The Worst Breaking Bad Season According To 26% Of People

AMC's award-winning crime drama series "Breaking Bad" was one of the many exciting TV shows that got us to root for a villain. Of course, the concept of an evil protagonist often requires the creators to subvert the typical bad guy archetype in some form or another to make the villain sympathetic or to set them at odds with some thing or someone worse. The title character on "Dexter" — as played by Michael C. Hall — was a vicious serial killer; sure, he did his best to only kill murderers and other violent criminals who slipped through the cracks of the justice system, but it was still to sate his psychotic need to kill. Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), the patriarch of "The Sopranos," made no bones about what he did for a living and many of his antagonists were simply fellow members of organized crime, but his search for mental health via psychotherapy made him relatable.

For Walter White (Bryan Cranston) on "Breaking Bad," it was easy to cast a villain in a sympathetic light; he had cancer and was ostensibly trying to find a way to provide for his family by manufacturing methamphetamine. Granted, by the end of "Breaking Bad," he leaned into his Heisenberg alter ego and the needs of his family took a backseat to his own needs for controlled chemical perfection. But at the onset, Walter got into the drug trade with the best of intentions, like we're sure so many others have. 

Much like audiences' sympathy for Walt ebbed and flowed throughout the five seasons of "Breaking Bad," so too did their enjoyment of the series as a whole. Looper surveyed 637 American TV viewers to ask which season of "Breaking Bad" they thought was the worst, and more than one fourth of them gave us the same answer.

According to Looper's survey respondents, "Breaking Bad" Season 2 was the best of the bunch; or, with only 12.56% of the vote saying it's the worst, the second season is the least bad. Either way, 2009's thirteen-episode run introduced viewers to sleazeball lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and drug kingpin Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). It's also the season in which Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) lost his girlfriend Jane (Krysten Ritter). With the second fewest votes — 16.17% to be specific — is "Breaking Bad" Season 1, the seven-episode installment that introduces viewers to most of the main cast as Walt receives his cancer diagnosis and he and Jesse cook meth in an RV. Season 1 also saw Walt first adopt the Heisenberg moniker.

A solid one fifth of respondents chose the final season of "Breaking Bad" as the worst. It's possible they didn't like the fact that Walt went into business with white supremacists. Perhaps it's because Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) was killed by said white supremacists. Maybe our respondents didn't like the fact that Walt killed Mike Ehrmantrout. Whatever the reason, 21.98% of viewers liked Season 5 the least. A few percentage points higher, at 23.23%, comes "Breaking Bad" Season 4. How anyone could dislike Hank's newfound obsession with minerals is beyond us, but the fourth season also saw Walt's wife Skylar (Anna Gunn) get in on the business.

That leaves "Breaking Bad" Season 3 as the season that the most respondents — 26.06% — chose as the worst of the lot. It's the first real sign of fracture in Walt and Jesse's relationship, as the latter's behavior becomes erratic following Jane's death. Gus even goes so far as to replace Jesses as his assistant with Gale Boetticher (David Costabile). At least Gus was kind enough to warn Hank about the Salamancas' impending attack.