What if it were all a dream? Breaking Bad certainly wouldn’t be the first TV show to pull that stunt, but let’s face it, we knew the AMC drama wouldn’t mess with us that way. Its ending was incredibly satisfying. So much so that we’re more than happy to watch a ridiculous alternate ending that gives us the Malcolm in the Middle/Breaking Bad mash-up we’ve always wanted to see. It shows us a scenario in which Walter White’s whole story is really just a dream fabricated in the mind of Bryan Cranston’s Malcolm in the Middle character Hal, likely brought on by a deep-fried Twinkie binge.
EW says this playful “alternate ending” will be featured on the Breaking Bad complete box set that’s due out November 26. The site quotes Bryan Cranston discussing the popular joke-theory that was going around about Breaking Bad, in which the show would end with Walter White being put into witness protection and that story leading into the start of Malcolm in the Middle, the family sitcom in which Cranston starred as the goofy dad Hal.
What I love most about the above video is that Cranston slides right back into the Hal role and plays the scenario pretty much exactly as we might expect it to in an ep of Malcolm in the Middle. Being more of a big kid trapped in a man-shaped body, Hal would probably be terrified by the idea of living in Walter White’s life. He can’t even get himself to use the “B word” to describe Jesse’s preferred expletive. Meanwhile, special guest star Jane Kaczmarek reprises her role as Lois, and plays up her end typically amused and dismissive of her husband’s fears. And she's completely unthreatened by the fact that her husband dreamed he was married to a beautiful blonde woman.
The twist to the video comes near the end, as Hal seems to morph into Walter White, being the one who knocks... at his wife’s back door. There’s a few seconds of Walter White’s face and voice to remind us of how drastically different these two characters are. And then Lois shoots him down and tells him to go to bed. Classic. Kaczmarek and Cranston really are great together on screen, and this is such a great use of that chemistry, not to mention a fun way to shed a completely different perspective on Walter White’s life.
Just for fun (because I never get tired of this):
