Breaking Bad

When Breaking Bad won its first Peabody Award in 2008, the winner’s citation points to a conflicted Walter White, a man facing “moral questions [that] become more and more difficult for him — and the audience.” How far we’ve come since then. In the final stretch of eight episodes that aired in 2013, the time for moral questioning has passed. Walter White has completely taken on the role of the show’s villain as the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, makes good on his promise to utterly transform Walter White from Mr. Chips into Scarface. Sticking the landing for a television show is always difficult, but these final episodes of Breaking Bad did so in a way that felt Shakespearean in scope. A descendant of both King Lear and Macbeth, Walter White contributes something powerful and uniquely his own to our collective memory in this 21st century tragedy. For taking us into the darkest chambers of a human heart in a way never before seen on TV, Breaking Bad wins the rare honor of a second Peabody Award.