Breaking Bad star Betsy Brandt reveals she’s never watched the series’ most acclaimed episode

‘I just can’t do it,’ said the actor

Breaking Bad star Betsy Brandt has revealed she has never watched one of the series’ biggest episodes.

Brandt played Marie, the sister of Anna Gunn’s Skylar White, on the hit AMC crime series from 2008 to 2013, throughout the entirety of the show’s run.

The episode in question was “Ozymandias”, the widely acclaimed 14th episode of Breaking Bad’s fifth and final season.

Spoilers ahead for the final season of Breaking Bad.

“Ozymandias” sees dogged DEA agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) finally meet a violent end while in pursuit of his meth-cooking brother-in-law Walter White.

Dean Norris as Hank Schrader in ‘Ozymandias’ (AMC)

Speaking to Collider, Brandt explained: “When I first got that script, and Moira Walley-Beckett wrote it, and the cast was reading it and then we were emailing each other, and I really put it off. I put off reading it where he is killed.

“Like a child I said, ‘If I don’t read it, could it maybe not happen?’ And so much of that was me as the actor, but also as a fan of the show. That world shifts if Hank’s not in it. Not just for Marie, for everyone, for the entire story and just that world.”

While “Ozymandias” frequently tops polls of the best Breaking Bad episodes, Brandt said that she found the loss of Hank made watching the episode impossible.

“That world is better if [Hank]’s there,” she said. “And such a testament to the writers and to Dean that I felt such a loss. And then also, Marie just loved him, still does. 

“So that was so hard for me to do. I still haven’t watched that whole episode. I just can’t do it.”

Though Breaking Bad concluded in 2013, its story is being continued in the ongoing AMC prequel Better Call Saul, which focuses on the exploits of shady attorney Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk).