Breaking Bad: Every Major Death Ranked

Few shows can boast Breaking Bad’s sense of style, and while the show had more breathtaking desert vistas or action set pieces, for pure black comedy bravura it doesn’t get better than the Season Five montage in which Walter orchestrates the murders of 10 incarcerated former colleagues in two minutes.

The murders are brutal, prison justice exerted with fists and shanks (and in a particularly horrifying scene, a bottle of lighter fluid and a match). By contrast, Walter is the picture of calm, watching the second hand swoosh round the face of his pricey new watch, a gift from Jesse.

To cap it off, the Godfather-referencing murder montage is soundtracked by the dulcet tones of Nat King Cole. It’s rare for Breaking Bad to include a moment like this - violence in which the victims are essentially nameless faces - but it’s vital for the scene to eschew any connection to the characters who are dropping like flies.

This is all about Walter, to whom killing has become just another daily chore. This isn’t a matter of life and death - it’s just another logistical issue for the boss to deal with.