It’s been 15 years since television viewers were introduced to The One Who Knocks, the chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin and the one they called Heisenberg – Walter H. White.
Breaking Bad – the iconic AMC series starring Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul – first appeared on television screens 15 years ago this week, making its debut on Jan. 20, 2008.
The show, created by Vince Gilligan, follows the evolution of Walt (played masterfully by Cranston) as a middle-class high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer soon after his 50th birthday. Walt then starts cooking meth to secure financial stability for his wife (Anna Gunn), son (RJ Mitte) and soon-to-be-born daughter, should he die. He enlists his former student, degenerate drug dealer Jesse Pinkman (a breakout role for Paul) to help him. Eventually, the duo winds up working for the menacing and cool Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), the owner of a meth empire in the southwestern U.S. masquerading as the operator of fast-food chicken joints. Along the way, Walt and Jesse encounter hitman-slash-fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), scam artist and crooked lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), Vamanos Pest Control employee Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Walt’s brother-in-law, the DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). Mark Margolis, Bill Burr, Krysten Ritter and Robert Forster appear in the show in key supporting roles too.
Ultimately, Gilligan said he wanted to take a “milquetoast-ish guy…
