With the Breaking Bad franchise comprising two TV shows and a movie, it can be quite confusing to know the best order to watch the film and series. However, newcomers to the franchise can be relieved that the Breaking Bad universe has ended. With no additional film or series in production to worry about, it’s easy to follow a defined order in watching the Breaking Bad franchise.
The Breaking Bad franchise follows the lives of Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Saul Goodman (aka Jimmy McGill), and Mike Ehrmantraut. With the Breaking Bad franchise filled with flashbacks and flashforwards, it’s easy to encounter spoilers along the way. The first TV show, Breaking Bad, premiered on January 20, 2008, and has 62 episodes spread across 5 seasons. The second TV show, Better Call Saul, is divided into 63 episodes in 6 seasons. There’s also a two-hour film, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, created as a sequel to Breaking Bad that was released on October 11, 2019.
You Should Watch Better Call Saul Last
When it comes to the order to watch the Breaking Bad franchise, there’s no need to worry about watching the storyline in a strange or peculiar order. Trusting in the creative geniuses of the Breaking Bad franchise creator and producers is simply the best way to go—watching the film and TV shows in the order they were created. Begin with watching Breaking Bad, then move to its intended sequel, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, and finish the franchise with Better Call Saul (BCS).
While Better Call Saul might be considered a prequel, it’s both a prequel and a sequel. Although the show depicts the moral decline of some of the franchise’s main characters, it also contains flashforwards that are plain spoilers for the franchise’s true sequel, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie.
A few of the franchise’s main characters are established in the first series, Breaking Bad and it’s good to know them before viewing the other content. When it comes to El Camino, it is just a 122-minute movie so there’s no need to get unnecessary spoilers from Better Call Saul before watching it, when El Camino can be watched in a fraction of the time it takes to binge the spin-off.
Would Watching The Breaking Bad Story Out Of Order Be A Bad Thing?
If plot lines and characterization are not major reasons for watching a show, then watching the Breaking Bad franchise out of order may seem logical. The Breaking Bad spin-offs were created to give an in-depth understanding of certain characters about how and why they became who they were. Treating each series and film in the Breaking Bad franchise as a stand-alone production makes it more difficult to appreciate the sequence of events.
When a series acts as both a prequel and a sequel, it’s easy to turn the entire franchise’s plot structure on its head. Spoilers ruin the integrity of a well-thought-out storyline. If the aim is to avoid such spoilers, then it may seem reasonable to watch the Breaking Bad franchise in chronological order. This would mean starting with Better Call Saul season 1 to season 6 (stopping at episode 9), which are primarily prequel episodes, before moving on to Breaking Bad. Then, watching El Camino: A Breaking Bad Moviebefore returning to the concluding episodes of Better Call Saul Season 6. However, some parts of Better Call Saul would become hard to follow without the rest of Breaking Bad and it’s truly better to follow the order they were released in.
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