Background When Walter was six years old, his father died of
Huntington's disease. He studied chemistry at the
California Institute of Technology and, after
graduate school, worked as a researcher at
Sandia National Laboratory. There he conducted research on proton radiography that helped a team win a
Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985. Using some of the prize money, Walter then founded the firm Gray Matter Technologies with
Elliott Schwartz (
Adam Godley), his former classmate and close friend. Around this time, Walter began a relationship with his lab assistant,
Gretchen (
Jessica Hecht), who soon after became a partner at Gray Matter. However, after a disastrous
Independence Day party, where they had intended to announce their engagement, Walter instead left both Gretchen and Gray Matter Technologies, selling his financial interest in the company for US$5,000. Gretchen and Elliott later married and made billions, much of it from Walter's research. Though they remain friendly, Walter secretly resents both Gretchen and Elliott for profiting from his work. At the age of 50, Walter works as a high school
chemistry teacher in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, providing instruction to uninterested and disrespectful students. Walter has a second job at a local car wash to supplement his income, which proves to be particularly humiliating when he has to clean the cars of his own students. Walter and his wife, Skyler, have a teenage son named Walter Jr., who has
cerebral palsy. Skyler is also pregnant with their second child,
Holly, who is born at the end of season two. Walt's other family includes Skyler's sister,
Marie Schrader (
Betsy Brandt); her husband, Hank, who is an agent within the
Drug Enforcement Administration; and his mother, who
is never seen.
Appearances The following appearances are based on the chronological narrative in
Breaking Bad. Scenes from
Better Call Saul fit into this chronology and are denoted appropriately.
Season 1 On his 50th birthday, during his
surprise party, Walter watches a news report about Hank arresting methamphetamine dealers. Walter is impressed by the monetary returns from the meth operation, and Hank offers to take him as a ride-along to a DEA bust. The next day, Walter faints at the car wash and is taken to a hospital; there, he is told he has inoperable lung cancer and will likely die within the next two years. During the ride-along, Hank busts a crystal meth lab, taking cook
Emilio Koyama (
John Koyama), into custody. Walter sees Emilio's partner fleeing the scene, and realizes it is his former student Jesse Pinkman. Looking to secure his family's well-being by producing and selling meth, Walter tracks Jesse down and
blackmails him into selling the meth that Walter will cook. Walter gives Jesse his life savings to buy a
recreational vehicle that they can use as a
rolling meth lab. After their first cook in the RV, Jesse brings a sample of the extremely pure meth to the distributor
Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina (
Max Arciniega), and then brings Krazy-8 and the now-released Emilio to see the cook site. Emilio recognizes Walter as accompanying the DEA during the bust and believes he is an informant. Krazy-8 forces Walter to show them how he cooked such pure meth or risk being killed. Walter pretends to start a cook but instead produces toxic
phosphine gas which kills Emilio and incapacitates Krazy-8. Walter and Jesse secure Krazy-8 to a structural post in Jesse's basement with a
U-lock around his neck, and Walter struggles with the decision on whether to kill him. After realizing Krazy-8 has hidden a piece of plate broken when Walter passed out due to a coughing fit, he realizes he has no choice and must kill Krazy-8. Walter goes to unlock Krazy-8's lock and as Walter does so, he confronts him about the plate, causing Krazy-8 to grab the plate to stab Walter with as soon as he is freed. Walter panics and
garrotes him to death with the lock while Krazy-8 wildly attacks behind him in an attempt to harm Walter. The experience shakes Walter, and he tells Jesse he will not cook meth anymore. Walter eventually tells his family about his cancer diagnosis, and they urge him to undergo expensive
chemotherapy. 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. Later he reluctantly agrees to undergo treatment but refuses Gretchen and Elliott's offer to pay for it, choosing to re-enter the drug trade with Jesse. He shaves his head to hide his chemotherapy-induced hair loss. Dissatisfied with Jesse's slow pace of selling the meth, Walter pushes him to sell it in bulk to a local drug lord named
Tuco Salamanca (
Raymond Cruz), who has taken over Krazy-8's former territory. Discovering that Tuco stole the meth and savagely beat Jesse, Walter visits Tuco's lair with another bag of crystals, claiming to be "Heisenberg", a reference to the theoretical physicist
Werner Heisenberg. After Tuco mocks Jesse, refuses to pay for the bag, and implies that Walter will suffer the same fate as Jesse, Walter blows up part of the lair; the bag contained
fulminated mercury, not meth. Impressed by the boldness of "Heisenberg", Tuco reluctantly agrees to pay for his meth upon delivery in the future. Walter revels in his success and adopts the Heisenberg alias in his business dealings going forward. In order to make larger batches of meth to take advantage of their new arrangement with Tuco, Walter and Jesse switch from using
pseudoephedrine to
methylamine as a precursor. This tints their meth blue, which becomes a signature of Walter's product. The pair begin to fear for their lives when, after testing the purity of the meth they delivered by snorting some of it, Tuco senselessly beats to death one of his own men,
No-Doze (Cesar Garcia).
Season 2 Walter's "blue meth" becomes incredibly popular, to the point that Hank takes notice and raids Tuco's operation. A paranoid Tuco evades the bust,
carjacks Jesse, and kidnaps Walter. He brings them to an isolated house in the desert, planning to take them deep into Mexico where they would be forced to cook their blue meth for the cartel. After a failed attempt to poison Tuco, they manage to escape on foot. Hank, who had been searching for Jesse, spots his car at the house and kills Tuco in a gunfight. Walter takes off all his clothes in a grocery store in order to explain his disappearance by claiming that he had gone into a
fugue state as a result of his cancer medication and simply wandered off. Walter finds out that his cancer is in remission, and plans to leave the meth business again after selling the final 38 lb (17 kg) of meth. He hires an unscrupulous criminal attorney named
Saul Goodman (
Bob Odenkirk), to cover his involvement in the drug trade and
launder his drug money. The
Better Call Saul episode "
Breaking Bad" expands on Walter's and Saul's first meeting where Saul quickly deduces Walter is Heisenberg and urges him to seek higher goals with his meth business. Saul also has his fixer, Mike Ehrmantraut, investigate Walter's background; Mike warns Saul that Walter is unreliable and a bad risk, but Saul goes into business with him anyway. Seeing that Walter and Jesse 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. Jesse shows up for the meeting high on
heroin, and leaves when the kingpin does not show. Walter realizes that the restaurant owner,
Gus Fring (
Giancarlo Esposito), was the man they were supposed to meet. Walter meets with Gus, who says that he will not do business with an addict. However, a few days later he gives Walter a chance to prove himself by delivering all the meth to a truck stop within an hour. Walter breaks into Jesse's apartment, where the meth is stored, and finds him passed out with his girlfriend and fellow heroin addict
Jane Margolis (
Krysten Ritter). He finds the meth and makes the delivery on time, but misses the birth of his daughter. Walter initially refuses to give Jesse his share of the drug money until he is clean, but Jane blackmails him into handing it over. After talking to a stranger at a bar about family – not knowing that the man is Jane's father
Donald (
John de Lancie) – Walter again breaks into Jesse's apartment and finds them passed out in a heroin stupor. Walter attempts to wake Jesse and inadvertently rolls Jane onto her back; she subsequently vomits and begins to choke. Walter does nothing to help her and watches her die. He contacts Saul for help, who sends Mike over to clear any connection Jesse has to Jane's death. Walter convinces Jesse to enter
drug rehabilitation. Walter undergoes an operation to remove the remaining cancerous growth. His anesthesia-induced references to a "second cell phone" – the one he uses to deal drugs – makes Skyler suspicious, leading her to uncover many of his lies and leave with their children. Just after her departure, two passenger planes collide directly above Walter's house; the accident was caused by Donald, who works as an
air traffic controller, and was still overcome with grief from Jane's death. Walter watches the accident in horror, unaware of his connection to it.
Season 3 Walter decides to get out of the meth business, refusing Gus' offer to produce meth in a state-of-the-art laboratory hidden under an industrial laundry for a million dollars a month. Now separated from Skyler and living in an apartment, Walter admits to her that he has been financing his treatment by cooking meth. Horrified, Skyler asks for a divorce in return for her silence and demands that Walter have nothing to do with their children. After he discovers Jesse is cooking and selling his own version of the blue meth, Walter agrees to cook his meth for Gus. He is assisted by an accomplished chemist named
Gale Boetticher (
David Costabile) and the business begins running smoothly. Jesse continues to cook his own version of the blue meth, with his friends
Skinny Pete (
Charles Baker) and
Badger (
Matt Jones) as his distributors, but this leads to Hank nearly catching Jesse and Walter while following a lead on an RV he believed was being used to cook meth. To avoid being discovered hiding in the RV, Walter and Jesse, aided by Saul, place a phone call to distract Hank, making him believe his wife, Marie, has been injured in a car accident. Hank decides to leave the pursuit of the RV only to find out that Marie is fine, allowing Walter and Jesse to dispose of the vehicle. This enrages Hank enough to storm into Jesse's house and beat him so severely that he is hospitalized. Walter visits Jesse in the hospital and apologizes for Hank, while also urging him to leave the meth business for good. Jesse replies that he will continue to cook meth on his own and that he will sue Hank for all the money he has. He also tells Walter that if he is caught, he will make a deal to give up "Heisenberg". In an attempt to save Hank's career, Walter convinces Gus to hire Jesse to replace Gale as his assistant and give him a 50 percent share of the profits. Jesse finally accepts the job, and Walter fires Gale from the lab and gives Jesse the assistant's job. Assuming that Skyler will not turn him in to the police because it would traumatize their children, Walter returns to his house. Skyler eventually comes to uneasily accept the situation and helps Walter to
launder his drug money, but refuses to have anything to do with him outside of business. The rift in their marriage worsens when Skyler has sex with her boss,
Ted Beneke (
Christopher Cousins). Walter attempts to get back at her by making a pass at the principal at his school, who puts him on indefinite suspension. Tuco's cousins
Marco and Leonel Salamanca (
Luis and Daniel Moncada) seek revenge against those responsible for his death and find out Walter's identity from their uncle
Hector Salamanca (
Mark Margolis). Believing that Walter betrayed Tuco, they go to his house and prepare to kill him with a silver axe. Gus discovers this, and to protect his investment in Walter, he convinces them to instead target Hank, who actually killed Tuco. The cousins die in their attempt to kill Hank, but they manage to temporarily paralyze him from the waist down before he dispatches them. Skyler forces Walter into paying for Hank's care and creates a cover story about Walter
counting cards at casinos to explain how he made his money. Walter's relationship with Gus becomes strained when he kills two of Gus' dealers to protect Jesse, who planned to kill them in retaliation for murdering his new girlfriend
Andrea Cantillo's (
Emily Rios) young brother, who was working for them. Gus responds by putting a hit on Jesse and re-hiring Gale as Walter's assistant, with the intention of replacing Walter as soon as possible. Walter plots to kill Gale to avoid becoming disposable, but Gus' henchman
Victor (
Jeremiah Bitsui) lures Walter to the laundry facility, where Mike is waiting to kill him. Walter frantically calls Jesse, telling him that he is about to be killed and Jesse will have to take out Gale himself.
Season 4 In the aftermath of Gale's murder, Mike holds Walter at the lab to await Gus' arrival. Victor arrives with Jesse and proceeds to start the cooking process himself to show Gus that Walter and Jesse are not indispensable. Gus, however, kills Victor in front of Walter, Jesse and Mike in a gruesome show of force. Gus puts the pair under tighter surveillance, including a camera being installed in the lab to monitor them. A rift slowly forms between Walter and Jesse, and Gus uses the opportunity to bring Jesse to his side by having Mike train him. Walter deduces that Gus plans to eventually kill him and replace him with Jesse. He gives Jesse homemade
ricin with which to poison Gus, but Jesse never goes through with it. Walter shows up at Jesse's house and tries to convince him to betray Gus, but Jesse refuses and tells Walter they are finished. Meanwhile, Skyler buys the
car wash where Walter used to work and uses it to launder his drug money. Evidence from Gale's murder leads Hank to suspect that Gus is involved in the blue meth business. With the DEA skeptical and Hank being unable to drive due to his condition, he enlists Walter's help in the investigation as a driver and tracker. Walter attempts to sabotage the investigation, but Gus blames him for drawing Hank's attention. Gus rids himself of the Mexican cartel's influence in the area with the help of Mike and Jesse. He then fires Walter and threatens to kill his entire family if he causes any more trouble. Walter 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. After arranging for Saul to report that Hank is being targeted for assassination again so that his family would be protected by the DEA, Walter resolves to kill Gus. When Andrea's young son
Brock (Ian Posada) falls desperately ill with ricin-like symptoms, Jesse attacks Walter, believing that he poisoned the boy. Walter manages to convince Jesse that Gus is the one responsible. After an attempt to kill Gus with a car bomb fails, Walter discovers from Saul that Gus has been visiting Hector in his
nursing home to taunt him about the cartel's defeat and the end of the Salamanca family. Walter makes a deal with Hector to draw Gus in by setting up a meeting with the DEA. When Gus comes to the nursing home to kill Hector for apparently becoming an
informant, Hector detonates a pipe bomb Walter built, killing himself, Gus's henchman
Tyrus Kitt (
Ray Campbell) and Gus. Walter rescues Jesse, who had been kept as a prisoner in the lab, and together they destroy all the evidence and burn down the lab. After Brock recovers, Jesse learns that the boy had likely been poisoned by accidentally eating
lily of the valley berries, not ricin. Walter responds that killing Gus was still the right thing to do. Walter calls Skyler to tell her they are safe and that he has "won". The camera pans to a potted lily of the valley plant next to Walt's pool, revealing that Walter had poisoned Brock in order to regain Jesse's loyalty and spur him into action as part of Walter's plan to kill Gus.
Season 5 Part 1 Walter disposes of the evidence linking him to Gus' death and Brock's poisoning. Mike intends to kill Walter in retaliation for Gus's death, but Jesse intervenes and convinces them to work together to eliminate their connection to the destroyed lab. The trio use an electromagnet to wipe the lab camera footage off of Gus's laptop, which is in police custody. The three eventually start a new meth production system with the help of a corrupt
pest control company, using residents' homes to cook meth while they are fumigated, using methylamine provided by
Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (
Laura Fraser), a representative for the
conglomerate that owned Gus's chicken franchise. When her supply is discovered to be tracked by the police, she leaks them information about a train carrying the chemical so they can plan a robbery. The robbery is successful, but
Todd Alquist (
Jesse Plemons), one of the pest control workers, kills a young boy who had seen them. Horrified, Jesse and Mike resolve to leave the business. A drug lord based in
Phoenix, Arizona named
Declan (
Louis Ferreira) offers to buy out the operation for $15 million in order to remove his competition. Walter convinces him to pay off Mike and begin distributing Walter's meth instead. Skyler becomes terrified of Walter and stages a suicide attempt to persuade Hank and Marie to take temporary custody of Walter Jr. and Holly. 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. When Walter delivers Mike's share of Declan's payment, Mike refuses to reveal these prisoners' identities and insults Walter, blaming him for all the problems they have encountered; Walter shoots him dead in a fit of rage. 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 ten men simultaneously at multiple prisons to prevent the DEA from realizing that they were being targeted until it was too late. After a few months, Walter has earned more than $80 million from meth, and Skyler convinces him to stop. Walter leaves the meth business, and the children return home. During a family barbecue, Hank finds a copy of
Walt Whitman's
Leaves of Grass in the bathroom, the same copy given to Walter by Gale; upon reading Gale's handwritten inscription referring to Walter as "the other W.W." Hank realizes that Walter is the drug lord he has been pursuing.
Part 2 Realizing his copy of
Leaves of Grass is missing and that a tracker has been placed on his car, Walter deduces Hank has discovered his criminal activities. Walter confronts him at Hank's house, and Hank accuses him of being Heisenberg, which Walter neither confirms nor denies. Walter says that his cancer is back and he will likely be dead in six months, making an arrest pointless. Hank says they can talk if Walter gives custody of his children to Skyler, Marie and Hank, but Walter refuses and tells Hank to "tread lightly". Walter attempts to discourage Hank from investigating him further by crafting a fake confessional videotape claiming Hank is Heisenberg. Walter buries his money in seven barrels on the
Tohajiilee Indian Reservation and convinces Jesse to go into a relocation program. While waiting to be picked up, Jesse deduces that Walter poisoned Brock. Jesse attempts to burn down Walter's house in retaliation, but Hank stops him and suggests they work together to bring down Walter. With Hank's help, Jesse lures Walter into a trap by claiming to have found his money. Walter makes arrangements with Jack and his men to kill Jesse, in exchange for promising to help teach Todd how to cook meth. When Walter 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). Just then, Jack and his men arrive and fire on the group, killing Gomez and wounding Hank; Jack then executes Hank, despite Walter pleading for his brother-in-law's life. Jack's men take all but one barrel of Walter's money and abduct Jesse; as Jesse is taken away, Walter spitefully tells him that he watched Jane die. Walter tries to persuade Skyler and Walter Jr. to go on the run with him, but they refuse. He kidnaps Holly, but has a moment of conscience and leaves her to be found and returned. He calls Skyler, knowing that the police are listening in, and berates her for failing to follow his orders, as a way of clearing her of involvement in his crimes. Walter then goes into hiding, along with Saul, waiting for Ed the "Disappearer" (
Robert Forster) to set up a new identity for Walter. A scene in the final
Better Call Saul episode, "
Saul Gone", shows Walter mocking Saul's legal ability and saying Saul was always a sleazy person; this dovetails with the final
Breaking Bad scene between them, where Saul is shown coldly ignoring Walter's empty threats and severing ties between them before leaving for his new life in
Omaha, Nebraska. Eventually, Ed helps to set up Walter to live in isolation in
New Hampshire. After several months alone, Walter goes to a local bar, where he calls Walter Jr. and tries to give him money. Walter Jr. angrily rejects the gesture, however, and hangs up. Feeling hopeless, Walter calls the DEA and gives himself up. As he waits for them, however, he sees Gretchen and Elliott on
Charlie Rose downplaying his contributions to Gray Matter and resolves to return to Albuquerque to put things right. When Walter arrives in Albuquerque – on his 52nd birthday – he confronts Gretchen and Elliott at their home and coerces them into putting his remaining money into a
trust fund for Walter Jr. He then visits Skyler and provides her with the location of Hank's and Steve's unmarked grave, which he suggests she use to barter for a deal with the prosecutor, and finally admits to her that he entered the meth business for himself, not his family. As a token of appreciation, Skyler lets him see his daughter one last time. Walter then arranges to see Lydia, surreptitiously poisoning her drink with ricin. Walter drives to Jack's compound and demands to see Jesse. When they bring Jesse, who has been chained up in a lab and forced to cook meth since his abduction, Walter dives atop him and knocks them both to the ground. Now out of range, he activates a remote machine gun mounted in his car that injures Jack and kills all of his men except for Todd, whom Jesse strangles to death with a chain. Jack pleads with Walter to let him live, offering him the rest of his money, but Walter executes him with a gunshot to the face. Walter then asks Jesse to kill him, but Jesse tells him to do it himself. Walter then finds that he has been wounded by a ricocheted bullet. He answers a call from Lydia on Todd's phone and coldly informs her that she is going to die as a result of the poisoned drink she consumed. He exchanges a knowing nod with Jesse, who escapes the compound. Walter calmly walks around Jack's lab and admires the equipment that Jesse had been using, as well as the perfect batch of his product that Jesse had produced. As the police arrive, Walter collapses to the floor and dies with a smile on his face.
El Camino Cranston reprises his role in the sequel film
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie in a flashback scene, taking place during the events of the episode "
4 Days Out" from the show's second season. Walter and Jesse are sitting down at a buffet breakfast talking about how they are going to move a batch of recently cooked meth. Walter asks Jesse what he would like to study if he went to college and encourages Jesse to find a life outside of cooking meth in the future. He suggests that Jesse should study business and marketing, remarking that Jesse has a natural talent and that he "could practically teach the class" himself using his vast knowledge. Afterward, Walter tells Jesse: "You're really lucky, you know that? You didn't have to wait your whole life to do something special." In the present, Jesse, Skinny Pete, and Badger see various news reports on the aftermath of Walter's massacre. In a news report Jesse listens to, Walter is confirmed to be dead with the same report mentioning an investigation of a
Houston woman poisoned by Walter – presumably Lydia – who is in critical condition and not expected to survive.
Post–Breaking Bad Walter 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 earn by getting into "the game".
Francesca Liddy later tells Saul that Walter's death only made things worse for the surviving low-level players connected to his meth empire rather than better. As Walter had hoped, Skyler had succeeded in getting a deal with the federal prosecutors and the DEA was ultimately forced to release
Huell Babineaux, leaving only Jesse and Saul for them to go after. Although Jesse has successfully managed to escape to
Alaska while tricking the public into thinking he fled to
Mexico, the DEA has seized all of Saul's assets and is even following Francesca in an attempt to find him. Francesca admits that she does not know what has become of
Patrick Kuby, another one of Walter's associates, and she does not answer Saul's questions about Ira and Danny. Saul is eventually discovered and interrogated by DEA agents. During their initial questioning, they bring in Marie, who is bitter at Saul for enabling Walter and leading to Hank's death. Saul shrewdly asserts he was also manipulated by Walter 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. == Critical reception ==