“I’m not kidding”: Vince Gilligan’s least favourite aspect of ‘Breaking Bad’
When Breaking Bad aired in 2008, positive reviews and award wins flooded in, but that was just the beginning. The show proceeded to get better and better with every season, as more violence and shocking narrative twists came together to form a masterpiece of television.
When we first meet the main character, Bryan Cranston’s Walter White, we see a man that is family-oriented but bored with his life, which soon changes when he discovers that he has terminal cancer. After accompanying his DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank Schrader, on a drug bust, Walter is struck with a clever idea that will completely destroy the lives of everyone around him.
The chemistry teacher reconnects with an old student of his, Jesse Pinkman, joining forces to start a meth business in order to save up money for his family. With Walter using his expertise to make the drug, Jesse helps to cook and distribute it using his connections as a dealer, and the unlikely duo soon prove to be highly skilled at what they’re doing.
Subsequently, death, destruction, and betrayal become common themes, with White’s initial idea of leaving his family financially secure turning incredibly sour. As the show progresses, White begins to become more and more evil, with the series asking us how far we’ll continue to root for him, even when he puts his family in danger, kills countless people, and even poisons a child.
Walter is the ultimate antihero, although, by the end of the show, we’re left wondering if we can even call him that. His character transformation is fascinating, although many fans’ favourite aspect of the show is his relationship with Jesse. Sometimes working well together, and other times endangering the other to the point of extreme betrayal, the duo have a problematic partnership, but one that is captivating to follow.
Jesse, played excellently by Aaron Paul, was not originally meant to become a main character across the whole series, but he proved to be such a vital fixture that creator Vince Gilligan decided not to kill him off at the end of the first season as initially planned. He ends up having a major role alongside Walter, and his relationships with other characters prove to be major plot points throughout.
However, Gilligan has a strange regret regarding Jesse’s character. While the show was highly praised, there were various complaints wagered towards certain aspects, such as the characterisation of female characters, notably Skylar. Yet, that’s not what has kept Gilligan up at night. Rather, it’s a much more minor detail that he wishes he could “change.”
Talking to Variety, he shared, “I get asked a lot what would I change about it. It sounds like a joke answer, but I wish Jesse’s teeth weren’t so perfect. I’m not kidding. The kid smokes meth and gets the living shit beat out of him.” Gilligan has a point. While Jesse wears baggy clothes and often looks worse for wear – with cuts and bruises on his face at many points during the series – his teeth remain sparkling, which just wouldn’t be the case.
