‘Breaking Bad’: Meet a Real-Life Saul Goodman Todd Levitt

“Right when Walt was leaving to go out to the desert, he should have called Saul at that time and then Saul would have diverted the whole situation,” says Todd. (He may be a bit partial to Saul, as his actual attorney advertisements read “Better Call Todd.”)

“As an attorney, myself, I would have averted that whole situation,” says Todd. “I would have found Walt and kept him in my presence till he calmed down. I would not have allowed him to go out to that desert.”

Poetic Justice in ‘Ozymandias’

“Ozymandias,” the title of the last episode of AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad,’ comes from an 1818 poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The poem’s metaphor for the fall of the ‘King of Kings,’ ”Ozymandias,” is a statue crumbling in the desert. After the hired assassin, Uncle Jack, shoots Walt’s brother-in-law Hank, Walt collapses, falling into the sands of the New Mexico desert.

Merriam-Webster defines poetic justice as “a result or occurrence that seems proper because someone who has done bad things to other people is being harmed or punished.” The full definition adds that usually the punishment is ironically appropriate.

In defending and expanding his crystal meth empire, Walt engaged in international drug trafficking, laundered money, committed extortion and murder. In “Ozymandias,” he loses $69 million of his $80 million drug money profits to white supremacist killers. The neo-Nazis take Jesse to torture him and force him to cook meth, while hooked to chain. Walt’s son learns the truth about his father’s drug dealing and the murder of Hank. Walt’s wife, Skylar, refuses to support and follow him any longer. Walt’s son calls the police on his father. After struggling in a knife fight with Skylar, in a pained, confused jumble, Walt utters, “We’re a family. We’re a family.” But he has lost his family — ironically the initial justification for choosing his path of crime.

For Realistic Legal Justice, Better Call…Todd?

Todd Levitt