When did Walter White become Heisenberg?

happy New Year everybody welcome to another episode here on Bully Whispers And we are here today to discuss when Walter White truly transitioned into Heisenberg now there are many scenes throughout the series that viewers point to as the moment of transition which we will go through but ultimately he never became Heisenberg and it's not because he always was it's because the idea of Heisenberg was nothing more than a moving Target in Walt's head Walt was like a child playing make believe and as such his character Heisenberg was constant being redefined From A Distant non-lethal Master Cook to a stone-faced gangster to cat burglar and even train robber I am burag and I have lots and lots of powers although in this sense since he is bad and sometimes even maniacal he would be more like Professor [Laughter] Chaos that being said the progression of Heisenberg wasn't like some video game where he completed a task leveled up and got a new task he never lived up to the idea at any point and continued forward despite being repeatedly sna back into reality throughout the series in regards to his initial entry into the drug business no one really thinks this is where he became Heisenberg but we will touch on it briefly because it is important for context the whole thing kicks off when Walt is diagnosed with cancer and the show makes it clear that this is all very surreal to him this state of mind combined with some information he got during the Ride Along led him to going into business with Jesse which eventually resulted in his first two kills these murders even though they were in self-defense really bothered Walt and kind of sobered him up so to speak and brought him back into reality at which point he didn't really want to cook anymore however shortly thereafter things started getting surreal again during his meeting with the doctor to discuss Cancer Treatments following this he blows up a car and just as he's beginning to feel like a badass he is confronted by his shortcomings in the past inadvertently by the schwarzes Walter White quits but Heisenberg doesn't which is something we will see throughout the show and Walt has yet to have another sobering up type moment so he decides to start cooking again now for the most part assertions that Walter White was always Heisenberg or became him at some point are usually based in the idea that his Newfound Clarity due to the cancer diagnosis allowed the true Walt to emerge and that Heisenberg was in there all along I am awake personally I think quite the opposite that this was all very surreal to him other than a brief period I would consider him to be awake and it was The Surreal nature of his existence that enabled him to attempt to indulge in his fantasy now whether he was awake or this was all surreal we will touch on throughout the episode but either way Heisenberg was a childlike fantasy not something that was always in him if the traits that defined Heisenberg were actually in him all along he wouldn't have ended up in that spot to begin with that's not to say he would have automatically been some Kingpin but he wouldn't have settled for a place that he was that unhappy with Heisenberg like a lot of child fantasy alter egos possesses all of the traits that the person wished they had often exaggerated to a ridiculous proportion hold on you guys I actually have another Power I can see in the future too but better than C let me try but still maintains the personality of the real life individual you can clearly see all of the egom manical narcissistic traits that Walter possesses in Heisenberg but the idea of Heisenberg possesses a cold C cating tenacity that Walter just does not and I believe the surreal State he was in allowed that fantasy to come out and play at this point it could be argued that his boring regular life is what was surreal kind of like a Fight Club sort of thing but this wasn't always the case which we see in a couple flashbacks and hear about in regards to grey matter technology now they don't really tell us the story of what happened at grey matter but given what we know about the parties involved it's a safe bet that Walt didn't get his way on something through a hissy fit and and then quit we see another quick Glimpse that his penchant for just giving up or giving in when it comes to buying the house with Skyler and if he truly had any of Heisenberg's boldness or persistence he wouldn't have given up that often that easily on so many big things but let's assume for a bit that Walt does have it in him and he does become Heisenberg at some point when would that point be at the start of his return into the drug trade he makes his expectations clear in regards to setup let's get something straight this the chemistry is my realm out there on the street you deal with that as far as our customers go I don't want to know anything about them I don't want to see them I don't want to hear from them I want no interaction with them whatsoever and that somehow he still expects it to be peaceful no matter what happens no more Bloodshed but the show concurrently makes it abundantly clear that this would not be the case and after Jesse is robbed and roughed up Walt decides to become a badass I am burag and I have lots and lots of powers he strolls up into tuo's place looking tough feeling tough look Tuco right in the face talk some [ __ ] and then blew the whole place up so that everyone knew he was a force to be reckoned with having now officially used the name Heisenberg for the first time he strolls out of there like a complete and total badass through a crowd of stunned gangsters to his car where he proceeds to have some kind of weird sexual experience with the money okay so that's probably not the badass Grand Finale he had envisioned beforehand pun intended so maybe he's not quite Heisenberg yet but he's on his way right uh no he's not you see shortly thereafter what the hell are you doing here get in now this scene is interesting in the context of this discussion on multiple levels there's the obvious one that he is confronted by the reality that he isn't quite the badass he thought he was but there's also the comment he made right before Tuco popped out what the hell are you doing here now there is some context to this particular scene but this is a part of his fantasy land that he displays multiple times especially earlier in the series he seems to view his house as some sort of Base like in a kid's game of tag like if he gets back to Bas he safe and can't be tagged again until he decides to take his hand off it and start running between don't ever come to my house don't ever call me here Etc it's clear he still views this somewhat like a game that he can start and stop playing when he wants to which is something that will pop up again later quick side note before moving on while I doubt it was intentional and it doesn't mean anything I do think it's funny that two scenes before he goes to meet Tuco his hair is falling out prompting him to shave his head and then when he walks in while Tuco is examining his pre previous batch you can see what looked like little hairs sticking out in the right and left sides after surviving his brush with Tuco the same way poly Walnut survived the Columbo Wars he goes home Waits a bit for things to settle down and gets back to cooking but he has reverted back to the old cautious smalltime Walter White however over the course of most of season two he goes from I don't vote for this plan I'm not comfortable bringing in unknown entities into our operation all the way too we need a proper infrastructure we need foot soldiers and we need dealers on a street level that are rock solid we need muscle and we need enforcers during this time Walt still knows he's going to die and when he mistakenly thinks it will be very soon it causes him to go on a cooking spree but when he finds out he was wrong and actually has more time than he had thought Walt your tumor has shrunk by 80% he is clearly not happy about being pulled back into reality just when I Tred to get out they P me back after this Walter White decides yet again to quit playing take our time and stay cautious sell off what we have and then uh I'm done although realistically at this point Tuco is dead the Salam Monas will soon know his name and as my grandpappy used to say it may take two to tango but it only takes one to pick a fight so whether Walt wanted to be in or not is a relevant he wasn't however he then gets drunk at his celebration party starts getting a bit Heisenberg and shortly thereafter he sees someone buying the wrong equipment for cooking which is the next time that viewers often point to as the transition into Heisenberg stay out of my territory now this does make sense he is bold in claiming territory he doesn't need and from here he immediately says yes to risky surgery he begins an aggressive expansion he doesn't care that combo was killed which one is he he did not just say that to me and he showed Heisenberg likee tenacity when his initial attempt with Gus fing is unsuccessful but he persisted come hell high water or the birth of his daughter to establish that relationship and make the deal however Walt shows that he still isn't quite the Empire Builder he thinks he is when the death of Jane the girl who just blackmailed him bothered him so greatly and when Skyler left shortly thereafter even his home base wasn't home anymore reality was starting to set in from here he attempts to quit playing again and get his home back to normal he starts to burn his money out of guilt and although he did change his mind about that he does turn down a $3 million offer to return to cooking after trying to clean everything up and pleading his case to Skyler he waited for her to get home from work to hear her answer answer I [ __ ] Ted and his response was comically UN Heisenberg yeah I know that's not a word from here awake versus sural starts becoming a bit less significant although it could be argued that the new super lab put Walt in somewhat of a surreal State when he decided to cook again after Gus kind of indirectly challenged his manhood what does a man do wal a man provides for his family interestingly enough this initial period with Gus is pretty much exactly what he wanted at the beginning to be a distant nonviolent Master Cook who makes a lot of money and then walks off into the sunset but the idea of Heisenberg was already well beyond that in Walt's mind during his time with Gus there are two connected scenes that viewers point to is the transition to Heisenberg him essentially having an emotional breakdown in the crawl space and the subsequent poisoning of Brock now obviously the breakdown itself wasn't it since the idea of Heisenberg was never to be the Joker just cackling maniacally Heisenberg was cold and calculating things started getting very surreal again and the assertion here is that the breakdown enabled him to truly hop off the give a [ __ ] wagon and proceed full steam ahead as Heisenberg who is fully capable of poisoning an innocent child without feeling guilty and there is a lot of weight to that position the period that followed the poisoning of Brock is the closest Walt ever actually comes to become Heisenberg he was cold he was calculating and his indifferent reaction to the news of the killings he had just ordered while playing with Holly shows just how far down that path he had gone but he still wasn't truly Heisenberg because he wanted to quit yet again now there are points in the series where the idea of Heisenberg and Walt's head would have included walking away but not now I'm in the Empire business and Empire Builders don't just walk away Heisenberg was still just a childlike like fantasy role that he thought he could step into and out of as he pleased except Hank Su figured out his secret from here there isn't much to evaluate in terms of Heisenberg the idea of Heisenberg was never to be Kaiser s the guy who kills his whole family in front of the people holding them hostage just to show those people he means business he was never going to go after his family like that eventually he becomes just a scraggly version of his former self bent on Revenge ironically this is the only time he actually is in reality what he is in his fantasy it's just not Heisenberg well thanks for watching another episode here on Bully Whispers as always like comment subscribe and I'll see you at the next score

Channel: Bully Whispers

Views: 6,405

Keywords: When did Walter White become Heisenberg, breaking bad, jesse pinkman, skyler white, hank schrader, gus fring, tuco salamanca, salamanca

Id: jkIs29HyibE

Length: 13min 1sec (781 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 06 2024