Breaking Bad – poisoning gangsters with phosphine gas
On screen chemistry with Jonathan Hare
In Breaking Bad, Walter White, a down-on-his-luck high school chemistry teacher, finds out he has terminal cancer. His family is struggling to pay the bills so he decides to turn his chemistry creativity towards making illegal drugs. He joins up with Jesse, a local drug dealer, cooking up methamphetamine, known on the streets as ‘meth’ or ‘crystal meth’.
Almost at once things go badly wrong when two rival gangsters threaten to kill them. Bargaining for his life Walter takes them into the lab promising to show them how to make top-grade meth.
Thinking on his feet he starts the process but manages to contrive a reaction to produce poisonous gas to kill the gangsters. He heats up a pan of water and when it’s boiling throws in a bottle of red phosphorus. A shower of sparks causes enough confusion for White to escape outside where he holds the door shut trapping the two gangsters in the fumes and poisonous gases.
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