is wrong.
Everything seems to be going to plan.
Walt is making money, and Jesse's ongoing
romance with his neighbor and landlord, Jane,
continues even when she realizes that he's
a drug dealer, and he realizes that she's
in recovery for addiction.
After one of Jesse's drug dealer friends is
killed by a rival gang, Jesse and Walt realize
they aren't cut out to manage a crew of drug
dealers.
So with Saul's help, Walt and Jesse find a
distributor for their surplus meth.
The mysterious buyer, Gus Fring, is a fast
food franchise owner and model citizen who
uses his role as the public face of Los Pollos
Hermanos to disguise his illicit activities.
Those high expectations extend to his employees,
and when Jesse shows up to a meeting high,
Gus doesn't think that Jesse is competent
enough to handle the work.
It turns out he might have been right.
When Walt gets notice that Gus needs their
drugs on short notice, he finds that Jesse
is completely incapacitated from his drug
use and unable to make the drop.
Unfortunately, Walt is also needed at the
hospital, where Skyler is in labor, delivering
their daughter.
Walt ultimately chooses to make the delivery,
missing the birth of his child, but he nets
over $1 million for him and Jesse to split.
However, Walt refuses to pay Jesse his share
until he gets clean.
Desperate for cash after her father nearly
takes her to rehab, Jane blackmails Walt into
giving them the money immediately.
Walt does, but finds himself coming back to
check on Jesse and try to get him help.
While shaking a sleeping Jesse, Walt accidentally
knocks an unconscious Jane onto her back,
and when she starts to choke on her own vomit,
he watches her die without interfering.
Weeks later, incapacitated by grief, Jane's
father, an air traffic controller, lets two
planes collide over the skies of Albuquerque.
After the plane crash, Jesse lands in rehab,
blaming himself for Jane's death and everything
else, while Skyler's taken the kids and moved
out, leaving Walt to contemplate what he's
still working towards.
Skyler finds out the truth that Walt is a
meth cook and offers him an ultimatum; agree
to a divorce, or she'll tell Hank.
"Nobody will hear it from me.
But only if you grant me this divorce and
stay out of our lives."
Things get even more complicated when Gus
shows up with a new offer: $3 million for
three months work in a state-of-the art laboratory.
Walt refuses in the moment, but trouble is
arriving from Mexico in the form of bloodthirsty
twins looking to enact vengeance on Heisenberg.
Walt's attempts to get out of the drug business
aren't exactly helped along by anyone.
Saul wants him to go back to cooking, while
Skyler is horrified by what he's already done.
Unbeknownst to Walt, Gus strikes a deal with
the twins, who are Tuco Salamanca's cousins,
out for revenge, to keep Walt alive for Gus'
own purposes.
Meanwhile, Jesse makes his own batch of meth,
offering to sell it to Gus against Walt's
wishes.
Gus accepts the deal, knowing that Walt's
pride will bring him back to the meth cooking
business, a prediction that's ultimately proven
right.
Walt accepts Gus' offer and pushes Jesse out
of the business, while Hank finds clues that
are starting to lead him to Jesse.
Walt's feeling like a new man with his own
condo and a hidden laboratory for cooking
meth.
Even better, he's got a new, eager-to-please
lab assistant, Gale Boetticher, who seems
like a serious upgrade compared to Jesse.
Unfortunately, Walt's brought back into Jesse's
orbit when Hank accidentally warns Walt that
he's closing in on their old RV.
Walt and Jesse manage to distract Hank with
a phony phone call alleging that his wife,
Marie, is in the hospital.
Things get even worse for Hank when Gus, forced
to bargain with the twins, offers them Hank's
life instead of Heisenberg's, on the basis
that Hank is the one who actually killed their
cousin, Tuco.
Believing Jesse to be behind the fake phone
call, Hank attacks Jesse, savagely beating
him.
After Jesse threatens to use the illegal beating
to make Hank's life miserable, Walt tries
to placate Jesse, offering him a job in the
meth lab. Jesse accepts the deal, which means
Walt has to fire Gale.
The Salamanca twins attack Hank, but the DEA
agent kills one and puts the other in the
hospital, although he's wounded himself.
Walt and Jesse resume their cooking for Gus,
although Jesse begins to take some of the
excess product in order to sell it on the
side.
With Walt making plenty of money and Hank's
hospital bills stacking up, Skyler offers
to pay for his recovery, with the cover story
that Walt's meth money is actually earnings
from a gambling habit.
But things never run smoothly for long in
Breaking Bad.
After getting involved with Andrea, a woman
at his Narcotics Anonymous meetings, Jesse
is horrified to discover that the drug dealers
who killed his friend last season are also
using Andrea's 11-year-old brother to sell
meth.
Skyler, now fully aware of Walt's criminal
enterprise, hatches a plan to safely launder
their money through the car wash that Walt
once worked at.
Meanwhile, Jesse's moving on the drug dealers,
first by asking Walt to prepare ricin poison,
then by threatening to kill them any way that
he can, with or without Walt's help.
His plan is interrupted by Gus Fring, who's
known about Jesse's plan the entire time.
The three of them have a meeting, where Gus
tells the drug dealers to stop using children.
In response, they kill Andrea's brother, and
Jesse responds by driving up with a gun of
his own to enact revenge.
He's saved by Walt, who kills the dealers,
putting his own relationship with Gus at risk.
Jesse goes into hiding, while Walt begins
to suspect that Gale is operating under orders
from Gus to fully replicate Walt's meth formula,
so the kingpin can get rid of Walt for good.
With the help of Saul, Walt lays a trap for
Gus, giving Jesse enough time to kill Gale,
ensuring that the drug lord won't be able
to kill them without crippling his meth operation.
Their plan more or less works, but Gus responds
by isolating himself entirely from Walt and
Jesse.
"Walter, you're never going to see him again."
Instead, all communication will be handled
by his "fixer," Mike Ehrmantraut.
As a result, both Walt and Jesse begin spiraling
into darkness.
Walt decides to buy a gun in case he needs
to kill Gus before Gus kills him, and while
dealing with serious guilt over killing Gale,
Jesse starts throwing money to the wind.
Jesse's unhinged, depressed behavior is bad
news for Mike and Gus, so Mike begins taking
the young chemist on some of his errand runs
in an attempt to provide a bit more purpose
to Jesse's life.
Jesse's not the only one acting erratic, though.
When Gale's body is discovered, law enforcement
assumes that he's Heisenberg, and that nearly
throws Hank off the trail, until Walt's ego
gets in the way, and he convinces his brother-in-law
that Gale wasn't such a genius after all.
"All his brilliance looks like nothing more
than just simple rote copying."
Still worried about Gus' vengeance, Walt convinces
Jesse to kill Gus with ricin hidden in a cigarette,
but Jesse misses his opportunity.
However, Gus has other fish to fry besides
Walt, as a meeting with the cartel involves
completing a decades-long vendetta after Hector
Salamanca killed Gus' business partner years
earlier.
The cartel is soon destroyed in an epic massacre,
and with Jesse's usefulness proven on the
trip, Gus asks him to take over the lab in
Walt's stead.
Gus then tells Walt two pieces of very bad
news.
First, Walt's out, with the understanding
that the only reason he's even alive is due
to Jesse's intervention.
Second, Gus is going to kill Hank for investigating
him, with worse consequences for Walt and
his family if anyone interferes.
Andrea's son, Brock, ends up in the hospital
with a flu-like illness, and when Jesse finds
that the ricin hidden in his cigarette is
gone, he blames Walt, thinking that he poisoned
the child.
Walt convinces him that it was Gus, and the
two agree to kill the drug lord, ultimately
succeeding with the help of Hector Salamanca
and his explosive wheelchair.
Gus is dead, the underground laboratory is
destroyed, and Walt and Jesse both managed
to survive.
However, Gus kept a laptop with security footage
of the lab, and with Gus' death, it's been
confiscated by the police.
Walt teams up with Jesse and a reluctant Mike,
now healed from his cartel shootout, to wipe
the laptop and keep them all out of jail.
The plan goes smoothly, but their use of a
giant magnet accidentally reveals some of
Gus' hidden bank accounts, giving the police
a fresh lead on Fring's secret meth empire.
It's also revealed that Walt really did poison
Brock in order to turn Jesse against Gus,
and that Walt has no intention of stopping
his criminal activities.
"You never told me that kid would wind up
in the hospital!"
"We're done when I say we're done."
With Gus out of the way, Walt sees the potential
for a replacement in the criminal underworld.
Gus ran a massive organization with multi-state
distribution, and Walt believes that he, Jesse,
and Mike are just the men who can fill his
shoes.
With the help of Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, an
executive at Madrigal, an international conglomerate
with ties to Gus' old organization, the three
men plan to take over the distribution of
Gus' empire.
With Lydia, Mike, and Saul's help, Walt and
Jesse start a new operation, moving their
meth lab from house to house under the guise
of a pest removal company.
However, even though Walt is now the boss
of a huge business, that comes with assorted
costs, like payouts to the pest removal company,
to his partners, and to Gus' former men serving
prison sentences in order to keep their silence.
Meanwhile, Walt's success in business comes
with a failure in his personal life.
Skyler is becoming increasingly depressed
and horrified by Walt, and Walt's own separation
between his "Heisenberg" identity and his
day-to-day life is becoming blurred.
When the DEA begins tracking one of the key
ingredients for their meth business at Madrigal,
Lydia offers them an alternative, a daring
train robbery that, if executed properly,
will mean enough methylamine for plenty of
cooks.
In order to make the operation go smoothly,
Walt and Jesse bring in Todd, one of the pest
removal employees.
The robbery seems to go smoothly, but it ends
in tragedy when the trio notice a young boy
watching them as they celebrate the desert
heist.
Todd immediately shoots the kid, which forces
the crew to dispose of the body in a barrel
full of hydrochloric acid.
Although the team manages to get away with
all the methylamine they could need, the boy's
death weighs heavily on Jesse.
When Mike tries to buy out of the business
on the basis that the increased DEA surveillance
is too much for him, Jesse tries to leave,
too.
However, Mike's buyer for his share of the
methylamine will only accept all or none of
it, since the offer is contingent on getting
rid of the blue meth that Walt makes.
Walt refuses to give up on his criminal empire
since, with Skyler becoming increasingly horrified
by him, he has nothing left but his money
and his criminal reputation.
Walt eventually manages to convince the buyer
to take over as distributor for his meth,
while buying out Mike's share of the methylamine.
Mike agrees to continue paying for Gus' imprisoned
men out of his own share, but his plan is
stymied when the DEA catch his lawyer making
the money drops.
Mike is forced to flee town, but Walt refuses
to let him leave unless he gives up the names
of Gus' men so Walt can silence them before
they have the chance to talk.
The two men argue, and Walt shoots Mike to
death before remembering that Lydia also has
access to that information.
With the help of Todd's uncle, who runs a
crew of neo-Nazis, Walt has Gus' men killed
before Hank can get them to give up any information
on Heisenberg.
With his business safe, and Todd proving to
be an adept lab assistant, Walt rakes in the
cash for months before finally retiring.
That is, until Hank finds a book given to
Walt by Gale on the toilet, and finally connects
all the pieces.
Even though Walt is retired with plenty of
money, Hank is on his trail.
Just before leaving town to start a new life,
Jesse realizes that Walt was actually behind
Brock's poisoning, which sends him on a crusade
against his former partner.
Hank picks Jesse up before he can burn down
the White household, and the two join forces
to gather evidence to take out Walt.
Together, they trick Walt into revealing where
he stashed his drug money, and, desperate,
Walt calls his former neo-Nazi partners for
help.
The neo-Nazis arrive, kill Hank, and kidnap
Jesse.
Walt goes into hiding in New Hampshire, but
after seeing Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz
on TV denying his involvement in the company
he co-founded, he comes back to tie up his
loose ends.
He forces Elliott and Gretchen to launder
the rest of his drug money for his family,
and he admits to Skyler that everything he
did was for selfish reasons.
"If I have to hear one more time that you
did this for the family-"
"I did it for me."
He then heads to the neo-Nazi compound, kills
the skinheads, and ultimately saves Jesse's
life in the process.
Dying of blood loss from a stray bullet, Walt
collapses in the neo-Nazis' meth lab, surrounded
by chemical equipment as the police arrive.
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