Breaking Bad 

Breaking Bad: 5 Subplots That Were Wrapped Up Perfectly (& 5 That Weren’t)

Breaking Bad saw a bunch of subplots during its airing. Some of them were handled perfectly while others left a lot to be desired.

Breaking Bad is highly regarded as one of the best television shows to ever hit the airwaves. It’s daunting and high-stakes story-line mixed with a vast amount of dark and complicated characters created one of the most memorable and talked-about series in history.

RELATED: Breaking Bad: Walter White’s Most Memorable Quotes

However, despite having one of the best reputations that a television show could have and wrapping up the majority of the series subplots in satisfactory fashion, the show wasn’t perfect with a capital P as it left more than a couple of its B-plot’s hanging in the balance. Take a look at our list of 5 Breaking Bad subplots that were wrapped up perfectly (and 5 that weren’t).

(Perfect) Emilio/Krazy-8 Deaths

Walt creates phosphine gas to suffocate Emilio and Krazy-8

Vince Gilligan, the show’s creator, had quite a task ahead of him when he decided to write a story about a high-school chemistry teacher becoming the south-west’s most dangerous and notorious drug king-pin. So, naturally, what did he have to do from the very beginning? Show what this man was capable of. In the first three episodes of the entire series, we see a man who eats veggie-bacon and has a pregnant wife waiting for him at home, killing two people (one using science and the other with a bike lock). Then, he dissolved said people in acid and flushed them down a toilet. We didn’t know who Heisenberg was yet, but we certainly learned what he was capable of.

(Not Perfect) Huell in the Safehouse

Huell in a safe house in Breaking Bad

Is Huell still waiting for Hank and Steve to come back and let him know that Walt isn’t actually out to kill him? Again, Breaking Bad didn’t leave too many loose ends when the show finally concluded, but one that was pretty obvious to most fans was that Huell was left in a safe house after he had been detained and interrogated by Hank and Steve.

RELATED: The 10 Worst Episodes Of Breaking Bad Ever, According To IMDb

However, Hank and Steve both tragically died in a shoot-out and Huell was never heard from again. Even worse, Hank specifically told Huell that it’d essentially be suicide to step out the safe house door and to wait for Hank and Steve to give him the all-clear.

(Perfect) Hank being right about Gus

Hank in Breaking Bad

Fans of Breaking Bad will almost all agree that Gus was the show’s best villain, and for a person whose antagonistic reign lasted for more than two seasons (on a show that only lasted five) he was clearly a worthy opponent to Heisenberg’s genius. However, ASAC Schrader deserves a lot more credit than he’s due for being the only person in the entire city of Albuquerque who suspected the fast-food franchise owner of being a crystal-meth king-pin. Walt (and Hector) may have been the ones to officially take him down, but Hank was on the right path and knew it was right and we were all glad to see him get his recognition.

(Not Perfect) Jane’s Dad

This one is a biggy (especially for a show that wrapped up so many subplots as well as they did) because there was an entire season centered around the events that unfolded at the end of season 2 and they were never officially addressed. Jane, the first girl who Jesse ever truly loved, tragically died of a heroin overdose at the end of season 2, sending her father into a depression.

RELATED: Breaking Bad: The Main Characters, Ranked By Intelligence

Her father, an airline traffic controller, then forced two planes to crash into each other, killing over 150 people, and then tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head. One problem – we never learn if he survives the suicide attempt.

(Perfect) Gus’ connection to Cartel

Gus and Hector

As we already stated, Gus was the baddest of the bad guys for the entire series and made it known that he could stand up to anybody, even the Mexican Cartel. Yet, for multiple seasons, fans wondered how this fast-food owner could have possibly had connections to such a vast underground world of death, drugs, and destruction. Well, that question was answered when the show informed fans that Gus had a business partner whom the Cartel killed nearly 20 years before the events of Breaking Bad took place, thus putting fans even further in awe of Gus as it was evident that he was clever enough to play the long-game in order to take out his enemies.

(Not Perfect) Lydia’s Company (Madrigal)

breaking bad lydia and madrigal Cropped

Another perfect subplot that Breaking Bad managed to wrap a tight bow around was Gus’ worldwide connections. Obviously, a businessman with a fast-food franchise had to have investors, and it turned out that those investors also knew all about, and funded, Gus’ illegal drug business. That’s where the character Lydia, an employee of Madrigal Electromotive, was introduced and she quickly became a wrench in Walter’s operations. Heisenberg may have succeeded in killing the over-anxious and paranoid woman, but whatever happened to Madrigal Electromotive’s after her death (and the fact that she was involved with producing and moving illegal drugs) was never addressed.

(Perfect) Hank’s Death

A wailing Walt after Jack Welker kills Hank in Breaking Bad

Let’s be perfectly clear – we’re not saying that the way Hank went out was perfect, but Hank could have gone out in any number of ways and it wouldn’t have mattered how because the important thing was that he died. Period. At the time of Hank’s death, audiences still had no idea how far Walter was going to go until his cancer (or something else) killed him. However, Walt hadn’t succeeded in finding out a way to leave his fortune to his children when Hank finally cornered him, meaning that Hank was going to have to meet his end if Walt was going to have any chance of succeeding at the task he had set out from episode 1 to do.

(Not Perfect) Schwartz Couple

Walter threatens Elliot and Gretchen in their home in Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad was rightfully so well received because a character as smart, and as malicious, as Heisenberg had seldom been seen on television before. Because of that reason, most of the plans and schemes that Walter came up with were incredibly clever and seemed utterly brilliant. That said, some of his plans weren’t as thought out as others – his plan to get Elliot and Gretchen Schwartz to give his children his money was not one of them. Don’t get us wrong, it certainly would have been a full-proof plan, if it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t actually hire any hit-men and the lasers were coming from Skinny-Pete and Badger. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t take Elliot and Gretchen long to figure out that threat was B.S.

(Perfect) Walt Whitman book from Gale

Hank finds out that Walt is Heisenberg in Breaking Bad

It had to happen this way. Let us clarify – it didn’t have to be Hank who found the book, but Walt had to be the one to beat himself. The entire shroud of fear and intelligence that surrounded Heisenberg throughout the series was the belief that he was virtually unstoppable. Not only that, Walt knew he was unstoppable, and that played into his plan whenever he faced an enemy. Up until the mid-point of season five, he had outsmarted every possible person there was to outsmart. So what was the only solution to beating one of television’s greatest anti-heroes? He had to beat himself, and make a mistake so safe that only he could have made it – and he did just that.

(Not Perfect) Walter’s extra $70 million

Walt and Skyler

This particular subplot is more out of curiosity than necessity, but the fact that we still don’t know what happened to the rest of Walter White’s fortune is rather irritating for fans. Seriously, the man spent the entire final season piling up as much cash as he possibly could for his family (actually because he liked it) and had seventy of his eighty million dollars stolen away. In one of the final lines of the entire series, Jack tries to get Walt to trade his life for the location of his stolen fortune, but Walt decides to put a bullet in Jack’s head before he can give him the information. The $10 million he ended up leaving to his kids certainly isn’t tiny, we’re just saying that they deserve about $70 million more.

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