Breaking Bad RECAP: Full Series

Welcome to the Man of Recaps. This is the full series recap of Breaking Bad.

Meet Walter White, a mild-mannered  high school chemistry teacher. 

He’s got a loving wife,  Skyler, and a son, Walt Jr. 

He’s rich in love but poor in money. 

He’s gotta work part-time at the  car wash just to make ends meet.

Today’s his 50th birthday,  and he gets some bad news. 

He’s got lung cancer, and it’s a bad one. He’s likely to be dead in the next six months.

So now’s the time for a midlife crisis.

His brother-in-law Hank Schrader  is a DEA agent who just seized  

a ton of money from a small-time meth lab. For their next bust, Walt goes on a ride-along.

And by random chance, he sees  one of the meth cooks escaping. 

And it’s none other than his  former student, Jesse Pinkman.

Walt tracks him down like,  “Hey, I’m not gonna turn you in. 

I want us to cook meth together. You know the business, and I know the chemistry.”

So they buy a used RV and go out to the  desert — the perfect mobile meth lab.

By the way, cooking meth stinks. You gotta take off your good clothes. 

And that’s why you see the famous  scene of Walt in his tighty-whities.

Now Jesse flunked chemistry. 

He was going by the name “Captain  Cook,” and adding in chili powder.

But from Mr. White, making crystal  meth is just basic chemistry. 

And his batch is the best Jesse’s ever seen.

But when Jesse tries to sell  it, things immediately go wrong. 

Krazy-8 and his cousin want to steal  Walt’s formula and then kill him.

So to survive, Walt cooks up  an explosive poisonous gas. 

Yeah, science!

One of the drug dealers, Krazy-8, survives. So Walt and Jesse flip a coin to see  

who’s gonna kill him. And it comes up Walt.

He doesn’t want to do it, but realizes he has to. 

So in two days of being a criminal,  Walt has killed two people.

Jesse, meanwhile, was in charge  of dissolving the bodies. 

Mr. White told him to get a plastic container,  

but he couldn’t find one big enough, so  he figured his bathtub would do just fine.

Unfortunately, the acid eats right  through their ceramic bathtub. 

Yeah, that’s gonna bring down property value.

Walter is scarred by this whole  situation and wants to walk away. 

But the money is really good, and  cancer treatment is really expensive. 

And Walter’s got some  serious hang-ups about money.

His old best friend and partner is loaded now,  

after the company that he  and Walt founded is huge.

Unfortunately, because of a personal thing with  the girl Walter sold out years ago for practically  

nothing, Elliott offers to pay for Walter’s cancer  treatment — but Walter refuses to accept charity.

So Walter cooks meth again.

But they could make a lot more money if they  sell wholesale to a distributor: Tuco Salamanca.

Tuco loves this high-quality meth,  and it seems like an easy deal. 

But Tuco’s an unhinged psychopath, decides  to just beat up Jesse and steal the meth.

Now Walt loses his hair from the chemo,  

and so armed with a badass  shaved head, he confronts Tuco. 

He’s like, “You’re gonna give me  my money or I blow us all up.”

And boom — some sort of chemistry explosion. Yeah, science!

Tuco’s like, “Whoa, I like  you, man. You’re crazy.” 

And Walt comes up with a fake name for  his hardcore alter ego: Heisenberg.

Yes, legendary gangster Heisenberg is born.

So they work out a deal selling to Tuco. 

But their production is limited — only enough  to cook meth if they buy a bunch of cold pills. 

But there’s only so much you can  buy without raising suspicion.

Walter knows a better ingredient  they could get a ton of. 

Only problem is they gotta steal it.

They burn through the locked  door with some chemistry stuff. 

Yeah, science!

They steal a giant barrel of this  stuff so they can make tons of meth. 

And as a side effect it turns  blue, which is better than ever.

So they’re raking in the dough.

Things look good — except, of course,  

Tuco’s a psycho who beats his old  friend to death for no reason.

Jesse and Walt agree Tuco’s gotta go,  but they’re no hardcore gangsters. 

Walt, though, knows some beans that  can turn into a poison called ricin.

Before they can use it, though,  the DEA finds Tuco’s body,  

and they are on the hunt for Heisenberg.

So Tuco kidnaps Walt and Jesse, and they hide  out at his uncle Hector Salamanca’s house.

Tuco’s not planning to kill them… but who  knows what he’s gonna do at any human moment.

Walt’s got the ricin with him, and  this old man seems pretty out of it. 

So he tries to sneak it into Tuco’s burrito.

But Uncle Salamanca sees more than he lets on. 

He uses his little bell to  warn Tuco about the poison.

Things are looking grim, but  our boys manage to escape. 

And just then Hank shows up — who’s  been missing for over a day now.