I don’t think many people understand the true narrative genius of the Breaking Bad universe.  That may sound like just false heresy, but throw me a bone here.  When my generation thinks of Breaking Bad, they mostly just think of the memes.  But have you ever wondered whether or not those memes came from a place of quality, or the lack thereof?  Well, if the show is still talked about to this day even having ended ten years ago, then that must mean the show resonates with a lot of people, right?  If it were just a throwaway so-bad-it’s-good show with no real merit, then it would have died with other shows of the sort like The Good Doctor.  But Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are both different, and they always have been.  And this list should highlight the amount of love, passion, and intelligence that went into this utterly beautiful world created by Vince Gilligan and his crew.

This may or may not go without saying, but this list will come with a side-order of mild spoilers.  Nothing too jaw-dropping will be revealed (except for maybe a few debatable cases), but you have been duly warned.

10. Tuco Salamanca

Tuco goes at the bottom of this list because I get that in Breaking Bad, where I’d argue he gets more spotlight (despite him being on-screen for longer in Better Call Saul) he doesn’t actually have that much pizzazz or gravity.  He only appears in four episodes in Breaking Bad, but it’s what he does in those four episodes that make him such a present spectacle in the show.  He’s a fantastic introductory villain to the show, establishing the danger of the drug world while also being sort of a microcosm of later villains like Gus, Jack, and Lalo.  And in his final episode he gets a lot more spotlight, and it makes for one of the most tense episodes of the entire show (peep the highest rating of season 2 on IMDb with 40K reviews).  Raymond Cruz gives a phenomenal performance for what little screen time he was given, and that’s what really carries the character in both shows.

9. Gustavo Fring

Gus was definitely the hardest character for me to rank on this list.  In earlier drafts, he was way higher, but he’s danced around the order a lot since then.  This list was just very jam-packed with characters that resonate a lot with me, and I recognize that Gus absolutely does not deserve the connotation of being in ninth place.  He’s a phenomenal and terrifying antagonist for the show who has motivation, depth, and a uniquely menacing presence that no other character in the show can keep up with.  His actor, Giancarlo Esposito, has stated in interviews that he took a lot of inspiration from the prompt of “hiding in plain sight,” and that definitely comes across in his execution.  Gus is just so fascinating to watch because of his methodology and algorithms to absolutely everything.  He truly is a character who never lets his guard down, and it’s a stark contrast to Walt and Jesse, who basically never had a guard up in the first place.

8. Todd Alquist

Todd is one of the characters I appreciate the most in Breaking Bad off the vision alone.  He appears very late in the show, which makes him more of a symbolic introduction than anything else.  He’s framed as someone who’s, in a way, the polar opposite of Jesse: someone who has no emotional reservations or qualms against Walt and just does what he’s told.  And that contrast is shown through Todd and Jesse’s disagreements (some more extreme than others).  The increasing screen time of Todd in the second half of the season represents Walt’s unstable grip on the drug business, and the fact that without Gus holding him in place, he is wading in dangerous waters.

7. Lalo Salamanca

It says a lot that Lalo only appeared for about a season and a half of Better Call Saul, and still managed to grab the audience’s attention and become possibly the most beloved villain of either show.  That’s because he has charisma, depth, and fear factor.  He’s definitely an equal to Gus (which in itself, is horrifying) but he’s also, in ways, more capable and formidable than Gus.  While Gus works excellently behind the scenes, calculating his next five moves, Lalo is fantastic at thinking of his feet.  He acts completely on impulse, with no regard for others’ safety or feelings, and all of that is what makes him truly horrifying.  A YouTube comment once said that Lalo is like a mixture of Tuco’s unrpedictability and Gus’ intellect, which is exceptionally apt and a great descriptor for what makes Lalo feel like the culmination of all Breaking Bad villains.

6. Walter White

Yeah, I’m not making a lot of friends with this placement.  There’s definitely an argument to be made that Walt is the best character in the history of history, but I don’t totally agree.  He’s definitely fantastic, and he wouldn’t be on this list if I didn’t have something to say about him.  And I don’t want to talk smack about Walt when the entire point of this list is to show you the quality of this show. 

So, I’ll say that the pure idea of Walter White is absolutely genius, and it’s executed to near perfection.  The first few seasons of the show do a stellar job of making you root for Walt, and the latter half of the show does an equally impressive job of making you absolutely hate him.  But even at his worst, you still want to see him win and get himself out of the mess he’s gotten himself into.  You don’t like the guy, but you understand where he’s coming from even though he somewhat loses the plot, and his reality check at the end of the show is very, very needed.

5. Howard Hamlin

This was more of a biased call on my part, but I love Howard just for being Howard.  He’s established as a rich, snobby, and insensitive whiner who hates Jimmy’s guts, but it’s beautifully subverted halfway through the show.  He starts to really look into himself and change for the better, and the show makes sure you know that he doesn’t deserve what Jimmy does to him.  When Howard finally has enough and challenges Jimmy to a boxing match, it’s one of my personal favorite moments in Better Call Saul just because it’s so silly and charmingly in-character for everyone involved.  Howard really does prove himself as the most pure person in the show, which is a much-needed break from the darkness and moral grayness of every other character.

I especially love how Howard gets a happy ending in the show.  He truly didn’t deserve to get involved with all of Jimmy’s cartel shenanigans, so I’m glad they didn’t drag him into it when it didn’t serve a narrative purpose.  He definitely goes on to live a peaceful life, and Jimmy even lends him his refrigerator as a parting gift in the end!  It’s such a satisfying and beautiful piece of symbolism to represent their relationship.

4. Chuck McGill

Not many other shows have a character that parallels Chuck McGill.  He feels very unique in that way, because he’s unequivocally a rival to Jimmy in Better Call Saul, but you also can’t fully bring yourself to hate him because he is absolutely 100% right about everything.  Due to Gilligan and team’s phenomenal writing, this intelligence never feels forced or unearned.

But besides that, Chuck also has a deeply fascinating relationship with Jimmy.  Its trajectory over the course of the show is so deeply touching and sad to witness.  His various crashouts over how Jimmy treats him are some of the most enthralling moments of either show (ironically), which is also partly due to Michael McKean’s fantastic performance.  But the most realistic part of their rivalry is that neither brother wholly started it.  It mostly formed from an inability from both brothers to communicate with each other, and their stubbornness towards admitting their own faults.  It’s a relationship that feels almost painfully true to life, which amplifies the show as a whole.  I seriously can’t stress enough how much Chuck and Jimmy’s relationship make this show everything great that it is.  

TLDR, there’s a reason why most of Chuck’s crashouts have some of the highest ratings in either show on IMDb

3. Mike Ehrmantraut

Ah, the majestic kid named Finger.  The most high-quality recurring joke that never even appears in either show, by the way.  And I also never got the joke, so it sucks to be me, I guess.

But in all seriousness, Mike definitely stands out as one of the most tragic characters in the Breaking Bad universe.  He stands out because of how little moral code he has and how evil he is, but all for the right reason.  Unlike Walt, Mike actually is doing all this for his family, and Better Call Saul gives the audience so much insight into that side of him.  But Breaking Bad serves to show the no-nonsense voice of reason to Walt’s business.  And it makes him one of the most tough-as-nails killers in the show, who is so fun to watch it almost hurts.  He’s absolutely, unequivocally, a terrible person, but you can’t help but love him because he is a chronic overachiever, and he gets stuff done to the utmost extent.

2. Jesse Pinkman

What’s been said a million times before still remains true on the million and first time: Jesse Pinkman is the much-needed heart of Breaking Bad.  His and Walt’s relationship is half of what makes Breaking Bad as great as it is, because of the way these two play off each other.  And amidst all the evil and degeneracy in the drug world, Jesse represents the audience’s reaction.  In a much-needed balance to the psychopathy in the worst of the cast, Jesse reacts like any normal human would to all the death he witnesses.  And it becomes abundantly clear as the show progresses that the so-called “junkie” is not meant for the world of crime.  He is the most likable, he is the most reasonable, and he is by far the most rational character in the entire show.

Now, before reaching number one, I’d like to point out some very honorable mentions:

• Hank Schrader: Hank is one of the most popular and beloved characters in Breaking Bad, but he didn’t quite make the list for me.  This list was very tight, and I had to painfully exclude a lot of characters.  But believe me, I love Hank just as much as everybody else.

• Nacho Varga: This list would be seriously missing something if I didn’t at least mention Nacho.  I don’t even feel the need to explain how great he is; he’s just Nacho.  That should suffice.
• Kim Wexler: I feel like while not quite making the top ten, Kim at least deserved a mention because of how well she’s set up as a moral foil to Jimmy, only to subvert that halfway through the show to prove a major theme of the show.  

1. Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman

Vince, you absolute madman.  How could you do this?  What have you done?  You managed to make the funny comic relief lawyer guy into the absolute best character in the entire Breaking Bad universe, and one of the most fascinating, well-developed characters in television history.

The depth in James Morgan McGill knows no bounds.  The layers to his personality are in the hundreds.  He is formed by so much pain, yet so much sin, and even still, he remains a likable character that you want to succeed in his schemes.  And nothing about his complexity is spelled out to you; his writing remains entirely true to life, and it is beautiful.  Unlike Walt, Jimmy still has a soul left in him by the end of the show.  Trying to dance around spoilers, Jimmy’s final moments in the show are some of the most satisfying sequences I’ve ever witnessed in a character arc.  It deserves to be watched in its entirety, and I couldn’t be happier that Saul Goodman, the character that mostly served as a fast-talking comic relief character in Breaking Bad, got an entire show to himself.

---

To tie things off, both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are on Netflix, waiting for new fans.  If you have a Netflix subscription, or can spare some change on one, I can’t recommend enough that you at least give these shows an honest chance.  Because if you want to do creative writing as either a job or a hobby, then this show is truly the gold standard to take inspiration from.

This universe remains a well-running piece of art nearly twenty years after its first pilot aired.  And I can’t wait for Better Fuel Huell to come out in 2035.