The Breaking Bad Episodes You Never Knew Existed

Breaking Bad is many things. It's a fictional depiction of drug dealing in the Southwest. It's a story about the right, the wrong, and the in-between. It's a tale about how people should treat one another versus how they actually do treat one another. But more than anything, Breaking Bad is a character drama.

Over the course of five seasons, viewers witnessed the build-up and breakdown of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Jesse Pinkman's (Aaron Paul) slow crawl to freedom, Hank Schrader's (Dean Norris) methodical and obsessive search for answers — the list goes on. By the end of those five seasons, you know these characters like the back of your hand. Rian Johnson, who directed three episodes ("Fly," "Fifty-One," and "Ozymandias"), puts it best: "I think the seriousness and depth with which it took its characters is the thing that really makes it stand apart for me. And that's where the power of it comes from," via IGN.

Yet even after finishing all 62 episodes, there are still a few things even the most avid fans might not know about the characters, because in actuality, there are more episodes than that.

Breaking Bad's first season began and ended in 2008, and it would be just about a year before the show returned to air. In the meantime, though, AMC sated the fan base's ravenous appetite with a couple of mini episodes released online. These "minisodes" proved popular enough for AMC to release more between seasons 2 and 3, and even more between seasons 3 and 4, for a grand total of 17. The variety among them is truly a thing to behold, and despite only being a few minutes long each (one, an ad for Saul Goodman's services, is actually under a minute), there are some juicy character insights.

The very first minisode, "Good Cop, Bad Cop," is a perfect example. It features Hank and Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt) in the bedroom on Valentine's Day, getting feisty with some role-play. Marie's dressed as a cop, but since Hank is a cop, he has a few corrections for her inauthentic portrayal, which doesn't go over well. It's a valuable peek into each character's attitude and mindset, hinting at things to come on the main show.

Indeed, all the minisodes have something to offer — even the more "out there" ones like "Team S.C.I.E.N.C.E." (Super Champion Individuals Eradicating Known Criminal Entities), an animated featurette imagining the show's characters as superheroes. They're not essential viewing in the strictest sense of the phrase, but if you enjoy Breaking Bad, you'll enjoy these, too.