1. "You're the smartest guy I've ever met and you're too stupid to see he made his mind up ten minutes ago." - Breaking Bad
Of course the number one line is from Breaking Bad. It had to be. Any reviewers or critics who tried to make the claim that Breaking Bad wasn't the best show on television this year were lying to themselves. It was the best show of 2013 and perhaps the best final season of any TV show ever. And no episode packed quite the same punch as Ozymandias, the penultimate episode that (spoiler alert, but you owe it to yourself to have seen it by now) saw the end of Hank. Poor Hank. Ahab finally caught the big whale only for the whale's Neo-Nazi pals to come and shoot him in the face. This line isn't the most original or badass (that distinction would go to the phrase that Hank utters after this line), but it gets to the heart of so many issues that were central to the show throughout its run. Walter White was a genius with an immense aptitude for doing the two things he loved most: making money and cooking meth. But his continued insistence on winning at all costs meant that he was destined to lose. The line also points towards the idea that certain things cannot be taken back. Once Walt murders Crazy Eight, being a murderer becomes part of his identity. When Walt decides to start cooking meth in the first season he thinks he can still maintain his relationship with his family, he thinks that he is just doing it to provide for them, he thinks he can still be a good person, he thinks that having power allows you to have a corrupted morality. But he doesn't see that making up his mind to be Heisenberg leads to the destruction of his family and ultimately Hank's death. The scene is powerful because it is beautifully acted and written, and it was just another sign of the greatness that was the final season of Breaking Bad.
Bryan Hickman is a WhatCulture contributor residing in Vancouver, British Columbia. Bryan's passions include film, television, basketball, and writing about himself in the third person.
