The minute AMC’s Breaking Bad initially premiered on the network back in 2008, the entire realm of television was introduced to one of the greatest series of all time. Like with any great show, Breaking Bad gained traction and established an impressive following due to its abundance of scintillating characters, pulse-pounding plot points, and a variety of jaw-dropping moments that viewers are still in awe about. One of those moments, of course, occurred in the show’s ever-popular fourth season — which eventually helped catapult the series to mainstream success.
The aforementioned moment has to do with the gut-wrenching poisoning of Brock Cantillo, who is introduced to eagle-eyed fans as the 6-year-old son of Jesse Pinkman’s girlfriend Andrea. After building a bond with both Andrea and Brock, Jesse eventually works to save up enough money to establish a better living situation for them all. In doing so, Jesse further built a partnership with drug kingpin Gus Fring, whose relationship with Walter White was quickly flatlining.
With all of this drama going on, it was revealed in the season 4 finale “Face Off” that Brock had been poisoned by toxic berries from a lily of the valley plant. Initially, Jesse believed that Brock had been poisoned with ricin and that Walt had orchestrated Saul Goodman’s bodyguard to remove a ricin-laced cigarette from Jesse’s belongings.
Did Walter poison Brock?
In the aftermath of Brock being poisoned, Walter insisted to Jesse that Gus was the one who took the ricin cigarette and had one of his henchmen poison Brock. Walt explained to Jesse that Gus had the poisoning done so that it would make it appear as though Walt did it and effectively turn Jesse against Walt so that Jesse would finally be on board with letting Gus kill Walt. Earlier on in the season, Jesse insisted to Gus that if “Mr. White” goes, then he goes too.
In the end, Gus Fring was killed by a homemade explosive device crafted by Walt with the help of Hector Salamanca. On that same note, the final shot of the pulse-pounding finale revealed that lily of the valley plant in the backyard of Walter White’s residence — shockingly proving to viewers that Walter did actually poison Brock to get Jesse on his side so that Jesse would be on board with Gus being killed.
Of course, Breaking Bad die-hards are undoubtedly aware that this wouldn’t be the first time Walter committed a heinous act that proved he had completely lost his sense of empathy by the time the fourth season rolled around. In fact, it also wouldn’t be the first time that Walter poisoned someone in the series — with the infamous teacher-turned-meth-cook even poisoning Lydia with ricin in the show’s unforgettable series finale.