5 Things That Make No Sense About ‘Breaking Bad’
Breaking Bad is one of the most revered crime dramas in the history of television. With 16 Emmy wins and 2 Golden Globes, along with so many other notable awards, the series is about as close to perfect as you can get. But there are a few details that don’t add up on Breaking Bad.
Series creator Vince Gilligan along with his writing team spent so much time on small details, including hidden references, foreshadowing, and subtle hints in every episode. However, even their meticulous attention to detail wasn’t foolproof. Here are a few of the minor moments that made no sense in Breaking Bad.
Walter White’s flying pants aren’t logical
The opening scene of Breaking Bad is intensely memorable. Walter White’s pants float through the air as the RV speeds by, running them over. But this curious scene is also improbable. Looper points out that the pants should be flying backward, which they in fact do during a flashback scene later in the series.
And in the same episode, Walt tucks handguns into the waistband of his underwear, which somehow stay firmly anchored to his waistline. It seems a little unrealistic to assume the elastic waistband could hold the weight of two heavy handguns.
Gus Fring doesn’t imprison Walt and force him to make meth
At the end of the series, Jesse gets locked up and forced to cook meth at Uncle Jack’s compound. And when you think about it, that route would have made a lot more sense for Gus Fring after Walt and Jesse conspired to kill their replacement, Gale Boetticher.
Gus is furious that he has to leave Walt alive if he wants his precious blue meth produced. However, he could have easily locked Walt in the meth lab and forced him to cook under threat of harming his family, kind of like how Uncle Jack did with Jesse.
Leaving Walt free meant he was able to plot against Gus, which he did.
Walt assumes Gus will kill Hector Salamanca personally
After Gus anticipates the car bomb Walt planted, Walt has to get creative while planning how to kill him. He lures Gus to the nursing home where Hector Salamanca is staying and rigs a bomb to Hector’s wheelchair, successfully blowing up his enemy.
But knowing Gus doesn’t usually do his own dirty work, it was quite presumptive to assume Gus would visit Hector himself to take him out. It would have been more logical to think Gus would send Mike or another of his associates to quietly murder Hector rather than getting his hands dirty.
The Blue Sky meth wouldn’t really be blue
One of the most memorable aspects of Walt and Jesse’s meth is its purity, which far surpasses anything else on the market. Breaking Bad explains the blue color is a result of that pureness. However, in real life even Walt and Jesse’s product would appear white.
Gilligan ignored the show’s science adviser Donna Nelson’s advice on the topic. She said, “On one of my set visits, Vince came to me and said, ‘What do you think about making the meth blue?’ And I said, ‘I wouldn’t do it.’”
She continued: “He said, ‘Well, wouldn’t there be some reason if it was pure that it might be blue? You know, a little bit blue.’ And I said, ‘No, because meth is white.’ And he said, ‘Well, what if it’s pure?’ And I said, ‘Then it’ll be white.’ And he said, ‘What if it’s really, really, really pure?’ And I said, ‘Then it’ll be really, really, really white.’”
It’s hard to imagine Breaking Bad without the blue meth. But scientifically speaking, it’s not realistic.
The train heist scene from ‘Dead Freight’ didn’t need to happen
“Dead Freight” from the fifth season of Breaking Bad is different from all the episodes that come before and after. More than any other episode, the train heist relies on adrenaline and action from start to finish. But the actual events aren’t just far-fetched — they’re also unnecessary.
Walt conspires to rob the train because they’re running out of methylamine, which is what they use instead of pseudoephedrine to make meth. But Breaking Bad Wiki Fandom reported that the crew didn’t actually need to rob the train because, “methylamine is much easier to synthesize than the other meth precursors, and neither of methylamine’s precursors (like phenylacetone) are hard to find or restricted.”
Still, making their own methylamine wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as pulling off the ultimate train heist.
Breaking Bad fans had to suspend their disbelief plenty of times during the series. But it was worth it in the end.
