“I am not in danger . . . I am the danger.” With those words, Breaking Bad’s Walter White solidified himself as TV’s greatest antihero. Wanna Cook? explores the most critically lauded series on television with analyses of the individual episodes and ongoing storylines. From details like stark settings, intricate camerawork, and jarring music to the larger themes, including the roles of violence, place, self-change, legal ethics, and fan reactions, this companion book is perfect for those diehards who have watched the Emmy Award–winning series multiple times as well as for new viewers. Wanna Cook? elucidates without spoiling, and illuminates without nit-picking. A must-have for any fan’s collection.

Ensley F. Guffey: Ensley F. Guffey is a historian of American popular culture, and he has published scholarly essays on Breaking Bad, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Farscape, and Marvel’s The Avengers.
K. Dale Koontz: K. Dale Koontz is the author of Faith and Choice in the Works of Joss Whedon (McFarland, 2008) and teaches courses in areas as diverse as communications, film, theatre, and the law.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

What’s Cooking: Change We Can Believe In

Episode Guide

Season One
1.01 Pilot / Breaking Bad
Special Ingredients: What Is Crystal Meth, Anyway?
Mustard Gas Versus Phosphine Gas
Sidebar: Breakfast
1.02 The Cat’s in the Bag
Special Ingredients: Chirality, Thalidomide, and Methamphetamine
1.03 . . . And the Bag’s in the River
Special Ingredients: Baking Soda
1.04 Cancer Man
Special Ingredients: Gluing Stab Wounds
American Health Insurance
1.05 Gray Matter
Special Ingredients: Cerebral Palsy
Crystallography
1.06 Crazy Handful of Nothin’
Special Ingredients: Stages of Lung Cancer
Mercury Fulminate
Heisenberg
1.07 A No-Rough-Stuff Type Deal
Special Ingredients: Etch A Sketch Thermite
Meth Used to Be Legal

What’s Cooking: Walter White and the Anti-Hero

Season Two
2.01 Seven Thirty-Seven
Special Ingredients: Castor Beans to Ricin
Georgi Markov Poison-Tip Umbrella Assassination
2.02 Grilled
Special Ingredients: LoJack Technology
Cartels versus Mexican Law Enforcement and the Mexican Army
Mexican Meth Superlabs
2.03 Bit by a Dead Bee
Special Ingredients: Fugues and Fugue States
Grills, or Grillz Dental Appliances
2.04 Down
Sidebar: Marie and the Color Purple
2.05 Breakage
Special Ingredients: Anxiety and Panic Attacks
Chemotherapy Treatment
2.06 Peekaboo
Special Ingredients: H. Tracy Hall
2.07 Negro Y Azul
Special Ingredients: Narcocorridas (Drug Ballads)
Saint Jesus Malverde
2.08 Better Call Saul
Special Ingredients: Attorney-Client Privilege
Loan Out
2.09 4 Days Out
Special Ingredients: PET/CT Scans
Homemade Batteries
2.10 Over
Special Ingredients: Striker Strips or Match Heads?
2.11 Mandala
Special Ingredients: Heroin and Works
12-Step Programs
2.12 Phoenix
Special Ingredients: Is It Murder?
2.13 ABQ
Special Ingredients: Lung Lobectomy
Air Traffic Controllers

What’s Cooking: Saul Goodman & Bus Bench Advertising

Season Three
3.01 No Más
Special Ingredients: Santa Muerte
Tenerife Airport Disaster
Sidebar: The Cars of Breaking Bad
3.02 Caballo Sin Nombre
Special Ingredients: Los Zetas
Polleros (Coyotes) and “Chicken Runs”
3.03 I.F.T.
Special Ingredients: Industrial Chicken Farming
3.04 Green Light
Special Ingredients: Class-Action Lawsuits
3.05 Más
Special Ingredients: Heated Floors (Back to Ancient Rome)
3.06 Sunset
Special Ingredients: Probable Cause for Searching Vehicles vs. Searching Residences
Walt Whitman
3.07 One Minute
Special Ingredients: JHPs and the Winchester “Black Talon”
Universal Pain Assessment Tool

Meet One of the Cooks: Interview with Michael Slovis, Director of Photography

3.08 I See You
Special Ingredients: Pablo Escobar
3.09 Kafkaesque
Special Ingredients: Gambling Addiction
Money Laundering
3.10 Fly
Special Ingredients: Contaminants Found in Crystal Meth
Common Housefly
3.11 Abiquiu
Special Ingredients: Georgia O’Keeffe and the Door Paintings
Marital Privilege
3.12 Half Measures
Special Ingredients: Bonnie and Clyde
3.13 Full Measure
Special Ingredients: Metallic Balloons and Power Lines
Desert Eagle Pistols and Silencers

What’s Cooking: Fan Hatred and Skyler White

Season Four
4.01 Box Cutter
Special Ingredients: Rocks and Minerals
4.02 Thirty-Eight Snub
Special Ingredients: “New Mexico Is Not a Retreat Jurisdiction”
4.03 Open House
Special Ingredients: EPA Car Wash Inspectors?
4.04 Bullet Points
Special Ingredients: The Kelly Criterion
4.05 Shotgun
Special Ingredients: Dead Drops
4.06 Cornered
Special Ingredients: Four Corners
4.07 Problem Dog
Special Ingredients: Rage and Product Placement in American Television
Sidebar: Veggie Trays
4.08 Hermanos
Special Ingredients: Chile and the Pinochet Junta
4.09 Bug
Special Ingredients: The CID Division of the IRS
GPS Tracking Devices with USB Connectivity
4.10 Salud
Special Ingredients: Huntington’s Disease
Phenylacetic Acid
4.11 Crawl Space
Special Ingredients: “Macho” Camacho
Charms Against the Evil Eye
4.12 End Times
Special Ingredients: Cell Phone Detonated Pipe Bombs (IEDs)
4.13 Face Off
Special Ingredients: Lily of the Valley
Sidebar: Walt & the Backyard Pool

Essay: “Buying the House”: Place and Space in Breaking Bad

Season Five — Part 1
5.01 Live Free or Die
Special Ingredients: “Popcorn Effect” on Superheated Teeth
Saul and Clarence Darrow
5.02 Madrigal
Special Ingredients: Suicide by Portable Defibrillator
Federal Authority to Seize Offshore Funds in a Drug Trafficking Case (RICO)
5.03 Hazard Pay
Special Ingredients: Why Are They Called “Second Story Men”?
5.04 Fifty-One
Special Ingredients: House Tenting
5.05 Dead Freight
Special Ingredients: North American Tarantulas
Post 9/11 Rail Transport Security Measures
5.06 Buyout
Special Ingredients: How Can Electrical Wiring Burn Through Plastic?
TROs and Ex Parte Orders
5.07 Say My Name
Special Ingredients: Antoine Lavoisier
5.08 Gliding Over All
Special Ingredients: Meth in the Czech Republic
Hank & Marie & Kids

Season Five — Part 2
5.09 Blood Money
Special Ingredients: Forensic Handwriting Comparison
The All Seeing Eye
5.10 Buried
Special Ingredients: Christian Louboutin
5.11 Confessions
5.12 Rabid Dog
5.13 To’hajiilee
5.14 Ozymadias
5.15 Granite State
5.16 Felina

What’s Cooking: “The One Who Knocks”: The Violentization of Walter White

Special Ingredients Index