May 19, 2023
The Story of the Walter White Watch, from "Breaking Bad" to "Better Ca
The sixth and final season of AMC’s prestige drama series Better Call Saul, the prequel to the award-winning Breaking Bad, dropped on Netflix back in April, and a wristwatch that appears prominently in the series finale has caught the attention of avid small-screen watch spotters. Some of them may remember - while others may have missed - seeing the watch for the first time in Breaking Bad, where it played an even more significant symbolic role in the storyline of its owner, Walter White, played by multiple Emmy winning lead actor Bryan Cranston. Here is the story behind Walter White’s watch and why it is so much more than just a prop. When we first meet Walter White, in the premiere episode of Breaking Bad on January 20, 2008, he is a somewhat pitiable figure: an underpaid, underappreciated high school chemistry teacher who drives a Pontiac Aztek (remember those?), wears a cheap digital watch, and struggles to support his small family, which includes caring for a son with cerebral palsy. In that same pilot episode, Walter learns he has terminal cancer - a diagnosis that triggers the desperate and increasingly ruthless quest for illicit riches and power that defines the arc of the series, as Walter evolves from hapless, nondescript educator to the crystal meth kingpin of Albuquerque, New Mexico. (Series creator Vince Gilligan has described its high concept as “Mr. Chips becomes Scarface.”) The first watch that we saw Walter wearing is a fairly humble one, a ...
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