The Saddest Moments on "Breaking Bad"

Episode: "Down" (Season 2, Episode 4)

The analogous question to "What's Walter White's most monstrous moment?" is "When is Jesse saddest?" Before Jane's death, and Drew Sharp's death, and Andrea's death—Christ, this show is sadistic—Jesse was dipped mighty low in "Down." Legally removed from his home by his parents, Jesse tries to find a new place to stay. His first option is an old bandmate. Problem is, that guy's married and has a child now, and his wife isn't having it. (A point for those who disparage the show for its history of sexism.)

Jesse calls Badger from a convenience store pay phone, but Badger isn't having it either. What's worse, Jesse's bike gets stolen during the phone call, which sends him on foot to the only home available: the impounded RV.

Breaking Bad works some rough chuckles, but ain't shit funny about this, despite the obviously comic potential (which is maybe amusing, then, in a roundabout way?). Jesse falls into a Portajohn, and comes out stained blue. He walks wetly to the RV, lets himself in, and moves around some boxes to make a cardboard nest. He puts on the gas mask to keep from succumbing to the fumes in his sleep. And he's crying. Broken, he's crying himself to sleep in a makeshift meth lab. This is what low looks like. —Ross Scarano

Episode: "Gray Matter" (Season 1, Episode 5)

Of all the things in the show that are representative of Walt's mindset about the path his life has taken, the intervention and the talking pillow lie right at the top. He finally thinks that he has a decision to make that is completely 100 percent his, when, of course, a Skyler-spearheaded meeting pins him right back in a corner, trying to put the power and control back in everybody else's hands but his.

Just earlier in that episode, Walt had already taken a blow to his ego, when Elliott offered him a position at a business he essentially helped found, simply because of the cancer diagnosis. It was a pity offering. Sure, Walt's a teacher and has that role of authority, but over who? Kids? Walt looks upon his life as a failure, and he's taken this recent news as an opportunity to exit. He doesn't want to go out looking even weaker than he thinks people already perceive him to be.

The opening shot of the intervention is Skyler holding a pillow that says, "Find Joy in the Little Things," something Walt is no longer able to do. Outside of his family, he sees his life as a little thing, something insignificant, always comparing it to what could have been. A waste, basically. 

After Skyler's opening plea, explaining that she knows what's in her husband's best interests, and a couple of dry metaphorical reminders from Hank that Walt has been dealt a "shit hand," the pillow lands in Walt Jr.'s lap. And Walt Jr. is pissed off. Really pissed off. 

After he's done being a typical teenager spouting off a few obscenities, his next few comments go straight to the heart. "You're, like, ready to give up," he says, two fingers to his temples, eyes wandering, as those in an uncomfortably tough situation are wont to do. "God...what if you gave up on me, huh?" he says with both eyes locked on Walt. "This here, all the stuff I've been through? And you're scared of a little chemotherapy?" You can see Walter trying to hold back tears, recessing into his seat with his hand to his mouth. It's a direct challenge from his own son that he knows he's turning down. 

The writers of Breaking Bad did a great job of never playing up Walt Jr.'s disability to force pity on him, but in this scene, that reality of his life is necessary to discuss. In that moment, in that scene, Walt is still able to hold up his wall about how he handles his sickness. But before the episode's end, he decides to survive as a loving father rather than "die like a man." —Tony Markovich

Episode: "Hermanos" (Season 4, Episode 8)

This is the closest we get to Gustavo Fring. Up until "Hermanos," we know that the most collected meth king Alburquerque will ever see is polite to an uncomfortable degree and appears to have no personal life. He controls an empire and maintains this empire by hiding in plain sight, publicly supporting the community (even the law enforcement) and cultivating the spitting image of middle class success. He has a comfortabl home in the suburbs where he cooks dinner, alone. But what drives him? Who is he doing this for?

"Hermanos" unlocks his character, makes you understand him in such an immediate way that it becomes difficult to deal with his eventual loss to Walter.

In a flashback, Gus and his partner, Max, sit by the pool, waiting to meet with Don Eladio about a business proposition. Hector Salamanca makes a crass entrance by pulling his cock from his pants and urinating in the pool. The aggressively macho gesture is a meant as a confrontation to Gus and Max, who Tio wants to paint as feminine because—and the suddenness with which this information comes is remarkable—Gus and Max are gay. He tells them they like the sight and he kisses at them.

The meeting goes poorly, and Don Eladio decides to punish Gus for selling drugs without his permission. Hector shoots Max in the head and forces Gus to watch his partner die, his blood emptying into the pool. Suddenly the realities of Gus's life as we've seen them gain context, and your heart can't help but break a little for the man forced to watch his lover's death. Gus becomes the loneliest man in the world. —Ross Scarano

Episode: "Phoenix" (Season 2, Episode 12)

Revisiting "Phoenix," you see how the episode foreshadows the moment of Jane's death. The first sign comes when Walt shows Marie how to tuck the new baby in for a nap. “In case of spit-up,” he tells her, rolling up a towel and wedging it between the infant’s back and the crib's mattress. It’s the kind of thing any parent would do.

The second time you see this is when Jane packs a pillow against Jesse’s back after he shoots up. In case he throws up, she says. She calls him baby.

When Jane needs support, no one helps. Her father isn’t there. But unlucky for her, Walt is. He tries to rouse Jesse from his drug-induced stupor, presumably to tell him to rethink his decision about running off with the money. Walt does care for Jesse, and this is his demonstration of that care. But Jane is the one who needs help right now.

While Walt tries to shake Jesse awake, Jane rolls onto her back, begins to vomit. Supine as she is, the vomit collects in her mouth and blocks her breath. Walt leans in to move her, the camera cuts in for a close-up of his face right before he puts a hand on her shoulder. And then he recoils as she continues to sputter and shake. She dies and he lets it happen. You lose everything by degrees, and here Walt loses too much. —Ross Scarano

Episode: "ABQ" (Season 2, Episode 13)

It must've been a long, scary night at the bar for Jane's dad (John de Lancie), waiting to take his daughter to rehab again. He must've been terrified of what could happen in the precious hours before he would pick her up. Terrified of what ultimately came to pass.

The moment Donald pulls up to Jane's house to drag her off to rehab, and sees the gurney being wheeled into the apartment, he knows she’s gone. There’s a sad acknowledgement in his eyes, an unbearable moment stretched wide open that de Lancie plays with quiet power. It crushes you, just like he's been crushed. —Ross Scarano and Shante Cosme

Episode: "Granite State" (Season 5, Episode 14)

Andrea Cantillo's only crime: caring deeply about that tragedy target named Jesse Pinkman.

Andrea—mother of Brock, the pre-teen video game partner in whom Jesse finds the humanity he so desperately seeks in his otherwise bleak existence—is the most prominent source of warmth in Jesse's miserable life. But, unfortunately, that's something Todd and his pseudo-Nazi family/crew also realize. Thus, when they turn Jesse into their chained-up and beaten-down crystal meth cook, they keep him honest and obedient by posting a photograph of Andrea and Brock in the lab, to say without words, "You don't do as we say, these two are dead."

Perhaps forgetting about the photo, Jesse tries to escape from their compound, but, since his luck is shit, they catch him, and punish him for his disobedience. Cut to Todd rings the doorbell at Andrea's home and strikes up some friendly conversation in which Todd tells her that Jesse's in the car parked across the street. Jesse really is in the car, but he's tied up and helpless against what's about to happen, right before his eyes.

Andrea steps out onto the porch. "Just so you know," says the polite sociopath, "It's nothing personal." Then he fires a bullet into the back of her head. All Jesse can do is cry, loudly and painfully. Somewhere inside the house, there's Brock, probably playing a video game, wondering where mommy is. —Matt Barone

Episode: "Buyout" (Season 5, Episode 6)

Breaking Bad is full of devastating moments but few demolish the viewer so completely as the beginning of “Buyout." Walt's crew should be celebrating the successful train heist of enough methylamine to make them extremely rich men. Instead they are somberly wiping young Drew Sharp and his dirt bike off the face of the earth, because child murder is what happens when you work with a black-and-white sociopath like Todd, who coolly kills whenever his warped mind rationalizes it as self-preservation.

The scene is silent save for haunting notes that play while we watch Todd, Mike, and Walt slowly dismante the bike before dissolving it in barrels filled with hydrofluoric acid. Jesse is too horrified and torn up to take part. After all, this isn't a rival drug dealer or hired gun who threatened to kill them but an innocent boy who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Thankfully director Colin Bucksey and writer Gennifer Hutchison spare viewers the disintegration of Drew, whose hand is glimpsed briefly sticking out from under a ton of dirt in their truck, but seeing his bike broken down, it's impossible to not think about the boy who will soon rest, not in peace but in pieces, in a barrel. That proud (if extremely misguided) father Walt stoically fetches Drew's plastic coffin adds a new layer of loss and confirms that Walter White has broken so bad that he's irredeemable. —Justin Monroe

Episode: "Say My Name" (Season 5, Episode 7)

It's right there in the episode's declarative title: "Say My Name." As spoken by Walter White, that line is one of Breaking Bad's greatest examples of Walter White's Achilles heel: his unquenchable desire to be taken seriously as a shot-calling badass. To which, of course, Walt himself would respond, "You're goddamn right."

Mike Ehrmantraut, however, doesn't see it that way, and his lack of respect for Walt's newfound position of power in season five what brings about his demise.

Throughout the first half of Breaking Bad's fifth and final season, Mike is given much more room to breathe, characterization wise, than ever before, and, thanks to actor Jonathan Banks' gruff yet endearing performance, he becomes the one person in Walt's dangerous life that no viewer wants to see die. And as "Say My Name" quickly escalates towards Mike's downfall, episode writer/director Thomas Schnauz doesn't miss any opportunity to twist the dagger into Mike's fans' hearts.

First, as the police are about to surround him at the public playground, Mike has no choice but to flee without saying goodbye to his beloved granddaughter, Kaylee, leaving her all alone on the swing set. Retreating to an isolated river, Mike calls Saul and asks for someone to retrieve his duffle bag containing money, guns, and his passport. He'd prefer that Saul retrieve the bag, but the lawyer is too shook to do so—it'd better if Jesse handled it. But then Walt volunteers.The handoff at the river doesn't go well.

Walt blames Mike for using a lawyer other than Saul, which, as Walt sees it, led to the cops figuring them out; Mike, meanwhile, says everything's that gone wrong fo him, Jesse, and the whole operation lies on Walter's shoulders: "If you'd done your job, we'd all be fine right now!" Meaning, if you'd just remained Gus's obedient underling, it'd all be G. Not exactly something you can respond to with, "Say my name." Strictly on impulse, and out of insecurity and childish anger, Walt shoots Mike in the stomach.

As he's dying alongside the quaint scenic river, Mike interrupts Walt's mournful apology with, "Shut the fuck up and let me die in peace." The perfect final words from Breaking Bad's resident old salt, a loving grandfather, caring mentor to Jesse Pinkman, and social deviant who won everyone over with his I'm-too-old-for-this-shit personality. —Matt Barone

Episode: "Ozymandias" (Season 5, Episode 14)

Despite his early asshole jock persona and prideful, less-than-appreciative treatment of his wife, Hank Schrader was always the hero to Walt's anti-hero, and before he dies he proves himself the better man.  

Leg-shot by Walt's neo-Nazi contract killers, his friend and former partner Steve Gomez laying dead on the desert floor, Hank realizes that the triumphant and loving phone call he just shared with Marie, to say he'd outsmarted and arrested Walt, who could no longer hurt their family, will be their last. Although he's lived with fear and PTSD from violent episodes, and loves his his wife dearly, in the final reckoning he faces death with pride, defiance, and contempt for the corruptible men before him, unwilling to give them the satisfaction of his tears or pleas for mercy. 

Meanwhile, frazzled Walt, ever the negotiator, begs head goon Jack to spare Hank's life because he's family, and when that doesn't convince him, tries to buy his safety with $80 million and get his DEA agent brother-in-law to promise he'll keep quiet about their meth dealing and murder if he lives. Touched by Walt's desperate attempts to save his life, Hank addresses him intimately, as the man he once loved and admired, for the first time since he figured out Walt was Heisenberg and began doubting that he ever really knew the man: “You’re the smartest person I ever met and you’re too stupid to see he made up his mind 10 minutes ago.”

The gunshot that punctuates Hank's final words, when he tells unmoved Jack to "Do what you're gonna do—" rings through the canyon, and like horrified Walt, the viewer could remain frozen there for ages, like the stratum on the canyon walls, contemplating the loss and how it all went wrong that a good man lost his life for a lesser man's ego-fulfillment. —Justin Monroe

Episode: "Ozymandias" (Season 5, Episode 14)

Since he first broke bad, Walt has always maintained that every despicable act he committed was for his family, to provide for them when cancer finally claimed his life. It justified the countless lies, drug dealing, theft, and even murder. It also provided an argument for Skyler-hating misogynists who said she's an ungrateful bitch for disapproving, despite the fact that, without her consent, he involved her in a life of crime that could get them both imprisoned or killed.

Here's the thing about Walt's "I do it for my family" mantra: It was always bullshit. His life of crime was primarily about his ego. When death knocked at his door and forced him to reexamine his life, Walt didn't like what he saw. He was powerless, poor, and unaccomplished. Where were the financial rewards for his genius, the respect, admiration, and recognition? Cooking meth and building a drug empire left a pile of problematic cash but, more importantly, it endangered his family so he could fulfill a selfish need that underachieving Walt had felt ever since walking away from Gray Matter and what could have been a life of fame and riches.

When Walt's actions inevitably lead to his DEA agent brother-in-law's death, his reluctant accomplice Skyler finally draws the line. A protective mother trying to fend off a monster, she grabs a knife and tells Walt to take his $11 million, leave, and start his new life alone. A wild slash of his hand and a violent struggle over the knife later, and Walt finds his wife and son cowering and crying on the floor, scared shitless of him. "We're a family!" says Walt in disbelief, but it's obvious that he is far from being the husband and father that they once loved. He's Heisenberg and doesn't merit a thank you but a call to police.

As if to confirm this, Walt kidnaps his infant daughter Holly in a twisted, selfish, and desperate last-ditch effort to cling to family and his self-identification as a provider whose ends justified the means. Alas, with parenting like this, Walt will die alone with his bruised ego. —Justin Monroe