Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul) is a small-time methamphetamine user, manufacturer, and dealer. In high school, he was an inattentive student in Walter White’s chemistry class. Now in his mid-20s, Jesse is Walt’s business partner in the meth trade. Jesse is impulsive, hedonistic, and uneducated, but he is personable and possesses street-smarts as well. He talks in playful slang, likes to wear garish clothing that follows the latest trends in youth culture, plays video games, listens to rap and rock music, takes recreational drugs, and drives cars outfitted with gadgets to make them “bounce”. When Jesse has money, he usually spends it throwing long-running parties for friends as well as strangers or on items like a giant-screen television for his home. Before his partnership with Walt, he added a little chili powder to make his methamphetamine stand out in the market. Walt insisted on making a pure product, and patronizingly taught Jesse the procedures to do it. Walt treats Jesse like a foolish son in constant need of stern correction. Jesse’s own family kicked him out because of his drug use. Despite the friction between them, he and Walt have a deep bond of loyalty.

Like Walt (at least at the beginning), Jesse is horrified by the brutality at the higher levels of the drug trade, but does what he thinks is necessary. He is very protective of children: his desire to keep children out of the violent drug world gives rise to several key events throughout the series. He wrestles with feelings of guilt about the deaths, all drug-related, of people he’s been associated with, especially his girlfriend Jane Margolis. Jesse’s last name, like Walter’s, sounds similar to a character from Reservoir Dogs.^[1]