Breaking Bad Tour

Jim is a big fan of the AMC television series "Breaking Bad," starring former "Malcolm in the Middle" TV dad Bryan Cranston.  The show is about a high school chemistry teacher named Walter White (Cranston) who has cancer.  Walt is afraid he'll die and leave his wife and handicapped child with no money -- so he starts a meth lab to make cash.  The show is set in Albuquerque.

I haven't watched the show because I don't watch violent TV/movies and Walt's life  turns dark.  But Jim wanted to see some of the locations that play a big role in "Breaking Bad," so yesterday we took a self-guided tour. (There is a guided tour but it's $65 a person and sold out until mid May).  

It turned out to be a good way to explore Albuquerque and Jim had fun seeing the locations and explaining plot lines to me.  At one stop we met crew members restoring a film location to its original condition; at another we saw someone else snapping photos.

Jim wrote all the photo captions below, some of which still don't make sense to me.  But if you like "Breaking Bad" keep reading.  Jim promises there are no spoilers.

We started the Breaking Bad tour at the car wash Walt and Skylar bought to launder profits from Walt’s meth business. Don’t remember if it was called Octopus in the show.

Jim in the parking lot next to the car wash. They seemed to be doing a pretty good business.

This house was used on the show  as Hank and Marie’s home. Hank is a DEA agent and Walt’s brother in law. (Marie is Skylar’s sister.)

Next stop was Walt and Skyar’s home. When we arrived there was a large truck across the street and several men in the driveway. We drove around the block and parked in the same spot where the twin brother hitmen parked while staking out Walt’s house. Jim was waiting to see if the truck was going to move so we could get a better picture, but Bev said she thought the truck was part of the TV film crew. As usual she was correct. The truck and its crew were there to clean up after the last day of filming. In this picture Jim is talking to the truck driver.

Jim and the driver. Note his Breaking Bad baseball cap. He told us that the owner of the house was a retired woman who enjoyed fans of the show stopping by and taking pictures. 

Jim in front of the house just to prove he was really there. Didn’t see any pizza on the garage roof. You should get that reference if you watch the show. Also the driver told us that many scenes were shot inside the house and around the pool in the back yard. The pool is where Walt found a burnt teddy bear and other debris from the airplane collision above the house .

This is the duplex Jesse rented from Jane. She lived in the one on the right and Jesse in the one on the left. It’s a few blocks away from the U of NM.

Jim and Cooper in front of the house that Jesse’s aunt left him. In the show the motorhome/drug lab was often parked next to the house behind a metal gate. Looks like someone built a garage there.

Inside Los Pollos Hermanos. This is where Walt first meets Gus. Actually the chicken shack is called Twisters.   The owner decided to keep the Los Pollos Hermanos logo. We bought a couple of cold drinks and the guy behind the counter said that fans of the show from all over world stop by to take pictures. 

The outside of the restaurant should look familiar to fans of the show. Hank (the DEA agent and Walt’s brother in law) put a tracking device on Gus’s car in this parking lot. Scenes were filmed inside and outside the restaurant.