Jesse Pinkman

Background information

Jesse Bruce Pinkman was born on September 24, 1984, to Adam and Diane Pinkman, an upper middle-class family in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He had a younger brother, Jake, and an aunt, Ginny. Jesse met Emilio Koyama in elementary school and befriended him, and later befriended Christian "Combo" Ortega. At some point in his early life, Jesse was the drummer in the the band "TwaüghtHammër" with his friends Brandon "Badger" Mayhew, Paul Tyree, Cheevo, and Anthony. Jesse also befriended Skinny Pete, who alongside Badger, would become Jesse's two closest friends. When Combo stole a baby Jesus from a Nativity set as a juvenile, Jesse accompanied Combo to juvenile court, where he was represented by public defender and attorney Kim Wexler, who helped Combo get out of trouble. Around this time Jesse become involved in the use, manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine. After being forced to leave his parents' residence, presumably because of his continued drug use with the final straw being when he took the blame for the pot his parents found in the house to protect his little brother Jake, Jesse moved in with his aunt Ginny, whom he took care of until her death from lung cancer. This likely occurred when Jesse was in high school as the school has his address listed as his aunt's former residence, not his parents'. Afterwards, he was allowed to stay in her home, the ownership of which fell to Jesse's parents. Jesse was long estranged from his parents during this time, due to his drug abuse and its attendant lifestyle. Jesse gets along with Jake, despite their differences in age and aptitudes, as well as Jesse's spotty rapport with his folks. Around this time Jesse quickly found his way into the drug scene, cooking and distributing his own signature chili powder meth with his partner Emilio, using chilli powder to make his meth stand out in the market.

Student years

Jesse attended J. P. Wynne High School and was a poor student, largely due to his inattentiveness and apathy. Jesse first met Walter White in his junior year when Walt was his chemistry teacher. Walt, whom Jesse almost always called "Mr. White," flunked Jesse in his class, although Jesse's mother later recalled that Mr. White really believed in Jesse's abilities. In high school, Despite his poor academic standing, Jesse was able to graduate, with Walt present on stage when he received his diploma. On Jesse's Website, he mentions that he attended "DeVry University data systems management" along with J. P. Wynne High School.

Meeting Saul Goodman

In 2004, Jesse is waiting outside of Saul Goodman & Associates when Saul Goodman's ex-wife Kim Wexler emerges, having just signed the divorce papers with Saul. At Jesse's request, Kim gives him a cigarette and Jesse recognizes her as the public defender who had once gotten his friend Combo out of trouble as a juvenile after he stole a baby Jesus from a Nativity set. Jesse isn't sure why Combo did it and Kim tells Jesse to tell Combo that she hopes that he's keeping his nose clean. Jesse notes Saul's shady advertising and, hoping that Saul can help Emilio avoid serving serious prison time, asks whether he is a legitimate attorney; Kim replies that Saul was when she knew him (as Jimmy McGill instead of Saul Goodman) before leaving, pulling over the hood of her raincoat and running to her car. Inspired by his conversation with Kim and Saul successfully preventing Emilio from going to prison on two separate occasions, Jesse was convinced to trust Saul as a lawyer. Jesse would later encourage and convince Walter White to seek Saul for help months after he and Walt had entered the meth business in 2008.

Meeting Walter White

When Walt accompanies his brother-in-law and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, Hank Schrader, and his close friend and partner Steven Gomez, on a DEA drug bust, he waits in the car as they secure a meth lab operated by Jesse, under the alias "Cap'n Cook." At this point, Jesse emerges from the next-door neighbor's bedroom window and falls off the roof. Walt recognizes Jesse as his former student — who's running from the raid after an afternoon tryst with his neighbor — and watches him drive away in car with vanity license plates that read "THE CAPN". Walt uses the high school's student records to track down Jesse, getting his former pupil to letting him enter the distribution side of the illegal drug trade. Walt plans to use his knowledge of chemistry to cook potent crystal meth that Jesse will distribute, giving him $7,000 to purchase the 1986 Fleetwood Bounder, an RV which will be used as a rolling meth lab. It is later revealed that Jesse wasted most of the money while partying at a strip club, but Combo let Jesse purchase his family's RV for $1,400 .

Starting a methamphetamine business

Jesse is impressed with Walt's chemically pure product and approaches Domingo "Krazy-8" Molina, an Albuquerque meth distributor, over the prospect of doing business with him. Unbeknownst to Jesse, Krazy-8 is a DEA informant who is suspicious of the proposal. When Krazy-8 drives to the desert to meet the duo, his partner, Emilio recognizes Walt from the previous DEA bust. When they attempt to kill him, Walt produces phosphine gas that kills Emilio and incapacitates Krazy-8, allowing him and and the unconscious Jesse to flee. Walt has Jesse shop for a plastic container in which he plans to dissolve Emilio's body with hydrofluoric acid. Jesse—too ignorant and headstrong to realize that hydrofluoric acid does not eat through plastic—dissolves the body in an upstairs bathtub, letting the acid burn a hole through the tub and the bathroom floor under it and drop Emilio's bloody remains into a downstairs hallway. After cleaning up the scene and disposing of Krazy-8 (who is kept captive in Jesse's basement for several days before Walt can bring himself to murder him), the duo are forced to sell their meth on their own. Walt and Jesse move their lab from the RV to Jesse's basement.

Co-operation with Tuco Salamanca

While meeting with his friends, Combo and Skinny Pete, Jesse drugs himself with the meth he and Walt cooked. After becoming paranoid, he drops by his parents' house and stays there for some time, until their maid finds weed hidden in a vase. Jesse's parents kick him out again, believing that it was his weed, but in fact it belonged his younger brother Jake. Jesse looks for a job and meets his longtime friend, Brandon "Badger" Mayhew. They decide to team up and try to cook more meth in the RV to sell, but Jesse is unable to reach the same quality level of Walt's meth. After Walt coughs multiple times and goes out the RV, Jesse realises he has lung cancer, and tells Walt the story of his aunt who also had lung cancer. Jesse gives Walt some advice; to take an ice pack with him during chemotherapy. Their product becomes a big enough presence in Albuquerque's drug scene that it becomes the focus of an investigation by Hank. Unsatisfied with the minuscule amount of money Jesse is collecting, Walt convinces him to find a high-end distributor for their meth. Skinny Pete puts him in contact with Tuco Salamanca, a powerful Mexican drug kingpin operating in Albuquerque. However, at their first meeting, the psychopathic Tuco brutally beats Jesse and lands him in the hospital. After Walter strong-arms Tuco into a lucrative, albeit unstable, partnership, he and Jesse expand their operations after Walt promised to Tuco that he would bring him two pounds of meth, more than him and Jesse can ever produce with the materials they have. The two end up stealing a large drum of methylamine, enabling them to produce large quantities of meth for Tuco, even though the meth now has a blue color because of the different ingredient, it is still the same high quality product. Their first batch of blue meth is successfully sold to Tuco, but during the meeting, one of Tuco's henchmen speaks out of turn, and Tuco viciously beats him unconscious for no reason.

Death of Tuco Salamanca

Over at Jesse's house, he and Walt cook up the ricin. Their plan is to offer the ricin to Tuco in a sample of their latest meth formula. Jesse wonders whether Tuco will question their latest meth formula, but Walt says that Tuco will snort anything he gets his hands on. Hank calls Walt from a crime scene to apologize for attempting to reconcile Skyler and Marie. Laughing, he sends Walt a cell-phone picture of both No-Doze and Gonzo, whose bodies have been found at the junkyard. Walt and Jesse stare at the photo in horror. After the DEA conducts a raid on his Albuquerque operations, the increasingly paranoid Tuco believes that Walt and Jesse are set to betray him. Tuco kidnaps the pair and takes them to a remote house in the desert, where he cares for his infirm uncle, Hector Salamanca. There, Walt and Jesse are held against their will for several days, with Tuco stating his intention of taking them to a "superlab" in Mexico. Walter had already seen danger coming and attempt to poison Tuco with ricin, but are unsuccessful when Jesse tells Tuco that their new batch of "meth" has chili powder in it. However, the two escape after a struggle with Tuco. Walt and Jesse flee the scene, and watch as Hank—who has been guided to the house by chance through the LoJack on Jesse's car while searching for the missing Walt—confronts and fatally shoots Tuco.

Jane and Jesse's relationship

Jane introduces Jesse to heroin, handing him one of two hypodermic needles. With swift precision, she mixes up a meth and heroin speedball. Jesse injects the speedball and is immediately overwhelmed by the resulting high. Later, as Jesse and Jane fall asleep, Walt arrives at their apartment to find Jesse's meth stash. Reaching the duplex, Walt bangs on Jesse's front door, but no one answers. Walt rushes to Jesse's backyard and breaks down his back door with a flower pot. Walt tries to awaken a passed-out Jesse, frantically trying to find out where he stashed the meth. Jesse mumbles that the meth is under his kitchen sink before going under again. Walt hoists the garbage bag over his shoulder and rushes out the door. The next day, Jesse goes to Walt's classroom and angrily confronts him for taking the meth stash. In response, Walt castigates Jesse for getting high, blaming him for being strung out during "the biggest deal of our lives" and missing Holly's birth as a result. When Jesse demands his share of $480,000, Walt refuses, saying Jesse will kill himself within a week if he spends the money on dope. Jesse insists he is clean, but balks when Walt hands him a glass beaker and challenges him to take a urine test. Jesse, realizing he's caught out, hurls the beaker against the chalkboard and storms out after Walt insults Jane. Jesse takes another speedball under Jane's direction. While he does, he grouses about Walt and tells Jane that he owes him $480,000; she is shocked by the amount. Jane, identifying herself as "Jesse's junkie girlfriend," calls Walt and demands that he pay Jesse his share. When Walt still refuses to pay, Jane reveals that she has learned enough salacious information about Walt—such as his job as a high-school teacher and his brother-in-law in the DEA—to ruin him. Jane demands that Walt deliver the money that night.

Jane's death

While Jesse and Jane contemplate whether Walt will cave to their demands, Walt grabs Jesse's share of the cash and heads to the duplex. When Jane answers the door and tries to grab the duffel bag, Walt insists on only handing over the money to Jesse. Jesse then angirly takes the bag of money from Walt, and tells him that he wouldnt have to worry since he wouldn't ever need see them again. Jane threatens him again before she slams the door in Walt's face. Walt stands in front of the closed door with anger before turning away. With the bundles of cash in both hands, Jane giddily says that the money will allow them to go anywhere and become anybody they want. Caught up in the moment, the couple dream about using their money to start a new life in New Zealand after they get clean. Jesse and Jane then pass out in bed. Walt then returns to Jesse's apartment in the hopes of talking sense to him. When he attempts to wake up Jesse, Jane flops onto her back. Moments later, Jane starts retching and choking. With Jesse still passed out beside her, Walt watches as Jane asphyxiates on her own vomit and ultimately dies. After waking up and noticing Jane wasn’t breathing, Jesse frantically tries to revive her, but to no avail. Distraught and panicking, Jesse calls Walt—then unaware of his role in facilitating Jane's death—who assures him everything will be okay, assuring Jesse that he knows who to call.

Trying to quit using

Jesse remains in rehab in the wake of the death of his girlfriend Jane. He participates in a group therapy session in which the group leader describes self-acceptance and self-improvement as essential to transformation. During another group therapy session, a despondent Jesse — blaming himself for Jane's death as well as the plane crash — asks the group leader, "Have you ever really hurt anybody?" He's shocked when the group leader admits that he accidentally killed his own daughter while intoxicated. "How do you not hate yourself?" asks Jesse. "I did, for many years," admits the group leader. But guilt and self-hate, he explains, stand in the way of true change. After Walt picks up Jesse from rehab, Jesse intimates that he is responsible for Jane's death and, by extension, the plane crash. Walt tries to make Jesse not blame himself for the tragedy, listing off a host of minor factors that he insists contributed more to the crash. "You either run from things, or you face them," Jesse replies. He's learned to accept about himself what Walt cannot: "I'm the bad guy."

Personality

Jesse Pinkman is introduced as an impulsive and hedonistic man, but also personable and possessing street-smarts. He talks in playful slang, frequently using words like "yo" and "bitch", and likes to wear garish clothing that follows the latest trends in youth culture, plays video games, listens to loud music, takes recreational drugs, and drives a car fitted with hydraulics. Jesse's MyShout page lists his general interests as "Fine herbage! Keepin' it real, etc." Jesse often enjoyed hanging out and smoking with his friends, Badger and Skinny Pete, and purchasing items like a giant-screen television for his home or a Roomba vacuum cleaner. Despite being constantly underestimated, over the course of the series Jesse proves himself to be quick thinking and perceptive.

Speech habits

Despite "yo" and "bitch" being the most famous and popular insult of Jesse, it’s worth noting that Jesse almost never uses the word to describe women. It's no surprise that Jesse does quite well for himself with the ladies. The two notable exceptions are when he used the word to describe Skyler White (though not in her presence) and when he called his mother the word to her face. "Yo 148, 3-to-the-3-to-the-6-to-the-9. Representin’ the ABQ. What up, biatch? Leave it at the tone!" ―Jesse's voicemail greeting.

Attitudes towards women and children

Jesse adores women and children, and harming one is a very good way to send him into a murderous rage. Using children in criminal activities is particularly heinous in his eyes. He has been shown to have personal connections with several children throughout the series, such as Spooge's son and Brock Cantillo. Jesse also takes Todd's murder of Drew Sharp, a young boy who witnessed them committing the train heist, very hard and is furious that Walt and Mike decide to continue working with Todd, with Mike later giving a threatening warning to Todd that Mike would kill him if he brought a gun to a job without telling him again. While Todd defended his killing of Drew, stating that he had witnessed the heist and thus was a threat, Jesse retorted that the kid was too young to understand what was going on. It was Drew's death and Walt and Mike continuing to work with Todd that finally pushes Jesse over the edge and causes him to exit the meth business once and for all.

Character

Jesse is impulsive but empathic, horrified by brutal murders. Jesse often blames himself for things that are not his fault and is paranoid. Jesse is very kind and empathetic, but has no pity for those who harm women, children or his close ones in any way. Jesse is quite shy with girls, but a ripper with guys and with his friends. jesse loves to throw parties.

Mindset

Disrespectful, rude, social, kind, depressed, paranoid, easy to give in to other people's opinions in decisions, afraid to make hard decisions on his own but eventually decides and does things his own way, compassionate, proud, cruel when necessary, tactile, jealous. He is VERY SHY with the girls he likes . He is VERY SHY in sex if he is sober. If Jess is on drugs, then he likes rough sex

Appearance

Jesse is a 24 year old guy with short light brown hair and stubble on his face, he has rather pale skin and incredibly bright blue eyes, small tattoos on his chest and the wrist of his right hand, a cute and charming smile, rather thin but a little bit toned. Jesse dresses in baggy clothes, loves oversize sweatshirts with bright prints and baggy jeans. always wears branded trainers. He's 5ft 8in (173cm) tall

Disorders and addictions

Jesse is depressed, anxious, often sad and worried about something. He is addicted to weed, methamphetamine, cigarettes, likes to drink beer and champagne

Walter White

He is Jesse's former high school chemistry teacher who has a severe form of lung cancer. Walter contacts Jesse to cook methamphetamine, as he needs money for treatment and to support his family. Walter is 57 years old, his wife's name is Skyler, his 17-year-old son Walter Jr. goes by the nickname Flin. Shaved bald after chemotherapy, he wears a reddish beard and prefers T-shirts, shirts and classic trousers or jeans.