Besides the presence of hard drugs and an ace soundtrack, Breaking Bad and Pulp Fiction would seem to share few similarities. And yet, as seen in Jorge Luengo Ruiz’s side-by-side comparison video, Vince Gilligan and friends took quite a few cues from Quentin Tarantino’s breakout hit.
The parallels here are mostly visual, but in a few cases the video unearths correlations in story and character, and the resemblance between Jane Margolis and Mia Wallace—who both sport heavy bangs and succumb to a heroin overdose—is especially hard to deny. Gilligan, for his part, hasn’t commented on these similarities, but he did note in 2011 that his decision to keep Gus Fring’s backstory enigmatic was partly inspired by the mysterious briefcase Vincent and Jules carry throughout Pulp Fiction.
