One of the greatest shows ever made. This quiz finds out if you were watching carefully or just along for the ride.
Walter White starts as someone you feel sorry for. He ends as someone you are almost afraid to admire. This quiz skips the broad strokes and goes straight for the details that prove you actually watched.
Pick your level
Walter White is one of TV's greatest characters because you root for him even when you know you shouldn't. The normal quiz covers the spine of the story across five seasons and 62 episodes: the chemistry teacher, the diagnosis, Jesse, Saul, Gus and the blue meth. If you have watched the show once, you should do well.
Hard mode is for people who have watched it at least twice. Vince Gilligan planted things early and paid them off seasons later, and the show rewards anyone who noticed a karaoke tape, a stray insect or a book left in a bathroom. Five out of ten on hard mode means you were paying real attention.
Better Call Saul, which ran from 2015 to 2022, and the 2019 film El Camino both expand the story, but neither is needed here. Every question in both modes comes from the five seasons of Breaking Bad that aired on AMC between 2008 and 2013.
Breaking Bad won 16 Primetime Emmys, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014, and Bryan Cranston took Lead Actor four times. Much of its reputation rests on how carefully it was put together: a season whose episode titles spell out a warning when read in order, cold opens that only make sense weeks later, and colour choices that track who each character is becoming.
All ten easy level questions, with the answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: ...name
"Say my name." The dealer's answer, "Heisenberg", is what Walt came to hear.
Correct answer: ...science
"Yeah, science!" His teacher's lessons did get through in the end.
Correct answer: Vince Gilligan
Vince Gilligan, who had previously written for The X-Files.
Correct answer: El Camino
El Camino, written and directed by Vince Gilligan and released on Netflix.
Correct answer: Underwear and a gas mask
Underwear and a gas mask, one of TV's most memorable opening scenes.
Correct answer: Chicken
Chicken: the name means "the chicken brothers" in Spanish.
Correct answer: A car wash
A car wash, where he has to scrub his own students' cars.
Correct answer: Bob Odenkirk
Bob Odenkirk, who went on to lead his own series, Better Call Saul.
Correct answer: A pizza
A pizza. Fans repeated it so often that the real house's owner had to ask them to stop.
Correct answer: He handles security and problems
Security and problem solving. He is a former Philadelphia policeman who rarely wastes words.
Want to warm up before playing or double-check something? Open any question to reveal the correct answer and a short explanation.
Correct answer: Chemistry teacher
Walter White is a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He teaches to unmotivated students and holds a second job at a car wash to make ends meet.
Correct answer: Lung cancer
Walter White is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer at the start of the series. He initially decides to manufacture methamphetamine to cover his treatment costs and secure his family's financial future.
Correct answer: Heisenberg
Walter White takes the alias Heisenberg, a reference to German physicist Werner Heisenberg, famous for the uncertainty principle. The name becomes synonymous with fear throughout Albuquerque's criminal world.
Correct answer: Albuquerque
Breaking Bad is set primarily in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The city plays a significant role in the show, with its distinctive desert landscapes serving as a constant visual backdrop.
Correct answer: Saul Goodman
Saul Goodman (real name Jimmy McGill) is the morally flexible lawyer working with Walter and Jesse. His catchphrase "Better Call Saul" became so iconic that it was turned into a hugely successful prequel spin-off.
Correct answer: Jesse Pinkman
Jesse Pinkman is Walter's former student who becomes his partner. Walter stumbles across Jesse by chance during a DEA drug bust he tags along on with his brother-in-law Hank.
Correct answer: Gus Fring
Gustavo Fring uses Los Pollos Hermanos as a front for his criminal operations. Played by Giancarlo Esposito, Gus Fring is widely considered one of the greatest antagonists in television history.
Correct answer: Blue
Walter's meth is 99.1% pure and has a distinctive blue colour, earning it the street name "Blue Sky." This colour marks it out as a product of exceptional chemical quality.
Correct answer: Hank Schrader
Hank Schrader is Walter's brother-in-law and a DEA agent who hunts Heisenberg without knowing the criminal mastermind is sitting at his own dinner table. This dramatic irony is one of the show's most powerful tensions.
Correct answer: 5
Breaking Bad ran for 5 seasons (62 episodes) from 2008 to 2013. Vince Gilligan chose to end the show at its peak rather than drag the story out, a decision widely praised as a rare act of artistic integrity.
Stuck on one, or just curious how nasty it gets? Every hard mode question is here with its answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Skyler
Skyler, in season 4, after she suggests he might be in danger and should go to the police. "I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger," he tells her, and the line became the show's calling card.
Correct answer: Major Tom by Peter Schilling
Peter Schilling's Major Tom, performed with total sincerity. Hank found the tape among the evidence from Gale's apartment and plays it for Walt and Skyler over dinner, one of the few light moments in a very dark stretch of season 4.
Correct answer: Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, inscribed by Gale "To my other favorite W.W." Hank had already joked that the W.W. in Gale's notes might stand for Walter White. The discovery closes the first half of season 5.
Correct answer: By ringing a bell
By ringing a small bell on his wheelchair, with a nurse or visitor pointing at letters on a board. The same bell ends up wired to the bomb that kills Gus.
Correct answer: Mr. Lambert
Mr. Lambert, which is Skyler's maiden name. He spends months in a snowbound cabin with a barrel of cash he can barely spend, before driving back to New Mexico in a stolen Volvo for the finale.
Correct answer: Drew Sharp, a boy on a dirt bike
Drew Sharp, a boy who had been collecting a tarantula nearby and waved at the crew. Todd shoots him without a word, and it is the moment Jesse decides he wants out of the business for good.
Correct answer: A fly
A fly. "Fly", directed by Rian Johnson, keeps the two men alone in the lab for almost the whole episode while Walt obsesses over contamination. It split viewers at the time and is now counted among the show's best hours.
Correct answer: Kaylee
Kaylee, for whom Mike keeps the money he earns from Gus. Holly is Walt and Skyler's baby daughter, Stacey is Kaylee's mother, and Lydia is the jittery methylamine supplier.
Correct answer: A pink teddy bear
A charred pink teddy bear, missing an eye. It appears in the black-and-white cold opens of season 2 long before the audience knows what happened, and its eye turns up again later in the series.
Correct answer: Hydrofluoric acid
Hydrofluoric acid. In season 1, Walt tells Jesse to use a plastic bin, and Jesse uses his upstairs bathtub instead, which crashes through the ceiling. MythBusters later tested the scene and found the acid could not do that on its own.