Crazy Fan Theory Puts Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead in the Same Universe, And It Works
We were blind the whole time we watched these two hit series.
Summary:
- A Reddit theory assumes AMC’s most successful shows, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, share the same movie reality, giving a number of proofs.
- Even TWD’s showrunners admitted their references to the crime drama.
The AMC channel is most famous for its two drama series, which both aired almost at the same time – Vince Gilligan’s crime show about drug dealers, Breaking Bad (2008 - 2013), and Frank Darabont’s post-apocalyptic zombie horror, The Walking Dead (2010 - 2022), which became iconic fan-favorites in the respective genres.
There are hundreds of theories regarding the different aspects of these two shows, but one of them definitely stands out, stating that Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead are set in the shared movie universe, which is even hinted at by the series’ showrunners.
The first proof of the two shows’ interconnection came out with the second episode of The Walking Dead Season 2, in which Norman Reedus’ character is holding the bag with medicine, including a blue substance, which is familiar to Breaking Bad’s fans as Walter White’s, the main character’s, pure form of crystal meth. The zombie horror’s creators confessed they deliberately put "a little Easter egg we were doing for AMC fans".
Then there come other visible, more precisely, audible references in The Walking Dead calling back to their AMC neighbor. Breaking Bad’s fictional song called Negro y Azul: The Ballad of Heisenberg appears in the spinoff series Fear The Walking Dead.
At the same time, the song Lydia The Tattooed Lady, which was added as the ringtone of Jesse Plemons, Walter White’s associate, is recalled in TWD’s S09E10 as the name of the daughter of the show's villain, Alpha, who is then shown singing its lyrics.
While the above-mentioned similarities can seem as mere allusions, the next wild addition to the theory can be regarded as quite a strong one.
It is connected with Breaking Bad’s main antagonist Gus Fring, a powerful drug distributor, who falls victim to a pipe bomb explosion, which made his body half-dead. Before he falls to the ground, he manages to fix up his tie even in this condition, which made fans assume he could become the first walking dead, the zombie infected by a virus spread in the drugs.
This theory gives us an opportunity to change the perspective and to revise the favorite shows one more time in an attempt to find other striking similarities between them.
Both Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead are available on Netflix, in case you want to spot more similarities yourself.
Source: The New York Times, Reddit