Breaking Bad season 2’s timeline jumps around a bit thanks to the flashforward of a plane crash that opens several episodes throughout the season. In early November, Walt and Jesse meet the terrifying Hector Salamanca and Hank Schrader dispatches Tuco. Jesse and Walt find some success in the meth game and begin a modest expansion. This necessitates the need to bring in criminal lawyer Saul Goodman in December. Jesse begins a relationship with his landlord Jane, which proves to be a destructive one as they both begin abusing drugs, leading to Jane’s death in January. By season’s end, Walt has come into contact with Gus Fring and Skyler White realizes that Walt is up to something nefarious.
Breaking Bad Season 3
February 18, 2009 – April 16, 2009
Walt tries to leave the meth game behind to repair his relationship with Skyler in early February. By the time March 11 rolls around, Gus has convinced Walter to enter into his services, mass-producing meth. Hank has a run-in with a still despondent Jesse in mid-March, and beats him up, sending Jesse to the hospital. When Jesse recovers in late March, he joins Walt at the superlab. Due to Jesse’s addiction issues and Walt’s consistent insubordinations up to and including killing a couple of drug dealers, Gus is at his wit’s end with the duo. On April 16, 2009, Walt and Jesse save their lives the only way they know how. They kill fellow meth expert Gale Boetticher to make themselves essential to Gus.
Breaking Bad Season 4
April 15, 2009 – July 14, 2009
April finds Walter and Jesse uneasily continuing their relationship with Gus, and knowing that he is itching for a reason to kill them. While Walt buys a snubnosed revolver, Sklyer begins the process of purchasing the car wash that Walt used to work out to launder their money.
In May, Mike begins to take Jesse with him on collections. Walt and Jesse begin a plan to poison Gus with ricin. Speaking of poison, Gus poisons Don Eladio in July and kills all his men. An ascendant Gus then uses the opportunity to relieve Walt of his services. Walt tries to have his family “disappear” but doesn’t have enough funds to do so. The only option left is to kill Gus. So that’s what Walt and Jesse do (in spectacular fashion) on July 14.
Breaking Bad Season 5A
July 15, 2009 – March 3, 2010
Breaking Bad’s final season opens with a flashforward a year in the future. We know it’s Walt’s 52nd birthday thanks to the bacon arranged on his plate (which is of course, Breaking Bad’s favorite time-keeping mechanism). Back in July of 2009, Walt and Jesse are finally in the empire business. They erase any trace of their association with Gus Fring and enlist Madrigal Electromotive’s Lydia Rodarte-Quayle to expand their reach.
Walt is given yet another out in September to sell off their meth enterprise to Declan. Instead, in early October, Walt kills Mike and then kills all of Mike’s men in prison. The midseason finale flashes forward at least three months and possibly more to show Walt’s business thriving. The only issue is that one fateful copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass reveals to Hank that Walter White is Heisenberg.
Breaking Bad Season 5B
March 3, 2010 – September 7, 2010
The second half of the final season begins in March with Walt’s cancer returning and Hank setting out to take his brother-in-law down. Thus begins a thrilling cat and mouse game that culminates with a trip to the To’hajiilee desert where Hank and Gomez are killed by Jack Welker. “Ozymandias,” one of the greatest episodes in TV history, follows.
The events of these eight episodes are confined mostly to just over a week in March 2010. The penultimate episode “Granite State” and the finale, “Felina,” eventually take things to September, 2010 to fullfill that initially promised time jump. Walt, of course, returns to ABQ to settle some scores, rescue Jesse, and die on his own terms.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
September 7, 2010 – September 13, 2010
The events of El Camino begin right after the Breaking Bad finale on September 7 and carry through the next five days. Jesse spends September 7 and 8 at Skinny Pete’s house. He then takes off for Todd’s apartment on September 9. There he encounters Neil Kandy and Casey and the trio split up the money they find there into three shares.
That same day Jesse enlists the help of the vacuum man to disappear but finds that he is short $1,800. On September 10, Jesse has his final confrontation with Neil Kandy. He is able to pay for his extraction and three days later begins a new life in Alaska.
Better Call Saul Flash-Forwards
February, 2015 – ???
Prior to the premiere of Better Call Saul season 5, Bob Odenkirk spoke with Den of Geek about how his Gene Takovic flash-forwards in the show may end up being the final word chronologically for the Breaking Bad universe.
“That could be the furthest it goes on the timeline, the whole story,” Odenkirk said. “On the other hand, you never know. I don’t know if Gene is the last iteration of the character either, because if he were to come out from hiding, I don’t think he can keep that name. So we’ll see what happens.”
As things stand now, Gene is indeed the last word on the Breaking Bad universe. We know that things pick up in February of 2015 (five years after Walter White’s death) due to a visible 150th anniversary of Omaha, Nebraska sticker in the first season. 2015 is also when the first season was shot. Through five seasons of Better Call Saul, there have been five scenes in Omaha, Nebraska circa 2015.
