I think that you would be hard pressed to find a more tragic figure on television today than poor Jesse Pinkman. Granted, the kid has been no angel. He has made some baffling (and bafflingly stupid) decisions over the past five seasons. But he has, unlike Walter, sought redemption at every turn. And also unlike his surrogate father Walt, Jesse was never in it for the money, the power, or the recognition. He has always had a good heart, and good intentions. But his poor decision making has doomed him at every turn. And what was Jesse's worst decision? There are certainly no shortage of options. Was it sabotaging Hank and the DEA by walking away from the meeting with Walt earlier this season? Was it shooting Gale? Was it deciding to cook meth?
Of course, the answer is obvious. His worst decision was aligning himself with Walter in the first place. Just like every other character on the show, Jesse's life has been systematically torn apart by the terrifying force of nature that is Walter White. However, as arguably the character who has been closest to Walter the longest (the real Walter, the one that Skyler and Flynn only found out about relatively recently), Jesse is the one who has had his life royally screwed up the most. After "Ozymandias", it seemed like Mr. Pinkman could suffer no more, but "Granite State" manages to find him at a new all-time low (Breaking Bad has, after all, always been a show that excels in shattering our expectations of how messed up and/or depraved a situation can get).
Clearly, Vince Gilligan isn't, and has never been, interested in taking it easy on his audience, and he is really pushing the limits of how much we can put up with Jesse (and by extension, national sweetheart Aaron Paul) having his soul crushed. Part of what makes us root for Jesse (other than the charming performance of Mr. Paul) is that we all know someone like him. Maybe not someone who has worked under a meth kingpin or committed murder, but someone who is a good person and simply fell into the wrong crowd. And just like Jesse, those individuals usually find themselves sliding down a slippery slope from which they can't recover.
And who is waiting at the bottom of that slope? In the case of Jesse Pinkman, it's Todd. Oh Todd. Anyone familiar with Friday Night Lights knew that Jesse Plemons is capable of some superior work, but he has really outdone himself over the last handful of episodes, and "Granite State" may be his magnum opus. His performance runs the gamut from bashful, yet somewhat adorable creep (in the scenes with Lydia) to absolutely terrifying specter (in the White household). What makes the character of Todd so unsettling is the same incongruity that made a character like Kevin from Sin City so memorable. We want our psychos to obviously be psychos. Drooling at the mouth, twitching, wild-eyed, all the cliches. So when a maniac as terrifying as Todd looks instead like Richie Cunningham, it just makes things all the more disturbing. Plemons has excelled at selling that incongruity.
Yes, Todd and his neo-Nazi band mates have certainly emerged to become among the most memorable villains in Breaking Bad history, but it remains to be seen whether they will be getting their comeuppance at the hands of Walter, or at all. "Granite State" ends with a dying Walter resolute, and seemingly set on going out on his own terms. That is almost certainly bad news for someone, but it remains to be seen whom that will be. Therein lies the greatest mystery of our upcoming final episode. Could be the Nazis, could be Walt's enemies at Grey Matter, could be Jesse for all we know. But one thing is for sure: we are only a scant 60-plus minutes away from bidding farewell to Walter White forever, and I for one couldn't be more sad. Hopefully, the payoff will be worth it. Frankly, after this incredible season, I couldn't imagine a scenario in which Breaking Bad will let us down.
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