Jesse Pinkman


Jesse Bruce Pinkman is a fictional character in the American crime drama television series Breaking Bad, portrayed by Aaron Paul. He is a crystal meth cook and dealer who works with his former high school chemistry teacher, Walter White. Jesse is the only character besides Walter to appear in every episode of the show. Paul reprised the role in 2019 as the protagonist of the spin-off sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, set after its finale, and again in 2022 for the sixth and final season of the spin-off prequel sequel series Better Call Saul, being one of the few characters to appear across both shows and the movie.
Despite initial plans to kill off the character at the end of the first season, Paul's performance convinced the showrunner and head writer Vince Gilligan to keep Jesse in the show. The character and Paul's performance received acclaim from critics and fans. Critics especially praised Jesse's character development from an unsympathetic drug dealer to the moral compass of the show as he becomes increasingly guilty and remorseful for his and Walter White's actions while involved in the drug trade. For his portrayal, Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2010, 2012, and 2014, making him the first actor to win the category three times since its separation into drama and comedy.

In-universe biography

Pre-''Breaking Bad''

Jesse Bruce Pinkman was born into a middle-class family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the time the series starts, he has long been estranged from his parents due to his drug addiction and lifestyle as a drug dealer. After being forced to leave his parents' residence, Jesse moved in with his Aunt Ginny, for whom he cared until her death from cancer; as a result, he became very knowledgeable about the disease. Afterward, he was allowed to stay in her home, the ownership of which fell to Jesse's parents.
Jesse was a poor student in high school and preferred hanging out with his friends and smoking marijuana to studying. Walter White, whom Jesse almost always calls "Mr. White", was his chemistry teacher and gave Jesse a failing grade in his class. Walt himself later says that he never thought Jesse would amount to much, although Jesse's mother Diane recalls that Walt "must have seen some potential in Jesse; he really tried to motivate him. He was one of the few teachers who cared." Despite his poor academic standing, Jesse was able to graduate, with Walt present on stage when he received his diploma.
In his first chronological appearance, which took place in 2004 during the Better Call Saul episode "Waterworks", Jesse is outside of Saul Goodman's office when Kim Wexler emerges after having signed their divorce papers. As Jesse takes a cigarette from Kim, he recognizes her as the public defender who got his friend Christian "Combo" Ortega out of trouble after he stole the Baby Jesus from a Nativity display. Jesse is there with Emilio Koyama, who decided to hire Saul based on a TV advertisement. Jesse asks Kim if Saul is a good lawyer, to which she replies, "when I knew him, he was."

Season 1

When Walt is diagnosed with lung cancer and considers making methamphetamine to provide for his family, he tries to learn the illegal drug business by accompanying his brother-in-law Hank Schrader, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, on a ridealong. During a drug bust, he spots Jesse running away from the scene, but Jesse's partner Emilio Koyama is arrested. Walt subsequently realizes that Jesse is "Cap'n Cook", a meth cook Hank is investigating. Walt uses student records to track down Jesse, his former pupil, and blackmails him into partnering up and letting Walt "cook" in the production side of Jesse's illegal drug trade. Walt plans to use his knowledge of chemistry to cook potent meth that Jesse will distribute, and he gives Jesse $7,000 to purchase a recreational vehicle which will be used as a rolling meth lab. Jesse wastes most of the money while partying at a strip club, but one of his friends, Combo, lets Jesse purchase his family's RV for $1,400.
After Walt cooks his first batch of meth, Jesse is struck by its quality, calling it the purest he has ever seen. He approaches Emilio's cousin Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina, an Albuquerque meth distributor, to propose doing business with him. Krazy-8 is suspicious, so Emilio and he make Jesse bring them to meet Walt. Emilio recognizes Walt as having been with Hank during the DEA bust, and they attempt to kill Walt, but he produces phosphine gas that kills Emilio and incapacitates Krazy-8, allowing Walt to flee with the unconscious Jesse. Once back in town, Walt has Jesse shop for a plastic container in which he plans to dissolve Emilio's body with hydrofluoric acid. Jesse cannot find a container big enough, so he dissolves the body in the upstairs bathtub of Ginny's house, which burns a hole through the bathroom floor and spills the remains into the downstairs hallway. After cleaning up the scene and killing Krazy-8, Walt and Jesse attempt to carry out meth distribution on their own.
Walt and Jesse move their lab from the RV to Jesse's basement. Their product becomes a big enough presence in Albuquerque's drug scene that it becomes the focus of Hank's investigation. Dissatisfied with the amount of money Jesse is making as a low-level dealer, Walt convinces him to find a high-end distributor. Skinny Pete, one of Jesse's friends, puts him in contact with Tuco Salamanca, a powerful Mexican drug kingpin operating in Albuquerque. At their first meeting, Tuco beats Jesse badly enough that he has to be hospitalized. After Walt strong-arms Tuco into a lucrative, albeit unstable, partnership, Walt and Jesse expand their operations by stealing a large drum of methylamine. This enables them to produce even more potent meth in larger quantities.

Season 2

The second season begins with Walt and Jesse delivering a fresh batch to Tuco, who senselessly beats one of his henchmen, "No Doze", to death as the stunned duo watch helplessly. After the DEA conducts a raid on his Albuquerque operations, the increasingly paranoid Tuco believes that Walt and Jesse are about to betray him. Tuco kidnaps the pair and takes them to a remote house in the desert, where he cares for his paralyzed uncle, Hector Salamanca. There, Walt and Jesse are held against their will for several days, with Tuco stating his intention to take them to a "superlab" in Mexico. However, Walt and Jesse escape after a struggle with Tuco; they flee the scene and watch as Hank—who has been guided to the house by the LoJack on Jesse's car, while searching for the missing Walt—kills Tuco in a firefight outside the house. Walt and Jesse, undetected by Hank, wander on foot through the desert before hitching a ride back to civilization. The DEA seizes Jesse's car and money.
Realizing the authorities will track him down, Jesse seeks help from his friend, Brandon "Badger" Mayhew. They move the lab from Jesse's house back to the RV. The RV is subsequently towed away by Badger's cousin, Clovis and stored on his lot for a $1,000 storage fee, for which Jesse can only pay half of upfront. The next day, Jesse's parents evict him from his home after discovering he had been cooking meth in the basement. He cannot find a friend to stay with, and his remaining few belongings and his motorcycle are stolen. With nowhere else to go, Jesse breaks into Clovis' lot and passes out in the RV. Resolving to get his life back together, Jesse buys an inconspicuous Toyota Tercel and finds a new apartment. The landlord, Jane Margolis, is a part-time tattoo artist and a recovering heroin addict. She and Jesse soon become romantically involved. Jane, however, tries to hide this relationship from her father, Donald, who owns their building.
When Skinny Pete is robbed by a pair of addicts, Walt tells Jesse to "handle it". Jesse goes to the addicts' house to confront them, but the plan goes awry when one of the addicts kills the other in front of him. While traumatic for Jesse, the incident ultimately helps his business; a rumor quickly spreads that Jesse killed the addict, giving him a fearsome reputation on the streets. Jesse is also instrumental in retaining the services of corrupt lawyer Saul Goodman to help him and Walt launder their money and get out of legal trouble.
After Combo is murdered by rival dealers, Jesse starts using heroin with Jane to cope with his grief. His behavior nearly costs Walt a $1.2 million drug transaction with the powerful meth distributor Gus Fring. Angered, Walt refuses to give Jesse his half of the money until he enters rehab. When Jane learns about the money, she blackmails Walt into giving Jesse his share, hoping to use the money to escape to New Zealand. Walt later returns to Jesse's apartment hoping to reconcile and finds Jesse and Jane asleep after getting high. He accidentally rolls Jane onto her back, and when she starts to choke on her vomit, Walt allows her to die. When Jesse discovers her dead body the next morning, he blames himself and goes on another drug binge. Walt rescues him from a crack house and checks him into a rehabilitation clinic.

Season 3

While in rehab, Jesse is told by a drug counselor to accept himself for who he is. At this point, Jesse has learned that Jane's father, an air traffic controller, was so distraught over her death that he inadvertently caused a deadly mid-air collision. Jesse tells Walt that he has taken the counselor's advice and accepted himself as the "bad guy". Jesse leaves rehab clean and sober and decides to settle unfinished business. First, with help from Saul, Jesse dupes his parents into selling him his aunt's house, at a drastically reduced price.
Hank correctly deduces that Jesse's RV is the rolling meth lab he has been looking for and tracks it down to a local junkyard, where Walt has brought it so it can be destroyed before Hank searches it. Jesse believes that Walt is stealing the RV from him and goes to the junkyard as Hank follows. Walt and Jesse lock themselves inside, and Walt and Saul arrange a fake emergency phone call to Hank, which says his wife Marie is in the hospital. Hank leaves without searching the RV, giving Walt and Jesse enough time to destroy it in a vehicle compactor. A furious Hank follows Jesse home and beats him into unconsciousness. The incident leads to Hank not only getting suspended, but Jesse threatening to sue him for everything he has. While Jesse is hospitalized, Walt—who is now working for Gus as a meth cook—persuades Gus to renew Jesse and Walt's partnership so Jesse will drop the lawsuit. Jesse and Walt cook larger amounts of meth in Gus' underground "superlab", earning considerably more money.
Jesse becomes romantically involved with Andrea Cantillo, a single mother and recovering meth addict from his Narcotics Anonymous meetings. He eventually discovers that her 11-year-old brother, Tomas, had killed Combo on behalf of two rival dealers. Jesse concocts a plan to kill the dealers with ricin that Walt had earlier created, but Jesse is forced to cancel the plan after learning the dealers work for Gus. However, after Tomas is found murdered, an enraged Jesse sets out to kill the dealers anyway. Walt intervenes at the last moment, killing the two dealers and telling Jesse to run.
After Jesse goes into hiding, Gus replaces him with Gale Boetticher, Walt's previous assistant in the superlab. Walt realizes Gus is plotting to have Gale master his and Jesse's meth formula as part of a larger plan to be rid of him. To prevent this, Walt plots to have Jesse pre-emptively kill Gale. Jesse begs Walt to go to the police instead, insisting that he does not have it in him to kill someone. When Walt is cornered by Gus' men Mike Ehrmantraut and Victor at the superlab, he calls Jesse and tells him that he will have to kill Gale. Jesse shows up at Gale's apartment and, after a moment's hesitation, shoots him dead.