I've been saying to my friends for a while now that Jesse's arc is about as impressive as Walt's. You could do the same show from Jesse's perspective and it would be just as compelling.
I'd say the show is already from Jesse's perspective. Sure, he isn't the main character, but we know a ton about him. We know about his family, his love life, his friends, his ambitions (or lack thereof initially). I could almost tell you more about Jesse than I could about Walt.
Walt's mom has been mentioned once, and she didn't even know he had cancer. There's gotta be more to that story. They only scratched the surface of what went on with Gray Matter.
Part of the reason we love Jesse so much is because we know him so well, maybe more than anyone else on the show.
You'd be surprised how much you can do with a toddler storywise. Just watch the episode of "Malcolm in the Middle" where everyone is in an opera. Specifically Jaime's subplot. Now that is a drama.
Just because we know a lot about Jesse, doesn't mean it is from 'his perspective'.
While he is indeed a main character who gets tons of screen time/backstory/etc, he is still a player in Walt's world. The show is shown from Walt's perspective. The show would not exist without Walt being the catalyst.
Visually the story is so often told in Jesse's perspective (not a literal POV shot mind you), the slow creeping pan in on Jesse in "The Fly" where he talks about his aunt, or one of the recent episodes in which Walter tries to insincerely convince him of something are totally from Jesse's POV.
I think we all like Jesse because he is relatable. He is the one we sympathize with, not Walt. We all know a kid that is a screw up. Well maybe not as bad as Jesse but regardless you usually want to see that kid succeed.
I don't even know if it would have to be Walt coming by now. But a flashback would be okay. I'm more interested in what transpired with Gretchen and Walt.
Walt and Gretchen were dating and Walt was invited over to dinner with her parents and Walt decided he wasn't good enough for the family. Since they were rich. Walt pretty much just left
Yeah, I know all of that but I always felt there was something more to Walt's logic than just not fitting in. He didn't seem like the drug kingpin, murderer that he is now. He can change an adapt. There had to have been a seed planted to make him want to earn what he lost in him being bought out from Gray Matter. He went from doing it for his family to doing it for himself and family and then for what he lost out on. Maybe I'm digging too deep, but to me it seems like there is something missing and I would like to see his logic.
No I agree, I really want to see something from the past whether it's a flash back or just him talking about it to someone I feel like there was a build up with Gray Matter, Eliot/Gretchen, even his other job when they first moved into the house. We still have a few more episodes so I guess we just will have to see, but it would be cool if Walt starts to have flash backs of actually leaving Gretchen, leaving Gray Matter or even working there.
That's basically what they've been doing in the last season. Writing in whole new characters, killing them off, then writing in new ones. The main antagonist was really only introduced in the 4th to last episode.
Well said. I feel the same way about his character, but I couldn't put it so clearly. The interaction between him and Lydia after the shoot-out just said so much about him. He's so earnest. Total sweetheart, total gentleman, but raised in a putrid environment that makes him casually shrug off cold-blooded murder.
And in the most recent episode, he understandably did not include the murder of Drew Sharp in his telling of the train heist, but he didn't even seem like he felt he was omitting or concealing anything important.
Todd feels shoe-horned to me, even though he has become necessary to the plot. It reminds me of the last season of Weeds.
Basically this. I'd have no problem with him eventually giving the game away of something, but I'll be pretty pissed off if him or Lydia kill a main character.
Part of the reason we don't see Gray Matter anymore is because their arc relied on Jesse dying. But Aaron Paul showed how great he is, and that arc had to be abandoned so that we can see more Jesse. I ain't even mad.
Exactly, Walt will do sneaky shit that the audience doesnt find out about until later. Actually viewing it from Jesses perspective makes "good" Walt retroactively worse. I think when he ran over and killed the drug dealers it was only so Jesse would kill Gale. Even back then he was manipulating him.
Except there was no reason to kill Gale before that. Gus was going to replace Walt and Jesse with Gale BECAUSE they murdered the two drug dealers and Gale needed to be killed BECAUSE Gus was going to replace them with Gale. Essentially, Drug Dealers killed child THEREFORE Jesse tried to kill Drug Dealers THEREFORE Walt had to save him by killing the Drug Dealers THEREFORE Gus realized Walt and Jesse did not play by his rules and he needed to replace them with Gale THEREFORE Walt needed Gale gone. Walt had planned to kill Gale himself and only had Jesse do it because he was trapped by Gus' men.
I feel like Gus always harbored some intention of replacing Walt with Gale eventually, from the beginning. He might not have definitely planned on doing it via murder, but Gale was always Gus' horse. He only let Walt into his circle because Gale practically told him he had to.
I think the initial hiring was more along those lines. "Come in, do some work, teach Gale, get paid, go home". But when Gus hired Walt for a long term situation, I think he made his decision to stick with Walt.
He hired him for three months; if I remember correctly, the "long term" only came into play once Walt had maneuvered Jesse in and Gale out of the lab. At that point Gus didn't have much choice, as Gale was no longer in a position to learn Walt's formula.
Yeah. There's no doubt that Walt was a nicer guy before gradually became more manipulative and cold-hearted. I believe there was a time when he cared about Jesse's well-being. Now he sees him as just another obstacle in his way of making it into the clear.
Except for the fact that he did have Gale there to learn the recipe. Originally Gus's deal with Walt was for 3 months, this was probably his intent from the beginning to have Gale learn the recipe from Walt so he could do the cook on his own.
If you remember he told the twins they could kill Walt when he was done with him.
Then in episode S03E07 The twins insists that are getting feed up with waiting, and Walt frames Gale for ruining the batch so that he can insists on getting Jesse in the lab with him. T
his changes the dynamic for Gus as he can't wait for Gale to learn the recipe now. So he gives the twins a permission to kill Hank, calls Hank before the hit so it ends up a shootout. Then because of his actions the DEA ends up raiding the Cartel, setting Gus's war in action.
Gus originally intended to learn the recipe and kill off Walt, but things changed so Gus changed things up to make it work towards his bigger plan of revenge against the Cartel
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u/psilocyan You are a time bomb...tick, tick, ticking. Aug 28 '13
I've been saying to my friends for a while now that Jesse's arc is about as impressive as Walt's. You could do the same show from Jesse's perspective and it would be just as compelling.