Comments on: Top 11 Chemistry Moments in Breaking Bad

By: BlackPanda

BlackPanda — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 20:04:00 +0000

Yeah, I did the same. Someone pointed me to it about 2 years ago and I watched the first 3 seasons in less than a week. :)

By: dauphinbronson

dauphinbronson — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:38:00 +0000

We can be sure that Gus did not kill Don Eladio with ricin because the Don & his henchmen all died within minutes or hours at the longest. Ricin takes a day or longer to take effect, which is part of the reason Walt wanted to use it in the first place.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:39:00 +0000

Hogan became a torturer? Klink was a good guy gone bad? I apparently missed a lot when I was watching that show as a kid.

By: factbased

factbased — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:26:00 +0000

I had the same question, a bit before season 4 was to begin. My girlfriend and I sat down and watched the first episode of season 1 and were hooked and ripped through all 3 seasons in a week or two. Neither of us had done that with a show before. I really tried to with Lost, but gave up on it a few episodes into season 2.

By: TopOc

TopOc — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:22:00 +0000

That would explain how nonchalant he was about waltzing around with a baggie of high explosives.

Heh.

Walt-zing

By: Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 19:08:00 +0000

Oh, that was done in the seventies. It’s called HOGAN’S HEROES.

By: lumpygravy2

lumpygravy2 — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 13:12:00 +0000

Whats next, a series about a troubled good guy gone bad who just happens to be a torturer in one of those rendition camps.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:59:00 +0000

He didn’t have to fill the whole bag with the mercury fulminate, just a few pieces with the rest being meth (or something else). For all we know he only had the one piece that wasn’t actually meth, though that doesn’t seem to be the case.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 12:54:00 +0000

It’s not impossible that Jesse might end up at Walt’s house at some point, and Jesse is emotional and quick to judge and so if he saw the plant he would immediately turn on Walt and it would be impossible to convince him it wasn’t Walt.

I’m not saying that’s the most plausible, but there is more than one potential motivation for Walt to throw out the plant. I’m 99% sure that Walt did the poisoning, which was the biggest “Holy SHIT” moment for me in the whole series and is an incredible set-up for season 5.

By: Ray Perkins

Ray Perkins — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:18:00 +0000

There are other errors… In the latest episode, you can’t control a DC magnet with an AC Variac. And big magnets are nowhere near that powerful, anyway (attraction falling off as the cube (I think) of the distance).

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:30:00 +0000

Their behaviour was very muted, as you’d expect from two people asking a very powerful and dangerous man for money, I’m really going more off of Don Eladio’s statements about and treatment of them.

By: Hokuboku

Hokuboku — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:36:00 +0000

You’re not alone in that. It is probably important to note that Gus refers to Max as his partner which is a word that can be taken in more than one way. Also, the official Breaking Bad podcast touched upon it after the episode airs. The question of whether Gus and Max are involved comes up in the podcast to which Vince Gilligan says “It’s open to interpretation. It’s whatever
the audience wants it to be.” The actor who played Don Eladio and the episode’s editor both saw Gus as gay and Gilligan said that it was “okay to infer that.”

By: ocker3

ocker3 — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:07:00 +0000

’Brother’? I was getting a gay-lovers vibe from them.

By: TopOc

TopOc — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 01:48:00 +0000

Mercury fulminate is about 4x as dense as meth; even someone as strung-out as Tuco would have WTFed when they picked up the bag.

That said, I love that scene and Breaking Bad in general. If a detail like that is the biggest fault I find with a show’s science, count me in! It’s certainly less insulting than, say, Bones: “We went through the sand with magnetic gloves, but we didn’t find any titanium flecks!!!111eleven”

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:36:00 +0000

In 5.1, Saul gives Walt the cigarette with the ricin, mentioning how dangerous it was to have his sausage-fingered henchman pickpocket it.

It’s not Sigma-9, but powerful evidence verifying Jesse’s original suspicion, seemingly outlandish at the time, that it was at Saul’s office that the ricin got stolen.

By: Jim Saul

Jim Saul — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:27:00 +0000

This is even more nit-picky, but a vial with a stopper?

What’s he going to pull the stopper out with, his teeth?

With something that deadly, I’d seal the end of the glass tube over a Bunsen burner. He could knob the end so it can be cracked off cleanly when the time comes.

By: Hokuboku

Hokuboku — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 22:29:00 +0000

Great video guys! I just noticed one error. Gus’ “brother” Max is shot by Don Eladio, not poisoned. Don Eladio shoots Max because the Pollos Hermanos dared to give meth to his men. That scene sticks out so vividly to me as I remember being struck at seeing Gus wailing in pain as his “brother’s” blood drained into the pool. That’s probably the one real time we see the cool, collected drug king pin really lose it.Max also wasn’t Gus’ real brother but rather someone who Gus thought of as a brother though that’s more of a minor detail.

By: Zoe Morgan

Zoe Morgan — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 21:26:00 +0000

Also, at the beginning of the “Lily of the Valley” episode, Walt is sitting in his yard spinning a gun on the table and on the last spin it points to the LOTV plant. Hmm…

By: tedrock

tedrock — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:47:00 +0000

True, true, true…
However, and to your point of the brilliance of the writing, there are no wasted scenes or details. If we were supposed to be in doubt about whether he did it wouldn’t the scene just not occur? By including the scene, and because it is highly unlikely that Walt would some how volunteer or be forced to talk about this detail, the storytellers are giving us the information that we need to infer the connection.

It will be interesting to see if it comes up again – my money is on NO and just like many things in life we will have to connect the dots without 100% proof.

By: Prof Rick Fletcher

Prof Rick Fletcher — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:27:00 +0000

Hmm, you have a lot of scenes here you attribute to chemistry that are not really that. I love Breaking Bad and I use it in my university chemistry lectures often but you are stretching a bit here. And I don’t know Miles but any chemist beyond 2nd year and organic chemistry knows how to pronounce methyl amine. Hell, any cooker knows how to pronounce it these days!

By: Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:44:00 +0000

Thanks Deb!

By: Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:43:00 +0000

pretty much isn’t the same as 100%!

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:38:00 +0000

Gasoline explosions can be triggered by proximity to a 35mm movie camera.

By: bloopeeriod

bloopeeriod — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:37:00 +0000

Not all the science is right; ricin is so deadly that preparing it is extremely risky. Never mind putting a pile large enough to kill 50 people into a half empty cigarette. Nuts.

By: swell

swell — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:37:00 +0000

I think you can jump in Season 5 and be totally drawn in because of how well the show is written/put together and how good the acting is/how interesting the characters are. BUT BUT BUT it is so worth your while to watch the whole series, and it is a show that rewards loyal viewers by referencing or playing with the entire history of series. Also, I mean, just to see the AMAZING job Bryan Cranston does filling out the epic character arc of Walter White, that shit is for real. (Just seeing those clips of him and Jesse in the “human goop” scene and the really subtle ways his character was different then, the mannerisms…wow.)

And unlike Lost which is huge and unwieldly, Breaking Bad is never going to be more than a nice neat 5 season package (probably). You’ll fly through them. Also, Season 1 is only like 6 episodes right? Easy peasy.

By: Xeni Jardin

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:36:00 +0000

I agree. Watching sequentially, at least for the first time, is essential.

By: tedrock

tedrock — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:35:00 +0000

GREAT video! I love and share your enthusiasm for the show and for the ‘science’ contained therein.

I may be remembering the Season 4 premiere incorrectly, but doesn’t Walt pretty much confirm that he poisoned the kid with Lilly of the Valley when he freaks out in his kitchen and rushes outside to grab the Lilly of the Valley and put it into the garbage bag in the truck of his car?

By: Deb Johnson

Deb Johnson — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:24:00 +0000

Great piece. Xeni – you and Miles have such great chemistry (haha!) together. That show is awesome. Love this piece – one of my favourite posts on Boingboing and that’s saying a lot!

By: Subdrill

Subdrill — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:13:00 +0000

Really looking forward to that interview. As an explosives chemist and engineer, I’d love to hear about how they maintain that delicate balance between the realism that comes with technical accuracy and the responsibility that comes with presenting hazardous chemistry to a potentially imprudent audience. And if they’re looking for more advising expertise, it would be a dream to be part of such an amazing show =)

By: Manny

Manny — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 18:59:00 +0000

“Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible.”

“For a free booklet explaining the risks and benefits of chemicals, mail to: Monsanto [...]” http://www.classroomtools.com/orange.jpg