In the pilot episode of the show, Jessie Pinkman asks Walter White, “Nah, come on, man. Some straight like you, giant stick up his ass all a sudden at age, what, 60, he's just gonna break bad? It’s a clever line and says a lot about the dynamic that will eventually grow between the two of them. But what does it mean exactly to “break bad?”
It appears the phrase comes from the American south, and refers to a person defying conventions, or otherwise acting out of character in a negative way. The show’s creator Vince Gilligan explained it was common phrase where he came from in Virginian, and provided this example. “I was out at the other night at the bar and I tied one on and I really broke bad. I ended up in the back of a squad car.”
You
get the idea. It described those moments in one’s life where we come a little
unhinged. Do things we normally wouldn’t do. Perhaps break our own (as well as
society’s) moral code.
This
book will explore the “breaking bad” moments in the character’s lives, of which
there were many. Although it’s easy to track Walter White’s progressively
amoral behavior, many of the other characters have similar moments. Perhaps
this was the point of the show. It’s about the exploration of our moral codes
and the stories that we tell ourselves, and how willing we are to be “flexible”
with these codes under the right circumstances.
