- S1E1, Walt can't even fire a gun (and later in S2E1, we see Jesse can't either). Things change.
- S1E3, This Walt cannot kill a man, especially in cold blood. He makes a list of reasons to not kill Crazy 8 (it's the moral thing to do; Judeo/Christian principles; you are NOT a murderer; sanctity of life) and reasons to go ahead with it (He will kill your entire family if you let him go). Again, by series end, the first part of the list is thrown away; and Walter kills quite a number of people, and also contributes to the deaths of countless more.
- S1E5, Interesting to see Marie stand up for Walt at the "intervention," she's the first to do so and then Hank actually goes along with her. At the end of the series, she has completely written Walt off as a monster and Skyler is the one who is torn.
- S2E1, Walt spends all night watching through the window of his house, to protect his family against cray-cray drug distributor Tuco and friends. When dawn breaks, there's a shot of the knife block that Walt contemplates, then reinserts the large knife he had apparently been holding all night. Cut now to S5E14, "Ozymandias," where Skyler contemplates the knife block, then takes a knife (the same knife?) ou of the block to protect HER family from the drug lord (Walt) who is threatening to destroy them.
- S2E1, Aha, the infamous "ricin" that ends up never being used until the very last episode despite Walt's planning and scheming.
- S1E7, Watched Walt and Jesse steal the methylamine, and I was thinking the whole time, "It's in a barrel, dummies. Roll it, don't carry it." Then in S2E1, Hank's first comment is how they have no street smarts, because the idiots carried the barrel rather than rolling it.
- Lots of stuff changes for Walt. Agonizes over killing a man in the first few episodes, but by the end he is not just killing people himself but also orchestrating the violent deaths of men in prison who depended on the partner Walt also murdered. He also freaks over having to dispose of dead bodies, but by the end is getting the routine down of dumping bodies and acid into plastic barrels and then sealing them.
- S1E1, Jesse asks him why he is "breaking bad" at his age, and what Walt comes with: "I'm... awake." he then spends the entire series lying about why he's doing what he's doing. Cut to S6E14, where he admits to Skyler he did all this "for me: I liked it, I was good at it, and I was... alive."
- Hank operates more as comic relief in the first two season, and then things become darker for him. I think the "Western motif" runs pretty heavily -- Hank is the guy in the white hat, and Walt the guy in the black hat (literally), but Walt actually has some redeeming qualities even if they don't necessarily redeem him, and Hank was just really an insensitive a-hole in the first two seasons. He's crass, he's disrespectful, he's demeaning, he doesn't know how to handle actual relational stuff... yet at the same time, he wants to try for the people he cares about even if he's clueless.
One thing I appreciated about the show is how complex the characters were; even if you could point out at the end of the day who was killing people and who was protecting them, in terms of their actual character, all of the characters were both strong and yet flawed.
[This actually is telegraphed early as a highlight of the series as far back as S1E3, when Walt and Crazy 8 debate over Crazy 8's life, and it's unclear whether the distributor will be trustworthy if Walt lets him go. Crazy 8 here comes off reasonable, thoughtful, and even sympathetic; Walt realizes he knows his dad and the family business; they relate through their shared humanity; but as it turns out, Walt kills him when he realizes Crazy 8 still planned to finish him off. A "bad" guy can still be a lot of positive things; a "good" guy can still embody some very negative qualities.]
- In season 1, the family is playing poker, Hank says that Walt is incapable of recognizing a criminal like Hank is able to do, and Walt bluffs him big-time and wins the biggest hand of the night. (Foreshadowing.) There are also a number of occasions where Hank comes unsettlingly close to discovering Walt's private affairs: The review of the high school chem lab inventory is a big one, the rational conclusion is that Walt probably knows what happened, yet Hank never even thinks it because he sees the "good Walt" he has fabricated in his mind versus the actual evidence. This all contributes to Hank's loathing for Walt starting with S5E9.
- Season 1, Walt is given a rousing introduction at the PTA meeting, a virtual local hero for his courage in battling cancer, while they are all up in arms about a guy who happened to be Hispanic, have a joint in his car, and an old offense record (a guy who we know is decent by how he cares for Walter when he throws up daily in the bathroom); Walter says nothing to defend this man's reputation, and eventually when Walter is revealed in Season 5, they will all despise Walter as well.
- Walt and Jesse both are sketched out decently in Season 1 in terms of personality directions: Walt has a very decent side to him but it's partly based on keeping other parts of himself caged up tight, that occasionally come out. We most see his domineering, condescending nature with Jesse in season 1 (where he can be positively emotionally abusive), even if he is also capable of deep insight and sensitivity. Meanwhile, while Jesse starts as a guy in the meth business, we see he (1) doesn't even know how to use a gun, (2) covers for his little brother's pot habit even though his parents mistakingly kick Jesse out, (3) is loyal to his peeps, and (4)
- Walt's comments to the unborn Holly on the video: He's been waiting for her a long time, and he's so proud of her and glad she's part of their family so she will always have one. Walt does love Walt Jr, but there is a crazy kind of affection he has always expressed for Holly, even to the point where he briefly kidnaps her in S6E14, and she breaks his heart by wanting her mother instead... and he loves her so much that he sends her home.
- Anyone realize that "Lambert" -- the name on Walter's new assumed NH driver's license -- was Skyler's maiden name? After Ozymandias, Skyler goes back to her maiden name; but ironically it's the same name Walt has kept. I don't know what that's supposed to suggest, but I found their last meeting in Felina to be tearworthy; they've come to the end and can never be together, and they're saying their goodbyes, and all the ashes of their life lie between them, yet... they're still connected despite all the things Walt has done and (at least some of them) regrets. It comes out most when she tells him he "looks bad" ; and then later when Walt asks (rather than demands) to see Holly, and she watches him with her at the crib, and there you can see the admirable Walt a last time, the man who just really loves his daughter. And it makes you wonder what might have happened.
- It makes you wonder what might have happened had Walt just chosen to die and not be treated. But again, it's insinuated he mainly chooses to live for Holly. He wants the ability to make the decision and Skyler thinks he won't do treatment. But then he wakes up, sees all the baby books, and goes and finds Skyler and says he will do treatment.
- S1E1, Chemistry is about change. About transformation.
- Walt is given around two years to live after his diagnosis, and ironically dies the night before the two-year anniversary of his diagnosis... albeit from a gunshot wound and not necessarily the cancer.
- The turning point for Walt -- the part that shows that his heart isn't quite right and that he's got more going on inside him than "love for family" -- is when after leaving the meth business, he realizes he badly needs the money but turns down the job and insurance from the Beautiful People (Elliot and Gretchen) and lies to Skyler about taking it. He could have paid for his treatment without going back to crime. He could have continued His Life As It Was. But he no longer wants that; he wants to cook meth because it's illegal, he wants to be self-sufficient, he views it as a puzzle to solve and prove how smart he is, and he's tired of being "asleep" for so long. He had already left the business; but he makes a conscious choice to go BACK even after knowing he might have to kill more people and he might be putting his family at risk. That moment reveals him.
- When Walt isn't sure whether he wants treatment or not, Walt Jr finally explodes and says something similar to, "Why don't you just die already, then?" This is eerily similar to his final words to his father in the penultimate episode, "Granite State," when Walt lies to get Walt Jr on the phone at school to offer him money, and Walt Jr explodes and then hangs up on him. In Season 1, he's mad at his father for being a "pussy" and not fighting for his life; in Season 5, he's mad at his father for being a liar and not the man he thought he was.
- In Season 1, Walt is really hard on Jesse, jamming a lot of chemistry knowledge down his throat when Jesse's memory of high school lab is remarkably lacking. We also see a flashback to their high school relationship, where Jesse would draw caricatures of Walt, and Walt would call him a disappointing student. Yet still in Season 1, after Walt "leaves" the meth business (momentarily), Jesse starts correcting Badger about all the stuff Walter has just taught him; apparently Jesse is much more attentive and smarter than Walt realizes. Jump to the final episode, when Jesse is able to produce Blue Sky almost perfectly without Walt's help; and Walt's final moments involve walking through the active lab where Jesse has been cooking and seeing that Jesse is a success as a student (and, thus, finally, himself as a teacher).
