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Breaking Bad
Season 1, Episode 1
Pilot
Air date January 20, 2008
Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Vince Gilligan
Episode Guide
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"Cat's in the Bag......"
Images from "Pilot"

"Pilot" (titled "Breaking Bad" on DVD and Blu-Ray release) is the first episode of the first season of Breaking Bad.

Contents

TeaserEdit

A man wearing nothing but his undergarments and a gas mask careens his RV down a desolate highway in the New Mexico desert. In the passenger seat, another man passed out, also wears a gas mask, his head on the dashboard. Two bodies slide across the RV floor until the vehicle veers into a ditch. The hyperventilating driver, Walter White, climbs out, dons the shirt still hanging off the side view mirror (his pants are long since gone), then re-enters the van to retrieve a video camera, his wallet, and a gun. He records a cryptic, handheld farewell to his wife and son as sirens can be heard in the distance. He then places the camera alongside his wallet, walks onto the road, and awaits the approach of the emergency services, gun in hand.

SummaryEdit

We flashback to three weeks earlier. Just before dawn, Walt exercises on a mini-stairmaster in front of a plaque commemorating his contributions to some Nobel Prize worthy research. At breakfast, his happily henpecking wife, Skyler, wishes him a happy birthday and hands him a plate of eggs topped by veggie bacon spelling "50." They banter with their handicapped son, Walt Jr., who enters and complains that the veggie bacon smells like Band-Aids. Afterwards, Walt drops off Junior at the same local high school, J. P. Wynne High School, where he works as an ineffectual chemistry teacher.

Later that day, one of Walt's more disrespectful students witnesses him working a second job at a car wash for additional income. The encounter is especially belittling since the student laughingly takes a picture with his cellphone of his teacher wiping down the tires. A now publicly humiliated Walt returns home where Skyler has organized a surprise birthday party for him. Among the guests is Walt's gregarious brother-in-law, Hank, a DEA agent on the local news for busting a methamphetamine lab. Walt asks Hank how much money was recovered at the crime scene to which Hank replies "$700,000. Not a bad haul." Hank then invites Walt to accompany him on a bust. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, a woman fusses over Skyler's pregnancy and notes that she's "hardly even showing."

Inoperable
Walter sees the mustard stain on his doctor's lab coat.
TheNarratorAdded by TheNarrator

Another day at the car wash and the financially strapped Walt collapses and is taken away by ambulance. At the hospital, a doctor verifies the worst. The non-smoking Walter has inoperable lung cancer. Walt looks detached but he understands. "Best case scenario with chemo, I'll live maybe another couple years." Back home, Walt keeps the news from Skyler. At the carwash, he explodes when his boss asks him to wipe down cars again. Walter assaults the display racks. "Wipe down this!" he shouts grabbing his crotch and storming out.

Walter take up Hank's offer to join him at a drug bust. While the arrest is made inside, Walt waits inside the car from which he accidently spots ex-student Jesse Pinkman escaping through the window of a neighboring house, a nude woman tossing down his clothes. As Jesse flees the scene, Walt quickly discovers Jesse is the wanted "Captain Cook." Later that night, Walt stops by Jesse's house where he tells the baffled dealer that they can either partner or Walt will turn him in. "You know the business, I know chemistry," says Walt.

Pilot 03
Walt steals equipment from his school.
TheNarratorAdded by TheNarrator

The scene switches to the high school where Walter is seen stealing and packing boxes full of chemistry equipments. Jesse arranges to buy a used Winnebago so that their base can be mobile and evasive. The two drive out to the desert where Walt strips down to his skivvies, hangs his pants and shirt on the side view mirror, then gets to cooking the purest crystal Jesse's ever seen. "You're a damn artist," he says.

Jesse takes a sample to Krazy 8, a drug dealer who happens to be his former partner's cousin. Cousin Emilio, out on bail, believes Jesse ratted him out so the three drive out to the desert where Krazy 8 asks Walt if he wants to switch allegiances. Before he can answer, Emilio recognizes Walt from the police bust. Death threats ensue. Jesse tries to run, but trips and knocks himself out on a rock. Walt barters for his life by promising to reveal his cooking artistry so Emilio ties up Jesse and then goes to watch Walt work his magic. In the Winnebago, as Walt prepares the ingredients, Emilio throws a cigarette out the window, thereby starting a brush fire. Inside, Walt mixes chemicals that produce a deadly smoke before he dashes out. Bullets fly but Walt holds the door shut to seal these drug dealers' fates

Pilot 06
Krazy 8 offering Walt money.
Walter WhiteAdded by Walter White

Walt unties Jesse, puts a gasmask on him, and drops him in the passenger seat. We're back at the opening scene. With the sound of sirens closing in, Walt stands in the middle of the road then tries to shoot himself. To his dismay, the safety is on. His efforts to unlock it simply result in a pointless misfire. Suddenly, fire trucks, not police cars, appear. Walter stashes the gun in the back of his underwear. Jesse, sporting a black eye, comes out to join him. Walt's first day as a meth cook leaves him spent, shaken, but also invigorated. Back at home, he meets his wife's troubled queries with atypical sexual aggression which leaves her asking somewhat stunned: "Walter, is that you?"

CreditsEdit

Main CastEdit

Guest StarsEdit

TriviaEdit

  • When introduced to the audience for the first time, both Walt and Jesse, in seperate scenarios due to different circumstances, are nude down to their underwear and are struggling to get dressed in a hurry (Walt after he crashes the RV, Jesse as he exits a neighbor's window).
  • The show was supposed to be set in Riverside, California. However, Albuquerque was giving incentives to the production crew to film there.
  • The pistol held by Walt is a Smith & Wesson 4506.
  • The 1985 winners of the Nobel Chemistry prize were Herbert Hauptman and Jerome Karle, for their development of methods to determine crystal structures.
  • The J. P. Wynne High School is actually the Rio Rancho High School in Rio Rancho, NM.
  • Hank’s trusty pistol is a 3rd-generation Glock 22 with .40 cal (10×22mm) Smith & Wesson ammunition.
  • Walt was washing a Chevrolet Corvette C6.
  • While Hank and Gomez take Walt on a bust, civilians are actually not allowed into DEA vehicles by law.
  • Jesse’s car is a 1981 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
  • The iconic RV is a 1986 Fleetwood Bounder.
  • An actual DEA agent was on set to provide instructions on how to synthesize methamphetamine.
  • Emilio and Krazy-8’s car is a 1980 Buick Regal.
  • The cigarette brand, Morley, is a common prop shared by various TV shows. It is a parody of Marlboro, a.k.a. “Marley”. On "The X-Files", where Vince Gilligan was an associate producer, they were the brand associated with the mysterious character The Cigarette-Smoking Man.
  • The handicap license for Walt's car was registered on 27 December 2008.
  • The frame around Jesse's "THECAPN" license plate reads “Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver”.
  • Among some of the chemicals Walt was working with are: denatured alcohol, methanol, red phosphorus, iodine, ephedrine HCl, toluene, acetone and isopropyl alcohol.

ImagesEdit

See more images from Pilot at Category:Images from Pilot

Featured MusicEdit

  • "Come on Home and Have Your Next Affair With Me" by Stonewall Jackson
  • "Dirty South Hustla" by Carolina Slim
  • "Tamacun" by Rodrigo y Gabriela
  • "Mango Walk" by The In-Crowd
  • "Dead Fingers" by Working for a Nuclear Free City
  • "A Gosar" by SDK (feat. Tori Papa)
  • "Get Low" by Pudge
  • "Apocalypshit" by Molotov
  • "Out Of Time Man" Mick Harvey

See alsoEdit


Breaking Bad EpisodesEdit

Season 1 Season 2 Season 3 Season 4 Season 5
  1. Pilot
  2. The Cat's In The Bag...
  3. ...And the Bag's in the River
  4. Cancer Man
  5. Gray Matter
  6. Crazy Handful of Nothin'
  7. A No-Rough-Stuff-Type Deal
  1. Seven Thirty-Seven
  2. Grilled
  3. Bit by a Dead Bee
  4. Down
  5. Breakage
  6. Peekaboo
  7. Negro y Azul
  8. Better Call Saul
  9. 4 Days Out
  10. Over
  11. Mandala
  12. Phoenix
  13. ABQ
  1. No Mas
  2. Caballo Sin Nombre
  3. I.F.T.
  4. Green Light
  5. Mas
  6. Sunset
  7. One Minute
  8. I See You
  9. Kafkaesque
  10. Fly
  11. Abiquiu
  12. Half Measures
  13. Full Measure
  1. Box Cutter
  2. Thirty-Eight Snub
  3. Open House
  4. Bullet Points
  5. Shotgun
  6. Cornered
  7. Problem Dog
  8. Hermanos
  9. Bug
  10. Salud
  11. Crawl Space
  12. End Times
  13. Face Off
  1. Live Free or Die
  2. Madrigal
  3. Hazard Pay
  4. "Fifty-One"
  5. "Dead Freight"
  6. "Buyout"
  7. "Say My Name"
  8. "Gliding Over All"
  9. "Rock and a Hard Place"
  10. "Episode 510"
  11. "Episode 511"
  12. "Episode 512"
  13. "Episode 513"
  14. "Episode 514"
  15. "Episode 515"
  16. "Felina"

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