The dust has finally settled on the momentous conclusion of Breaking Bad. Walter White and company have safely secured a place among the Pantheon of all-time great television. Even esteemed thespian Sir Anthony Hopkins said that Bryan Cranston's performance was the best acting he had ever seen...this is coming from Hannibal freakin' Lecter! Looking back over 5 tremendous seasons, there is a wealth of material to comprise any number of top ten lists. What made Breaking Bad so ingenious wasn't just the action, the drama, or Walt's "MacGyver meets Mythbusters" solutions to big, big problems. It was the psychology of the man himself. Watching Walter White evolve into the ice-blooded Heisenberg makes for a stellar case study for any budding psych student. Therefore, we will be looking at the moments that really gave us insight into the psychopathology of Walter White/Heisenberg. Call it antisocial personality disorder. Call it simple survival behaviour. These moments were Walt at his psychotic best.
10. Walt's "Confession"
"My name is Walter Hartwell White... I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane... Albuquerque, New Mexico 87104. This is my confession..." Walt was always most unnerving and chilling when he was the Heisenberg wolf in the Walter sheep clothing. There may be no better example of this then when Walt pre-emptively covers his own ass by creating this taped "confession" which implicates his DEA agent brother in law Hank as the mastermind behind the whole Heisenberg meth empire. In the video, Walt plays the part of the hapless victim to a T. The season five Heisenberg morphs right back into season one Walt in such a convincing manner that even the overconfident, macho Hank knows that Walt has gotten the better of him. In the taped "confession", Walt proves that, as Heisenberg, there is nothing he won't do to ensure his own survival. He convincingly cries, cites his cancer diagnosis as something that Hank takes advantage of, and even claims that he was an indentured servant of Gus Fring because of Hank. Maybe Walt's deceptions and actions could be defended a simple survival in the earlier seasons, but by this point in season five, this was the work of a detached, cold bastard... And it worked.