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According to its creator, Vince Gilligan, Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-13) describes the moral corruption of a normal man, the conversion of Mr. Chips to Scarface. In 'Full Measures' (3.13), the moral and emotional complexity of the story is encapsulated in a seemingly incidental scene. We see Walter White in his living room, giving little Holly a bottle of milk. A close up shows how the baby grabs at his glasses, and in this moment of paternal tenderness, the writers cunningly re-humanize a character who just executed two thugs and minutes later ordered the death of his lab partner, as if to remind us that, at heart, 'he's really just a family man' forced by circumstances to take matters into his own hands. This important step in the metamorphosis of Walter is again mitigated by several factors: children, the family and everyday domestic life. Self-defence is of course the justification for these deaths, but the devotion of a father towards his little baby also enter into the moral and emotional equation that characterises Breaking Bad. Like AMC's acclaimed hit, many contemporary series-especially those on cable TV-are full of characters that we love, broadly speaking, despite the many vile actions they have committed: Tony Soprano, Nancy Botwin, Don Draper, Jackie Peyton and Al Swearengen. This surge in the popularity of antiheroes as protagonists-one of the defining trends of the contemporary golden age of TV fiction-is the focus of this article, a trending topic also in television studies, as shown by recent volumes (Martin; Lotz; Donelly; Vaage, The Antihero).

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Although Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008(AMC, -2013 is one of the most critically acclaimed TV Series of the last decade, it has been the subject of little academic research. This paper aims to figure out the motivations fueling Walter White's behavior, one of the most compelling characters in contemporary popular culture.The discovery of Walter White's cancer serves as a catalyst (a particularly appropriate chemical term) for him to unveil his true 'inner self'. The serious nature of his disease, the associated medical costs, and his feeling of failure as both a father/husband and in the professional sphere, are established as the driving force behind his infamous behavior from the very start of the series. However, beyond the strategies that underlie the initial sympathy that every viewer feels for this 'ordinary American guy', Breaking Bad divulges other keys that allow us to understand the transformation from 'Mr Chips into Scarface', following the premise described by Breaking Bad's creator, Vince Gilligan.As we will explore, the progressive moral and criminal decline of Walter White is spurred on by the contradictory tension between two radical emotions that become 'rationalized' in order to justify his actions, which become increasingly less defensible: an increasing pride, and the guilt that fades as the narrative unfolds. In summary, we will analyze the moral and narrative mechanisms that hasten Walter White's self-destruction once he became aware that he was facing the end of his own life.