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Yo Yo Yo 1-4-8 3 to the 3 to the 6 to the 9. Representing the ABQ. What up BIATCH!
The second you hear Jesse Pinkman’s voice, you are transported back to the gritty madness of Breaking Bad.
So when Aaron Paul finally showed up in Better Call Saul, this marked a full-circle moment for longtime fans. Jesse didn’t show up all guns blazing or dropping “b*tch” every other word; it was way more subtle than anyone expected.
There’s tension outside Saul Goodman’s sketchy strip-mall office, and that one little scene somehow reveals a ton about Jesse’s baggage, hints at Saul’s chaotic future, and lays bare just how much Walter White messed up everyone’s life.
If you are wondering what the big deal is, here is the rundown on Jesse’s cameo, why it actually matters for the Breaking Bad/ Better Call Saul world, and how this quick moment ended up being both the very first and very last time we see Jesse Pinkman.
When does Jesse Pinkman appear in Better Call Saul?
Jesse Pinkman shows up in the last season of Better Call Saul, and it’s kind of a big deal. He shows up in Episodes 11 and 12. One of them is a throwback, and the other one is something completely fresh, set way before Jesse even thought about cooking meth with Walt.
The first time you see him in Better Call Saul is the RV scene with Walter White, right when they drag Saul back in Breaking Bad Season 2.
The second cameo is the new territory: it’s 2004, and Jesse is meeting Kim Wexler. He is just some punk kid, and Kim is still trying to keep her life together, and somehow their paths cross way before the Breaking Bad chaos.
These cameos actually fill in some blanks. You get why Jesse didn’t think twice about trusting Saul, and you see all these threads tying the two shows together, connecting people who barely even looked at each other in the original. It makes the whole universe feel bigger and just a little bit more real.
Jesse meets Kim Wexler: The new timeline moment that rewrites his origin
Out of all the places Jesse could have shown up, his running into Kim in Better Call Saul Episode 12, Waterworks, is one of the iconic TV moments. Nobody saw it coming. There is Kim, freshly divorced, stepping out of Saul Goodman’s office in the middle of a gloomy, rain-soaked 2004 night. And there’s Jesse, lurking under an awning, dodging the rain and bumming a smoke.
At first, it comes off super casual. Just two random people sharing a cigarette. Jesse clocks Kim as that public defender who once tried to help his friend Combo after he kidnapped a baby Jesus statue while high. It’s almost a funny memory, but it says a lot: Kim was already brushing up against Albuquerque’s lowlifes way before Breaking Bad was even a thing.
Then Jesse drops the big question, wanting to know if Saul is the real deal to help his friend Emilio get out of trouble. Kim just sort of pauses and says:
“When I knew him, he was.”
That line stings. It’s one of those moments where you can almost see the universe split: Jesse is about to tumble into the mess that will become his whole life, while Kim is finally escaping the chaos that wrecked hers. The irony is wild: Kim is walking away as Jesse is about to step into Saul’s crazy world.
It is one of the most quietly powerful scenes in the Breaking Bad/ Better Call Saul franchise.
The flashback in Better Call Saul Episode 11: Revisiting the RV and closing a Breaking Bad mystery
Jesse’s other cameo in Better Call Saul is a flashback to Breaking Bad Season 2, but with a twist. You are plopped into the RV, right after Walt and Jesse have just kidnapped Saul out into the dirt. But this time we are riding shotgun for the drive back from the desert, a stretch the original show skipped over.
Inside the RV, Saul is losing it. The guy is babbling about “Lalo” and “Ignacio,” which sounded like random mumbo jumbo when Breaking Bad first aired. Now, if you have slogged through all of Better Call Saul, those names hit way harder. You get it. Jesse clocks Saul’s freak-out and starts poking at the Lalo thing, making Saul scramble to keep his mess of lies straight.
Suddenly, the scene that Breaking Bad fans have obsessed over for years makes sense. Saul is not just putting on a show; he is actually terrified out of his mind.
And the way Saul sees Walt and Jesse, he thinks they are a couple of reckless idiots with just enough danger in them to be interesting. Mike later tries to talk some sense into Saul, asking him to stay away from these “amateurs”. But Saul is convinced he can turn them into cash cows.
What does Jesse’s cameo add to the Breaking Bad universe?
Jesse showing up isn’t just a fun cameo; it flips the whole feel of the franchise. In El Camino, he is a walking bruise, just scrambling to get out from under the mess his life has become. In Breaking Bad, Jesse is all jagged edges, tough because he has to be.
But then Better Call Saul comes along, and we see he is this bright, younger version of himself: way more chill, cracking jokes, not yet wrecked by all the chaos Walter White drops on him later.
Seeing Jesse like this hits harder than you would expect. You are reminded that he used to be this lively, goofy guy who hadn’t been stomped on by the universe yet. And then you remember everything he loses, and it stings.
Plus, it finally clears up some old questions. Like, why is Saul always sweating over Lalo? Or how did Jesse ever decide to trust Saul in the first place? All those little threads get tied up in a way that actually feels neat.
Back in 2022, Thomas Schnauz sat down with Variety and said that when Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul showed up, it was like stepping straight into a “time-warp flashback”. The duo snapped right back into their Breaking Bad groove. Schnauz added that there was never a concrete plan to shoehorn Walt and Jesse into the prequel, but everyone secretly wanted to make it happen if the timing worked out.
“Part of the way of making ourselves feel better if we hadn’t done it was telling ourselves, “Walt came back in ‘El Camino’ with Jesse. That exists, so if we don’t get to it in ‘Better Call Saul,’ that’s OK.” But I think we all desperately wanted them to come back at some point for some reason.”
About the de-aging thing, they didn’t go wild with that. Schnauz said it usually ends up looking like plastic-smooth faces that make you do a double-take. They just did a little touch-up here and there, smoothed a couple of lines, nothing major.
Apparently, the writers really wanted to drop Jesse’s classic “bitch” somewhere, but they held back. It would have felt kind of forced, so they let it go.
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In a 2022 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Aaron Paul said:
“It turned out so great. It was a beautiful way to tie everything up on Better Call Saul. They just really know how to nail their landings.”
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