Had a talk with my sister about Breaking Bad and it hit different

I was over at my sister's place last week and she put on Breaking Bad for the first time. She's never seen it before and I've watched it twice. About 5 episodes in, she paused it and said "I don't think Walt is the good guy at all, he's just selfish from the start." That stopped me cold because I always saw him as a guy who got pushed into a bad situation. But she pointed out how he turned down the free treatment from his rich friends and lied about the money from Grey Matter. Now I'm rewatching season 1 and she's totally right - the signs were there from episode 1. Has anyone else had a rewatch completely flipped around by someone else's take?

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felix_coleman872h ago

Got a buddy who watched Breaking Bad five times start to finish. He swore Walt was a good man who broke bad because of the cancer and the system failing him. Then his girlfriend watched the pilot for the first time and said "why didn't he just take the money from his old friends?" My friend sat there quiet for a minute then rewound to that scene. He said it was like a light switch flipped in his head and he couldn't unsee all the ego and pride Walt had from the very start. Now he tells everyone the show is really about a guy who always had darkness in him just waiting for an excuse.