Who would have expected the Breaking Bad universe to become a hallmark of television history? Viewers theorized and debated the actions of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and the best characters in Better Call Saul, but they have also had their hearts torn out and put in a blender due to some tragic final scenes for these individuals. Much like Game of Thrones, this universe goes hard when it wants to say goodbye to its characters.
From Howard Hamlin being at the wrong place at the wrong time to Jesse losing those he loved, readers may want to reach for the box of tissues, because it’s about to get heavy around here.
Mike Ehrmantraut
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Mike is the ultimate fixer for Gus Fring’s operation. No matter how intense things get, he maintains a cool and methodical approach. Throughout both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, he follows a certain code of honor and proves himself as someone who could be relied on. His line of work might be shady, but Mike never makes anything personal. It’s always business to him.
In Breaking Bad Season 5, Mike meets his maker after he tries to leave the drug business – but it isn’t a cartel hitman who takes him out. Walt’s fury and determination to get intel causes him to shoot Mike in the stomach out of anger. Walt then follows him to a river bank to finish the job, where he expresses regret for what he did. What makes this scene even worse is that Mike could have gotten rid of Walt many times before but didn’t, and he could have just stopped helping White, too. Mike thought he could handle the chaos that came with the chemistry teacher’s methods, and he paid the ultimate price for being wrong.
Hank Schrader
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Many fans dismissed Hank Schrader as a joke in the first season of Breaking Bad, but as the series and character developed, he became a fan-favorite since he proved to be someone who was trying to do the right thing. Yes, he might be abrasive and rude, but deep down, Hank is a genuine white knight who believes in serving and protecting – even if it means taking down his own family.
After a long cat-and-mouse game with Walt, Hank finally believes he has his man in Season 5. With his partner Steve Gomez, Hank plans to take Walt into custody. When Walt calls for backup in the form of Jack Welker and his goons, Hank and Gomez wind up outmatched. Gomez meets is end offscreen, leaving Hank on his knees at the start of the gut-wrenching episode “Ozymandias.” While Walt didn’t want Hank to perish, he’s powerless to do anything to save his brother-in-law. Hank stays defiant until the end, refusing to beg for his life.
Drew Sharp
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
In a crime drama, it’s expected that people may meet some untimely ends. On a show like Breaking Bad, which deals with cartels and violence, it’s almost a given that the body count will be high. However, there’s a limit, especially when it comes to innocent bystanders, and bystanders don’t get much more innocent than Drew Sharp.
In Season 5, Drew Sharp rides around on his dirt bike in the desert and picks up a spider. He then happens to bump into Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, and Todd Alquist just after they complete their train caper. Drew has no idea what’s going on, so he just waves at the trio. Todd waves back, too, then pulls a piece and shoots the child. It’s a cold-blooded moment that finally breaks up Walt and Jesse’s operation. That death and what they have to do to cover it up is the point where their union and empire starts to collapse.
Andrea Cantillo
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
After the loss of Jane, Jesse struggles to get close to someone again, fearing another tragic fate from being in his orbit. When he meets Andrea in an NA meeting, he’s actually there to try to sell his product to recovering addicts like her. As he learns more about Andrea’s situation and her family, he sees the ultimate human cost of what he and Walter White brought in the Albuquerque drug trade. Jesse gives her money to move to a better part of town, and they start a relationship. He also tries to be a role model to her son Brock, but ultimately leaves them both after thinking about what kind of future they would have being close to a mess like him.
His fears come true when Andrea is used as a threat to make Jesse work for Jack Welker’s crew. Todd takes her out on her own doorstep as a message to Jesse so he will continue to cook product for them or risk Brock meeting the same fate. The worst part about Andrea’s end is that she is innocent in this entire ordeal and didn’t do anything to deserve her fate. For Jesse, it’s yet another loss to have on his already fragile conscience.
Nacho Varga
Photo: Better Call Saul / AMC
As a mid-level lieutenant sucked into the Fring-Salamanca feud, Nacho Varga falls into a nihilistic depression driven by the fact there is no safe end for him or his family. Throughout Better Call Saul, the burden of the cartel life weighs heavily on him.
In Season 6, Nacho knows his options are grim. On the run from the Salamanca family after betraying Lalo to Gus Fring, Nacho realizes that even Fring is looking to get rid of him because of the threat he presents to the Chicken Man’s place in the cartel. In his final act of defiance, he makes his way back to Fring alive and makes one last deal. He walks to his demise and takes all the blame for Lalo’s hit, clearing Gus’s name to Don Eladio for his father’s safety. He also gets the chance to tell the Salamancas exactly what he thinks about them before taking his own life. It’s an emotionally charged end for Nacho, who seemed like he genuinely wanted to leave it all behind him, but he was in too deep to ever get out.’
Howard Hamlin
Photo: Better Call Saul / AMC
Howard Hamlin never stops being an interesting character in Better Call Saul. Initially introduced as a typical corporate lawyer who looks at the world through a privileged lens, he’s never a bad person at heart. In fact, he tries more than once to do what’s best for Jimmy McGill and Kim Wexler, despite their open hostility towards him.
In Season 6, Kim and Jimmy set out to ruin Howard’s career. They succeed in driving the man to the breaking point, but they take everything too far in their quest to embarrass him. When Howard finally goes to the couple’s apartment to “congratulate” them for ruining his life, he is eliminated by Lalo Salamanca simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Howard’s demise is devastating proof that Kim and Jimmy bring out the worst in each other.
Steven Gomez
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Hank Schrader and Steven Gomez are the kind of partners every officer dreams of. They both understand the burden and dangers of their line of work, but they refuse to let each other down. They are the embodiment of “ride or die.”
In Season 5 of Breaking Bad, just as Walter White is about to be apprehended by Hank and Steve in the desert, Jack Welker and his heavily armed backup arrive. A standoff takes place with the two officers pinned down behind their car. Steve never turns to run, staying by his partner’s side the entire time and being the first to fall. A good cop but an even better friend, Steve didn’t deserve to be left for dead in the middle of the desert.
Werner Ziegler
Photo: Better Call Saul / AMC
Like a lot of characters in the Breaking Bad universe, Werner Ziegler is too good at his job for his own good. As an engineer, Werner earns Gus Fring’s respect when brought in to consult on the project that ultimately results in the underground superlab. Werner doesn’t mince words when assessing the challenges of the project, but also has the engineering expertise to navigate the strict needs of Fring. Seeing a knidred spirit, Mike Ehrmantraut sparks up a friendship with Werner while planning the construction project.
When Werner and his construction team commit to a grueling project expected to require more than eight months of dangerous labor in secret, the engineer slowly begins to unravel due to the isolation from his life and family back in Germany. When Werner experiences an extreme bout of anxiety disarming a faulty charge, he plans his escape from the work crew and puts the entire project at risk. Mike has to chase Werner down before he can expose the project to the police or the Salamancas, and knowing the exacting nature of Gus Fring, he has to eliminate the engineer he’s grown close to and cover it up as an accident.
Jane Margolis
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
When Jesse meets Jane, it offers him an opportunity for a happily ever after. She is the one semi-stable thing in his life as his work with Walter White gets more intense. As a recovering addict, she also could have helped him to clean up his act. Instead, Jesse’s influence causes her to relapse.
In Season 2, Walt goes to Jesse’s home in an attempt to make amends but finds him and Jane asleep. Walt unintentionally moves Jane onto her back and she begins to choke on her own vomit because of an OD. Walt decides against saving her, either because it forces Jesse to rely on him once again or it removes a potential threat to his business. The most tragic part about Jane’s passing is how Jesse blames himself for so long. It isn’t until much later in the series that he finds out Walt could have saved her if he wanted to.
Gale Boetticher
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Gale Boetticher and Walter White start out like two peas in a pod. They both love chemistry, and Gale serves as a much better conversation partner to Walt than Jesse Pinkman, so it’s no surprise Walt would be open to taking on a new assistant when he starts working in Gus’s superlab. The moment Walt realizes Gale is learning so much that he makes Walt expendable to Gus Fring’s operation, Gale becomes a target.
Walt sees through Gus’s plan and gives Jesse Pinkman an ultimatum: take out Gale or Gus will take both of them out eventually. Jesse follows Gale to his home, while at the same time Gus’s men bring Walt back to the superlab. When Walt realizes he’s about to meet his maker, he tricks Gus into letting him call Jesse and tells him to terminate Gale. This moment lingers in fans’ memories not necessarily because Gale had been around for that long, but because it serves as yet another line Jesse crosses that he can never come back from.
Walter White
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
The fate of Walter White is sealed as soon as he enters the drug trade. While his intentions might have been earnest to begin with, his innate greed and desire for control gets the best of him. Sadly, there was only one way this was going to end.
In the series finale of Breaking Bad, Walt toys with the idea of surrendering, but he has a change of heart. Instead, he decides to get vengeance on all the people who wronged him in the past and to save Jesse from the clutches of Jack Welker and his men. As a one-man wrecking crew, he tears through their hideout with makeshift weapons and an effectively simple plan, but he takes a bullet to the gut in the process. Walt does enough to help Jesse escape, asking his former protégé to put him out of his misery. However, Jesse refuses, letting Walt pass away on his own. While Walt might have redeem a fraction of himself, he still meets his end alone on the floor with only his thoughts keeping him company.
Wayfarer 515 And JM 21
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Breaking Bad is a story about choices and consequences, and a throughline in Season 2 teases out one of the most tragic consequences in the entire series. Throughout the season, episodes begin with black-and-white scenes of figures in hazmat suits cleaning up after something that happened at the White family home. The scenes don’t appear to be connected to the main story until the season finale reveals that they are the result of a plane crash over Albuquerque that Walter White indirectly causes.
After the passing of Jane Margolis, her father Donald struggles to deal with the loss of his daughter. Donald is an air-traffic controller who returns to work on the day of the tragedy, and the event happens when he loses focus and fails to direct the planes while battling his grief. It’s a harrowing reminder of the butterfly effect and how the smallest actions can have the biggest repercussions.
Max Arciniega
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Max Arciniega may not have much screentime in the Breaking Bad universe, but his end is unquestionably one of the most important since it sets off a chain of events that dissolved Don Eladio’s entire empire. As viewers discover in a flashback, he was the co-founder of Los Pollos Hermanos and Gus’s romantic partner years before both Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad.
After a young Gus gives samples of his crystal to Don Eladio’s men, he gets an audience with the big man. However, Don Eladio isn’t impressed and feels disrespected by Gus’s actions, so he orders Hector Salamanca to shoot Max in the head while Gus is restrained and forced to watch as punishment. The hopelessness and sadness cloud Gus’s eyes, but he never forgets what he witnesses. He vows to get revenge against the cartel, which becomes his obsession for years afterwards.
Chuck McGill
Photo: Better Call Saul / AMC
Chuck McGill and his brother, Jimmy, have a tumultuous relationship on Better Call Saul. While Chuck acts supportive of Jimmy’s legal career, he never forgets or forgives his brother’s past as a conman. This eventually drives a wedge between them when Jimmy finds out how far Chuck goes to block his career at HHM, and once Jimmy sees his brother as his enemy, he doesn’t hold back. Knowing about Chuck’s electromagnetic hypersensitivity, Jimmy pushes all the right buttons to get Chuck disbarred. Unfortunately, it also pushes his brother over the edge.
After Jimmy causes Chuck’s retirement from the firm, Chuck retreats into his home where his EHS symptoms flare up even more. Paranoid about a device in his home causing interference, Chuck destroys his house to find something, anything. When he doesn’t, he finally accepts he is broken and deliberately sets fire to the house with himself still inside.This particular event hangs over the rest of the series, since neither Chuck nor Jimmy make amends before it happens.
Gustavo Fring
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Much like Darth Vader, Gus Fring is a villain that fans can’t help but root for because of his over-the-top approach to everything he does. When he opens a fast food chain to cover the pipeline for his illicit products, he makes it the best fried chicken place in New Mexico. When he gets his own cook to cut out the Mexican cartels, he makes sure to get the greatest chemist available and puts him in a tricked out hidden lab. As the series develops, it’s evident that his ruthlessness and conniving nature is what keeps him one step ahead of everyone else and alive for so long.
In Season 4, Walt acts like he wants to get rid of Gus because of the threat he poses to him and his family, but it really comes down to pride. Walt can’t stand working under anybody, so he convinces Gus’s longtime nemesis Hector Salamanca to put a device on his wheelchair that the drug lord can detonate to take out Gus (and himself) once and for all. It’s a grisly and unexpected end for a villain who always seemed ahead of the curve. Ultimately, his lust for revenge causes him to miss this blind spot.
Lalo Salamanca
Photo: Better Call Saul / AMC
Lalo Salamanca is one of the best villains in the entire Breaking Bad universe. As the enforcer for the Salamanca family and defender of his uncle Hector, Lalo does everything to destroy Gus’s operation — not only for the cartel, but also on a personal level. And he does it with a big smile on his face.
Lalo toys with Gus for much of Better Call Saul. When he eventually decides to take him out in the unfinished superlab, he is blindsided by Gus cutting the lights. Always prepared for any eventuality, Gus grabs a gun he had hidden and shoots Lalo in the neck, causing him to bleed out. As Lalo chokes and gargles on his own blood, he passes away with a poetic sinister smile on his face. Everyone knew Lalo’s end was imminent based on his absence in Breaking Bad, but no one could have foreseen his reaction to those final moments.
Krazy-8
Photo: Breaking Bad / AMC
Krazy-8 is one of the first threats that Walter White runs into in Breaking Bad. A dealer and informant, he quickly comes up against Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. However, Krazy-8’s end is a statement of intent for how intense the show is willing to get and one of the first to make the audience’s jaws drop to the floor.
In Breaking Bad Season 1, Walt and Jesse find out the drug trade is cutthroat when they get double-crossed on one of their very first deals. They incapacitate Krazy-8 and accidentally take out his cousin Emilio by creating toxic fumes in the Winnebago. Jesse and Walt know they have to put an end to Krazy-8 or he’ll come for them, but they don’t have the stomach for it. After Walt realizes Krazy-8 was manipulating him into letting him loose, Walt accepts that half-measures won’t do and he chokes Krazy-8 with a bike lock.
