If Lydia was one of the coldest characters in Breaking Bad, Gale was certainly one of the most endearing. David Costabile marvellously portrayed Walt's awkward lab assistant, a good-natured chemist fond of karaoke, perfectly-brewed coffee, and the poetry of Walt Whitman. He was certainly the oddest part of Gus' organisation, but also the most charming. Walter's growing irritation with Gale helped provide an added dose of comedy too. Gale's death, although tragic, was also a key turning point in Jesse's character development. It stripped Aaron Paul's character of his (relative) innocence, signalling the start of his descent from happy-go-lucky wastrel to genuinely tortured soul. His reluctant execution of Gale goes down as one of the most powerful scenes in the entire series. Ultimately, Gale remains such a cult hero for being a rare example of a "nice" character in the otherwise morally defunct Breaking Bad world - albeit one producing crystal meth for a merciless drug lord. He was also one of the series' weirder characters, no mean feat for a show with such a colourful, varied cast.
