Aaron Paul’s five favourite ‘Breaking Bad’ scenes: “I think it’s pretty obvious”
In 2008, the world was introduced to a skinny drug-dealing punk named Jesse Pinkman in the pilot episode of Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad.
An enthusiastically sarcastic little jerk with a penchant for saying “Bitch!” at every opportunity, Pinkman grew over the course of five seasons into one of modern TV’s greatest characters. Thanks to Aaron Paul’s pitch-perfect performance, he was instantly lovable, despite being kind of a scumbag, and as he was repeatedly brutalised by his association with Bryan Cranston’s Machiavellian Walter White, he became so relatable that the audience hurt along with him.
By the time the show concluded in 2013, after 62 incredible episodes, Pinkman had been at the centre of a host of its greatest scenes. Paul grew in stature as an actor along with the character, and somehow managed to make the audience believe Pinkman was inherently a decent, if misguided person, despite some of the awful things he’d been a part of.
Fittingly, when he was asked to name his five favourite Breaking Bad scenes, Paul picked five of Pinkman’s most important moments. His first pick went all the way back to the pilot episode, and it’s the moment when White proposes to an astonished Pinkman that they team up to cook crystal meth. Paul truly sells Pinkman’s bemusement – and nervousness – with the man standing in front of him, who doesn’t seem at all like the Mr White he remembers as his chemistry teacher.
“I love this scene because this is where the true journey begins for Mr White and Jesse Pinkman,” Paul told the AMC blog. “This is the decision that changes both of their lives forever.”
Next, Paul pinpointed the harrowing scene in season four in which Pinkman tells his drug support group about being forced to put down a “problem dog” that did nothing wrong. It’s the guilty young criminal’s thinly veiled confession about killing Gale Boetticher, something that was forced upon him by White, and which cost him his soul. The scene is a tour de force from Paul, who expertly portrays Pinkman’s self-loathing, but also shows the audience how lost he truly is. “I love this because it allowed Jesse to finally (somewhat) confess his sins,” Paul noted.
For his third and fourth picks, Paul went for two intense showdowns with White. The first came near the end of season four when Pinkman pulled a gun on White and accused him of poisoning his girlfriend’s son, something the scheming White did to secretly win back control over Pinkman. Instead of killing him, though, White talks Pinkman into believing he was set up.
“This scene is incredibly powerful to me because everything Jesse screams out in this scene was the truth,” Paul recalled. “Walt is a master puppeteer and Jesse was just on one of his many strings. What a bastard.”
The next showdown came in the show’s final episode, with Pinkman once again pulling a gun on White. This time, White actually does want his young charge to kill him, but Pinkman refuses, before driving off into the night with a cathartic explosion of emotion the likes of which has rarely been equalled on television. “The final look Walter and Jesse share speaks volumes with no words needed,” Paul explained. “So much pain on both ends and they both know it is all over.”
Finally, to the delight of Breaking Bad fans everywhere, Paul made sure to pay respect to one of the funniest scenes in the show’s history. It is, of course, the most awkward dinner scene in history, when Pinkman finds himself sitting between White and his long-suffering wife, Skyler, while they not-so-covertly air all the dirty laundry of their relationship.
It’s toe-curling stuff, and Pinkman’s eyes darting back and forth as he drinks from his water glass has already become memed into oblivion. Paul laughed, “Do I really need to explain why I love this scene? I think it’s pretty obvious. I just love how uncomfortable Jesse is the entire time and how he uses his glass of water as his security blanket.”
