In writing “Dead Freight,” how many different versions of the heist did you go through to get it right?
Let’s see, I don’t know if there were different versions of the heist. Luckily I knew that I was directing it so I was able to write to the location. I guess the initial concept for how it would be done, we have a train heist so everyone was really on board with that because of the modern day homage to the western. But it’s “Breaking Bad” so they’re not going to be running around with guns and stuff.
The entire premise of the episode was that we don’t want to kill an innocent victim. Mike was saying, “Look, if we do this, you’re going to have to because there are two kinds of heists. Those that the guys get away with it and those that leave witnesses.” So there’s this character conflict between Walt and Mike. Walt was almost on board with going ahead with doing it anyway and Jesse came up with this great idea that maybe we can do the heist without anyone ever knowing.
So that was the premise. How would these guys have been able to rob a freight train carrying methylamine and hazardous substances without anyone knowing. Then, I, with the help of our research assistants, we reached out to various experts and did a lot of research about how they would move methylamine, how they would move hazardous substances. We contacted experts. We had our train expert and we had a hazardous waste transfer expert and we had our chemistry people.
We learned that hazardous substances are weighed when they’re loaded and then they’re weighed again when they’re unloaded. So all kinds of alarms and bells and whistles would go off, especially with methylamine which is a Schedule I substance. It’s highly regulated by the DEA and only someone like Lydia would actually be able to research and know what cars would be carrying it because they want to keep that secret.
We learned that the only way they would be able to pull this off is if they replaced the weight, so then we got into the chemistry of it, water being heavier than methylamine, they would need to put in less water in order to displace the right amount of weight, and also the water would be sinking. Then it was like well, if they’re doing this, I thought that Todd would not be able to start putting the water in the top until about halfway through Jesse draining out the bottom so the whole thing would take a certain amount of time. Add the element of time and racing against the clock became a big issue. That was something that we could take advantage of in shooting it and try to create a sense of… although these guys don’t have guns, hopefully it was every bit as thrilling as any kind of armed robbery type heist because they’re racing against the clock.
The concept of displacement and the chemistry of it was something that was very true to the show. The only things I changed, when I looked at the location it turns out that another factor was when trains carry hazardous substances, it can’t be up near the engine so we knew that it had to be eight to 10 cars back. That’s great because these guys knew going into it that it would be at least 10 cars back and you know how long each car is so they could measure back from the tracks beforehand and know where the cars would be. Then while Lydia uploaded the final manifest, she could tell them exactly which car.
Lo and behold, when we got out to the tracks, about 10 cars back there was this beautiful, beautiful trestle bridge. I didn’t know there’d be a trestle bridge there, so that was serendipity that accrued to us and would have accrued to the benefit of our robbers. So that changed for the location and then I modified the heist in order to put in a sense of danger, so we had the good samaritan aspect to it so that there’d be a sense of oh my gosh, they’re going to get caught, they’re not going to be able to pull it off. Then of course it could be all about Walt’s ego in going for it anyway. He’s not going to settle for anything less than the full amount of methylamine.
Then I put in this stunt that because of Walt’s ego, Jesse almost gets crushed under the train. I had the whole thing barreling over him and then Todd jumping off. Those aspects were designed to create tension and the near miss so that by the end of this episode we were so jubilant with these guys that we had forgotten completely about this kid that we saw in the teaser. So that stuff was added later on. I added that stuff later on as I got into it to really roll my sleeves up and said, “How am I going to maximize the emotional element of the script?”
To me it’s going down as the train heist episode, but to me the crux of the episode is this moment where an innocent bystander is killed and that’s what turns the season and breaks up the partnership. That’s something that hadn’t happened in the show up to this point where someone not involved in the game, if you will, is murdered as a result of these characters’ conduct. To me, that’s the essence of this. It challenges the audience. If we were just a true western like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, we would’ve left everyone jubilant and happy. It’s oh, our guys made it and we’d be celebrating. But it’s “Breaking Bad.”
The show’s about consequences so we’re going to challenge the audience like who are you rooting for? Don’t ever lose sight of the victims of what these guys do. That to me is the show in a microcosm. That’s the way I approached the writing and directing of it. How do I bring that element out and make this a microcosm of a larger, not just the train heist episode but what is the show really about?
