Has anyone else read it?
It all started with a duffel bag. There was this really awesome Breaking Bad duffel bag on eBay that I was looking at. After the auction ended, I went looking for it elsewhere, googling, and accidentally came across the script for episode 301 “No Mas,” in which Walt and Hank have an exchange about Walt’s duffel bag filled with drug money. It soon became clear that reading the script was way more valuable than some duffel bag so I started googling and looking for more scripts. One kept popping up in all my searches, a script for Season 5, Episode 1, titled “Truckers Deluxe.” Some sites labeled the script as fake, others seemed to claim it was real.
Photo from the real Season 5 Premiere © AMC TV
You can read the supposedly leaked 501 “Truckers Deluxe” Script here
Now, I’m usually a spoiler-free kinda girl. You might even call me a purist, with slightly limited willpower. I want to experience the story the way it’s written to be experienced, not know it ahead of time. I remember a few years ago, it was announced that there would be a wedding on the season premiere of Grey’s Anatomy, and a bunch of people wrote all over the Facebook page about which couple it would be, with no spoiler alerts, and I was pissed! For that reason, this year when it was announced that someone would die on the season finale, I stayed far away from the Grey’s FB page. Anyway, the point is, I try to avoid spoilers.
But this was Breaking Bad and I am more addicted to that show than the methheads on the show are to their blue crystal. So I couldn’t help myself. Plus it was probably fake anyway, right?
Right.
After reading it, I’m pretty sure it’s not real. If I were a betting woman, I’d put money on it. Anyone want to take me up on that?
The plot doesn’t seem that believable to me as a BrBa episode. Someone pointed out on one of the articles about the script that if someone came across the aforementioned “No Mas” ahead of time, with all that stuff with the Cousins in the beginning, they’d probably think that was fake too. And it’s a good point, the show does the unexpected, but somehow some girl named Aiyanna who’s part of some biker gang with a slightly supernatural element? That I don’t buy. It just doesn’t feel very Breaking Bad.
There are a few problematic plot inconsistencies: The carwash basement, Skyler acting like everything is fine and dandy between her and Walt (that is maybe the least believable element after the end of Season 4), Jesse and Aiyanna kissing (we don’t know a whole lot about his relationship with Andrea but he treats her and Brock as family in some ways, and they have just gone through a trauma with the poisoning so I just don’t see it). I think this was possibly written by someone by envisions herself as Aiyanna and wants to make out with Jesse (I mean really, who wouldn’t?) or maybe someone who wants to make out with the Aiyanna character and her charming supernatural biker gang ways. That whole storyline feels the least like the show and the most like someone writing in their own fantasy.
But for me the biggest problem is the writing. The pacing doesn’t feel like BrBa at all. Scenes go on way too long. And the real scripts pay much more attention to color and visual detail. The dialog to action and description ratio is also off. Some of those real scripts I read had entire pages without any dialog, and the dialog was always interspersed with action and description. This script is way too light on action and description, and too long on dialog, to be real. Plus, the real scripts have details about things that just aren’t in here like camera angles, production notes, comments about when they will be using real vs. fake babies for Holly, things like that.
And there’s a voice in the descriptions in real BrBa scripts. In the “No Mas” script, when Jesse’s in rehab and not connecting, the rehab is described as “emo-porn” (brilliant, love it) and I can’t remember which script it was in, much less what scene, but in some descriptive section it says, “Walt would rather play handball with his testicles,” or something to that effect. The point is, the writing, even for non-dialog, has flavor, color, a voice, and I don’t see that in this “leaked” script. In fact, the voice in “Truckers Deluxe” seems to me almost like an amateurish everyvoice, it’s just not all that distinct or defined, like someone trying to sound like a TV writer rather than an original TV writer.
So I will go on record saying I do not think this script is in any way real. Maybe I’ll be wrong and I’ll have to swallow my pride and my careful analysis and cough up the $ for any bets anyone wants to place. But I doubt it. My guess is someone wrote a spec script for Breaking Bad, or just had fun with it, and somehow leaked it online as the real one.
It’s not terrible. There are some things the writer did really well, like when they have Walt Jr. asking about working at the carwash and saying something like, “I don’t have to be the boss or anything, at least not right away,” that seemed to really capture Walt Jr.’s voice. I could hear RJ Mitte saying that as I read it. Same goes for some of the dialog between Walt and Hank (though there are also other parts in their dialog that are more problematic). And for what it’s worth, a lot of people seem to think it’s real. You gotta give some props there. I’ve been thinking about doing a BrBa spec script (more for fun and for the writing exercise than anything else) and it’s a really intimidating prospect so I gotta admire someone undertaking that formidable task and putting their work out there in public, and convincing some of the public that it was written by one of the show’s real writers.
And now that it’s closer to the real season premiere, evidence mounts that this is not real. The real title of the episode will be “Live Free or Die” (sounds awesome) which doesn’t fit the events in the fake script at all. And then there’s the fact that Aaron Paul (Jesse) has been tweeting about how you might need to put on some adult diapers before watching the season premiere, and there is just nothing shit-your-pants worthy in that script. He’s also said the teaser alone will blow your mind, which just can’t be said about the teaser in “Truckers Deluxe.”
There is a really great reminder that comes out of all this, something that I sometimes forget as primarily a prose writer. Scripts have character and personality, you can tell them apart, you can infuse them with voice even for the parts that will never be spoken aloud. That’s pretty incredible.
Still, anyone wanna bet?
~Emilia J
April Julia 
Emilia. I hope it isn’t true either. I am a spoiler free guy too.. I don’t even watch the sneak peeks. I love to speculate and hear everyone else’s theories, but when It comes to Breaking Bad, I want to enter every new episode “Fresh”. I’ll look at all the sneak peeks and spoilery stuff later, when I prepare to write my blog. I also know that Breaking Bad has been exceptionally tight with security around the plot of Season 5. In an interview I heard with Aaron Paul (I believe it was on the Nerdist podcast) he mentioned that they have cut out almost all set visits when filming, even for charity groups (which they apparently did a lot of in the past). This is why I think that the sparsity of preview scenes this year is so limited too.
That being said, I have my spoiler radar tuned to high, especially for this season. One thing I consider is that it was very obvious that someone leaked the scripts for “The Walking Dead” or as I call it “The People Hanging Out on a Farm Show”. I don’t mind being spoiled about that show, because it is so crummy! On the Bald Move podcast about that show (entitled “Watching Dead”) they had a spoiler section at the end (which they kindly separated from the rest of the podcast by a musical break). This spoiler section would reveal the plot for the next episode exactly scene by scene. So I have my guard up for Breaking Bad! (BTW the Bald Move fellows also have a Breaking Bad podcast entitled “Breaking Good” which I highly recommend, and they also separate spoilers from the main podcast for those that want to skip that part).
I only read your post until you started discussing details of the “script” and then scrolled to the bottom to leave this comment! heee heee!
Hey NickCR, you have more self-control than I do! Sometimes I can’t help watching the sneak peaks and trailers. But I’m like you, I want it to be fresh. I want to watch it the way it was written but sometimes I just don’t have the willpower to avoid clicking on the clips. I heard that same interview with Aaron Paul–it does seem that they are being especially protective this season, and everyone keeps saying it’s going to be really intense, dark and all around awesome. CAN’T WAIT!
Thanks for letting me know about the Breaking Good podcast, I’ll have to check that out!
Well it is looking more and more like the “leaked” script is definitively fake. I did watch a clip from Season 5 that came out the other day and it has nothing to do with that script, so I feel even stronger conviction that the leak is a fake.
Okay, gotta gloat a little that I was right and that leaked script (thankfully) was fake! If anyone had bet me anything, I would be channeling my inner Jesse right now and saying, “Where’s my money bitch? Bitch where’s my money?” like in “Peekaboo.” But I guess everyone also knew it was a fake.
I’m a bit less skeptical, you said Walt Jr has a voice that could be heard in the script. When I read it I felt that Saul’s voice was definately present too. I kept thinking why is Jesse with this chick, and why is he working? And the weed? Why are we introducing new characters when Hank is bitkng on Walters ass? And why another lab? The whole pest control deal was working. And Walt told skylar he was done last season they didn’t resolve that. I think this is work of one of the many directors writers of bb, maybe a old skript or a writers vision