Last Call: How Breaking Bad Fixed Its Pizza Flub

It's been almost seven years since the (arguably) best episode of Breaking Bad aired. No, not the finale; that was overwrought and convenient. The third-to-last episode, "Ozymandias," aired on September 15, 2013. And perhaps in tenuous commemoration of this highly unimportant anniversary, entertainment site Looper has an article about a pizza-centric detail within the series that viewers of the show might have missed the first time around. This is the stuff the internet was made for.

By season 3 of the show's five-season run, protagonist Walter White has frayed considerably—undergoing chemotherapy for aggressive lung cancer and simultaneously producing meth so perfect that all the drug cartels want you dead is going to leave anyone feeling run-down. He's also on the outs with his wife, Skyler, and when he comes home with a pizza and she refuses to let him through the door, Walter throws a tantrum in the driveway that causes the pizza to rocket out of its box and land flat on the garage roof.

As Looper points out, though, Breaking Bad superfans noticed that the only way to pull off this gag was to leave the pizza uncut, a thing that no average American pizzeria does. The fans actually put this question to show creator Vince Gilligan in a 2017 Reddit AMA, and he admitted that the audience deserved an explanation—so the show gave them one in season 4. Observe this lengthy scene from the episode "Thirty Eight Snub," where Jesse Pinkman, Badger, and Skinny Pete discuss how uncut pizza happens to be the local pizza join't signature "gimmick."

"They don't cut their pizza, and they pass the savings on to you!" Badger says, in a simple explanation that doesn't really explain anything at all. But for eagle-eyed viewers, it was an explanation that laid to rest the question they'd been asking for a year. Have a good weekend, folks, and remember to hold tight to your pizza boxes.