Playing the character of Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad has without a doubt defined Aaron Paul’s career. Everywhere he goes these days, people feel totally comfortable calling him “Bitch” to his face, all on account of his signature catch phrase as Walter White’s partner in crime. When an actor has a role that iconic, it can be difficult to escape from its shadow, but Aaron Paul apparently wishes to sidestep that dilemma by doubling down on Pinkman in the spinoff Better Call Saul.
Speaking at an interview for the upcoming Need for Speed movie, Paul said he bad been in “serious talks” with Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan about making a return for Better Call Saul:
“Anything Vince is involved with, I’m there. I owe him my entire career. And the idea of jumping into the skin of Jesse Pinkman again in his lighter days — because it’s all a prequel — it would be fun.”
While it certainly would be nice to see Jesse in his earlier years, when he was just a small-time meth cook instead of an often-unwilling part of a multi-million dollar drug cartel, it would raise one very significant problem: Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad, and Jesse did not meet Saul Goodman until after the events of Breaking Bad were set into motion.
That being the case, the writers would need to get a bit creative with any appearance by Jesse. For instance, perhaps he’s in scenes with other characters from the show but never interacts with Saul directly. That could work. Or maybe, if they want him to be a series regular, he travels back in time after the events of Breaking Bad in order to team up with Saul to prevent Walter White from ever becoming Heisenberg. That would be pretty crazy, bitch.
He definitely won’t be in any scenes with Hank Schrader, though, as Dean Norris is officially out of the equation.
“I don’t think they’ll let me do a little cable show,” he said in a recent interview for a movie ironically titled Small Time. “I think that experience was that experience. I’m not a big fan of kind of revisiting something that has already been done. But I think it’s going to be awesome. So I can’t wait to see it.”
So whether or not we get to see a younger Jesse Pinkman as his alter ego Cap’n Cook in Better Call Saul is up in the air, but if he does return, at least he won’t have to go up against Walter White’s DEA agent brother. Also, Walt won’t have ruined his life and left him a shell of a human being, so that would be a plus for him, too. All in all, it would be a pretty sweet deal for Aaron Paul, so let’s hope for his sake that it happens. Especially if Need for Speed ends up being as bad as its trailer makes it look.