White, Breaking Bad'''s protagonist, shares his name with an air traffic controller involved in the Cerritos collision. This episode introduced the character of Mike as played by Jonathan Banks. The role of the cleaner to help Jesse prepare to deal with the police was originally meant to be handled by Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk. However, due to commitments to How I Met Your Mother, he was not available for filming of this episode - so Vince Gilligan created Mike for that episode and into the next season as a cleaner. Critical reception The episode received critical acclaim. Donna Bowman, writing for The A.V. Club, commented that the episode "was horrific perfection". In 2019 The Ringer ranked "ABQ" as the 28th best out of the 62 total Breaking Bad episodes. For her work on this episode, Lynne Willingham won Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series at the 61st Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, while Michael Slovis was nominated for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour). Notes References External links "ABQ" at the official Breaking Bad'' site 2009 American television episodes Breaking Bad (season 2) episodes Television episodes written by Vince Gilligan