I’ve been watching the show “Breaking Bad” over the past couple weeks with some of my roommates (yes I know, I’m very late to the party) but despite watching this show a while after it came out, it has been so very good. We are in the middle of the fourth season, and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with a season and a half left to go, I don’t want it to end. The plot is excellent, with various twists and turns along the way that I didn’t see coming at all, some of which just genuinely shocked me. Apparently I’m not the only one who liked it. With a 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, this is clearly one of the best shows to ever hit the screens.

“Breaking Bad” pulled me in right from the very first episode. To give a quick plot summary (without spoilers for those who haven’t watched it), a chemistry teacher by the name of Walter White finds out that he has lung cancer and doesn’t have the money for treatment. He wants to be able to pay for his treatment and provide financial assistance to his family if he dies, but with a teacher’s salary, a pregnant and unemployed wife, and a disabled teenage son, he’s barely scraping by as it is. However, when his brother-in-law, a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent, tells him how much money they seized from an underground meth lab, Walter sees an opportunity. Using his chemistry skills, he partners with a former student of his, who now makes and sells meth, to operate a meth lab that makes high-quality product in bulk to earn money for his family. It’s quite a compelling storyline, and it gets even better as the seasons go on, as new complications arise and make Walter’s business harder and harder to maintain without letting his wife, son, and brother-in-law catch on.

I think the big part of this series that I really connected to was the characters. “Breaking Bad” has genuinely some of the best character writing I’ve ever seen, and it really makes them feel like real people with their various issues and hobbies and quirks. Even Hank, Walter’s brother-in-law, who is an antagonist of sorts, trying to track down this high-quality meth that has been suddenly appearing on the streets, is a well-developed character who I really felt like I resonated with. Despite having an antagonistic figure, he’s likable, good at his job, persistent, and (unfortunately) a bit of a racist, which I absolutely do not agree with, but as a character trait it works well with the rest of his persona and the supporting characters that help him in tracking down this mysterious new meth dealer.

This show is especially interesting as a chemistry major. The amount of science that goes into making meth is fascinating (don’t worry, they don’t actually tell you how to make it) but the amount of chemistry references that are thrown in to provide flavor and help the watchers understand what all is going on is really cool. The character of Jesse (Walter’s former student) who doesn’t understand anything that’s going on provides a great way for some of the more complicated chemical processes to be explained to the audience. 

Overall, “Breaking Bad” is a great show that absolutely blew my mind in how deeply and complexly the plot developed over time and how the characters seemed so relatable. It is available to watch on Netflix, Prime Video, and Redbox if you want to give it a try for yourself.