But it's almost possible to pinpoint the moment at which the writers realised what they had in Paul, and that they couldn't cast him off as collateral damage as per the original plan. The cows.'), and it's a joy to watch Aaron Paul bounce off Bryan Cranston right off the bat even before the dynamic had depth, the chemistry was undeniable. Jesse functions largely as comic relief in the early episodes ('A cow house.

The messy intricacies of Walt and Jesse's relationship are barely touched on in this season, but the protective loyalty that develops rears its head for the first time along with Heisenberg. Just an episode later, Heisenberg is born, and it's significant that the catalyst is Jesse being beaten half to death by Tuco. Vince Gilligan has stated that this moment – when Walt had the option of taking money from Elliot and instead chose to continue cooking meth – is when he lost sympathy with Walt. The choice he makes here is to continue cooking with Jesse, having initially sworn off the business after their disastrous first cook. 'I feel like I never actually made any of my own choices,' Walt explains in 'Grey Matter', the same episode that introduces us to Gretchen, Elliot and the life he bitterly regrets losing out on. The seed was planted.Īnd while he's more tremulous at this stage, he demonstrates from the very start the same ruthless pragmatism that in later seasons led him to watch a young woman die and poison an innocent child – he seems unfazed as he suggests that they dissolve Emilio, while Jesse looks sick at the prospect. The criminal impulse takes root before his cancer diagnosis, not as a result of it as Hank gleefully watches a TV report on a meth lab he raided, a wide-eyed Walt asks 'Hank… how much money is that?' Had Walt never got cancer, the odds are good that he would have ended up breaking bad nonetheless. When he flips the switch into proto-Heisenberg mode – as he does first with Walt Jr's bully in the department store, and later in literally explosive fashion with the slick corporate douche and his sports car – you can't help but cheer, because this retaliation against the world has plainly been a long time coming.īut Walt's not just a victim of circumstance. Downtrodden, drained, working flat-out at two jobs just to make ends meet Walt's life is a series of small humiliations, from his students' derision to his eyebrow-laden boss's abuse to the depressing, distracted birthday hand job Skyler offers him.

That's not to say he isn't an intensely sympathetic character in the pilot.

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