The second instalment of AMC's cult drama series Breaking Bad Season 5 has started on a breaking record note. According to reports, a total of 5.9 million viewers watched Breaking Bad Season 5 episode 9 'Blood Money' on Sunday.

BBC reports that the number of audience who watched 'Blood Money' is double than the opening episode of the last summer's opening episode. USA Today reports that nearly 1.2 million watched the first episode of Talking Bad, the late-night talk show to discuss Breaking Bad episodes.

The five-time Primetime Emmy winner Breaking Bad has now seven more episodes to air, after which it will be the 'End' board for one of the most critically acclaimed drama series in recent times.

The feverish anticipation, killing curiosity, hype and the buzz, all worked in favour of Breaking Bad, giving it its highest audience. The first instalment of Breaking Bad Season 5 had ended on a cliff-hanger, with Hank (Dean Norris) finding out that his brother-in-law Walt (Bryan Cranston) and drug-lord Heisenberg are one person.

Breaking Bad turned a good man 'Mr. Chips' into one of the most dreaded, crystal meth cooking criminal 'Scarface'. Vince Gilligan created drama series was not an instant hit from its first episode, but it slowly picked-up and turned out to be one of the most discussed and praised dramas. According to Slate, nearly 1.4 million people tuned in to watch the first five episodes of Breaking Bad Season 1, which is four times less than the record breaking 'Blood Money' episode.

"The ratings success of Breaking Bad shows that excellent programming can grow an audience, a big audience, if treated with proper patience," Willa Paskin writes in Slate.

The diagnosis of terminal cancer is what put the mild mannered chemistry teacher on the path of crime. He wanted to leave behind enough money for his family and started cooking crystal meth, with the objective to achieve that. However, he became more sinister and darker with each episode. He is out of the crystal meth business but he is back to coughing and vomiting. The cancer was in remission but as we saw in 'Blood Money', the cancer has returned. Talking to Andrew Romano of The Daily Beast, Mr Gilligan sad that cancer was the "plot engine" and it has been on the "backburner."

"But my writers and I don't like leaving loose ends," he said, adding that cancer is what got the story moving ahead and "it felt wrong to us to not address it again. It felt proper and fitting to us that it might rear its ugly head, yet again."

"... with a plot development like that, it only complicates matters. It makes the morality of the story more complex in the sense that Walt has a point. It's very much a villain's point of view, but it's a point nonetheless when he says, "Look, I'm dying of cancer. I'm never going to see the inside of a jail cell. Why do this thing, Hank? Why ruin our family?" It's kind of a douche bag point, but it has validity nonetheless."

Mr Gilligan told The Daily Beast that they love such kind of story complications and "that's as good a reason as any to bring his cancer back."