At the Television Critics Association press tour, traditional etiquette says you don't applaud the guests – the idea being if you don't applaud anyone, no one gets favoritism from the journalists in attendance. However, there were definitely some people breaking that rule for Bryan Cranston today at the Breaking Bad panel, since pretty much everyone there knew how great he was on the show and some just couldn't resist cheering when he was introduced.

Clips from Season 2 showed plenty of new exciting events for Walt White (Cranston), an incredibly mild mannered high school chemistry teacher who has turned to desperate measures after finding out he has lung cancer and little time to live – producing meth with his former student Jesse (Aaron Paul), in order to make enough money to provide for his family after he's gone. In the Season 2 clips, we see Jesse understandably worried about Tuco (Raymond Cruz), the psychotic drug lord they're now working with and how long he'll allow them to go with the knowledge of the murder they saw him commit. Walt's family in the meantime try to figure out what secret Walt is keeping from them, and there is also a sequence shown where "Missing" signs have been posted for Walt by his son Walt Jr. (R.J. Mitte), even as we see Walt sadly see one of the signs, clearly anguished over not being with his family.

In the Q&A that followed, series creator Vince Gilligan was asked how he learned so much about such dastardly drug world dealings, and jokingly replied, "Write what you know. I suppose eventually we'll get to the stuff I don't actually know." More seriously, Gilligan said a lot of times he'll read something years before and hold on to it – such as the amazingly macabre story in Season 1 when a person was dissolved in hydrofluoric acid, only for it also to eat through the bathtub he was in. Gilligan recalled reading about hydrofluoric acid in Popular Science years before, and how it will eat through many materials, but not plastic, and held onto the idea of someone making a rookie mistake with that acid – which eventually made it into Breaking Bad.

Season 1 was cut short by the writers' strike, but Gilligan said that he never intended Walt to die at the end of the first season when he came up with the show, noting, "It's definitely something we think about on the horizon, but the question is how far the horizon stretches." Though Gilligan joked about the show going for 15 seasons, he stated that in Walt's case, "Cancer at that stage does not have a great outlook. It's possible. People do live. People do win the lottery, but most people don't. What I want to do is keep it as realistic as possible. Just because the show is a success, I don't want to have him get magically cured." Gilligan added, "There may be a ray of light this season – but for how long, we don't know," and that, "There's moments of sunshine, moments of hope, but then it can change in the blink of an eye." He did explain that they purposely keep the timeframe compressed on the series, saying that in a relatively short period of time, "a lot of living gets done."

Gilligan said that Season 2 has, "a big, slam bang ending that I'm very excited about," which he said would give a major clue on what's to come in the series. Gilligan also said that before that ending, there's "lots of exciting side roads you take getting there." He also discussed how there are times when reality helps dictate the story, explaining that the real life house Jesse lived in during Season 1 was sold before Season 2, and unavailable to film in, which led to a new plot point, since "We had to very quickly scramble and figure out what we do with that."

Looking back on Season 1, Gilligan said that when it came to the writers' strike, there was "One silver lining," because if they had finished the season as planned, "I was anxious how the show would be received," and that he had a very big ending in mind, "that would have been too soon" in the show's narrative, in retrospect. Remarked Gilligan, "The strike saved us from doing too much too soon."

While Gilligan said he'd done a lot of research on cancer patients, which has continued since, Cranston said that in his case, "I didn't want to do any research. I wanted to learn about it as my character learned about it." However, Cranston revealed that his sister-in-law had breast cancer, and he'd gone to chemotherapy with her and that he could understand that for Walt, he will sometimes wildly veer in his emotions, but it's understandable given his situation.

Cranston remarked how Walt has transformed, saying, "He was a walking zombie before. A very depressed man for 25 years. All of the sudden this blew the cap off. There's no going back emotionally. No going back physically. He can't go back to teaching. His life has changed forever, which I find fascinating, sociologically."

Paul said he felt that Jesse was "really impressed by Mr. White. They're always going to be a tug of war, but that's what makes the relationship work." Paul noted they were "an odd couple – such polar opposite characters. In Season 2, he really see Mr. White almost as a fatherly character towards the end of the season and really begins to respect him."

Gilligan was asked if more would be revealed about Tuco, and he replied, "We learn a little bit more about him in the second episode of the season. He is a bad ass dude. We see a different side of him, but then something very big happens to him at the end of episode 2."