How Breaking Bad Mirrors The Sopranos - Theory Explained

 It is common knowledge that Breaking Bad was inspired by The Sopranos, but one new and detailed fan theory takes this concept to a whole other level.

Breaking Bad and The Sopranos both represent the zenith of the Golden Age of Television, but one new fan theory intrinsically links the two series. The Sopranos first aired in 1999, going on an award-laden eight-year run as the story of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his mafia-led criminal empire unfolds in dramatic fashion. The end of The Sopranos in 2007 would mark the birth of another TV behemoth in the form of Breaking Bad, which itself went on to sweep no less than 16 Primetime Emmy Awards - among others - across its five stellar seasons.

Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan has very publicly stated the influence that The Sopranos had on shaping his neo-Western crime drama. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2013 following Gandolfini's passing, Gilligan famously said, "Without Tony Soprano, there would be no Walter White." In the same interview, Gilligan went on to say that the juxtaposition of Breaking Bad's Walter White's (Bryan Cranston) competing internal personas came about after meeting Gandolfini, as he was "struck by the disconnect between the scary mob boss and the warm and friendly man who played him."

One fan theory on Reddit suggests the link between The Sopranos and Breaking Bad is more than just inspiration. In an incredibly detailed post, one user breaks down each series side-by-side using the Chiral Theory to state that Breaking Bad is, in fact, a mirror image of The Sopranos. This mirror-image theory states that rather than being inspired by The Sopranos, Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad instead inverts every Sopranos scene to tell its own story, acting as a detailed series of homages in complete deference to David Chase's great HBO TV drama.