BLUE SKY

Fills frame. A deep, polarizer blue with fluffy white clouds, it's the kind of sky planes sometimes fall from.

We TILT DOWN from it to find...

EXT. MEXICAN DESERT - DAY

This isn't a border town, but farther south. There's nothing in the way of pavement or sidewalks -- just two red dirt roads that cross in the middle of nowhere, littered on both sides by old adobe and haphazard shanties.

It's too hot to do much of anything. A few scrawny chickens hunt and peck. A few RESIDENTS brave the midday sun... but we make out OTHERS in silhouette, sitting in the shade of porches and such, minding their own business.

This town has a kind of Old West feel. It might put us in mind of the opening to “The Wild Bunch.” All is quiet. No activity of note. Not until...

... An OLD MEXICAN MAN comes crawling on his belly.

What a face. If Fellini were alive and directing spaghetti westerns, this is a face he’d cast. With skin tanned to the hue of a well-oiled catcher’s mitt and wrinkles deep enough to hide M&Ms, this man is somewhere between seventy and three hundred years old. Here he comes, making his way on knees and elbows padded with a filthy swaddling of tied-on RAGS.

Why the hell is he crawling? Nobody’s behind him, holding a gun to his head. He does it of his own volition. Dirty and dusty, grimacing into the broiling sun, prostrating himself, he moves slowly but deliberately. Left elbow left knee -- right elbow right knee -- he’s been at it for hours.

As for the townsfolk, they couldn’t care less. A bland-faced MESTIZO WOMAN crosses the street, side-stepping him as if he were a mud puddle. A beat-up truck casually steers around him. The old man pays no attention to them, either. All the while, his eyes never leave some unseen goal in the distance.

Heat haze shimmers around him. Right through the middle of town this viejito crawls -- a truly weird sight.

It gets weirder. Now we notice a SECOND CRAWLING MAN. He’s younger, this one, but just as determinedly masochistic. As is a THIRD MAN... a FOURTH... and a crawling WOMAN or two.
ll have knees and elbows makeshift-padded for long-distance prostration. And all, we notice, are headed in one direction. They take slightly different tracks, perhaps. Some crawl a bit faster, others slower. But they’re all making for the same destination.

When a few additional CRAWLERS appear from one perpendicular alley or another, their paths soon converge with the others. For these pilgrims, all roads lead to Rome.

Soon, another out-of-place sight -- but this one actually elicits glances from the townsfolk. Cruising into view, parking in the center of everything is a shiny new MERCEDES COUPE. Probably you could trade the entire town for this car and still be a couple of grand shy.

In the Mercedes sit two youngish men. Wearing narrow-lapeled Canali suits, their eyes hidden behind designer sunglasses, they take their styling cues from GQ Magazine, circa 1988.

We’ll call these two THE COUSINS -- but picture them more as brothers, or maybe even identical twins. They are ice-cold bad-assedness personified. “Trouble” with a capital T, which rhymes with C, which stands for “Cartel.”

They watch impassively as pilgrims crawl left and right around their car. These Cousins -- are they here to pull off a drug deal? Shake somebody down? Maybe commit a murder?

Nope. They climb out of their Mercedes. With a silent glance to one another... they get down on knees and elbows and CRAWL. They don’t give a moment’s worry to their expensive Italian suits.

As we TRACK LOW with The Cousins, we note their distinctive, hand-tooled COWBOY BOOTS. We watch as their SILVER TOE-CAPS press into the dried mud, leaving IMPRINTS.

MACRO-CLOSE on one of these imprints -- it’s a perfect little HUMAN SKULL. Four tracks of skulls, one for each boot, stretch into the distance.

EXT. MEXICAN VILLAGE - EDGE OF TOWN - DAY

Ten or fifteen pilgrims BELLY-CRAWL. The Cousins are among them. Now, finally, we see where everyone is headed.

A little SHRINE sits on the edge of town. It’s just a squat adobe building, nothing fancy -- but it’s painted in bright colors which really make it pop. One-third house of worship, two-thirds tourist trap, it’s garish as hell.

INT. SANTA MUERTE SHRINE - DAY
At the doorless threshold, white-hot light blasts in from outside... and yet the interior quickly falls off into GLOOM. It’s almost as if the sun is afraid to come any further.

Our pilgrims crawl in, joining others who are already here. The Cousins arrive, rising to their knees and removing their sunglasses. It’s tight inside -- lots of sweaty, needy worshippers and scores and scores of flickering CANDLES, green, yellow and gold.

Everybody faces a sort of altar-wall at the front. Standing before them, greeting all with outstretched arms, is a skeleton in a lace dress and a veil. This is SANTA MUERTE, and these people have come a long, hard way to pray to her.

Stacked high at the Saint’s feet are hundreds of offerings: tobacco, tequila and rum, fruit and flowers, coins, food. The altar-wall is thickly papered with yellowing letters, plus photographs old and new. These represent requests -- leave an offering, light a candle and say a prayer, then hope your request gets answered. All around, folks murmur in Spanish, talking to their beloved La Nina Blanca.

Taking their turn at the wall, the two Cousins have a request of their own. One pulls a fat candle from the pocket of his jacket, lights it and sets it at the Saint’s feet. This candle stands out from all others, as it is BLACK.

The other Cousin produces a wrinkled sheet of paper. He folds it open and carefully tacks it to the altar-wall. Both men settle back, staring intently at it.

CLOSE ON the sheet. It’s a drawing of a man’s face. Kind of like a police sketch. Maybe it’s a bit crude and homemade... but we instantly recognize this bald, average man. He has a mustache, dark glasses and a black, narrow-brimmed hat.
It’s HEISENBERG, the drug-dealing alter-ego of WALTER WHITE.

Our two scary Cousins glare at Heisenberg. Off them, wrathful and unblinking, their lips moving in silent prayer... and us thinking ”Oh shit. THIS can’t be good...”

... We begin SEASON THREE.

END TEASER

ACT ONE

FUZZY, COLORED LIGHTS

Fill frame. We are MACRO-CLOSE on a TV SCREEN. We’re so close, in fact, that its tiny PIXELS stand out INDIVIDUALLY. Many colors sweep through, making an unseen larger image.
ANNOUNCER’S VOICE: We interrupt our scheduled programming to bring you breaking news.

FIRST ANCHOR: Good afternoon. In the last several minutes, KABQ has received dozens of reports of what appears to be a crashed aircraft -- possibly two aircraft -- on Albuquerque’s east side. As of yet details are scarce, but callers describe witnessing an explosion overhead, followed by falling debris. Visible now toward the Sandias are two large columns of smoke, which seem to indicate...

Throughout this and the FOLLOWING, we slowly PULL OUT from the television screen. We begin to make out faces, details. What follows is a MONTAGE of NEWS on DIFFERENT STATIONS.

It’s a constant flow of different REPORTERS and ANCHORPEOPLE, all of them CROSS-FADING IN and OUT. The conceit is that we’re watching ONE WEEK’S WORTH of coverage of this big, growing story -- this airline disaster which ended ep. 213.

Hopefully we can pull this off with seven ON-CAMERA talkers, rounded out with another few unseen LOOP GROUPERS. IMPORTANT! Our on-camera folks -- when they REPEAT -- should have WARDROBE CHANGES to help sell a passage of time.

FIRST REPORTER: ... Crash investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board are expected on-site as early as this evening. However, officials warn that with a debris field of this magnitude, the investigation and clean-up may stretch well into the week. Meanwhile, Wayfarer Airlines has issued the following statement...

SECOND ANCHOR: ... Boeing 737 was being re-routed, or “vectored” through the airspace, which is standard procedure according to a spokesman for the FAA. The eight-seat King Air 350 was a charter flight operating out of Saint George, Utah, bound for...

SECOND REPORTER: ... Fatalities appear to be limited to passengers and crew. However, damage to property on the ground is widespread -- and in the case of the Vista Verde Apartment complex, which caught fire after being...

MIDDLE-AGED WITNESS: ... It sounded like hail. Like heavy hailstones, just bump-bump- bump, all over the neighborhood. Crashing down, just little... pieces of things. God, I-I...

All through this, we round out our talking heads with some exceedingly well-chosen STOCK FOOTAGE.

Hopefully, we see firefighters and cops coming and going... black smoke rising... investigators working a crash site... tense and weeping crowds... news helicopter footage, etc.

It would also be nice to see our own familiar, moon-suited NTSB TECHNICIANS at work. However, just know that we’re not going to repeat any footage of them we shot in season two.

Furthermore, any new aftermath stuff we do shoot should not be shot in Walt’s neighborhood. The idea here is that debris rained all over Albuquerque. This was a city-wide disaster, and other neighborhoods fared far worse than Walt’s.

THIRD ANCHOR: (in SPANISH, no subtitles) ... We have confirmation now on one hundred sixty-seven deaths...

FIRST ANCHOR:... Final death toll stands at one hundred sixty-seven, making Wayfarer Five-One-Five the worst air disaster in the United States since June of...

FIRST REPORTER: ... One hundred and sixty-seven. This mid-air collision has left many wondering how such an accident could take place in a system with so many safeguards. Yesterday’s recovery of the 737’s flight recorder, or so-called “black box,” will hopefully shed light -- though sources close to the investigation hint that human error on the ground may have played a factor.

SECOND REPORTER:... Gene, the allegations just keep coming that the collision which brought down Flight Five-One-Five was caused by improper air traffic control. It’s a story which seems to be taking on a life of its own, yet so far federal...

SECOND ANCHOR:... Bombshell confirmation out of Oklahoma City today as the FAA officially confirmed it was indeed a lone air traffic controller’s fateful mistake which brought about the crash of Wayfarer Five-One- Five. Let’s go now to...

THIRD ANCHOR: (in Spanish, no subtitles)... Caused by an air traffic controller based right here in Albuquerque. Sources report the man’s name as Donald Margolis...

Now, flashing onto screen comes an old employee photo some enterprising journalist dug up. It’s of DONALD, Jane’s dad.

FIRST REPORTER:... Donald Margolis, a nineteen year veteran of the FAA’s Air Route Traffic Control Center in Albuquerque. With a previously unblemished record which dates...

FIRST ANCHOR:... Source would only confirm Margolis recently returned to work after a five-week absence which was due to, quote, “a personal loss”...

Cut to bedlam. A scrum of REPORTERS moves along a hallway (or down a sidewalk -- indoors or out doesn’t really matter). What’s important is they’re chasing DONALD and his ATTORNEYS. We watch this from the jogging POV of a NEWS CAMERA.

This is obviously footage we need to generate. Dressed in a suit, poor Donald is the proverbial deer in headlights as he gets showered with questions and has to push his way through. We feel so sorry for him. He looks lost and uncomprehending.

SECOND REPORTER:... Victims’ families are loudly demanding answers. While it’s now known that Margolis had recently lost a daughter to a drug overdose, there’s little to indicate...

A photo of JANE, one taken in happier times, is broadcast.

SECOND ANCHOR:... Jane Margolis, aged twenty-six, apparently had a long history of substance abuse. Friends of the family say the death of his only child hit Margolis particularly hard. Coming as it did little more than a month before, many question the timing of his return to work...

INT. WHITE HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - MORNING - CONTINUOUS

Now, we finally begin to PULL BACK outside of this TV screen until we reveal that the television broadcasting all this news is the one in Walt’s very own living room.

Before the TV sits the armchair. Although it’s currently empty, up till recently someone has taken a long-term RESIDENCE in it.

We know this because of the detritus in and around it: a weary old blanket, a pillow, a half-eaten sandwich, eyedrops, a Kleenex box, soda cans, a coffee cup, a week’s worth of scattered newspapers.

Yes, somebody clearly spent the last entire, hellish WEEK in front of this TV. But who is that someone? Right now, a WIDE view of the house shows it DESERTED.

EXT. WHITE HOUSE - BACKYARD - MORNING - CONTINUOUS

Out here on the patio we continue to hear that TV NEWS playing faintly in the house. Without seeing inside through the curtains, we PAN off the open sliding glass door to find...

... WALTER WHITE seated by his swimming pool.


It’s been a week since the end of 213. The NTSB guys have long since come and gone. All is cleaned up except for Walt. Unshaven, unshowered, he sits alone in his bathrobe, engaged in an activity viewers may remember from our Pilot episode.

Walt lights MATCHES. He lets them burn, then tosses them in the pool. Several books’ worth are in there already -- little black squiggles gently bobbing on the surface.

Walt is barely aware of what he’s doing. He looks like shit and feels even worse. Self-loathing, bereft, haunted, he hasn’t slept in days.

CLOSE -- Walt is down to his very LAST MATCH. His fingers pause, hesitating to tear it loose. Instead, emotion now wells up inside him... as does an IMPULSE.

Up he lurches from his chair, matchbook in hand. CUT TO:

EXT. WHITE HOUSE - BACKYARD - MINUTES LATER

BLACKNESS. CLANG! Suddenly we can see as Walt removes the lid. We realize we’re INSIDE his CHARCOAL GRILL, looking straight up at Walt and the blue sky above. He yanks out the wire cook-top and tosses it, making room.

What is Walt dumping on us? Is this... wait... MONEY?

NEW ANGLE -- it is indeed. Emptying his familiar black duffel into the Weber, Walt is a man with a fever. Guilt and self-directed anger have whipped him to a frenzy. Wrapped stacks of bills pile Matterhorn-high. Some tumble to the ground. Walt grabs the strays, piling on every last dollar of his METH EARNINGS.

Splurp-splurp-splurp goes the lighter fluid, soaking all. There’s a wild, “fuck it!” gleam in Walt’s eyes as he tears loose the last match and strikes it to life.

He’s not really gonna do this, is he? Oh, hell yeah he is. WHOOOOOOMPH! Big orange flames. Walt stands by, watching with grim satisfaction as the top bills curl and blacken.

Funny how short-lived satisfaction can be. It quickly dawns on Walt -- what the FUCK am I DOING?! Eyes wide, he GRABS up the grill -- AAH! Hot, HOT!! -- stumbling with it toward the pool. A few wads of burning cash spill onto the pavement.
KER-BLOOOSH! Into the pool goes the grill and money in a fat sizzle of STEAM. Meantime, the sleeve of Walt’s bathrobe has caught FIRE. He spins and flails it through the air, but it isn’t going out -- so into the water he BELLY-FLOPS.

Walt pops back to the surface, looking like a drowned rat. He stands chest-high, frantically splashing water at the last few lumps of cash still BURNING poolside. Off our hero...

EXT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY

To establish. We’re amongst the tall buildings downtown, though this particular one is NEW to us.

INT. LAW OFFICE - ANTEROOM - DAY 9

A quiet, tasteful lobby. Currently the only client waiting, SKYLER sits here beside baby HOLLY, asleep in her carrier.

Skyler stares into space. This has been one hell of a week, one hell of a month. There’s a lot on her mind right now -- all of it complicated and painful.

Of note: she wears a turquoise RIBBON pinned to her blouse. We CREEP IN on Skyler, utterly lost in thought. Until...

RECEPTIONIST’S VOICE: Ms. White? She’s ready for you.

Off Skyler, forcing a smile and rising to her feet, we CUT TO:

INT. LAW OFFICE - DAY