Do we like them?

Do we like Jesse Pinkman?

A character from Breaking Bad (2008–2013)

Our score: 7 out of 10. A screw-up with a big heart. He's in over his head and keeps making bad calls, but he's the one with a conscience. We'd back him, and we'd also hide his car keys.

Jesse is a young, streetwise small-time meth dealer who goes by "Cap'n Cook". His life changes when his former high-school chemistry teacher, Walter White, turns up and proposes they go into business together. Walt supplies the chemistry and Jesse supplies the contacts, and the two become an unlikely, volatile team. The show follows how that partnership pulls them both into the criminal underworld.

Jesse comes across as a slacker with a loud mouth and a lot of slang, but he's smarter and more decent than he first looks. He's impulsive and self-destructive, and he often gets walked over, especially by Walt. Underneath, he's loyal and remorseful, and he can't shut off his conscience the way the people around him can. The show's critics treat him as its moral compass, and that's the main reason we back him.

His score isn't higher because of how much damage he does along the way. He's a meth cook and dealer, and his bad choices hurt other people and himself. But he's more victim than villain in the story. He's manipulated and used, and he pays heavily for it, which keeps him sympathetic. Out of everyone in Breaking Bad, he's the one most worth rooting for.

Jesse was originally meant to be killed off at the end of the first season. Aaron Paul's performance and his chemistry with Bryan Cranston changed the plan, and Jesse ended up in every episode of the series. The story later continues in the film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). He also makes a cameo in Better Call Saul.