It’s one of the most quoted ‘did you know’ facts about Breaking Bad. ‘Did you know Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die at the end of season one?’ What isn’t as clear is the when, how or why this was going to happen. Did the writer’s strike really contribute to Jesse being saved?
Over the years the cast have been asked a fair few times about this ‘fact’ and naturally at different times in different situations the story has not been consistent or has been played for laughs (mostly at Aaron’s expense).
What do we know about the Writer’s Strike of 2008?
Fifteen years ago 12,000 screenwriters of the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike, it lasted for 100 days between November 2007 and February 2008. They were seeking increased funding in comparisons to profits of the larger studios.
In the months before the strike happened, in February 2007, a new drama calling itself ‘Breaking Bad’ had filmed it’s pilot in Alberquque, New Mexico. The three week shoot had done enough to convince execs to commision an 8 episode first season in addition to the pilot that was due to start before the summer of 2007. However those last two episodes were now at risk of being impacted by the impending strike, so it was decided early on to cut the additional ordered episodes to just six, making it a seven episode season.
So how much did this really change the course of history for both Jesse Pinkman and Aaron Paul?
A lot of things have been said in the years since about the writer’s strike ‘saving’ Jesse Pinkman, suggesting that had it not happened he would have been killed off. This has also been denied at source claiming the writer’s strike had no effect on that, but also in some sections confirmed as true.
It is all a bit confusing when you search around the web, with quite a few different legit sources contradicting one another. So we’ll attempt to break it down into what likely happened, but it is still only our best guess with the information available…
Facts Regarding the Strike
The writer’s strike did impact Breaking Bad’s first season – originally scheduled to have 9 episodes, but ultimately only had seven to include the pilot.
It order to sell a TV show it is necessary to have a ‘plan’, and certainly for ‘Breaking Bad’ there would have been a rough story line for the main character Walter White. This would enable studio execs, actors considering or trying for the main roles, and others intending to support the show to understand the path it is likely to take if a chance is taken on it.
It was this original ‘plan’ that by all accounts definately included the death of ‘Jesse Pinkman’ in season one. Actually, not entirely true. Jesse Pinkman wasn’t a name even associated with Breaking Bad at first, the former student in those intial drafts and even the first script was in fact ‘Marion Alan Dupree’.
In those early drafts the death of his former student would be the driver that would set Walter White on the road of revenge and turn him into scarface. It would be a needless death that pushes Walter over the edge at the start of his story. Gilligan has also stated he wanted to do this to show the audience that even main characters would not be safe in this story. There was some suggestion that Walt Jnr would also die as a result of his fumbled first revenge efforts as well, and other reports that Hank Schrader would have met his demise in the original episode 9, but I digress.
Bryan Cranston has said in a couple of interviews that the very first concept for the show he understood that the former student character (Dupree/Pinkman) would die in the first season. As he was brought in from the start to be a producer he would have been privy to the story arc intentions, but this would have also been before they cast Aaron Paul.
Aaron Paul has confirmed that he had absolutely no idea that there was ever an intention to kill his character in season one. The often cited first moment he became aware apparently came during a break in the filming of season one where Vince Gilligan casually mentioned to Paul that he had changed his mind, and decided to save Jesse. To his surprise, Paul didn’t react ‘happy’ about this as Vince had imagined but rather confused, and a little taken aback at first.
Further interviews and tidbits revealed over time that the ‘death’ would have likely come in what would have been the 8th episode of season one at the hands of Tuco. It’s also been guessed that when Tuco ‘accidentally’ kills a man in a fit of rage for speaking out of turn in the first episode of season two, that that was originally going to be Jesse’s death. It is believable to think that, with the way Tuco was around Jesse, that Jesse speaking out of turn would be a thing that could set Tuco into a killer rage.
But let’s pull this back, let’s look at the denials. When news about Jesse Pinkman being saved by the writer’s strike first became public, there were counter reports that stated that his ‘saving’ actually came about a lot sooner than that. It was soon stated that as the team had witnessed the first few days of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul being on set together they were starting to have second thoughts. The chemistry between the pair was instant, and the writers, producers and Vince Gilligan quickly realised killing off Jesse would be a big mistake.
In the behind the scenes documentary on the DVDs the production team touch upon the moment where it was becoming harder to ignore the talent they had in Aaron Paul, and they express the relief they felt when Vince finally confirmed to them that Jesse was not going to die. It is suggested that this realisation did occur during the early filming of the series, and there was no mention that it came about due to the delays caused by the writer’s strike.
So I think on the evidence of various different production sources of information it is fair to say the decision to save Jesse was made quite early after the pilot being filmed. That it was based on the performance of Aaron Paul, particularly opposite Bryan Cranston in the pilot and the couple of episodes that followed to seal their decision.
The forced shorter season one, losing two episodes due to the Writer’s Strike, did mean that adjustments had to happen to the original plan for the story arc of season one. It was whilst writing those changes that they naturally include a very much alive Pinkman. These rewrites to the original story arc cemented Jesse Pinkman’s part in the story of Walter White, and produced what we now know was a far superior story!
So is it fairer to say that Aaron Paul saved Jesse Pinkman with his talent, and the writer’s strike helped provide the need to rewrite the original plan, which in turn made it easier to change Jesse’s fate.
BUT!!
Yes. Aaron Paul himself has been quoted as saying words to the effect of ‘Thank god for the writer’s strike’ – but he’s not wrong, imagine there was no writers strike that year and a team of writers who work ahead of time.
They would have been following a well laid out epsiode plan, the original story arc that got them the commissioned series. They would have all been working towards the goal of getting a season two but could have been suddenly faced with a major character arc change that they now needed to fix in a short time and the pressures that would involve.
But failing to do so could risk them losing a gem of a talent, whose partnership with the lead was shining through the first weeks of filming. They would need to do all this before they go into production on those same episodes, whilst continuing to write/rewrite the episodes currently being made?
In the words of Aaron Paul (or as close as) ‘Thank god for the writer’s strike!’ It meant the writers were already in the task of rewriting season one’s arc, due to the loss of two episodes, so it was an easier ask to save Jesse Pinkman.
At least that’s the APFans website’s conclusion!
What did this all mean for Aaron Paul?
Naturally we should also mention Aaron Paul’s own experience of all this. News that Jesse Pinkman was originally intended to be killed off in season one led to continuing anxiety for the rest of the show’s run for our guy.
Bryan Cranston took great delight in tormenting Aaron Paul with suggestions that new scripts contained the end of Jesse. There are many examples of Bryan re-telling moments in interviews, with Aaron often left cringing, where he’d teased his younger co-star about joking that Jesse was about to meet his end.
It’s somewhat satisfying therefore that ultimately, Jesse Pinkman was one of only a few survivors of the Breaking Bad story – long live Jesse Pinkman!
Crazy to think that originally he could have been one of the first victims of the story. It’s great testament to Aaron Paul, the genius of Vince Gilligan and his talented writing staff, that ultimately they instead created one of the greatest TV partnerships of all time, simply by saving Jesse.
The Final Word
“The writers’ strike, in a sense, didn’t save him, because I knew by episode two, we all did, all of us, our wonderful directors and our wonderful producers… everybody knew just how good [Aaron Paul is], and a pleasure to work with, and it became pretty clear early on that that would be a huge, colossal mistake to kill off Jesse.”
Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad.
