C&EN TALKS WITH
DONNA NELSON Oklahoma chemistry professor has helped ensure scientific accuracy on the TV series ‘BREAKING BAD’
IN 2008, C&EN reported on
HELEN CALDWELL
JYLLIAN KEMSLEY, C&EN WEST COAST NEWS BUREAU
would use. She gave the show sevthe first season of the television eral choices. The writers went with series “Breaking Bad,” in which an aluminum-mercury amalgam, high school chemistry teacher because they thought it would be Walter White (Bryan Cranston) easiest for the actors to say. is diagnosed with lung cancer and “Chemists normally choose a returns to making methamphetducing agent based on safety, cost, amine to provide for his family. or yield, but never based on the The show’s budget didn’t allow for name,” Nelson says. “I thought that a paid chemistry adviser, so much was hilarious.” The yield? About of the science information was 280 lb. researched on the Internet. Series Nelson’s favorite scene is one creator, writer, and producer Vince that comes at the start of the Gilligan told C&EN that he would show’s fourth season, when White welcome input from chemists. fears he is about to be killed by GusThe request intrigued Donna J. Nelson, an organic chemistry tavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), meth kingpin Nelson (center) on the “Breaking of the Southwest. One of Fring’s deputies professor at the University of Oklahoma who studies alkene addiBad” set with tion and carbon nanotube reactions. But Nelson hadn’t seen the thinks he can follow White’s meth synthesis. Cranston (left) show, and she was concerned that it glorified drug abuse. After “Really?” White asks emphatically, desperand Paul (right). watching it, however, she was reassured. ate to prove his value. “Oh, so please, tell me, “If anything, the way Vince portrays this is to make the lifestyle catalytic hydrogenation, is it protic or aprotic? appear horrible—I think it will make kids shy away,” Nelson says. “I Because I forget. And if our reduction is not stereospecific, then don’t think Vince is trying to set up Walt as a role model for chemhow can our product be enantiomerically pure?” ists,” she adds. “They sent that script by me, and I cleaned it up and made it Nelson proceeded to volunteer to help Gilligan and his colreally strong and absolutely correct,” Nelson says. But she likes it leagues with the show. Gilligan accepted. not because she helped write it but because it puts chemistry front Her first interaction with the show’s writers came on a 2008 trip and center. “Walt is saying, ‘I am important to you. I am essential to to California, during which she stopped in Burbank to meet with this, because I have this knowledge of chemistry,’ ” Nelson says. Gilligan and other “Breaking Bad” writers. They peppered her with questions about what would make a person go into science, become NELSON INITIALLY RECEIVED some negative comments an organic chemist, leave a research position to become a high about volunteering for the show. “You should not help them, school teacher, and so on. “They were trying to develop Walt’s charyou should let that show die,” people advised her, she says. She acter, but none of them had any science background,” Nelson says. responded by saying, “There’s no way it’s going to die. This show Going forward, Nelson’s contribution to the show continued to is extremely popular. We’re either going to have an extremely center on White’s character as a chemist, what he says as a chemist, popular show on television with bad chemistry or an extremely and his interactions with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White’s forpopular show on television with correct chemistry.” When you mer student who becomes his junior partner in meth synthesis. look at it like that, she says, you really don’t have much choice but “I did a lot of answering questions and quite a bit to get involved. of checking scripts,” she says. Nelson advised how Aside from the visit to Burbank, Nelson got to visteacher White might talk to Pinkman or, later, how it the set in Albuquerque a few times. Once, she was “We’re either two lab mates might talk to each other. The show filmed for a cameo appearance, dressed in a nurse’s turned to Drug Enforcement Administration sources going to have scrubs for a scene in a nursing home. for illicit meth lab setups. “Vince was really inter“What surprised me was how early you have to an extremely ested in getting every detail correct,” Nelson says. get into the proper clothes, then you wind up sitpopular show on But he wanted to do it without giving viewers meth television with bad ting around and waiting all day,” she says. She had recipes, she notes. dressed early in the morning, and they finally shot chemistry or an At some points during the show’s production, her scene at about 4 PM. Unfortunately, she didn’t convenience won out over scientific rigor. When Nel- extremely popular make the final cut. show on television son was asked to calculate how much meth could be The final episode of the series airs on Sept. 29. with correct synthesized from 30 gal of a methylamine solution, Nelson says she doesn’t know how the show will end. she needed to know which reducing agent White Will she tune in to watch? “You better believe it!” ◾ chemistry.” CEN.ACS.ORG
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