A crippled little rata.
What a reputation to leave behind.
This is Gustavo Fring.
Please, don't hurt my baby, please.
You're not going to go running to those police officers
out front?
This is Todd Alquist.
[GRUNTING]
[WHOO] Damn, man, look at that, look!
And this is Tuco Salamanca.
There really isn't a primary antagonist to Breaking Bad,
but you could definitely argue some characters are presented
as the villains of the series.
And it really boils down to which characters
are able to demonstrate the highest levels of humanity,
despite their inherent sociopathic tendencies.
When we see psychopaths and sociopaths
in film and television, we're often as fascinated by them
as we are terrified.
Vince Gilligan taps into this seemingly fear-driven intrigue
we all share, digs deep into the human psyche surrounding
these personality disorders, and then
utilizes it to create some of the most tense scenarios ever
to grace a television screen.
He writes Tuco as this terrifyingly
violent and unpredictable sociopath,
Gustavo Fring as a calm and calculated psychopath,
and Todd as about as close to a purely evil psychopath
as you can get without turning him into a serial killer.
They are all horrible, reprehensible and outright
terrifying, but some of these characters
are worse than others.
And it takes an understanding of how Vince Gilligan applies
his knowledge of psychology to these characters
to really tell the difference.
Before we jump into this, be sure to subscribe
to Nerdstalgic if you haven't done so already.
Breaking Bad began airing in 2008,
and unlike most television shows that slowly lose their audience
as time goes on, Breaking Bad consistently
gained an audience.
This culminated in the show's final episode, which actually
beat out the NFL in ratings for that night as 10.3
million viewers tuned in to watch the fate of Walter White
unfold on September 29, 2013.
One of the reasons Breaking Bad was
able to accumulate such a massive following was
the relatability and realism with which Vince Gilligan was
able to write these incredibly disparate and intricate
characters.
Every time he seeks to create an emotionally evocative moment,
Gilligan delivers with pinpoint accuracy.
As viewers, we feel the desperation and intensity
of our main characters propped up right alongside the fear
and chaos instilled by the show's seemingly antagonistic
secondary characters.
This is largely due to Vince Gilligan's ability
to understand how human beings operate.
I don't think we're alike at all, Mr. White.
You are not a cautious man at all.
You have poor judgment.
We aren't going to attempt to deconstruct
the entirety of antisocial personality disorder,
or ASP for short, but there are a few subtle differences
between psychopaths and sociopaths
that we are going to briefly touch on.
Individually, psychopathy and sociopathy
are not diagnosable conditions.
However, both fit into the diagnostic criteria
to meet ASPD.
While it is true that all psychopaths are sociopaths,
not all sociopaths demonstrate psychosis.
Psychopathy is described in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders as a lack of anxiety or fear,
and by a bold interpersonal style that
may mask maladaptive behaviors.
Whereas a sociopath is more impulsive and volatile,
a true psychopath is someone that
is not only an excellent manipulator,
but it's also able to disguise themselves
as being completely normal.
Sociopaths will behave with reckless abandon,
as they do not really care about the consequences
of their actions.
Whereas a psychopath is fully aware of everything
going on around them at any given moment in time.
We see these types of characters frequently in the Breaking Bad
universe.
The first of these big secondary characters we are introduced to
is Tuco Salamanca, and it's quite the introduction.
Oh, tight!
tight, tight, yeah!
[SNIFFS]
Oh, blue, yellow, pink!
Whatever, man, just keep bringing me that.
In the sixth episode of season one titled,
Crazy Handful of Nothing, Tuco spends the majority
of his introduction beating Jesse
Pinkman into a medically-induced coma just to prove a point.
This cements him in our minds as being
an unpredictably dangerous sociopath.
Tuco Salamanca is chaos dialed up to 11.
And it's the first time Walt is introduced
to the dangers of dealing with a cartel.
With Tuco, Vince Gilligan utilizes not only sociopathy,
but also a somewhat rare mental disorder
called intermittent explosive disorder, which
is defined as recurrent behavioral outbursts
representing a failure to control aggressive impulses.
Gilligan created a character that
can turn from your friendly neighborhood methamphetamine
wholesaler into a bloodthirsty nutcase at the drop of a dime.
And is very reminiscent of Joe Pesci's early '90s
mobster characters.
[INAUDIBLE] relax.
[INAUDIBLE] homes.
I'm relaxed.
[GRUNTING]
He even goes as far as to insult a man
who is dying from one of his beatings.
All of this unpredictability and rage
lets us as viewers on the edge of our seat
whenever Tuco is on the screen.
Tuco uses violence to gain his power,
and through his character, we are effectively
able to be introduced to the idea
that our main character is entering
a ruthless and brutal world where only the strong survive.
Tuco was actually supposed to be a much larger part of Breaking
Bad's second season.
He was offered an eight-episode arc, but after some discussion,
Raymond Cruz requested that his character be killed off,
mostly because he found the role extremely difficult to play
and was coming home from 14 hour shoots not wanting
to speak to anyone.
This prompted Vince Gilligan to create a new antagonist
for Walt and Jesse, only this time,
he'd swing the ASPD pendulum into the realm
of true psychopathy.
He would create a character who was terrifying
through a veneer of cold, calm and quiet calculation
in Gustavo Fring.
I have invited you into my home so we could sit and talk,
discuss what's going on in this business.
Our business, like men.
Where Tuco intimidates us with violence,
Gustavo Fring intimidates us with silence.
One of the ways a person can achieve power in a situation
is to always say less than necessary.
And that's exactly how Gustavo Fring operates.
We're afraid of him because we don't even
understand who he is.
In the season two episode 11 titled, Mandala,
Gustavo Fring is originally seen as what
appears to be an extra just helping out his employees
during a busy lunch shift.
Once we finally get to this somewhat impromptu meeting
between Gus Fring and Walter White,
we see him for who he is, an incredibly intelligent,
cautious, and informed drug dealer.
I have to ask, why.
There's a subtlety to his character in the sense
that at first we only catch glimpses
of his more sinister nature.
He hides behind this plastic smile of a humble restaurant
owner.
But even in this first scene, we see
him drop his facade for a few brief and terrifying seconds.
For the most part, Gustavo Fring uses intimidation
to maintain his power.
Gus Fring terrifies us because of how far he thinks ahead.
He orders the murder of Don Bolsa
in his own home in an effort to consolidate power.
He has an army of foot soldiers at his command
who will do his every bidding.
However, this isn't where Gustavo Fring
is at his most terrifying.
It's actually where he is the most comfortable.
Where Gustavo Fring is the most terrifying
is when he takes matters into his own hands.
When he drops the facade and reveals this inner demon who
has no loyalties to anyone outside of his own business.
He murders his right-hand man in front of Walt and Jesse
with a box cutter, just because he is angry.
He tells Walt that he has no problem murdering his infant
daughter.
Even the moments where Gustavo Fring demonstrates kindness
and reason are all done as either a manipulation
or as a means to an end.
Nothing matters to Gustavo Fring more than money and power.
He is a one-man masterclass on the intelligence
and intimidation necessary to maintain
that power at all costs.
I will kill your wife.
I will kill your son.
I will kill your infant daughter.
Perhaps the most unsettling psychopath
in the Breaking Bad universe lies within the character
of Todd Alquist.
That dude, whack job.
Let's just stick to the facts here.
Facts?
Oh, OK, how about the fact that he shot a kid?
Todd is introduced to us as just this kind of seemingly polite
pest control worker.
There's a nanny cam in the living room clock.
I disabled it.
I just thought you should know.
However, that facade is quickly dropped in the episode titled,
Dead Freight, in which Todd not only
murders an innocent child without hesitation,
he takes a trophy with him.
He keeps the kid's spider.
This is the same mentality hunters apply to wild game.
Taking an innocent life is almost like a sport to him.
[BLEEP] happens, huh?
[GRUNT]
Todd Alquist isn't the most violent or calculated character
on the show, but that is what makes him so terrifying.
There's a pleasure that he derives
from torturing and killing people that takes his character
beyond being just a psychopath.
Todd Alquist is pure evil.
He seems to really enjoy the gradual psychological breakdown
of Jesse Pinkman, offering him glimpses of hope,
only to have those dreams dashed violently and dramatically.
These moments were extrapolated upon in the film El Camino,
where we really see Todd reveling
in his torturous nature and just how much damage
he did to Jesse Pinkman.
Where Tuco Salamanca kills to intimidate
and Gustavo Fring kills for power,
Todd Alquist kills because he enjoys it.
He doesn't have any lofty financial goals or aspirations
to become head of a crime family.
He just exists to kill, torture and cause
harm, which makes him the most inhuman character
of these three.
At the end of the day, it was him or us and I chose us.
And I would do it again.
He is a true narcissistic nihilist.
He cares for nothing.
He exists for nothing.
He believes in nothing.
This makes him almost completely impossible
to track as a character.
We can't predict any of his behaviors
because we have no idea as to what actually drives him.
He isn't the strongest, he isn't the smartest.
He is chaos incarnate, and reminds us
that sometimes people don't have to have explanations
for what they do.
Sometimes people are just bad.
And then out of nowhere, Todd pulls out a gun
and shoots the kid.
This is Todd Alquist we're talking about?
He killed Drew Sharp?
Like it was nothing.
With Breaking Bad and the surrounding universe,
Vince Gilligan draws us in time and time
again with characters that represent
some of the more fringe elements of human psychology
and pitting them against the pursuit of money, power,
and control.
The absence of humanity.