There could be no Breaking Bad without Jesse Pinkman, the meth-cooking sidekick who outgrew his status as jokey wannabe gangsta to take on the role of the series’ foul-mouthed moral compass. Much of that development can be credited to Aaron Paul’s increasingly soulful portrayal of Jesse, but the character wouldn’t have had the chance to mature into the wounded embodiment of Walter White’s misdeeds if creator Vince Gilligan had stuck with his original concept for Breaking Bad’s first season. Like Gilligan’s initial pitch for the series—“You take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface”—rumors of Jesse’s planned demise have taken on mythological heft as the series grew into a TV institution, and Gilligan has since stated that by the time of the show’s second episode, he was so fond of the Jesse character and impressed with Paul’s performance that he knew a rewrite was in order. It was a beneficial move for Breaking Bad as a whole and Paul as a performer, but it stands to reason that Jesse could’ve avoided a lot of pain, suffering, and potential murder charges if a change of heart (and a Writers Guild Of America strike) hadn’t kept Gilligan from putting the kid out of his misery back in 2008.
