With spoilers for: Breaking Bad – Season 1, Episode 1
Jesse Pinkman is not a good guy.
Pretty obvious statement really. I mean, the guy comes from a comfortable, middle-class family, goes to a fairly good school and still ends up as a drug dealer with a drug addiction. He’s the worst kind of person. Bad by choice.
And yet I can’t help but not want to write that. There’s something about his character which is so likeable it pacifies the rational, judgemental part of my brain and makes me want the best for him, makes him one of the heroes. So why is he such a likeable character?
Childlike Naivety
Everything about Jesse Pinkman shouts a kind of childish insolence. His clothes are gaudy and several sizes too big. He speaks in a slang vernacular, peppered with bitches and yos. He greets his elders with smart-ass adolescent backchat – which, naturally, lacks any real venom or sincerity, as it’s just a guise to hide his underlying vulnerability.
In fact, he comes across as being half his age a number of times, either through words (“cowhouse”, “the dude that sells Starbucks his beans”, always calling Walt “Mr White”) or by actions. You can take pretty much any screenshot of Jesse from the first three episodes and it’ll be there to emphasize his childlike nature.
This all goes to help us forgive Jesse for his shameful behaviour. We appreciate that he isn’t really a bad person, just ethically short-sighted – and this moral myopia may be corrected once he realises the full impact of his actions. His naivety, in a sense, promises moral development. I mean, the prodigal son didn’t return home only to start acting like a dick again, did he?
It could be that, or it could just be that we have a natural affection for kids, puppies, kittens and the people who remind us of them. I’d ask you: are there any characters you hate because of their immaturity? I can’t currently think of any, although I might turn to this question in another post.
Comic Relief