Breaking Bad from the onset is harrowing viewing, with supposedly the better part of 300 people dying, but along the way a fair few characters’ deaths were a real punch to the gut after we grew to like them or saw great potential in them (or appalled by the unfairness of the death, even if they were background scenery characters). Here is the list:
Krazy 8 – A mid-level street punk who tried to kill Walt, yet his intimate murder was not bereft of any poignancy when Walt got know about Krazy 8’s life story and his interest in music (even if proved to be a ruse). When Walt, with a bike lock, throttled the life out of Krazy 8 (pathetically thrashing the ceramic shard about) this was the real inception of Heisenberg.
Combo – Getting gunned down by a small brainwashed boy on a BMX was one of the most WTF moments in Breaking Bad.
Jane Margolis –The first very significant loss in Breaking Bad’s run. Her untimely, hugely sad death by vomit left me emotionally affected for days – her final few heart wrenching gulps and chokes, while White passively watched in the dead of night, were the birth pains of the fully fledged Heisenberg. A traumatised Jesse Pinkman and silently grieving Donald Margolis looking on while Jane’s corpse is wheeled out the following morning shattered me to pieces.
Tomás – Since he was forced into killing at such a painfully early age by hardened criminals (killing Combo), who’s to say he wouldn’t have grown up into a strange, incomplete monster like Todd? The sadness and outrage of his murder seemed to affect Jesse more than the audience.
Gale Boetticher – Again, this is a gunshot murder that perhaps emotionally affects Jesse Pinkman more than the audience because he’s the hood who carries it out! PTSD and guilt will surely plague Jesse all the way to his presumably early grave. Gale Boetticher was an affable eccentric who had none of the brooding pomposity of Walter White and it was hard to watch his hugely tense execution (a cliff hanger of “The Best of Both Worlds” proportions) but if you roll with wolves, you’ll get mauled.
Drew Sharp – A minor supporting character, but was just a damn fucking kid who was at the wrong place and wrong time. The calmly, politely unhinged Todd casually gunning him down with a Glock certainly lowered the celebratory mood after the train heist.
Mike Ehrmantraut – A surprisingly affecting and serine demise, especially when Jonathan Banks, solid character actor that he is, played a long list of dull, disposable thugs in other films (like Freejack and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory). A retiring Mike was only looking out for his men and his granddaughter, and after he gave his mesmerising “Full Measure” lecture to Walter White, you got a sense that he was a more moral career criminal than White was (who spitefully shot him out of hurt pride).
Hank Schrader – One of the worse snatches of defeat from the jaws of victory imaginable, especially after Hank had gone through too much already and evolved as a compelling anti-hero alongside the anti-villain, Walter White. He died very bravely and defiantly. You further grew to hate Todd, Jack, and their Neo-Nazi gang so intensely by that point.
Andrea – A sudden, saddening, and chilling execution of a rather innocent character, and confirmation that dating Jesse Pinkman is as dangerous as dating James Bond, but by this point Vince Gilligan was unnecessarily further kicking the puppy with both the audience (right after the upheaval of “Ozymandias”) and the by then the long suffering Jesse (who had already gone through the loss of Jane). And Todd had already firmly enough established his cunt credentials. Jesse’s tortured wail of anguish was deeply moving though.
Walter White – With the countdown of terminal cancer and the shark invested waters of the criminal underworld, the writing was on the wall for him from the start, and considering all the hurt and suffering he inflicted (often thoughtlessly and indirectly) to satisfy his strange obsessions, avarice, and insecurity, I was not very torn up when he finally lain to rest amongst his lab equipment, as fascinating and charismatic as he was. No, most of my hurt and sadness in the final scene came from the “death” of Jesse Pinkman, a hollowed out human husk, laughing insanely as he ploughed his getaway car through the fence, trying to escape from a lifetime of pain compressed into just two or three years…
Krazy 8 – A mid-level street punk who tried to kill Walt, yet his intimate murder was not bereft of any poignancy when Walt got know about Krazy 8’s life story and his interest in music (even if proved to be a ruse). When Walt, with a bike lock, throttled the life out of Krazy 8 (pathetically thrashing the ceramic shard about) this was the real inception of Heisenberg.
Combo – Getting gunned down by a small brainwashed boy on a BMX was one of the most WTF moments in Breaking Bad.
Jane Margolis –The first very significant loss in Breaking Bad’s run. Her untimely, hugely sad death by vomit left me emotionally affected for days – her final few heart wrenching gulps and chokes, while White passively watched in the dead of night, were the birth pains of the fully fledged Heisenberg. A traumatised Jesse Pinkman and silently grieving Donald Margolis looking on while Jane’s corpse is wheeled out the following morning shattered me to pieces.
Tomás – Since he was forced into killing at such a painfully early age by hardened criminals (killing Combo), who’s to say he wouldn’t have grown up into a strange, incomplete monster like Todd? The sadness and outrage of his murder seemed to affect Jesse more than the audience.
Gale Boetticher – Again, this is a gunshot murder that perhaps emotionally affects Jesse Pinkman more than the audience because he’s the hood who carries it out! PTSD and guilt will surely plague Jesse all the way to his presumably early grave. Gale Boetticher was an affable eccentric who had none of the brooding pomposity of Walter White and it was hard to watch his hugely tense execution (a cliff hanger of “The Best of Both Worlds” proportions) but if you roll with wolves, you’ll get mauled.
Drew Sharp – A minor supporting character, but was just a damn fucking kid who was at the wrong place and wrong time. The calmly, politely unhinged Todd casually gunning him down with a Glock certainly lowered the celebratory mood after the train heist.
Mike Ehrmantraut – A surprisingly affecting and serine demise, especially when Jonathan Banks, solid character actor that he is, played a long list of dull, disposable thugs in other films (like Freejack and Under Siege 2: Dark Territory). A retiring Mike was only looking out for his men and his granddaughter, and after he gave his mesmerising “Full Measure” lecture to Walter White, you got a sense that he was a more moral career criminal than White was (who spitefully shot him out of hurt pride).
Hank Schrader – One of the worse snatches of defeat from the jaws of victory imaginable, especially after Hank had gone through too much already and evolved as a compelling anti-hero alongside the anti-villain, Walter White. He died very bravely and defiantly. You further grew to hate Todd, Jack, and their Neo-Nazi gang so intensely by that point.
Andrea – A sudden, saddening, and chilling execution of a rather innocent character, and confirmation that dating Jesse Pinkman is as dangerous as dating James Bond, but by this point Vince Gilligan was unnecessarily further kicking the puppy with both the audience (right after the upheaval of “Ozymandias”) and the by then the long suffering Jesse (who had already gone through the loss of Jane). And Todd had already firmly enough established his cunt credentials. Jesse’s tortured wail of anguish was deeply moving though.
Walter White – With the countdown of terminal cancer and the shark invested waters of the criminal underworld, the writing was on the wall for him from the start, and considering all the hurt and suffering he inflicted (often thoughtlessly and indirectly) to satisfy his strange obsessions, avarice, and insecurity, I was not very torn up when he finally lain to rest amongst his lab equipment, as fascinating and charismatic as he was. No, most of my hurt and sadness in the final scene came from the “death” of Jesse Pinkman, a hollowed out human husk, laughing insanely as he ploughed his getaway car through the fence, trying to escape from a lifetime of pain compressed into just two or three years…
just was heart breaking and Andrea's death was one of the coldest deaths ever on TV 
