RJ Mitte's 5 Best Walter White Jr. Scenes On Breaking Bad

RJ Mitte, who played Walter White Jr. (AKA Flynn) on "Breaking Bad," died by suicide on October 12, 2026, at 34 years old. His longtime co-stars have since voiced their heartbreak over the news. Dean Norris, who portrayed his TV uncle Hank Schrader, posted on social media, "Though RJ didn't play my TV son, I always looked out for him as a young kid on set. He was a sweetheart of a young man and will be greatly missed. This is so heartbreaking, I can't believe it. Thinking of him and his family." 

Bryan Cranston, who played his father Walter White, said in a statement that he found the news "devastating," and that he and Mitte had recently been making plans to get lunch. "I don't know if that lunch would have changed his future ... But I do know that I loved him, and thoroughly enjoyed being with him throughout the years on the series."

As countless other co-stars of Mitte have reacted to the tragedy and voiced their condolences to his friends and family, it's worth looking back at some of the actor's most memorable "Breaking Bad" moments. His character was never the main focus of the show, but he was an earnest presence throughout all five seasons. And whenever he did get to be the star of a scene, like in the five examples below, Mitte nailed it.

In the first season, Walter White spends most of the show's fourth episode refusing to seek cancer treatment. Very few of his family's attempts to change his mind work, in part because Walt finds the idea of dying slowly and saddling his family with medical debt to be emasculating. The fact that a well-intentioned Hank offers to provide for his family in his place doesn't help matters. 

Near the end of the episode, however, Walt Jr. helps change his mind by framing his refusal to get treatment as a mark of cowardice. "Then why don't you just f***ing die already?" Walt Jr. blurts out at his father. 

Mitte deserves credit for how much restrained emotion he imbues in the line; it could have sounded too mean and heartless in another actor's mouth, but from Mitte we can tell he's saying it from a place of profound frustration. He doesn't want his dad to die, and he's mad at him for giving up.

During the second season, in one of the show's most emotionally messy subplots, Walt Jr. creates an online fundraiser to help pay for his father's medical bills. Walt Sr. is touched, but also finds the whole thing embarrassing. Mitte does an amazing job here playing a kid who earnestly wants to help, is proud of his own ingenuity, and doesn't quite understand why his father wouldn't be on board with the site. 

It's one of the most bittersweet storylines in the show, especially as Walt Sr. is forced to swallow his pride and start laundering money through his kid's website. Walt Jr. seems so happy to have helped out, even though the audience knows he's unwittingly created a funnel for his criminal dad's blood money. 

That sequence is one of Walt Jr.'s final moments of happiness before his family life really starts to spiral out of control in the next season, and Mitte acts the hell out of it. 

In this Season 5 episode, Walt Sr. (now a very rich man drowning in tax-free cash) decides to go on a spending spree with his son. He buys Walt Jr. a Dodge Challenger while he buys himself a fancy Chrysler, in a sequence that is both fun and stressful. It's nice to see Walt Sr. enjoy himself for once given how stressed out he is throughout the rest of the show, but this is reckless behavior that can easily blow up on his face. 

For his part, Mitte does a great job adding nuance to his character's reactions. Walt Jr. could've been a clueless kid enjoying this fun treat, but Mitte offers glimpses of internal conflict. Walt Jr. seems to understand that this is not normal behavior from his dad, that working-class parents are not supposed to be impulsively buying fancy cars for their children. Something is wrong here, Walt Jr. notices, but he doesn't know what.

Mitte is amazing throughout "Ozymandias," AKA the best hour of the entire show, especially in the earlier scene where he finds out his dad's a murderous meth dealer for the first time. Walt Jr.'s whole world is thrown upside down in "Ozymandias," but during the knife fight between Skyler (Anna Gunn) and Walt Sr. he finds some much-needed clarity. It's an incredibly cathartic moment to see him protect his mom and call the cops on his dad.

Walt Jr.'s handling of the life-changing events of "Ozymandias" could've easily rung false; there's so much for him to react to, after all, that any wrong acting move could've killed the audience's suspension of disbelief. It's to Mitte's credit that he was able to hold his own in such a high-emotion sequence of scenes, alongside actors with decades more experience. This was the most important episode of Walt Jr.'s arc, and Mitte knocked it out of the park.

With months to cool down from the events of "Ozymandias," the show's penultimate episode ("Granite State") gives Walt Jr. his chance to give his father a piece of his mind. You can really feel his outrage here, mixed with just enough grief and uncertainty to feel believable. The scene mirrors the Season 1 scene where Walt Jr. tells his dad to just "die already," except this time he's not saying it as a motivational technique. By this point in the show, Walt Jr. genuinely wants his father dead. 

This is Walt Jr.'s final conversation with his father, and what a tragic note for these two to end on. Back in 2013, Mitte talked to Vulture about his experience in this scene, revealing that Cranston had been on set with him for his side of the phone call.

"It was amazing but a weird scene to film," Mitte said. "He tells his dad to die. That's something you hear when there is no other way. It was Walt hitting his bottom. That's the end. Filming it went by so quickly, too. Having Bryan there made a world of difference. You can feel it, even though we're on the phone, you can feel all that emotion."