Analyzing Evil: Todd Alquist From Breaking Bad

hello everyone and welcome to the 167th episode of analyzing evil featuring Todd Alquist from the Breaking Bad series well I said I wouldn't be making any breaking bad videos for a while and it's been a while so I figured it was about time we went back to Albuquerque to explore another of its dubious denisons though he only makes an appearance in the fifth and final season of the show in the film El Camino Todd stands out as one of the most Sinister characters in a series filled with Sinister characters a man who whose odd behavior and brutality has shocked an Aus viewer since he was first shown to be the remorseless killer that he is and in this video we'll be rifling through everything we've been given about Todd in this series to determine just how a person can be twisted into such a strange and vile monstrosity now without further Ado let's begin we don't know anything about Todd's background but I'd Hazard a guess and say that he was probably raised in part by his Uncle Jack and that alone has several implications no matter who you are as Jack Welker to put it lightly is one sick bastard but we we'll get to Todd's background a little later on now Todd is one of the best if not the best representation of a psychopath that we've ever seen in popular media and another character that's often touted as a fantastic representation of a psychopath is the infamous Anton shagar from No Country for Old Men but Todd is an even better example of a psychopath than Anton is and I think that drawing a comparison between the two will help us better understand why Anton has often been cited as the perfect psychopath a man who displays little to no emotion No Remorse and no mercy a man who's just as intelligent as he is brutal and one that would kill anything or anyone at a moment's notice without hesitation for any reason at all his demeanor is infinitely strange and as far as being an unsettling monstrosity Anton has Todd beat by a mile and the traits and characteristics that Anton displays are ones that people typically associate with a psychopath so why is Todd a better representation of a psychopath than a character like Anton well because while individuals like Anton have certainly existed throughout our storyed history Anton is the perfect psychopath and and perfection in anything is quite rare Todd on the other hand is a much more realistic psychopath Todd isn't some terrifying almost alien looking man who's an emotionless void of violence and cruelty he's actually about as average seeming as it gets Anton with his palid demeanor odd appearance and strange speech patterns sticks out like a sore thumb his entire Persona just emanates wrongness like he's some diabolical monster attempting to appear as a human instead of actually being one Todd on the other hand is someone you really wouldn't look twice at and when someone speaks to him in this story there's nothing immediately noticeable about his behavior that seems off-putting but it's the cracks in that normaly that were privy to his viewers of his interactions with others both innocent and not so innocent that gives away what kind of man Todd is rather than any overt and obvious signs of abnormality so how does someone become a person like Todd or Anton well it's nearly always due to the experiences they had during their youth even though we don't know exactly how Todd nor Anton grew up imagining what their childhoods must have been like is the greatest Avenue we have to understanding their characters most if not all Psychopaths and sociopaths develop antisocial personality disorder because they experience some sort of trauma in their youth that severely impacted their development for someone like Anton I imagine that was a combination of different types of heavy abuse and witnessing or enduring other types of trauma like marital familial or gang violence and extreme poverty conditions things that in high enough doses could have definitely made him into the man he is however for Todd who's much more well adjusted than someone like Anton I'd be comfortable in assuming that Todd Moro witnessed traumatic things rather than experiencing them himself and the reason I believe this to be so is largely due to what kind of person Todd is I've always viewed Todd as one big Psychopathic kid as his demeanor is often quite childlike he handles objects and situations in Curious ways ways that Express both a child's inherent social ignorance When approaching social situations as well as their sense of curiosity and wonder as we often see Todd expressing an interest in the mundane which Echoes a child's ability to Fascinate themselves with simp simple objects for hours and I think this inquest into his development will support that line of thinking with the colorful characters that seem to be a part of Todd's family or associated with it I'm sure he was physically and verbally abused to some extent but it's more so what those people taught him than what they did to him I'm willing to bet that before the age of 10 Todd saw his family members and their friends repeatedly enter into violent confrontations between themselves and others and I'm almost certain that Todd witnessed a murder at least once when he was a child never mind the fact that it's a distinct possib ility that many a small animal became victim to Todd's curiosity along with witnessing these things though Todd was also raised by these people violent racist criminals who taught him how to act and how to live and judging by the way he behaves Todd never really learned to think for himself of course he can and does to a certain extent as we do see him trying to rebel against his overseers wishes in small ways a few different times which we'll discuss more in a moment but more often than not when Todd is explaining how he approaches a situation he often finishes by stating that this is what someone some told him to do and that's why he's doing it Mr White said we need to cook This Way Uncle Jack told me that I need to keep my money hidden it's as if every thought that Todd has is ultimately one that he arrived at through what someone else instructed him to do previously which isn't necessarily a bad thing as we all take Direction and inspiration from those around us but for Todd it seems as if he nearly always does and when the people who he's listening to in his head are people like Jack Welker well horrific things tend to happen Todd essentially exists to serve and it's actually that Serv that gives Todd motivation and purpose as unlike the rest of the criminals in this series Todd never really shows us that he's living a criminal lifestyle to earn money Respect power or anything else you typically expect to motivate a person to commit crimes Todd is ever the little boy eager to do as his Elders command and an add a boy is infinitely more meaningful to Todd than any amount of money ever could be now as important as his attachments to people like his Uncle Jack are and despite how many things Todd lacks in his life that your average person is fortunate enough to have none of those absen says seem to affect Todd quite as much as the lack of truly meaningful relationships he has in his life one of the most bizarre things we see Todd doing in this story is attempting to be friends with Jesse on numerous occasions despite how much emotional and physical pain he's caused him but when you really look at who Todd is it's no surprise that he thinks that he could be friends with Jesse and wants to be friends with him Todd has likely experienced or witnessed everything that he and his cohorts have put Jesse through to varying degrees and because he's been conditioned to view all these gruesome things as just a fact of life he assumes that Jesse is able to do the same even after he tortures him murders his ex-girlfriend and then later threatens to murder her son and because they're working so close together he thinks that there's no reason why they can't be friends adding the fact that Todd doesn't really have any friends his age and you have a man who just like a child wants to be friends with a fellow classmate so to speak but doesn't understand why that's an impossibility similarly to his behavior towards Jesse we have his attempted courting of Lydia to use as another example Lydia is the type of person who would never dream of involving your romantically with someone like Todd but for Todd a man who probably doesn't have much exposure to the opposite sex he feels a similar connection to her as he does with Jesse due to their working relationship and he doesn't understand that there is a significant barrier between their Two Worlds and Lifestyles that makes a prospective relationship essentially impossible in this regard he's like a kid who has a crush on his teacher he sucks up to her and tries to please her in any way he can to earn her favor but she only sees him as nothing more than one of her students so as much as Todd is emotionally backwards he's also emotionally starved and it's that need we all have for human connection that causes Todd to try and form meaningful attachments to people in close proximity to him despite how impossible or inappropriate it is and aside from how heartbreaking it is that he experienced enough trauma in his youth to make him into who he is this is without a doubt the saddest thing about Todd Alquist now all of these things severely stunted Todd's development of several key things that are required at least in part for someone to develop into a healthy person namely his ability to feel empathy for others and his emotional intelligence as far as empathy is concerned Todd does display quite the distinct lack of it in a number of situations however most people with aspd aren't completely devoid of empathy and Todd is no different as he does show us twinges of empathy here and there when Jack and his gang murder Hank and Steve and nearly leave Walter completely broke and despondent it's Todd who suggests that they give Walter a barrel of money as a small gesture of pity in the face of such a great loss it's Todd who though being Jesse's Warden and torturer sometimes makes remarks about treating Jess better under the guise of a business suggestion like when he remarks in El Camino that they shouldn't be making Jesse test his restraints lest he break his leg and be unable to cook Todd also shows Jesse the occasional kindness during his imprisonment like when he gives him some ice cream one night or when he takes him out of his cage and promises that they're going to have a fun weekend filled with good times pizza and beer and it's Todd who despite murdering three innocent people in Cold Blood make sure to emphasize that he doesn't necessarily want to murder anyone or that it isn't personal and and he even bothers to hold a half-hearted funeral for his housekeeper but again these are just twinges of empathy when Todd is acting in this way it is a genuine display of empathy but it's a minimal expression of it that's bogged down by everything he's been exposed to in the examples I just gave you there's two different situations in which we find Todd expressing empathy when he's trying to stick up for someone who's being abused by people around him and when he's trying to cheer up someone who's already been abused or when he's offering some sort of expected reaction to the passing of another person in the former example Todd does try his best but he's been so conditioned to go along with whatever the people around him expect of him that he's afraid to press the issue any further when they shoot a suggestions down and like a little kid I imagine that in his mind he's thinking something to the effect of ah well if that's what the grown-ups want then I guess that's what's got to happen when the latter example presents itself Todd has all but forgotten any of the empathy he might have experienced for the person in question and his dampened emotional intelligence really shows in these instances the best example of this is given to us in his interactions with Jesse once prior to his imprisonment and several times afterwards and we can further explore his personality by examining these interactions the first few times we meet Todd when Walt Jesse and Mike are buying bomino pest Todd is introduced to us as just another worker a helpful and complicit one who seems to want to advance in the criminal World though we do learn here that Todd along with his co-workers are semi-professional burglars but other than that Todd at this point seems relatively inoffensive however all of that changes during the Train Robbery Todd acts as the helpful crew in here as well but as we all know it's at the tail end of The Heist when Todd shows his true colors murdering a little boy who witnessed the robbery in Cold Blood now in the aftermath of this event Todd seems to make a pretty good case for himself but what his reasoning for his actions highlights here is Todd's near total lack of empathy and how it affects his decision-making Todd argues that Drew was on a dirt bike and he could have easily escaped in this moment and told people what he saw exposing all of them to possible imprisonment while that's true enough Jesse counters by stating that Drew was just waving giving hello to them he didn't know what he saw and he didn't indicate whatsoever that he was intending to flee in that moment there was ample opportunity for the crew to figure out some way to deal with Drew here without him blowing their cover something like telling him that they work for the train company and that they were filling up its water tank before it left if they had offered him an explanation like this he probably wouldn't have known any better and if he had gone on to tell someone about the heist in this way they likely would have reacted in a way you'd expect any adult to react when a kid tells them something inconsequential saying something like honey that's pretty cool and then forgetting that he had ever mentioned anything about a train especially since they made sure to replace the methylamine they stole with water which means that there was never going to be a news report about a robbery which then might cause anyone who heard Drew mention men taking liquid from a train to think twice about what he said but even with all these factors in mind there would have always been a possibility that Drew could have said something to someone important that could have deduced what really happened even if there was a small possibility that Drew could have uncovered their operation letting that possibility hang over your head head is still preferable to murdering a child we don't know for certain but Walt and Jesse probably wouldn't have chosen to murder Drew no matter what as they are fully capable of understanding that the person in front of them is a representative of the most innocent form of life and their consciences wouldn't have allowed for that to occur though it could be argued that who Walt is by this point could indicate that he might have considered it if things didn't go his way when trying to talk Drew down but regardless Drew's murder likely wouldn't have happened if it had just been the two of them standing there but as we've already discussed just Todd is not like other people Todd's inability to empathize with others on a deep level made it so that in the moment he saw Drew sharp he didn't see him as a person but as a threat something that he didn't recognize as a person just like him but as an interloper that needed to be dealt with and nothing more and Todd handled this situation in the way that he'd been taught to handle these situations now when Todd is explaining himself after the fact he does say that he didn't want to kill Drew but he felt forced to which again Jesse sufficiently argues against and has has no real weight to it but what really shows us how horribly skewed Todd sense of empathy and emotional intelligence is is how he tries to Buddy up to Jesse after this argument Jesse was visibly distraught over this whole ordeal and most people would have been able to recognize that not Todd when he sees Jesse trying to distress by having a cigarette Todd has already sealed Drew away as an inconsequential memory that he'll likely never think about again and he figures now would be a fine time to try and Buddy up to his new friend and try to make small talk with him because he's never experienced the feelings that Jesse feels here and he doesn't understand how to approach these types of situations obviously this was one of the worst things Todd could have done at this moment and Jesse lets him know that by punching him in the face but there's no amount of physical punishment that could have taught todal lesson here and that becomes ever more apparent once Jesse is interred at his uncle's Compound on Todd's suggestion when wall requests that Jack kill Jesse after he betrayed him Todd interjects just before the deed is done and suggests that they take Jesse back home and coax out of him whatever information he gave to the feds something Todd says that he can do himself considering that they have history after which they can see the job through and kill Jesse in typical Todd fashion he delivers this suggestion in an emotionless yet childlike way despite the horrific connotations and we get to see just how horrific of a suggestion it is the next time that we see Jesse we see that Jesse has been severely beaten and as anyone would who's felt the cold hand of abuse and torture Jesse recoils in fear when Todd comes to take him out of his hole and pleads with him not to hurt him anymore more indicating that Todd was indeed the one who used their history together to coax information out of him and just as we'd expect from Todd he immediately adopts a casual and friendly attitude with a man that he's just tortured to further emphasize just how twisted Todd's emotional intelligence is we can look to his murder of Andrea as punishment for Jesse's escape attempt which is very similar in nature to his murder of Drew sharp a coldblooded act that Todd was ordered to commit but one that he likely had little to No Reservations about committing as again people aren't really people in Todd alaiz yes he has attachments to or respect for certain individuals like his Uncle Walt or Lydia but if Todd had to murder them for any reason he might feel some slight hesitation but he wouldn't feel nowhere near enough to make him rethink his actions in a similar vein there's also his murder of his housekeeper who he murdered because just like with Drew sharp he immediately jumped to elimination of a threat after he assumed that when she showed him that she'd found where he'd hidden his money that she'd either steal it from him eventually or possibly turn him into the police the thought never crossed Todd's mind that she might have just been showing him something that he might not have been aware of and he didn't think to play it off as if this was a new discovery or make some sort of excuse that could alleviate whatever concerns he had here no instead he took off his belt wrapped it around her neck and squeezed until she lay dead on his kitchen floor you also have to consider here that when Todd recruits Jesse to help him bury this woman he presents this task to him as if it's No Stranger Than helping him take out the trash not to mention that when Todd took Jesse out of his cage he made sure to mention that murdering Brock was very much still on the table if Jesse didn't behave and do exactly what Todd told him to do so with all these things in mind and everything that we see him do when he's interacting with other people I think it's safe to say that Todd is wholly oblivious to All Things human that even when he's faced with the destruction of his entire world when Walt guns down his uncle and his crew this child in a man's body can only think to say in so many words gee Mr White that sure was Nifty before Jesse appropriately ends his life and so now that we' reached this end I think we've gotten a good grasp on why Todd is such a great example of a realistic psychopath in all that is strange about Todd there is an equal amount of normaly and it's that ability to appear as if nothing at all was wrong with him that adds a significant amount of realism to his character in this way who Todd is is reminiscent of one of the most diabolical Psychopaths who ever lived Ted Bundy a man who despite being one of the most horrific serial killers the United States ever produced managed to pass himself off as your average upstanding citizen for years before the monster he truly was became known to the public and just like Ted Todd managed to do much the same but beneath the surface lay a man who never quite matured one whose mind was made and left behind by the terrible things he experienced a boy who was taught to be who he is by the villains that surround him and a man who then went on to live a life of covert brutality and criminality taking murderous and abusive actions that had become no more significant to him than brushing his teeth Todd Alquist is an echo of a human being the end result of a life of trauma that inur he'd be doomed to become a malformed version of the person he could have been and though we can certainly lament the corruption of an innocent human life into this strange creature of childlike naive and barbarity we must unfortunately designate all that Todd Alquist embodied as a dire representation of evil thank you all for tuning in to this episode of analyzing evil and I hope you've enjoyed what are your thoughts on Todd let me know down below and leave a suggestion for a villain you'd like to see featured while you're at it if you like this video hit that thumbs up button and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already a big thank you to all of my subscribers my patrons and 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Channel: The Vile Eye

Views: 259,346

Keywords: horror, evil, villain

Id: l0b7mIsv-sk

Length: 18min 35sec (1115 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2024