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| you want gold? |
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| Total Votes : 32 |
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 Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:07 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:07 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:07 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:26 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:26 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:27 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:27 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:27 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:30 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:30 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:30 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:30 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:31 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:36 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Posted: Tue Aug 10, 2021 3:36 pm
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Love to Hate:
Tuco Salamanca. So horrifyingly Ax-Crazy and so incredibly proud of that fact that he very quickly stole the show in every scene he was in and his return in Better Call Saul was met with open arms.
Gus. He's so brutal and terrifying that he doubles as one of the most compelling characters on the show.
Hector Salamanca. One of the most ruthless villains on the show is also considered one it’s most iconic characters, since all he has is his facial expressions and his bell and delivered some very memorable moments with that. He also proved to be a very effective villain in Better Call Saul.
Todd and his uncle, Jack. They're both so off that it's hard not to want to see more of them and try to figure out the puzzles that are their brains.
Skyler, to a lesser extent, for those who see her as an Anti-Hero rather than The Scrappy.
Walt, to those who don't strap him in leather pants.
Magnificent b*****d:
Gustavo "Gus" Fring once lost his best friend Max to the ruthless Hector Salamanca and Don Eladio. Building a drug empire with his own connections, wits and intellect, Gus launches a crusade for revenge, slowly bringing the Salamanca family to ruin and tormenting the now invalid Hector in his nursing home over it. Gus controls the meth trade with an iron fist, frequently seeing through Walter "Walt" White's plans and rendering Walt as helpless before him more than once. Upon returning to Mexico, Gus destroys Don Eladio's cartel in one swift move before returning to the US in triumph. Even after his death, the empire Gus has built endures and only Walt's incompetence manages to destroy it. A suave, sophisticated, even friendly seeming man, Gus repeatedly shows why he is the true master in the game the others are playing.
Ed Galbraith is a vacuum repairman and salesman who uses this business to mask his criminal activities of "disappearing" anyone willing to pay the price, creating for them new identities and relocating them to new places. Successfully hiding away and creating new identities for both Saul Goodman and Walter White despite their immense presence across national news, Ed learns how to perform chemotherapy to help Walter's cancer for an extra charge, and honors his word to keep his eye on Walt's family. Later striking a deal up with Jesse Pinkman, Ed sticks to his principles of his prices and turns Jesse away, shrugging off Jesse's attempts at garnering sympathy and repaying Jesse's aggression with mercy after chasing him off. Once Jesse gathers enough money to pay for Ed's services, Ed disappears Jesse to Alaska, promising to give the young Brock a final letter from Jesse and parting ways with Jesse in peace despite their conflicts.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page, b***h!
Misaimed Fandom:
There's a very vocal part of the fandom that still fails to get the memo about Walt becoming a borderline monster who seriously damages both his family and others around him through his criminal activities, fawning over everything he does and says. The fact that this was occurring in the first few seasons is frustrating, but ultimately unsurprising at worst, and sometimes understandable. The fact that this has continued into season 5 is insane. By relation, it's also not surprising that the characters with the biggest Hatedoms are the ones who most vocally oppose Walt, most infamously Skyler. On the flipside, however, even many of Walt's most abhorrent actions can be simultaneously impressive in a Refuge in Audacity/Magnificent b*****d sense if nothing else, thus explaining where the dissonance emerges from.
There's also a lot of casual viewers who use the series as a shining example of the poor state of US healthcare, ignoring that, while the plot was kicked off by Walter being diagnosed with lung cancer and initially being unable to pay for it, he was given both a lucrative job offer and straight-up opportunity to pay for the treatments by Elliot and Gretchen of Grey Matter (which would've effectively solved Walt's biggest problem) that he turned down due to his pride and prior one-sided animosity towards his former co-workers. As well, near the end of the series, it's made abundantly clear from the start that Walter White hid behind the cancer diagnosis as an excuse to "break bad" and to rise to the status of drug kingpin, where he feels his intelligence would finally be recognized and appreciated. Essentially, if it were REALLY about the money then the plot would've been wrapped up almost immediately and even if he wasn't given both offers, his ultimate goal would remain unchanged.
Moral Event Horizon: Heavily debated, due to heaping amounts of Alternate Character Interpretation over how sympathetic certain characters are and how justifiable or not their actions are.
Walt himself spends the entire series gradually tip-toeing over the line, but he finally leaps over it in "Face-Off" when he non-lethally poisons Brock, a young child, in order to manipulate Jesse over to his side and kill Gus. It's not only one of his most heinous acts, but it's the one that goes on to haunt him the most over time.
Skyler's shot at this trope could be considered agreeing to help launder Walt's drug money, which some fans feel ruin any claim she has to a moral high ground.
Jesse's relationship with this trope is interesting as he feels like he crosses it after he kills Gale. In truth the situation was mostly beyond his control, but afterwards he becomes so disgusted with himself that decides to go all-in on being evil and attempts to peddle meth to his addiction support group. Ultimately he finds he can't go through with something so heartless, and confesses it to them in tears.
Gus crosses it when he takes Walt out in the desert and tells him he intends to have Hank killed, and if Walt interferes, Gus will kill his wife, son, and infant daughter.
Unassuming Todd crosses this pretty hardcore at the end of his second appearance when he kills a child witness without batting an eye. He stays past the horizon once he kills Andrea in "Granite State" to punish Jesse.
Of course, little is known about Todd's background, but he was already an established criminal (albeit a petty one) when he was introduced, and was chummy with his Nazi uncle. Todd could have been as cold-blooded as he was because he was used to it.
If Jack didn't already cross it by executing Hank, then he definitely did by having Andrea murdered in front of Jesse and threatening to kill Brock too if he stops cooking meth for Todd.
Hector Salamanca crossed this years ago, killing Gus' business partner and sadistically forcing Gus to watch his dead body bleed out as Don Eladio taunted him.
Narm:
Tuco himself. Much like Trevor Philips, some viewers noted that his erratic, Ax-Crazy demeanor is so over-the-top and cartoonish, they were unable to take the character seriously.
When Walter yells/raises his voice, it earns some snickers due to the snarl he uses when yelling.
Some of the Spanish segments (with Gus especially) have received some criticism from native speakers for not sounding authentic, rather sounding awkward and clunky to anyone who has an ear for the language.
Narrowed It Down to the Guy I Recognize: One recurring element of the show is that recognizable character actors keep showing up and all end up having some significance to the plot for either an episode or two, or go on to become major characters. Many examples but some of the most notable:
Dale Dickey is one of the customers buying from Skinny Pete in S2 E6 “Peekaboo”. Sure enough she and her partner rob him and Jesse has to go to try to get the money back in the next episode “Breakage.”
Danny Trejo shows up in S2 E7 “Negro Y Azul” and ends up with his severed head on a tortoise with a bomb in it.
Walt and Jesse are going to meet a super-mysterious drug dealer to handle their bulk amount of meth at a fast food restaurant. The manager asks them if they're doing well. The manager is Giancarlo Esposito, who is not hugely famous, but recognizable. Sure enough, the manager - Gustavo Fring - is the dealer.
DJ Qualls shows up in the opening scene of S2 E8 “Better Call Saul” and asks Badger if he’s selling. This is played with somewhat though in that Badger immediately assumes he’s a cop, but sells to him anyway. Sure enough he arrests Badger and that leads Walter and Jesse to Saul.
Larry Hankin shows up in S3 E6 “Sunset”. His amazing knowledge of the search warrants saves both Walter and Jesse.
Never Live It Down:
Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Walt Jr. does more in the show than eat breakfast. He demands other characters cook it too, and that's it.
There is considerably more to Jesse's character than him saying "b***h" a lot. He doesn't even say it that often on the show (especially later on), but it has grown into Jesse's most popular characteristic to the public eye.
For fans who dislike Skyler, she ******** Ted.
One-Scene Wonder:
Junkyard Joe, the crooked owner of the junkyard where Walt wants to dispose of the RV. When Hank gets mixed up in the action, Joe stalls him long enough with some pretty extensive knowledge of law.
The weapons dealer in "One Minute".
Peter Schuler, Gus' contact in the fast food industry.
Becky, the Whites' neighbor whom Walt uses to unknowingly lure out the mooks in "Face Off".
Trent, the waiter who tries to serve the White and the Schraders during an extremely heated discussion regarding Walt's crimes.
Robert Forster as the vacuum cleaner repairman and identity eraser in "Granite State".
Replacement Scrappy:
In-Universe: Gale for Jesse, briefly. Ultimately subverted in that Walt really likes Gale and probably relates to him better than Jesse, but decides he has to take Jesse back to keep him under control. As such, to get rid of him, Walter treats him like this.
Todd, for Jesse, mostly for being a dumber, more shallow, more arrogant, and downright sociopathic version of him. Walt may also feel this way about Todd in-universe, since he seems disappointed to be working with Todd after Jesse quits, even though their quality didn't drop and Todd tried his hardest to help Walt. He ended up getting rescued in Season 5B as detailed below.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
Skyler has gradually undergone this over the course of the show, partially due to backlash against the contingent of fans who hated her so ferociously during the early seasons. It's no coincidence that as Walt falls deeper into the Heisenberg persona, Skyler's opposition to his behavior becomes more and more sympathetic. And when push comes to shove she chooses Walt and protecting her family from the truth, over just handing him over to Hank. Even though the decision means destroying her relationship with her own sister, possibly forever.
Hank began as Walt's obnoxious DEA brother-in law, which inevitably grated on people. Starting in Season 2, after he shoots Tuco and slowly starts to have a nervous breakdown, he became a fan favorite due to actually displaying some competency and Hidden Depths.
Marie got rescued, arguably, in season 4, when she shows her genuine love for Hank and tries everything to improve his situation and only gets coldness and distance. Then it happened for real in season 5 when she finds out the whole truth, and slaps Skyler and even tries to take Holly out of the house. And then follows up by telling Walt point-blank that he should just kill himself if he really wants this to end well for everyone.
Possibly Todd in Season 5B, when Character Development turned him from just a Replacement Scrappy for Jesse into an incredibly compelling, disturbing individual with a personality beyond "opposite of Jesse".
Some of the people who began to dislike Jesse after he sided with Hank in order to try and bring Walt down began to sympathize with him again once he was turned into a slave for Jack's gang, and was forced to watch Andrea get murdered.
Ron the Death Eater: Thanks in part to the Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom surrounding Walter White, the most "hated" characters tends to be the ones who most vocally oppose Walt's actions.
Skyler was this initially to the majority of fans early on. The bit where she cheated on Walt with Ted only served to add fuel to the fire. Of course, it didn't help that she was in the rather thankless position of being in opposition to Walt's erratic behavior and suspicious actions. Even though the audience knew she had every right to be wary, given he was off cooking meth, her husband initially had sympathetic motives. However, as Walt's motivation drifted from desperately wanting to provide for his family to feeding his own massive ego and greed, she began gathering gre
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Reply
