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Bryan Cranston’s role as Walter White inBreaking Badwas so perfect that it almost touched the likes of iconic castings such as Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark and Daniel Craig as James Bond. Despite his relatively minor reputation in the peripheries of the television industry, it was a calling that Cranston was destined to serve inBreaking Badand leave the series behind as his legacy.
It is pointless to deny the magnitude ofBreaking Badas the series was elemental in launching the Second Golden Age of television alongsideMad Men. The AMC crime drama, after being picked up by Netflix, ascended into a modern-day classic whose existence would forever be engraved in pop culture history.
And yet, the network executives were a good sport about filming an alternate ending forBreaking Badthat completely disregarded and rebuffed the entire series.
Bryan Cranston’s hilariousBreaking Badalternate ending
With an actor as versatile asBryan Cranston, it would be completely illogical to not take advantage of his predisposed talents, be it in the genre of drama or comedy. It would be even better if one could combine the two in a rare juxtaposition that sees one of themost vicious television villains of all timebeing played by one of the most hilarious and lovably inept sitcom characters.
As it happens, theBreaking BadDVD box set included analternate endingto the series filmed in response to a meme that became quite popular during the show’s final season. In thememe, a shocked Keanu Reeves fromBill & Tedlooks on while surrounded by the words:“What if at the end of Breaking Bad, they drop Walt into the witness protection program and that’s the start of Malcolm In the Middle.”
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True to the meme’s presented storyline, a three-and-a-half-minute video shows Bryan Cranston’s Hal (Malcolm in the Middle) waking up in a huff in the middle of the night and recounting the “scariest dream” he just had to his wife Lois (played by Jane Kaczmarek). The dream was then revealed to be the entire plot ofBreaking Bad, replete with all the characters and iconic lines from the show that Cranston went on to say out loud in character as Hal.
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Despite Bryan Cranston’s devotion to the role of Walter White aka the one who knocks, the actor proved his range and versatility to the world the moment he slipped into character as Hal, the bumbling and inept dad from the sitcom that he left behind 7 years ago.
The character he demonstrated in those 3 minutes and 39 seconds perfectly encapsulated Hal in all his immature and zany glory, as he recollected in sheer horror the things he had seemingly done as Heisenberg.
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The comical element of Cranston recounting the dream is further elevated as he refers to his longtime partner-in-crime, Jesse Pinkman (played byAaron Paul), as a “man-child kid who always looked like he was wearing his older brother’s clothes” and used “the b-word a lot.” He also referencesAnna Gunn‘s character by saying he was married to a “tall beautiful blonde” to which Lois hilariously responds, “Yeah well, keep dreaming pal.”
By the end of the clip, the frightened Hal is nearly in tears but recovers soon after to shift back into character as Heisenberg and references the iconic line, “I’m the one who’s knocking.” However, Lois’s matter-of-fact attitude about Hal’s midnight shenanigans pulls him back to reality while the camera pans to reveal Walter White’s black hat lying on a nearby chair.
Breaking Badis currently streaming on Netflix and AMC+.
Diya Majumdar
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2408
Diya Majumdar is a Senior Content Writer at FandomWire with over 2000 published articles on the website. Since 2022, she has been working as an entertainment journalist with a special focus on films and pop culture.Among the countless genres and themes of Hollywood, the ones that particularly favor Diya’s tastes include Game of Thrones, DC, and well-aged thrillers and classics.
