8 Silly TV Plot Conveniences Made Possible By Utterly Stupid Writing

7. Plane Crash - Breaking Bad

Nobody panic! Before you all start throwing knives at your computer screen and hoping to hit me, let's get a few qualifiers out the way: one, Breaking Bad is a great show, not perfect perhaps, but great, so don't think its inclusion on our list is a suggestion of anything otherwise; two, it makes our list more because of suspected cowardice than stupidity, yet it's similar enough to the titular topic for us to justify its inclusion; and three, this isn't an attempt to fish for views (which some of you were doubtlessly ready to accuse me of), as if we wanted to do that we'd have written 'Eight Reasons Breaking Bad Sucks.' Throughout the second series of Breaking Bad, then, viewers are given brief snippets of footage from the aftermath of some event set to take place in the series finale, upping the suspense of what's to come and thus keeping viewers engaged. It becomes quickly apparent that the event, whatever it was, took place at protagonist Walter White's house, with police forensic specialists picking-up items strewn around the garden and putting them in evidence bags (including Walter's glasses, heavily suggesting he was involved in what went down). Some of the footage shown later in the series reveals two dead bodies in front of Walter's house, both covered to keep anonymity. There is no way viewers are expected to see this and not assume at least one of them is a main character. In the following episode, after a drug lord finds out Walter secretly has a brother-in-law in the DEA, viewers are shown there are not just two bodies in front of the house but that there are tens of them scattered up and down the street. Cue anticipation for a major confrontation and show-changing consequences! Well... not quite. Instead of getting a big end of series showdown, all that happens is two planes crash above Walter's house, resulting in hundreds of people that didn't get a second's screen time being inconsequentially killed off. Before you say it, yes we are aware it is a direct result of Jesse's girlfriend dying that the plane crashes, but so what? The crash itself makes absolutely no difference to the plot or the characters, with Walt and Jesse already feeling so guilty over the dead girl that a bit of extra angst couldn't matter less.