The Breaking Bad universe has so many great performances that singling out an actor beyond the obvious quartet of Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, and Giancarlo Esposito is a task fraught with peril. That being said, as the news of the death of RJ Mitte became public, it occurred to me that I undervalued his work on one of the landmark television shows in the history of the medium, and maybe, if I missed it, perhaps others did too. Make no mistake: Walter “Flynn” White Jr. was the moral compass of the show.
When Breaking Bad started shooting in 2008, Mitte was only 14. His fellow actors have described him as a raw talent who grew significantly as an actor over the show’s five seasons. The arc of Mitte’s performance was matched by that of his character. At the start of the series, Walter White Jr. is unfailingly adoring of his father (the great Bryan Cranston). As the series progresses and Walt Sr. sinks deeper into the darkness, Walt Jr. keeps standing up for him, taking his mother (Anna Gunn) to task again and again for being so hard on “dad.”
Of course, both parents keep secrets from Jr. to protect him and, most notably in Walt Sr.’s case, themselves. Walt Jr. is Breaking Bad’s purest and most consistently decent character. Decency can be really boring on screen, but it never was in RJ Mitte’s capable hands. As Mitte grew from a boy to a young man over the show’s five seasons, so did his character.
In one of the great episodes of the series, titled “Ozymandias” after the Percy Shelley sonnet, Walt Sr.’s obfuscations come crashing down, and his son is left to reckon with who his heretofore “hero father” has become. An anguished, on-the-run Walt Sr. calls his son while he is at school. Walt Jr. takes the call from inside an administration office. For most of the scene, the son listens as his father desperately tries to instruct him to receive a large sum of money for him and his mother. Mitte must act as he listens, and the cold weight of the truth falls on his shoulders and is made visible in his eyes. The father asks the son if he understands what he is telling him. The son replies, “You want to send money,” with an incredulous affect that’s somehow subtle at the same time.
And then the moment turns.
Walt Jr. cuts his father off. He will hear no more. Then, with a barely controlled rage, he unleashes on his father with one of the simplest and yet most painful lines in the history of the series:
“You killed Uncle Hank!”
Walt Jr. then repeats the line, and it is no less devastating or painful than the first time. Not just because we see what it does to Walt Sr. on the other end of the line, but also because of what it does to the young man who spoke the words. The veil has been lifted, and no further excuses can be made for the father Walt Jr. idolized. The moment is raw, unflinching, devastating. It is also very much alive. In a show full of extraordinary sequences, that phone call is one of the greatest. When Walt Jr. refuses the money and slams down the phone, he is no longer a boy. He is a man.
It should be mentioned that RJ Mitte was born with cerebral palsy and became a powerful advocate off-screen for disabled actors. In 2013, he received the SAG-AFTRA Harold Russell Award, which is given out annually “in recognition of performers, writers, or industry members who advance the accurate portrayal and employment of people with disabilities.” I almost hesitated to speak to Mitte’s condition, because however his gait and speech might have been impacted by his condition, his acting ability hurtled through any barriers to movement or communication. To put it another way, I didn’t want to make this write-up about his “condition.” Because he was clearly so much more than that.
He was also a handsome young man and an excellent actor. He made a career for himself in one of the toughest industries in the world, disabled or not.
All I can think about is his abilities today. They were vast.
RJ Mitte died on October 12, 2026. He was 34 years old.
