Walt’s empire has many flaws when compared to Gus’, that’s an undeniable fact, but one that I don’t see getting mentioned is the longterm annoyance it would be to move/arrange the parts of the lab in the houses they go in.
Imagine:

You go in with ~3-4 huge boxes of lab equipment, have to set it up, cook, deconstruct them, clean the parts (that is a pretty important part of the cook) and finally put them back in the boxes. That’s not even mentioning the fact that they have to prep the house and unprep it afterwards. As a bonus: What if you rid every house/ apartment of pests? What then?

Gus had A lab that was already set up and ready to go after cleaning the equipment. They didn’t have to go through the risk of a customer being curious enough to open the boxes or have an entire crew prep the lab’s surrounding and unprep it afterwards.

Personally for me, it would piss me off having to go through all of the steps taken in the “Vamonos Pest” version of cooking meth than Gus’ business.

Either way, it’s a small point towards Gus’ business being better that I hadn’t noticed before.

Massive Edit: As you all pointed out, there is no realistic way they “run out of houses” or need to clean one twice in a short window of time. My point still stands that it would really be annoying to do all the things in the second paragraph when compared to working with Gus.

Tried to watch it a few times after all the hype. Could never get through the first season. Decided to slug through it (don’t shit on me if you enjoyed the first couple of seasons) but once I got through holy shit what a story. Was worth persevering. 10/10. I now understand the hype

For me, it has to be that moment when Walt finally says, “I am the one who knocks.” Absolute peak Breaking Bad. The tension, the delivery, everything was perfect.

Something I only just noticed: in S2E1, Skyler looks pretty nostalgically at this old photo of herself with Ted Beneke. We later learn that she had worked at Beneke about four years earlier, and there was already some kind of attraction between them back then. Whether they actually had an affair is never confirmed.

But it made me realize that Walt and Skyler's marriage may already have been pretty emotionally distant years before Breaking Bad started. Skyler apparently had feelings for another man, while Walt himself already seemed frustrated, withdrawn and deeply unhappy with where his life had ended up.

Maybe the cancer and meth didn't destroy a happy marriage. They blew up a marriage that already had serious cracks.

Gus: Carefully plots and plans every move

Walt: "I'm cautious"

Also Walt:
-Steals lab equipment from school in broad daylight
-Fucking KEEPS a book from Gale and just leaves it out in the open
-"Half million in cash" - literally what if Hank took a peak in the bag? (He's a detective so I'm sure he's just a naturally curious guy so it was Walt's luck that kept Hank from looking)

Prison is horrible and doesn't help addicts. Sure, there are some programs nowadays to help people inside, but most of the time it's just punishment without rehabilitation, plus being in constant danger (both because of your cellmates and your guards). However, it has 2 positive aspects:

1. It gives you a shelter

2. Your family can check on you

Homelessness has all the cons of prison and none of the pros. Just like in prison, you fight for survival everyday, your addiction worsens, there's an extremely high chance of dying in the most horrific way and you definitely don't quit criminal activities. But unlike in prison, you're fucking alone and forgotten even by your family and don't even have a fucking roof above you. Both are a death sentence (literally), but if they're the only choices you can think of, as a parent you should choose the one that at least lets you check on your son from time to time.

Honestly, I have the feeling it was never about wanting Jesse to change but to get rid of the "stain". His parents wanted to appear perfect and having a missing son was more socially acceptable than a son in prison. And that's what they always did, they constantly tried to just relocate the problem instead of trying to solve it, even unsuccessfully.

Don't get me wrong, Jesse was an asshole. But he was like that since his teen years, and if you decide to have kids you take the responsibility to raise them and correct their behavior instead of make them live with their aunt and give birth to another kid hoping he's better than the first one.

Please, if you consider kids an accessory and a way to look better in front of others, don't become a parent. Seriously.

In the pilot Skyler says “I am not looking forward to turning 40…” then turns to Marie and says something like “when it’s your turn you’re gonna be a wreck.” It dawned on me that she’s the older one??? That genuinely shook me. Based on the dynamics I always thought Marie was older. It really makes me rethink certain parts of the show.

Obviously there's more than the two in the image and we're excluding any love interests since it would be an easier answer.

Finally started and finished the show, don’t know if anything will ever top ozymandias. Flynn finding out about his dad and literally everything that followed. The white family genuinely performed with such cinematic excellence I will be thinking about it for so long. Walt’s phone call to Skyler was just so excellent, i wanted to cry with him. The fact that Cranston and gunn won for those performances is SO well deserved. I don’t even know how to move on🤣 truly so peak

I never did but if it came out when I was younger I think I definitely could have. Made chemistry sound cool.

There were around 10 people packed tightly together in that tiny space, with barely any room to move. I get that the first shots caused panic, but once it was obvious they were killing everyone, how did nobody rush them? It always felt a bit too “Terminator” to me.

Imagine the adrenaline u get,a gang of people coming to kill you,you’re hiding behind a rock but you got yo phone and can call a large number of yo homies to slime them out and save you and you got your exact location on a paper too!, but you gotta do it quietly and hope for them to get there fast and stay hidden.You even have your gun to feel more secure,a nice weapon in hand to protect yourself in a bad outcome where a dude finds you and you would need to shoot and run or hide,perfect inventory.

…threaten Walt in the desert? He has him tied up at gun point, and fires him. That’s fine. But why would he tell Walt that he is going to murder Hank? Gus can’t kill Walt, and is resorting to murdering Hank, which makes sense. But telling Walt about this (and then threatening his family), pushed Walt to get into survival mode. Gus knew what Walt was capable of after he undermined Gus’s plans on killing Walt and Jesse in season 3. If Walt is fired, and gets to live, and has no idea that anyone is about to get killed, he might be okay with retirement. He thinks he has hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed in the crawl space. Bit of a half measure from Gus. He then lost half his face. Very allegorical. Bravo, Vince.

Mods, I spent 5 minutes on this. Please don’t automatically take it down as soon as I post it!

I always wondered one thing about Gus’s super lab. They went through all the trouble to hide the entrance under a laundry machine. But, there is also a freight elevator. Where is that hidden and where is the entrance?

I'll try to make this short, but I am just curious if other fans of the show feel the same as I did, or maybe I am just a twisted effed up person like Walt 🤣

Despite all the wrongdoings he did, I felt like I was always on his side and rooting for him, just to name a few examples.

Brock, Jane, the plane thing, doing Jesse completely dirty/betraying him, murdering poor Mike, poor Gale

I knew he was a pos for doing this stuff, but there was just something about the guy that had me wishing the best for him and always wanting to see him win. I have always wondered if others felt the same, or if most viewers were like, "Ok, I loved Walt; now he's a terrible person, I am team Jesse," and then just viewed Walt as the villain?

The podcast host should have stuck to editing as they are constantly talking over the guests, blathering on, and laughing about irrelevant jokes plus the sound quality is atrocious. It’s probably the worst podcast production-wise I’ve ever heard.

I understand it was before podcasts became a big thing, but it still feels rushed, and not very well thought out.

It is pretty funny to me how the guests just kinda talk amongst themselves while the host tries to desperately keep the conversation in the context of the BB episode.

He does a lot of bad shit throughout the show, but the interesting part about it is that there is a valid reason (for Walt’s benefit, mostly) for most of the heinous acts. Therefore, it’s difficult (for me at least) to pin down one moment in the show where he truly crossed the line for the first time.

Anyways, I’d like to hear what you guys think is the earliest episode or scene he went too far.

I was thinking about trying the new Gilligan show Pluribus, just because I loved both Breaking bad and Better Call Saul so much, but just don't wanna pay for apple tv. I just got done rewatching breaking bad at the end of last year for the 5th time and better call saul for the 2nd. Anybody got any recommendations or is Pluribus as good/worth it?

just watched The Fly episode and guess what has been buzzing around my bloody HEAD THE PAST TWO HOURS

on a serious note I really enjoyed the episode and am shocked to see that people disliked it. Also felt incredibly vindicating to watch someone else lose their shit over a fly today

When I watched season 5 for the first time I thought Jack was going to be the big baddie of the final season like how Gus was with season 4. It wasn’t until Ozymandias that I realized how wrong I was, that the big boss of the season was Walter White himself.

Not that Jack and Todd aren’t evil, but they weren’t the final boss of the show. They’re more so representations of how far Walt had really fallen, that he was working with literal Nazis purely for the love of the game. When you rewatch the season through the eyes of someone else (like Skyler, Jesse, Marie etc), it’s actually insane just how evil he is😭.

At what point did you all realize it?

goddamnit... just got to the part where he spells out needing the DEA, Hank and his whole delegations come in, and he just spells out 'Suck My...' and 'Fuc...'

most iconic moment ever. made my work day even though i'm in while sick and I got roasted by my boss earlier.

All’s I can say is — FUCK YEAH, Hank! You keep crushing it. Fuck Walter, the weakling inside all of us. You’re the ray of sunshine. GO HANK!

(Intended title was: "Jane was in the wrong program", but gotta keep it vague asf whenever posting about her due to spoilers lol).

If there are any NA enjoyers here, you're valid, I'm glad that worked for you, but:

To me it's no wonder that Miss "Who's You and Me?" didn't have that much success with the "we addicts" program. I doubt someone so independent and mistrustful of authority would be willing to admit her powerlessness and believe in a higher power to save her.

(I never really understood what she meant with the talk of "going where the universe takes you" and the subsequent backtracking of it — and tbh I wonder whether it was even intended to make sense outside of being whatever would fit Jesse's arc at each given point — but her final word is that making your choices for yourself and not going where the universe takes you is better, right? And if going with the universe was what she'd been doing her whole life, then the universe took her to 10 years of addiction.)

This is either incredibly bravo of Vince or (what I think is more likely) he and the other writers just took for granted that NA is "the drug recovery thing" and didn't look too deeply into it or thought about how exactly their specific philosophy would gel with each character.

Either way, taking this into consideration adds a new layer to how Jane wasn't truly committed to her program, so her dad had to keep dragging her to meetings. Her telling Jesse "it won't help" sounds genuine, so I believe at least some part of her did want to recover, but the specific program she had available might have not been the best fit for her.

Maybe the part of her that didn't want to recover found it more comfortable to settle for the program she knows she can dismiss as bullshit, rather than trying to find a more effective alternative (like SMART, for example) — but also many people do take for granted that NA is "the drug recovery thing" and never even consider that there might be other options.