Miniseries Treatment: The Disappearer
A Breaking Bad Universe Limited Series (6 Episodes)
Logline:
Before he was the guy you called when you needed to disappear, Ed Galbraith was a quiet, unassuming man running a vacuum repair shop. But when a desperate fugitive walks through his door, Ed is forced into a world of deception, smuggling, and survival—turning him into the Disappearer, a man who can erase anyone from existence… for a price.
Tone & Genre:
- A slow-burn crime thriller with elements of noir and espionage.
- Minimalist, methodical storytelling in the style of No Country for Old Men and The American.
- Less about action, more about strategy, deception, and the moral cost of disappearing people.
Episode Breakdown:
Episode 1 – “The First Disappearance”
Ed Galbraith, a widowed, soft-spoken vacuum repairman, leads a quiet life in Albuquerque, running Best Quality Vacuum. He keeps to himself—fixes vacuums, listens to the radio, drinks his coffee the same way every day.
One evening, a terrified young woman, bleeding and desperate, stumbles into his shop. She claims she’s being hunted and has nowhere to turn. At first, Ed turns her away, but when he sees her in the newspaper—a runaway informant marked for death—he makes a decision that will change his life forever: he helps her disappear.
Episode 2 – “The Cost of Vanishing”
Ed quickly realizes disappearing someone is no simple task. He enlists the help of an old military buddy (Frank Kessler, a retired intelligence officer), who warns him: “There’s no half-measures in this game, Ed.”
As Ed creates a false identity for the woman and smuggles her out of New Mexico, he learns the true stakes:
✔ The Cartel is after her.
✔ A bounty hunter is following her trail.
✔ Ed must now erase his own tracks or risk becoming a target.
He succeeds, but at great cost—he burns his first bridge, severing ties with his old military contacts.
Episode 3 – “A Business is Born”
Realizing he has a talent for this, Ed is approached by a crooked lawyer who knows what he did. The lawyer offers his first paid job: disappearing a white-collar criminal whose business partner wants him dead.
Ed designs a system—
✔ Creating custom identities (fake social security numbers, DMV records).
✔ Mapping safe escape routes (abandoned airports, freight trains).
✔ Setting his price: six figures per job, cash only.
By the end of the episode, Best Quality Vacuum is no longer just a vacuum shop.
Episode 4 – “The Ones You Can’t Save”
Ed has a golden rule: You get one shot at disappearing. If you screw up, you’re on your own.
But when a troubled ex-cop (potentially Hank Schrader’s old mentor) tries to resurface, Ed faces his first true moral dilemma. Does he break his rule and help a man who was once a good cop?
Meanwhile, a new player enters the game—a DEA agent who suspects a ghost network of disappearances is operating under their noses.
Episode 5 – “The Cartel Finds a Ghost”
Ed made one mistake—he helped someone he shouldn’t have. The Juárez Cartel wants to know how their guy vanished.
A Salamanca enforcer (potentially Lalo’s older cousin?) comes knocking at Best Quality Vacuum, demanding answers. Ed is now a target, and the only way out is to erase his own past before they can trace it.
Meanwhile, the DEA agent gets closer to discovering Ed’s operation—but in a twist, the cartel eliminates the agent first, leaving Ed in the clear… for now.
Final Episode – “The Last Disappearance”
Years later, Ed is a ghost—fully independent, off the cartel’s radar, running a seamless operation. He helps a mysterious new client disappear—a quiet, nervous man named Saul Goodman.
We cut between two timelines:
- Present (Breaking Bad Era) – Ed helping Saul, Jesse, and Walt disappear.
- Past (The 1990s-2000s) – Ed realizing he has given up everything—friends, family, normal life—to be the ultimate disappearer.
The final scene?
Ed, sitting alone in his vacuum shop, sipping coffee, listening to the radio—just like in Episode 1.
But now, we know: he’s the most dangerous man no one has ever heard of.
Why This Show Works:
✔ Expands the Breaking Bad Universe – without feeling like just another cartel story.
✔ Grounded, procedural storytelling – focusing on the logistics and psychology of disappearing people.
✔ A quiet, methodical antihero – Breaking Bad had Walter White, Better Call Saul had Jimmy McGill… The Disappearer gives us Ed Galbraith, a master of anonymity.
✔ Final Closure – Robert Forster’s Ed was a fan favorite. This show honors his legacy while expanding the backstory of one of the series’ most mysterious and compelling side characters.
Final Thought:
If Better Call Saul was about the transformation of a man into Saul Goodman, then The Disappearer would be about a man erasing himself while helping others do the same.
