Breaking Bad premiered in 2008 on AMC and went on to become the best crime drama of all time on television. The series that followed Walter White (Bryan Cranston), culminated in 2013, to date continues to add fans to its solid base. Four years after its conclusion, the series called Ozark centered on Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) debuted on Netflix; and there is no doubt that both programs have some similarities.
Both Breaking Bad and Ozark are two successful shows inspired by organized crime and whose main characters are always immersed in high-caliber criminal activities, while they are directly and dependently related to the cartels they work for. A lifestyle, to which they have to adapt throughout the stories of each drama.
For example, in Breaking Bad, for Walter White this means giving up his life as a high school chemistry teacher and dedicating himself to crime cooking methamphetamine, while he transforms himself into the drug lord better known as Heisenberg. In Ozark, Marty Byrne is a former financial adviser who has been hired to launder money for a cartel, and like Cranston’s character he is always being stalked by death.
Keep in mind that both characters from the two series may have their differences and similarities, but in the first season of Ozark, a scene stood out when paying homage to its predecessor Breaking Bad. Some fans may not have noticed, but the Bryan Cranston-starring crime drama for AMC was clearly alluded to.
In the scene in question, the Netflix drama that will premiere the second part of the fourth and final season on April 29, Ozark makes reference to Breaking Bad’s not-so-subtle money laundering metaphor, according to the Looper site. It was exactly in episode 2 of the first season, when Marty Byrde is stacking money in a washing machine.
According to a user on Reddit known as u/Detzeb, he recalled the same thing happening in the pilot episode of Breaking Bad, when Walter White stacks wads of bills into a washer-dryer after the money was soaked in chemicals. That scene, and the one in Ozark Season 1 Episode 2, were shot from inside a washing machine with the main character in focus.
