User:TheJoebro64/drafts/Todd

Todd Alquist is a character portrayed by Jesse Plemons in the television franchise Breaking Bad. He was created by Peter Gould and first appeared in "Hazard Pay" (2012), the third episode of Breaking Bad fifth season (2012–2013). Todd is a sociopath who unpredictably switches between charming politeness and sudden acts of extreme violence, for which he shows little remorse. He serves as one of the main antagonists of the fifth season and the sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019).

In Breaking Bad, Todd is introduced as an employee of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, fumigation company Vamonos Pest. His uncle, Jack Welker (Michael Bowen), leads a white supremacist gang. Todd begins working with the methamphetamine cook Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and shows steadfast obedience, going as far as to kill a child to protect their operation. He eventually replaces Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to whom Todd acts as a foil, as Walt's assistant. After Walt leaves the drug trade, Todd and Jack's gang take over his operation and enslave Jesse. Jesse kills Todd in the Breaking Bad finale, but he reappears through flashbacks in El Camino.

Appearances
In the Breaking Bad franchise, Todd Alquist (portrayed by Jesse Plemons) works as an exterminator for Vamonos Pest, a fumigation company in Albuquerque, New Mexico owned by Saul Goodman's (Bob Odenkirk) associate Ira (Franc Ross). Todd and his fellow employees are burglars, gathering information from the houses they tent and selling it to outside parties. Todd's uncle, Jack Welker (Michael Bowen), leads a white supremacist gang that carries out assassinations for hire.

Todd's background receives little exposition, but Plemons and Bowen developed a backstory in which he was the son of a drug addict who had a string of abusive boyfriends. In their story, Jack cared deeply for Todd and killed his sister's boyfriends to protect him; he eventually got tired of doing so and adopted him. Breaking Bad (2008–2013) implies that Saul has legally represented Todd in the past, though he does not appear in the prequel series Better Call Saul (2015–2022).

Breaking Bad
Todd first appears in "Hazard Pay", the third episode of Breaking Bad fifth season (2012–2013). Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) begin using Vamonos Pest as a front for their methamphetamine business. Todd notices and disables a nanny cam at Walt and Jesse's first cook site, attracting their attention as a potential asset. In "Dead Freight", Todd aids Walt, Jesse, and Mike in stealing methylamine from a freight train. The heist is successful, but when a young boy, Drew Sharp (Samuel Webb), stumbles upon it, Todd kills him without hesitation. Jesse and Mike are horrified, but Walt is indifferent.

Todd explains that he assumed there could be no witnesses and they all risked arrest. This and his suggestion that Jack's gang could be valuable to the meth operation convince the group to keep him alive, but Jesse and Mike decide to quit. In "Say My Name", Todd becomes Walt's cooking assistant, with Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser) managing the business. Todd spends his breaks going over Walt's notes and refuses to accept payment until he satisfies Walt's standards. After Walt kills Mike, in "Gliding Over All", Todd helps dispose of Mike's car and body. Through Todd, Walt meets Jack and uses his prison connections to eliminate Mike's former employees to protect himself. After this, Walt retires and Declan (Louis Ferreira) takes over his meth operation. Declan's meth proves unpopular with customers, so in "Buried", Todd and Jack's gang collaborate with Lydia to kill Declan's gang and take control.

In "To'hajiilee", Walt asks Todd and Jack's gang to kill Jesse, who has turned on him and is working with his Drug Enforcement Administration agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris). When Jesse, Hank, and Steven Gomez (Steven Michael Quezada) fool Walt into exposing the location of his US$80 million in drug profits at the Tohajiilee Indian Reservation, Walt contacts Jack, but calls it off upon seeing Hank. Todd, Jack, and the gang come anyway and a shootout ensues. In "Ozymandias", the gang kills Hank and Steve. Jack orders the gang to dig up the money, but at Todd's behest he leaves Walt with about US$11 million. Todd, who has developed a crush on Lydia, convinces Jack to enslave Jesse in their compound as a meth cook, hoping she will reciprocate his feelings. In "Granite State", Jesse unsuccessfully attempts to escape; as punishment, Jack forces him to watch Todd execute his ex-girlfriend Andrea Cantillo (Emily Rios).

After spending several months hiding in New Hampshire, in "Felina", Walt returns to Albuquerque. He meets Lydia and Todd at a coffee shop and offers them a new method for methylamine-free meth production. Todd declines, but Lydia feigns interest so Walt will meet with Jack. She tells Todd to make sure Jack kills Walt. During the meeting, Walt activates an M60 machine gun he installed in the trunk of his car, killing almost the entire gang. Todd survives, but Jesse strangles him with his handcuffs. He flees the compound in Todd's El Camino, laughing and crying in relief.

El Camino
Todd appears throughout the sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) in flashbacks set between the events of "Granite State" and "Felina". While the rest of Jack's gang is away, Todd enlists Jesse's help to add a canopy to his El Camino and bury the body of his cleaning lady, whom he murdered after she accidentally found his hidden money. While they bury the corpse in the Painted Desert, Jesse obtains a pistol Todd left unsecured and prepares to shoot him, but Todd talks him out of it. In another flashback, Todd, Kenny (Kevin Rankin), and a welder, Neil Kandy (Scott MacArthur), torment Jesse as Neil builds new restraints following his escape. Todd also features in the promotional Snow Globe: A Breaking Bad Short (2020), which depicts him assembling a custom snow globe, including his and Lydia's likenesses, as he tries to ask her on a date.

Development

 * https://www.motionpictures.org/2013/08/george-mastras-on-writing-directing-one-of-breaking-bads-best-episodes/ about the ending of Dead Freight
 * https://www.vulture.com/2013/06/most-suspenseful-scene-breaking-bad-train-heist.html another Dead Freight
 * https://web.archive.org/web/20220625092138/https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/qa-breaking-bads-jesse-plemons-on-todds-killer-instinct-171388/
 * https://web.archive.org/web/20120918100858/https://www.vulture.com/2012/08/breaking-bad-jesse-plemons-interview.html
 * https://www.gq.com/story/breaking-bad-jesse-plemons-interview
 * "All I had in the beginning to work with was a small breakdown: That he’s fresh-faced and eager to please… He seems harmless but there's something deep inside there. So then, I got the part and no one would really tell me anything, since I was a recurring character and not a regular. You don't really learn much about him the first few episodes. The only directions I really got in those early days from Vince [Gilligan] was moments before I shoot that kid on the bike at the end of the train episode. He came up to me and said 'OK, so if you're driving and a raccoon runs out in front of you, you have two choices: You can swerve to the right and drive into a ditch, or you can swerve left into oncoming traffic: What do you do?' And I stood there for a second, thinking there was more to it, but that was it. That's what I got. Once Uncle Jack comes into the picture, I started thinking about it a bit more. I think Todd's mother was not the best. I think Todd is just missing some… crucial… crucial part of his human makeup that allows him to grasp his actions, really, He does show empathy at certain times, but if he can rationalize something terrible, there's not a second thought."
 * https://theplaylist.net/jesse-plemons-el-camino-breaking-bad-interview-20200616/
 * https://web.archive.org/web/20200905014518/https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2020/09/04/jesse-plemons-interview-im-thinking-ending-things/

Creation and casting
Breaking Bad Insider podcast eps:
 * 503 - Hazard Pay
 * 40:00–42:00: The Vamonos Pest crew (which includes Todd) was introduced to resolve a storytelling problem: where Walt and Jesse would cook. With Gus' superlab and the RV gone, they needed a new place to cook. They considered having Walt and Jesse get another RV but instead decided to have them use a pest control company as a front. Originally, Mike was going to intimidate the Vamonos guys into compliance, but the writers didn't feel comfortable with having them take over a legit company. In a eureka moment they decided that the employees were already criminals.
 * that's it
 * 505 - Dead Freight
 * 1:12:25–1:14:40: Todd shooting the kid was a way to escalate the conflict between Walt and Jesse. An example of everything having consequences.
 * this podcast was a massive waste of time holy shit


 * https://www.npr.org/transcripts/228813142
 * Originally, the writers planned for Walt to retire and Jesse to become the kingpin. That all went out the window towards the end of writing Dead Freight, when they came up with the idea to have Todd murder Drew Sharp. They knew there needed to be a consequence for the heist. This changed the trajectory of Jesse's arc by making him horrified of the drug business.
 * Thomas Schnauz was initially against Plemons as Todd because, as a big Friday Night Lights fan, he "couldn't distinguish Landry from Todd". He thought he was too nice and couldn't picture him in the role.


 * https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/breaking-bad-director-walts-suffering-634796/
 * The guy Walt wanted Jesse to be

Plemons was cast in May 2012
 * https://www.tvguide.com/news/features/vince-gilligan-interview-el-camino-a-breaking-bad-movie/


 * https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/todd-from-breaking-bad-im-an-ambush-predator-204611/
 * Plemons wasn't given a backstory so he and Bowen made it up
 * Peekaboo was a big inspiration for the backstory. Plemons thought Todd came from a similar situation (neglected by addict parents) and connected Todd with the little kid

Portrayal and filming
Plemons did not stay in character between takes. He would play guitar and discuss music and philosophy with Bowen when they were not filming.


 * https://www.vulture.com/2013/09/breaking-bad-jesse-plemons-tod-interview.html
 * Plemons auditioned not knowing what Todd would do. The writers withheld their plans for Todd from him. He didn't find out Todd was a villain until he read the Dead Freight script.
 * "Once I read that script, it made so much sense how all the writers had been dealing with me with trepidation, because they knew what was coming and I didn't [laughs]. Vince was there for the train heist and he told me a great story that gave me a place to build off of. He said, 'You know when you're driving and a raccoon wanders out into the street? If you swerve to avoid it, you'll go off the road, so you just hit it.' I was like, 'Okay, that makes total sense.' Am I gonna go down, or is the raccoon going down? That raccoon had to go down."
 * Todd had mom problems so he misinterprets Lydia's need for him and becomes attracted to her


 * https://www.vulture.com/2013/09/breaking-bad-peter-gould-granite-state-interview.html
 * https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/breaking-bad-director-peter-gould-breaks-down-granite-state-199911/

Character

 * https://ew.com/article/2013/09/23/breaking-bad-granite-state-writer/

Analysis
a stand in for toxic BrBa fans who idolize Walt and ignore the horrible things he does

Reception

 * https://ew.com/article/2013/09/17/breaking-bad-dangerous-villain-todd/