The pink teddy bear is one of the most prominent and well-known symbols in Breaking Bad, appearing in the cold-opens of four episodes in season 2, as well as the very end of "ABQ." There are many different theories on what the bear means, and it's certainly open to interpretation, but this is my attempt to tie it all together into one comprehensive analysis.
To get this started, there are two major dimensions when it comes to the bear, and it’s incredibly important to make this distinction. There’s the actual bear in the pool. And then there’s the plastic eyeball that becomes detached and that Walt keeps through season 4. The eyeball is, in my opinion, the more important symbol of the two, but we’ll talk about the bear first because it's more difficult to explain.
The color pink is primarily associated with femininity and innocence/youth, and combined, young girls. Holly is born shortly before the bear crashes down, and she’s dressed exclusively in pink for the whole series. That’s not unusual, but the bear, a rather dark symbol, becomes related to Holly through its color.
Once we know where the bear is from, it only gets more disturbing. If there was a pink teddy bear on one of those planes, there was probably a young girl on one of those planes. This is the only time we learn anything about one of the passengers, and it’s really vague. And that’s because the passengers are, like, 95% metaphoric.
Hear me out. Yes there was a real plane crash and yes 167 real people died, but the plane crash and its casualties are symbolic in nature.
Our first clue is this: the chances of the occurrences in "Phoenix" and "ABQ" actually happening are preposterous. Think about it: Going to a bar and talking to the man who's the father of the girl you're about to let die, who then goes on to cause one of the largest air disasters in history, and you don't find out it was him until much later, but you saw the whole thing happen while chilling on your patio wearing a sweater the same color as the very particular piece of debris that falls into your pool.
And you never go to bars.
The universe in Breaking Bad is not random, apparently, no matter what "science tells us." But the point of the plane crash is not to balk and say, Wow, what are the chances? The point is, as you might have guessed, about innocence and judgment.
Simply put, the bear is innocence, the eyeball is judgment. Let's start with innocence.
I already mentioned the relationship between the teddy bear and Holly, and I think everyone is familiar with the connection between the bear and Jane:
She painted the bear on her bedroom wall. Again, the chances are preposterous, but let go of the idea of the entire plane crash thing being literal. It's not.
Jane never seemed like much a "pink" girl, but look - her bed sheets are pink and her whole bedroom has a pink tint to it. (And she did shack up with Jesse Pinkman - more on him later.) We didn't see this soft, feminine side of her until after she died. After she herself becomes a lot less literal and a lot more metaphoric.
My next main point is that Holly and Jane are mirrors: they have the same role. They are daughters. There are several parallels between them at the end of season 2. The bear and the color pink tie them together further. But why are they tied to the bear? Jane makes sense, since her death caused the plane crash, but Holly...
Holly is the picture of innocence in Breaking Bad (as infants usually are). But she arrives in dark times. She rises from Jane's ashes, and becomes the enduring symbol of innocence. The nameless little girl who lost her life in the plane crash was equally innocent.
And Jane was innocent as well. She just had a few more years in her than Holly, but she didn't deserve to die. Jane's death is the first of a complete innocent that resulted directly from Walt's actions. She was not killed for self-defense, she was not a drug dealer, she wasn't even in that world, not really. This is the moment when deaths start to get less excusable. Many more innocents die after Jane, and the epitome of that is the plane crash.
167 unarguably innocent people die, because of a perhaps unlikely but direct chain of events beginning with Walt. As I said before, we're supposed to assume that there was a little girl on one of those planes, but only her teddy bear is ever seen. The victims are kept vague and unnamed on purpose. (I wonder if 167 means anything? Hm.) They died to represent the chain of consequences caused by Walt, and the collateral damage of his actions. In this way, the teddy bear is similar to the fly. It represents the loss of innocent lives and harm done to people in Walt's life, as the fly represents Walt's guilt surrounding collateral damage.
The more enduring symbol, though, is that of the eyeball that pops up a couple times in season 3 and once in season 4:
This isn't all too complicated. It represents the same thing eyes normally do: judgment, especially the judgment of God. (Also see: the eyes of T.J. Eckleberg in The Great Gatsby.) The eyeball reminds us, and Walt, of the plane crash (the irreversible harm he has done to his family and others) and that it is indeed his fault. And he does feel guilty. I mean, "People move on"? Really, Walt? He wants this whole thing to disappear. He never wears a remembrance ribbon (why would he want to remember?), and he makes a ton of excuses - but he knows. When he sees that eyeball, he knows.
One real critic, unlike me, said all of this in a much cleaner way: "The pink teddy bear continues to accuse."
Who who is the teddy bear a stand-in for? Who is accusing? God? "I don't know if you believe in hell, [...] but we're already pretty much going there, right? But I'm not going to lie down until I get there." This season 5 quote suggests that Walt believes in some sort of lasting, eternal judgment - and that he isn't going to come out on top. (Except he includes Jesse in that, carefully using 'we' instead of owning it himself. But that's another post.)
Or is it Walt accusing himself? He does feel guilty, but, as with the fly, he is able to compartmentalize his guilt. It doesn't get any bigger than a plastic eyeball or a pesky fly. The eyeball is carefully tucked away in pockets and drawers and never really dealt with.
The thing with the eyeball is happening parallel to Jesse's experiences with self-acceptance and Walt could do to learn from Jesse. Jesse accepts his fault in what happened, even embraces it. Walt tries his best to ignore it, but it pops up every now and then.
The connection of Jesse Pinkman in all of this is something we can't ignore either. While he is far from innocent in general, he was very much a victim in the tragedies of "Phoenix" and "ABQ" - making it all the more heartbreaking when he blames himself: "I killed her. It was me, I killed her. I loved her. I loved her more than anything" (just typing that out is making me tear up, wow) and of course: "I know who I am. I'm the bad guy."
Perhaps, then, it's Jesse accusing. Or Walt imagining Jesse accusing, since the poor kid has no idea. If that's the case, it's Walt's guilt specifically associated with Jesse and what he has put him through. Jesse is the dimension of the bear that is related to both innocence and judgment.
It also can't be ignored that the bear is white as well as pink. All of this death did initially arise from Walter White teaming up with Jesse Pinkman. Even though it's hard to blame Jesse for this after seeing him in so much pain - Jane was clean before she started hanging around Jesse. 18 months clean. Jesse is definitely at fault as well for leading her to use again. Walt's role in the tragedy is obvious, but Jesse's self-blame is not misplaced.
Extrapolating the tragedy of the plane crash to the general, sweeping tragedy of Breaking Bad, Walt and Jesse's roles change very little. Walt's role is obvious and central; Jesse is both an accomplice and a victim.
The white/pink combination has been thought to symbolize death and that certainly makes sense - but Holly, dressed almost always in pink and white, escaped the series unscathed (thank god) so I'm not sure if that's it. It does signify the duo of Walt and Jesse, though.
Another theory I want to debunk is this: The bear is not foreshadowing of "Face Off." Yes, there is a slight visual resemblance:
But let's just take a step back here and remember - Gus wasn't even a character when the teddy bear was introduced in "Seven-Thirty-Seven." Not that they hadn't planned for Gus by then, but I think it's a stretch that they had Gus's death planned out since the very beginning of season 2. It is possible that Gus's death is a callback to the bear. More than possible, actually, I think that's very likely.
Either way, though, let's not get too wrapped up in that. The bear is a totally separate thing from Gus and his death. Gus's death has everything to do with his character, and his facade finally being stripped away after his death (in every possible way) and absolutely nothing to do with the themes represented by the bear.
So that's everything I've got on the teddy bear for now, but it's clearly a very complex symbol and there's definitely more to it that I haven't even considered yet.
To finish this, let's just take a moment to appreciate the beautiful cinematography and storytelling that made the teddy bear so memorable.
