All The Times Breaking Bad Paid Crazy Attention To Detail

The super lab Gus provides to Jesse and Walter, first shown in the season three episode "Mas," may seem too fantastic to be based on anything real, but that's not true. They do exist. In fact, most of the meth labs on the show were made under the advice of DEA agents who worked on the show, according to an article in Scientific American. They may not be exact replicas of any particular meth labs, but they're as authentic as it gets. It's just that not too many of them are in the United States. According to an article in the Washington Post, the United States keeps a close eye and tight control on the importation of all materials that can be used to make meth. Despite this, one was seized by the DEA in Georgia in 2005, which was their first, according to their website. But in Mexico, it's a different story. According to an article in The Daily Mail, about 200 of these super labs were seized by the Mexican government in 2012, which was 10 times what they seized in 2008.

While we're on the topic of bodies dissolving in acid, we may as well discuss the infamous scene from the season one episode "Cat's In the Bag...", in which Jesse dissolves a body and winds up destroying his bathtub in the process. There seems to be some debate on whether or not this scene is totally accurate. Hydrofluoric acid is powerful because of its chemistry. It's able to dissolve glass, which is why it gets stored in plastic containers, and why Walt tells Jesse to get plastic tubs to dissolve Emilio's body. Jesse doesn't do this, using his tub instead, which the acid eats through. However, in a special episode of Mythbusters dedicated to Breaking Bad, the hosts were unable to recreate this moment entirely when using the chemicals mentioned in the episode. While the body of a pig, used as a stand in for a person, did dissolve, the tub they used remained fairly intact.

Whenever we see a person who has heaps and heaps of money, the first thing we wonder is where he or she got that money. Drug dealers are aware of this fact too, which is why they launder it, using a legitimate business to hide the source of their money. According to the Washington Post, Small-time dealers, like Badger and Skinny Pete, usually don't worry about this because they don't make enough money to draw a lot of attention or make laundering worth their while. But when dealers or cartels make an insane amount of money, it very much becomes a necessity, as it does for Walt beginning with season 4's "Cornered,". Big-time dealers and cartels tend to use businesses that deal with a lot of cash, like car washes, restaurants, bars, and casinos. However, they are also beginning to use wire transfer services like Western Union and Moneygram, and they are even starting to use textile and heavy equipment trades as well.

One of the aces Walt and company had up their sleeve is Mike, the ex-cop who helps Gus and then Walt run their operations. Mike is not a creation of pure fiction—there are real "Mikes" out there. According to the Daily News, in 2011, an ex-NYPD officer was charged with supplying drug dealers with NYPD gear so they could raid a rival dealer's home. Not only that, the officer even allegedly helped them make the raid. In 2001, an ex-Chicago PD officer was tried for a number of crimes, like fixing drug cases, shaking down dealers, and supplying weapons to gangs. So while there may not be an exact person on whom Mike is based, there are plenty of former officers out there like Mike to say that he is very much real.

In addition to accurately dramatizing the meth trade, the producers of Breaking Bad put a lot of attention to detail into the science used in the show. For instance, when Walt and Jesse steal the huge barrel of methylamine in season one's "A No-Rough-Stuff Type Deal," Walt has to burn out a lock so that they can get in the warehouse. According to BBC News, the science here is spot-on. When a metal oxide, like the iron oxide Walt uses, is mixed with a reactive metal powder, like the aluminum in the scene, the mixture creates a chemical reaction with an extremely high temperature—one hot enough to weld train tracks together. So burning through a measly door lock is very possible.

For this one, the producers of Breaking Bad went for authenticity, but erred on the side of caution for accuracy. In an interview with NPR, Donna Nelson, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and one of the advisors on the show, explained how creator Vince Gilligan and his team were very careful to omit some of the steps in making meth. They didn't want the show to become an unintentional DIY on meth cookery. In the interview, Nelson says that multiple methods for making meth exist, and what the producers of Breaking Bad did was take those different steps and cobble them together into a hodge-podge process. So while the individual steps shown follow the accurate science of making the drug, the overall process of the steps put together is not accurate. Hence, anyone trying to recreate Walt's process at home won't get meth, but they will get a lot of disappointment. And no one will have to remember their name.

One of the things that really stands out about Breaking Bad is how such a mild-mannered person like Walter White can become such a violent lunatic. Well, that's very much possible. In the beginning of the series, Walt is diagnosed with cancer and undergoes chemotherapy. According to Cancercare.org, chemo can alter a person's personality. Chemo has been known to make people sad, anxious, angry and even aggressive, and Walt definitely displays the final two. So really Walt acting the way he does, at least in the beginning, could just be a side-effect of his cancer treatment. Plus, just the idea of learning you have a terminal disease can greatly change your personality. In this way, Walter's story arc is all-too real.