Favorite Breaking Bad Character

Only 2 seasons deep at the moment, but would've voted Jesse.

gr80 otm, Tuco was awful, although afaict that was as much how the character was written as how the guy played it -- really came close to giving up on the show entirely during that stretch in season 2

i didn't have a problem with tuco.. at the time his craziness was v effective at conveying how in over their heads they were, and how dangerous this game was. meeting somebody like gus at that point wouldn't have raised the stakes as effectively imo. also yeah he was ott but i get the feeling some drug kingpins play that kind of role as a means of intimidation, and it wouldn't be surprising to me if that role took on its own reality in the kingpin's persona

vaguely remember reading some interview where the creators of the show said the only reason they wrote the gus character in the first place was because the tuco actor had other commitments?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Cruz

Can't see what they might have been but wait, Tuco is 50?

Raymond Cruz is actually a very nice man in real life, a very sweet guy. Plays one hell of a scary bad guy. Watching the dailies come in on this footage, I said to myself, “Wow, this guy is so damned scary. He’d be a great addition to the show; we’ve got to keep him around for a long time to come. We’ve got to think of more stuff to do with him.”

And right about the time we were having these discussions in the writers’ room, we found out from Raymond Cruz’s agent that he was going to be unavailable to us, because he was a regular on the TV show The Closer on TNT. The producers of The Closer were very nice and very helpful, but they also needed him day-in and day-out to do their show. So they were very magnanimous in helping us work out the opportunity to do one last episode with Raymond Cruz, and that turned out to be the episode that introduces Tio, his uncle, and the one in which Tuco dies.

All of this long-winded explanation is a way of saying the initial plan was to keep Tuco around for a long time, but we were left with no choice but to kill off the character. And, in the absence of Tuco, and the vacuum that that left behind, we thus came up with Gustavo Fring. Gustavo Fring is as button-down, and as business-like, and as cold-blooded as he is because Tuco was not. Essentially Gus Fring was everything Tuco was not. That’s where that character derived from, and that’s why he became the character that he became. You try to think ahead when you do a show like this, and yet so many of your best inventions stem sometimes from bad luck and happenstance.

I thought Tucco was pretty effective. He was ott for sure, but he conveyed the sense of "fucked up person who could snap and be very dangerous to you any second" really well. So well that I couldn't watch some of his eps when they first aired because he reminded me of a real methhead I was once in close quarters with. The guy I knew was not a murderous drug kingpin - just a hillbilly tweaker and small time dealer - but there was that same sense of instability and irrationality that felt very disconcerting in a small space. Since that level of realistic menace wouldn't really carry on TV, you get Tucco.

right i just mean the way delivered lines while he was screaming or getting high or doing a maniacal laugh made me rmde half the time

tuco reminded me of actual tweakers. but the difference was that a guy like walt doesn't actually get to get over on crazy tweaker tuco. he gets himself killed, or his arms broke, or something. that was the problem w/that character for me: there are characters like that, but they're immune to your clever getaway plans and shit.

their clever getaway plan didn't actually work iirc

i guess i only know tweakers like Badger /lol hawaii

yup - pretty much what Jenny & mr aerosmith bootleg said. reminds me a crazy not-so-much-meth-but-whatever-was-around-head i knew. he could really jack up the crazy sometimes, he was uunpredictable and occasionally scary and every one in a while he could be really logical and rational. but that would last only as long as it needed to before his next plunge off the deep end.

Spooge 0
Spooge's girlfriend 0

;_; ;_;

seriously, two of the scuzziest characters on TV ever!

Spooge´s girlfriend´s manic laugh after they jack Badger or whoever is seriously chilling.

Tio Salamanca solely for the look on his face in the finale. because i don't wanna ruin it for anybody who hasn't seen it (and i fear even massive spoiler tags might not be enough)...i won't say anything else.

Listening to Springsteen tonight. I always found the first line of "Atlantic City" to be kind of unintentionally funny: "Well they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night." After the last season of Breaking Bad, though, I wonder seriously if Gus, and his final adios, is an homage to that line that was planned all along.

Just a theory.

Oh, sorry... MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT! (Too late, I guess.)

pretty sure anybody who hasn't finished isn't reading the thread. I had to force myself to avoid this thread while I was finishing Season 4 *just in case*

the springsteen line was a reference to the nail bomb murder of philadelphia mob boss philip "chicken man" testa

whoa that's crazy. i always assumed it was like some old hangout that got knocked down or something

Is there a general BB thread?

quotes fuck it up, just search AMC

Shall we anticpate the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

:D

Tyrus

that joke still isnt funny

it's too close to home and too near the bone.

Tyrus was GREAT in the Shield.

Came here just to make sure there was nobody I needed to be really scared of all of a sudden.

Tuco Salamanca 0

Phew.

You'll be surprised, though, by someone you've already seen who proves to be scarier than you might've imagined. Someone who's not Walt, I mean.

hmmmmmmmm

It is Walter Jr.

Turns out to be meth lord of the South West.

lol

Chap I did see what you said on the other thread about my reactions. Just want to get a couple more eps in before posting a reaction to this season. :)

I shall huff much of the blue stuff in preparation.

the dude who plays tuco is easily the worst part about this show

You said that upthread. I didn't think he was bad. Maybe a little bit of overacting going on there but I've never met a meth user so what the hell do I know? What didn't you like about him? Again, I don't want to read too much of the thread because spoilers.

Tuco was certainly not the most subtle character in the show's history, but it was necessary for W&J to face a threat like that at that stage of the overall storyline.

o yeah i forgot i already challopped upthread, but yeah its terribly over-acted compared to how on point the rest of the cast is

Tyrus

that joke still isnt funny

Tyrus tho

I hear he was GREAT in the Shield.

Jesse is in a vodka commercial with puff daddy

"Enjoy Ciroc Responsibly.... BITCH."

Just started watching this on netflix, why did I wait so long?

Haha, I just read this as "favorite barking mad character...'

Tyrus

Everyone except Tyrus.

by favoriting everyone except tyrus, you are singling out tyrus