Always the desert: creating affective landscapes in Breaking Bad

It is over ten years since the inception of the AMC television series Breaking Bad (2008-2013) and this pivotal series is still highly relevant, as is its visual narrative interaction with the storied Southwestern desert landscape. This research offers an original reading of the series by applying Beck’s analysis of desert tropes, using a content analysis approach to critique episodes and scenes and mis-en-scene to understand the multiform role the desert plays in the unfolding drama of Breaking Bad. Beck outlines five classic desert tropes and the article explores how the visual storytelling of Breaking Bad intertwines the drugs trade with the desert.

For Walter and Jesse, the desert is represented as a place of spiritual testing, existential crisis and perception shifting. The apocalyptic landscape of the desert is fuelled by its history of atomic and nuclear testing; Walter’s abandoned gas mask is a fitting symbol for the terrain. The desert also functions as the site for new capitalism as the drugs trade mainlines from Mexico through the US and Walter’s blue crystal meth is formulated in the Winnebago at the To’Hajiille site, a setting that provides the arc of Walter’s rise and fall. Allegorically, the protagonist Walter White transforms into his alter-ego Heisenberg in a process of desertification, as he becomes the desert, and his inner desert landscape (his cancer and hubris) consumes him. Ultimately, the landscape outlives the storylines, burying Old West and New West, as summed up by the character Saul in the words: “Always, the desert.”