The Best Line That Hank Ever Dropped On Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad's DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) was a jovial dude who loved busting people's chops, but he was deadly serious about his job catching Albuquerque's most dangerous drug criminals, the most nefarious of whom was his own brother-in-law, Walter "Heisenberg" White (Bryan Cranston).
Hank — or ASAC Schrader, if you're putting some respect on his name — was a potent foe of Heisenberg's, largely because he never admitted defeat, even when he knew his fate was sealed and death was imminent. Plus, Hank's mix of sarcastic humor and don't-mess-with-me bravado made him one of the AMC crime-thriller's most quotable characters. He had a million great lines ("I swear to Christ, I will put you under the jail"), but his most memorable crack was one of his last — delivered to his executioner, the neo-Nazi Jack (Michael Bowen): "My name is ASAC Schrader, and you can go f*** yourself."
"What do you think, fed?"
The line, which The Hollywood Reporter named one of the 25 most badass Breaking Bad quotes when the series reached its finale in 2013, comes in the show's flawless penultimate episode, "Ozymandias," which is still the only episode in TV history to achieve a perfect 10 in fan voting on IMDb. In the scene, the neo-Nazi gang that Walt unwisely summoned to his desert cash stash spot had already killed Hank's partner Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada), and the gang's leader Jack is about to finish off the wounded Schraderbräu brewer. Walt pleads with Jack to spare his brother-in-law, and offers him $80 million to let Hank go, along with a promise that Hank would not send the DEA after the gang.
"What do you think, fed?" Jack says to the cornered federal agent. "Would you take that deal?" In an attempt to humanize and dignify his brother-in-law, Walt corrects Jack: "It's Hank. His name is Hank." Jack counters, "How 'bout it, Hank? Should I let you go?"
The camera then cuts to an extreme close-up of Hank, who grits his teeth in pain, gathers his resolve for a moment, then fixes his steely blue eyes on Jack's and delivers his iconic declaration of defiance.
Hank died as he lived: like a boss
Walt tearfully begs Hank to accept the plan, and then Hank hits him with another one of his greatest lines: "You're the smartest guy I ever met, and you're too stupid to see he made up his mind ten minutes ago." Jack then shoots Hank in the head after Hank tells him, "Do what you're gonna do," and Walt drops to the ground in despair so agonizing that he can't even cry aloud. It's an extraordinary sequence, and the episode only gets even more intense from there.
The sheer badassery of "my name is ASAC Schrader" makes it Hank's best line. He was a man who, even though he couldn't stand up, refused to die on his knees, metaphorically speaking. He looked death in the face and told it to F off. Moira Walley-Beckett's writing, Rian Johnson's direction, and Dean Norris' acting combined to give ASAC Schrader one of the best death scenes in TV history.