Breaking Bad: 10 Continuity Errors Fans Didn’t Notice
Breaking Bad is a masterpiece, but even the greatest of series have a few continuity errors. Some are just particularly hard to notice.
In the eyes of critics and fans, AMC’s Breaking Bad was as close to perfect as a TV series can get. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a score of 96%. On IMDB, it has a 9.5/10 score which basically means that nearly everyone who watched the show and took time to review it had loved it.
Throughout its run, Breaking Bad received 16 Primetime and Creative Emmy Awards. This solidified its status as one of the greatest TV shows of all time. However, it’s hard to get everything right. Consequently, Breaking Bad had a couple of continuity errors that weren’t so easy to notice. Here are some of them.
The Disappearing Car
In season 3’s twelfth episode titled “Half Measures,” Mike, Jesse, and Victor drive to Gustavo Fring’s chicken plant and stop behind Fring’s car. When they step out of their own car, Fring’s car somehow disappears, only to reappear when they start walking towards the building.
Who was waving the magic wand? A good guess would be that the scene where they get out of the car was shot with plenty of retakes and the director had to go with one of the very last takes. By this time, the car had already been moved by another crew member.
You Can Eat Your Popsicle & Still Have It
They say you can’t have your cake and eat it. Well, according to Breaking Bad, the rule doesn’t apply to popsicles. In season 2, Jesse is living in the same apartment block as his landlord as well as his lover Jane Margolis. Jane is a heroin addict who ends up dying after Walt refuses to save her when she is convulsing from an overdose.
Before her death, Jane spent plenty of time with Jesse. In the episode titled “Over,” she is seen in his kitchen snacking on a popsicle. While she’s talking to Jesse, the popsicle changes from uneaten to half-eaten and then back to completely uneaten during consecutive shots.
Gomie’s Name Change
In the series, Walter White’s brother-in-law Hank Schrader was a DEA Agent who was determined to bring down the mysterious drug lord known as Heisenberg. Hank just didn’t know it was Walter he was after. Hank’s partner was the ever-composed Steven Gomez, a.k.a. “Gomie.”
However, in the pilot episode, Steven Gomez/Gomie wasn’t his name. In one scene, Hank and Gomie go on a ride with Walt. Hank is heard referring to Gomie as “Frank.” Well…to be frank, we are also wondering how his name changed to Gomie. Perhaps the writers realized it wasn’t too smart to have two partners with rhyming names.
Didn’t The Glasses Fall Off?
In the season 5 episode titled “To’hajiilee,” Jack and his gang engage in a shootout with Hank and Gomie. Meanwhile, Walt is sitting on the backseat with handcuffs because Hank arrested him after discovering that he is Heisenberg.
When the shootout begins, Walter dives into the seat and his spectacles are seen falling off. However, in the next episode titled “Ozymandias,” events in the scene continue from where they stopped and Walt is yelling at Jack. Interestingly, his glasses are back on his face. He is still handcuffed so there is no way he could have picked them up and worn them again.
Walt’s Hair
When the final season starts, a flash-forward scene occurs depicting one of the final moments of the series. Walt has returned to New Mexico and has grown out his hair, although it is still quite short and kempt. However, when the show eventually catches up to that point, Walt’s hair is way longer and unkempt.
Clone? Not really. The flash-forward scene was presumably filmed at a much earlier time than the later scene, sadly resulting in a rather awkward continuity error. In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t that big of a deal.
Jesse’s Lying Position
In the series finale titled “Felina,” Walt goes after the white supremacist leader Jack Welker and his crew, who are holding Jesse hostage and forcing him to use his skills to cook crystal meth for them. Walt makes sure to rig a pickup truck with a machine gun.
Before hitting the button that sets off the machine gun, Walt throws himself on Jesse to save him. When the two are on the floor, Jesse is seen lying on Walt’s right side. However, in another shot seconds later, Jesse is seen on his left. It’s highly unlikely that they swapped positions during that tense moment.
Blood Splatter Keeps Changing
The 9th episode of season 4 titled “Bug” sees the Mexican Cartel dispatching a sniper to Gus’s warehouse to kill him and his men. While standing beside a white truck, one of Gus’ henchmen is unlucky enough to be the recipient of a clean shot on the head.
His blood splatters across the side of the truck. However, within consecutive shots, the splatter keeps changing its size, as it goes from covering a huge surface area to a smaller one and then back to covering a large area again. How that ended up happening is a mystery.
Gustavo Fring’s Lab Suit
The first episode of season 4 titled “Box Cutter,” the ever-evil Gustavo “Gus” Fring arrives in the lab and finds Victor cooking meth. Earlier on, Victor and Mike had held Walt and Jesse hostage. Seeing an unskilled man making the meth makes Gus angry and so he wears his lab suit and proceeds to slice Victor’s throat using a box cutter.
Shortly after, Gus removes the suit and orders Walt and Jesse to get back to doing what they do best. But there is one problem. In the scene where Gus is wearing his orange lab suit, he puts his hand through one sleeve but when the camera cuts to a consecutive shot, he is putting his arm through the same sleeve.
Manna From Heaven?
In season 5, Episode 3, a small quantity of salad can be seen on Skyler’s plate when she’s at the car wash. However, just after she yells “Shut up,” several more pieces of lettuce join the previous ones and the quantity of the salad increases quite significantly.
Where did those come from? Strange indeed. What might have happened is the shot where Skyler had eaten part of the salad was placed before the one where she had yet to touch her plate, although that is obviously just speculation. This is one of those mistakes that can be forgiven because of the overall story’s greatness.
Administering More Drugs To The Drug Lord
“Crawl Space,” the eleventh episode of season 4, begins with Gus receiving treatment from a medical team. In the previous episode, he had gone to Don Eladio’s estate and killed him together with his men by giving them poison, however, Gus had taken some of the poison too.
While Gus is receiving treatment, the medication in the oral syringe can be seen to be at “level 1.” However, in a consecutive shot when the drug is being administered, the syringe is full. The doctor was never seen adding more medicine.
