The theory that suggests ‘Breaking Bad’ is a ‘The Walking Dead’ prequel
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(Credits: Far Out / Netflix / AMC)
It’s easy to take two completely unrelated projects and draw an imaginary line between them based on one or two minor coincidences, but it can also be something worth taking under consideration. Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead are polar opposites on almost every level, but maybe Heisenberg played an unwitting role in the undead apocalypse.
As well as being shared AMC originals, the two ranked among the most-watched and heavily-discussed shows on the airwaves during the peak of their runs. They each gave rise to spinoffs, too, even if Breaking Bad‘s successor, Better Call Saul, is dwarfed by the sheer volume of offshoots to emerge from the blood-soaked comic book adaptation. But do they take place in the same world?
In the second-ever episode of The Walking Dead, Michael Rooker’s Merle Dixon is spied with a stash of blue meth. The series premiered during the period between the second and third seasons of Vince Gilligan’s creation, but more evidence began to stack up, suggesting it was more than some AMC cross-promotional synergy.
Merle refers to his drug dealer as a “janky little white guy” who had a habit of saying the word “bitch” with the utmost conviction, which sounds an awful lot like Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman. Either that, or he was far from the unique character everybody thought he was and merely just one of many white dudes who sold blue meth at that period in time before the world fell to pieces and the zombie takeover began.
Fictional song ‘Negro y Azul: The Ballad of Heisenberg’ from the seventh episode of Breaking Bad‘s second season made its way into an instalment of Fear the Walking Dead, too, Gale’s coffee machine from Gus Fring’s lab was spotted in the Governor’s headquarters in The Walking Dead‘s third run, and it was even put forth that Fring was patient zero.
While his death remains one of television’s most iconic, avid theorists proposed that he didn’t really die in the truest sense of the word but instead came back as the first-ever zombie in The Walking Dead universe. Somehow, attempts to replicate Heisenberg’s formula to no success created certain mutations, resulting in the dead coming back to life and overrunning the planet.
When The Walking Dead producer Gale Ann Hurd was asked what caused the virus in the first place, she offered the clearest indication yet. “The meth from Breaking Bad, for sure,” which in turn led co-creator Rob Kirkman to exclaim in response, “That’s canon, it’s confirmed!”
Gilligan has remained tight-lipped on the whole thing, but when one-half of the respective creative teams is taking it on board so enthusiastically, then maybe it’s time to alter the entire worldview of both Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead to interpret them as two concurrent stories set one after the other.
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