Writing the Pilot: Creating the Series

by William Rabkin

Breaking Bad is the story of a man who is desperate to assert his impact on the world. He failed in his first attempt long before the series begins – he split with his college partners, who went on to become billionaires from his initial work. He’s never going to let that happen again. He is the smartest man around, and he’s going to prove it. But Walt is also a newcomer to the world of drug dealing. A newcomer who believes he is smarter than everyone around him. And it’s this belief that drives almost everything that happens in the series. Walt decides that the only way to provide for his family is to manufacture meth – which he can do better than anyone in the business, because he’s the smartest man in town. And he’s right – the meth he and Jesse cook is infinitely purer than anything the market has seen. But now there’s an unexpected problem – Jesse doesn’t know how to sell as much meth as they’re going to produce. Solution – they’ll hook up with a pair of dealers. Except that the dealers, while not as smart as Walt, are more violent and more evil, and they will either kill Walt and Jesse or enslave them. Walt’s solution – to pretend to work for them, and use the meth operation to kill them both. Which has now elevated Walt’s level of evil from meth manufacturer to murderer. So the pattern set in the pilot is this: Walt has a problem. His solution works, but puts him in direct conflict with people more evil than him. Walt comes up wit...