Vince Gilligan’s ‘Breaking Bad’ is a TV series about Walter White, a chemistry teacher, who starts cooking Methamphetamine to provide money for his family. In an interview with The New York Times, creator Vince Gilligan said the larger lesson of the series is that "actions have consequences". He elaborated on the show's philosophy: “If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. 'I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.” The overarching theme of ‘Breaking Bad’ is “actions have consequences”. We are shown this theme through the clever employment of motifs such the damaged pink teddy bear, a reoccurring 8 symbol and
The damaged pink bear in the series symbolises "all the terrible grief that Walt has wrought upon his loved ones" and "the judgment of God”. The Pink Bear is damaged as Walter inadvertently helps cause the mid-air collision of two airplanes which kills many innocent civilians. The pink teddy bear is then revealed to have fallen out of one of the planes and into the White family's pool. Vince Gilligan called the plane accident an attempt to visualize all the damage that Walt has caused because of his actions.
A reoccurring symbol in the show is the number "8". 8 symbolizes eternity and self destruction. This relates to Breaking Bad on many levels. First of all, the clearly marked 8 bruise on Jesse's face indicates self destruction. The first person he kills on this show, innocent Gale, was the eighth person on the show to die as a