While the circumstances of Doran's case do elicit a comparison to the "Breaking Bad" character, the title of real-life Walter White may still belong to an Alabama man of the same name who was arrested in 2008 -- the same year the show premiered -- on several charges, including unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance and trafficking meth. He had no control for so long in his life, with the threat of cancer taking away that final choice acting as an ultimate cruelty. [44][45] Cranston reprised his role of the character in a commercial for Esurance which aired during Super Bowl XLIX, one week before the premiere of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul. It's likely that Walt went there knowing full well that it was a suicide mission. Fans mourned the death of "Breaking Bad's" Walter White on Saturday The fictional character was laid to rest in Albuquerque Some have opposed the fake grave site and have signed an online petition Breaking Bad ended with Walter White mortally wounded, but did he really die in the series finale? It's not inevitable. TUSCALOOSA, Alabama-- In 2008, even as the fictional Walter White first began to build his methamphetamine empire on AMC's hit show Breaking Bad, a real meth chef by the same name was arrested for . T here is a swimming pool in Walter White's backyard. ", "Was The 'Breaking Bad' Finale A Fantasy Playing Out In Walter White's Mind? During his time alone, Walt finally gains some clarity. The choice that gets him into this whole mess is made without any immediate anxiety, though. The first episode follows him as he goes about his mundane life. Around his 52nd birthday, Waltleft his wooded seclusion to tie up some loose ends. is the real walter white still alive. Noticing Jack is still alive, Walt picks up a pistol and aims it at him. No, Walter White did not technically murder Jane Margolis, but his lack of action when Margolis began choking on her own vomit has been considered a form of murder by some fans. [26][27][28], From TheGuardian.com, Paul MacInnes lauded Walter White's character as a whole, noting his quick transformation into becoming Heisenberg. Walt finds out that his cancer is in remission, and plans to leave the meth business again after selling the final 38lb (17kg) of meth. This does nothing to stop him from burning down the bridges that allow him to work. Walt became a high-school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, and barely [38] Cranston was also nominated in 2012 and 2013 for season four and the first half of season five, but lost out to Damian Lewis for Homeland and Jeff Daniels for The Newsroom, respectively. In order to make larger batches of meth to take advantage of their new arrangement with Tuco, Walt and Jesse switch from using pseudoephedrine to methylamine as a precursor. As he makes his dire choices, he blinds himself to the truth of his actions and ensures his final fate. Gus rids himself of the Mexican cartel's influence in the area with the help of Mike and Jesse. By the halfway point of the series, it is beginning to become apparent that we may not be rooting for the good guy. The ripples extend out from him and destroy lives all around him. Now separated from Skyler and living in an apartment, Walt admits to her that he has been financing his treatment by cooking meth. Krazy-8 forces Walt to show them how he cooked such pure meth or risk being killed. [22] Walt and his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) have a teenage son named Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte), who has cerebral palsy. Moreover, due to Gus' stoic nature and Walter's being sequestered in an underground lab, working with Gus means being deprived of the praise over his product that he's enjoyed. "Never give up control. Whether they are buried in the desert or chained in a basement cooking meth for the Aryan Brotherhood, they're in dire straights. WHITE ROBES. Had Walt not marched to his death, he would have continued fighting for every ounce of power he could get. "[33] New York magazine writer Emma Rosenblum said Bryan Cranston "pulls off the unassuming White with flawless subtlety: a waxy pallor, a slump of the shoulders, and a sense of doom that is palpable". According to lead actor Brian Cranston, Jane Margolis's death was the most tragic one to occur on Breaking Bad and still haunts him to this day. The cops were arriving when Walt was on the ground and they are trained to care for gunshot victims. [9][10] Cranston also repeatedly identified elements in scripts where he disagreed with how the character was handled, and would go so far as to call Gilligan directly when he could not work out disagreements with the episode's screenwriter(s). Walt is briefly mentioned in passing by Saul Goodman (now going by the alias Gene Takavic) as he attempts to explain to Jeff how crazy his life had become and how much money he could get by getting into "the game". [48], Bronze statues of White and Jesse Pinkman were commissioned and donated by creator Vince Gilligan and Sony Television Pictures to the city of Albuquerque in July 2022, which will be housed in the Albuquerque Convention Center. There is no one definitive answer to this question. Obtaining a list of the prisoners from Lydia, he enlists Todd's uncle Jack Welker (Michael Bowen), a criminal with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, to kill the nine men simultaneously at multiple prisons to prevent the DEA from realizing that they were being targeted until it was too late. At the start of the series, the day after his 50th birthday, Walt is diagnosed with Stage III lung cancer. Walt then finds that he has been wounded by a ricocheted bullet. He initially does not want to go through the treatment, fearing that his family will remember him as a burden and a helpless invalid, much as he remembers his own father. While some residents were unhappy with the makeshift grave-site for closure with the show, tickets for the event raised over $30,000 for a local charity called Albuquerque Healthcare for the Homeless. Even if he survived, it's difficult to believe that Walt would have been able to escape considering the state he was in (although Walt Jr. actor R.J. Mitte certainly thinks it's possible). About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Many expected that it would be in the form of flashbacks but maybe Gilligan always intended for Walt to survive. As for other franchises, Kara's favorite OG Avenger is Thor, and her favorite Disney Princess is Leia Organa. [57] However, series creator Vince Gilligan debunked this theory, explaining that Walt could not possibly have known several things that happened, like Jesse being held in captivity by Jack's gang instead of being murdered by them, or that Todd had begun taking meetings with Lydia regarding the meth trade. When Walt realizes Jesse is with Hank, he tries to call off the deal to protect Hank but is subdued by Hank and his DEA partner Steven Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada). Jane blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his share of their drug money after Walt initially refused due to Jesse's drug use. Walt realizes that the restaurant owner, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) was the man they were supposed to meet. The real Walter White was a high school drop-out, not a high school teacher. Saul shrewdly asserts he was also manipulated by Walt to goad the agent to start a plea bargain for a significantly reduced sentence until Saul learns that his involvement with Howard Hamlin's death was already given to them by Kim Wexler. The bullet hit him in the abdomen area whichwould have put vital organs at risk. Name one thing in this world that is not negotiable. His product is unrivaled in its quality, which gives him the ability to pull the strings from time to time. Jack's pleas fall on deaf ears, and Walt executes him with a shot to the face. [46] In December 2016, Bryan cameoed as White in an episode of Saturday Night Live in the cold open. Like the master of logic that he is though, he masks this all in a thick cloud of supposed loyalty. Walt also gave one last visit to Skyler (Anna Gun) and Holly before he poisoned Lydia (Laura Fraser) by swapping herStevia for ricin. In the world of meth, in contrast, people sing his praises continuously. When they bring Jesse, who has been chained up in a lab and forced to cook meth since his abduction, Walt dives atop him and knocks them both to the ground. Every moment Walt spent in front of a classroom he was thinking about how beneath him it all was. The universe is random. Her favorite slasher icon is Ghostface, but Michael Myers still gives her nightmares. Walt is arrested when he takes off all his clothes in a grocery store. It's an escape from the world of drugs most meth kingpins could only dream of. It'd be nice to think that every decision Walt makes is to survive in an incredibly dangerous, drug-fueled world. Walter White. Walt breaks into Jesse's apartment where the meth is stored and finds him passed out with his girlfriend Jane Margolis (Krysten Ritter). After he discovers Jesse is cooking and selling his own version of the blue meth, Walt agrees to cook his meth for Gus. The more we see from Hank the more we know that given the circumstances and their relationship, Walt could pull the rip-cord at any time. To avoid being discovered hiding in the RV, Walt and Jesse, aided by Saul, place a phone call to distract Hank, making him believe his wife Marie has suffered a car accident. [4] Gilligan also said, in 2013, "Without Tony Soprano, there would be no Walter White. Walter White's Chaotic Beauty. We tried to poison you because you are an insane, degenerate piece of filth and you deserve to die.". Hank connects Mike to the blue meth and begins pressing several of his associates, who are now in prison, to give information on the blue meth operation. Enraged, Hank accuses Walt of being Heisenberg, which a stunned Walt neither confirms nor denies. Once his death clock begins ticking, Walt makes all his choices out of fear and panic. I'm just going to be naming the ones that were unplanned and/or unnecessary. But I think the most horrifying part of Breaking Bad may be that Walt, at his core, didn't really transform at all. Mary White Ovington, a NAACP board member, said " Of all the girls she would have attracted me the least, but Mr. White thinks that being excitable himself he has incurred the proper contrast." A.J. It is not merely a metaphor or phrase of poetry. Eventually, Ed helps to set up Walt to live in isolation in New Hampshire. Just focusing on Breaking Bad'sfinal scene, Walt was clearly not in good shape after he suffered the gunshot wound. It wasn't greed or generosity or cancer or fear that fueled this reign of death and destruction. Did Walter White Really Die? I believe that in reality both Walt and Jesse die in that truck. Walter Hartwell "Walt" White, Sr. on kuvitteellinen hahmo yhdysvaltalaisessa televisiosarjassa Breaking Bad.Hahmon on luonut Vince Gilligan ja hnt nyttelee Bryan Cranston.. Hahmo. fans have pointed to a real-life criminal who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for dealing meth. Another layer of absolution is added by Walt not even receiving the death he wants. Seeing they need a new distributor to sell the large quantity of product they have remaining, Saul arranges a meeting at a local restaurant with a mysterious meth kingpin. With that said, keeping him alive in any way allows the character to return in future projects. This plane crash, which plops a symbolically-loaded charred teddy bear into Walt's pool, is a direct result of his decision to stand by and watch Jesse's girlfriend choke to death in a heroin overdose. Walt tries to use one of Saul's connections to get him and his family relocated but finds that Skyler has used most of his drug money to pay off Ted Beneke's IRS fines to avoid having their own lives investigated, causing Walt to yell out in frustration and fear before breaking down into a maniacal laughing fit. The term "white robes," as used in the Scriptures, has a much broader meaning and is more real than we at first imagine. Walt and Jesse secure Krazy-8 to a structural post in Jesse's basement with a U-lock around his neck, and Walt struggles with the decision on whether to kill him. He also won his fourth Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards. The entire show presents a set of scenarios that turn concepts of good and bad on their heads. The experience shakes Walt, and he tells Jesse he will not cook meth anymore. - Walter White, a Lockwood man who coincidentally has the same name as the lead character in the AMC television series "Breaking Bad . There he conducted research on proton radiography, that helped a team win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985. Aside from production, though, he is not capable of running any other aspect of drug dealing. He hires unscrupulous criminal attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) to cover his involvement in the drug trade and launder his drug money. [32], Similarly, Scott Meslow wrote in The Atlantic that Walt's capacity for villainy was present well before the series even began, and that cancer was only the catalyst, stating that "all the elements that have since turned him into a monster were already in place. Walt, however, hates not being in control. "[12] Regarding White's fate in the series ending, Cranston foresaw it as "ugly [with no] redemption",[13] although earlier, Gilligan divulged his plans to "end on a high note, in a way that will satisfy everyone". "[5] Gilligan needed to have this character come into a midlife crisis that would put him into seeking risky options and lead to more criminal activities. When Walt is scared, he acts irrationally and violently. [8] The Hollywood Reporter writer Tim Goodman praised as courageous Vince Gilligan's decision to transform Walter White into an unsympathetic character: "You don't take your main character and make him unlikable. When Kara's not busy writing, you can find her doing yoga or hanging out with Gritty. This is exactly what happens again, only this time, it is a much more ruthless pack of individuals who don't display any logic Walt can reason with. The rift in their marriage worsens when Skyler sleeps with her boss, Ted Beneke (Christopher Cousins). Years before Breaking Bad debuted featuring a fictional . He gives Jesse homemade ricin with which to poison Gus, but Jesse never goes through with it. He collaborated with costume designer Kathleen Detoro on a wardrobe of mostly neutral green and brown colors to make the character bland and unremarkable, and worked with makeup artist Frieda Valenzuela to create a mustache he described as "impotent" and like a "dead caterpillar". And it is a trick. Nobody has ever really done that to this extent. Walt's skills make him a valuable asset to every drug dealer he works with. Walt rescues Jesse, who had been kept as a prisoner in the lab, and together they destroy all the evidence and torch the lab. 2. Names, Insightful, World. A headstone was placed with a photo of Cranston as Walt, located on an outside wall in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, New Mexico. Hank approaches Jesse and offers to help bring down Walt. 14 Copy quote. Related Topics . The bear, now short an eye and half scorched, once . Walt continues to be offered routes with positive outcomes for most parties involved. You didn't have to wait your whole life to do something special.". He notices on a dial that Jesse has cooked a perfect batch of his product, and smiles to himself. Walt's "blue meth" becomes incredibly popular, to the point that Hank takes notice and raids Tuco's operation. He serves as the main protagonist of the AMC series of the same name, and the posthumous overarching protagonist of both its 2019 sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and the second half of the sixth and final . They have a choice between death or a lifetime in prison no choice at all, in practical terms. Gus responds by putting a hit on Jesse and re-hiring Gale as Walt's assistant, with the intention of replacing Walt as soon as possible. As the premise of Breaking Bad was based on a humorous idea that he and his fellow writer from The X-Files, Thomas Schnauz had come up with of driving around in an RV making methamphetamine, Gilligan made Walter a chemistry teacher, one who, until the start of the show, would have never violated the law.