#and yet the irl chemistry between aaron and bryan makes you enjoy their onscreen moments immensly

[mikuyuuss]

As much as I love to hate on Walt, there's also a part of me that can understand his frustrations of not being able to share his """"achievements""" with his family. Walt always felt like an underachiever. He is an overqualified highschool chemistry teacher. His students don't even respect him. He struggles trying to make ends meet just to provide for his family, and not to mention his regrets surrounding gray matter.. (which is kinda his fault, like Eliott offered to work with him again but he refused 🤷‍♀️) but the thing thing is, all of it served to make him feel humiliated and emasculated.

And then he got into the Meth Business and he is finally excelling at something that he is good at. He finally sees himself becoming the capable breadwinner of his family. Ofc he would be proud of it, I mean who wouldn't want to share your achievements with your loved ones and be recognized for it?

Except he can't, because his family would hate him if they knew he's a drug dealer. Rather than being the capable provider that he wished to be seen, Walt thinks that he is still very much the poor and helpless dad in the eyes of his family. I remember when Jr opened a website to help fund Walt's cancer treatment even though the latter is more than capable of paying for it. Then Jr gets featured on the tv for it and the whole time the focus was on him even if Walt was the one who secretly paid it. It was kinda funny ngl, but the point is Walt WANTS to be recognized but he couldn't and that frustrates him.(Except he is. Poor Flynn, he genuinely loved and looked up to his dad as A PERSON only Walt doesn’t see that.)

This is where Jesse Pinkman comes in. Jesse knew the side of Walt that his family doesn't, someone who he can share his criminal achievements and be recognized for it. They are partners after all, except Walt is the one in control.

I think its interesting how they put so much emphasis on Jesse being Walt's former highschool student. It already establishes the imbalance between them. Walt sees his job as a highschool teacher to be humiliating already and Jesse happens to be one of his inattentive students. So the fact that Jesse grew to admire and respect him is probably something that Walt views as an accomplishment. Jesse addressing Walt as "Mister White" is very telling. It's definitely the first step to fueling his ego, and it validates his want for power.

and I feel like as Walt became more and more estranged from his family. He starts projecting those frustrations to Jesse. His students don't take his classes seriously? well at least his former student Jesse does. His own son still thinks he is "helpless"? well at least Jesse doesn't. His wife hates him? At least he still got Jesse-

Walt wants to keep Jesse around him at all times to fuel his ego. He projects not just a teacher-student relationship with him, but also a pseudo son in him, and when its convenient for him, a pseudo mistress. (Like let's be real for a second, the Skyler and Jesse parallels are too obvious. One of the creators purposely mirrored some of their scenes, the actors even joke about it) Walt is just messed up like that.

and thus poor Jesse was dumped with fulfilling all of these different roles for Walt all at once (bc most of the important people in his life couldn't give that to him) It so happens that Jesse is a lonely and impressionable young man, who also seeks for validation, but in a mentor figure. This makes him susceptible to Walt's manipulations. All of these is what led to their relationship becoming as codependent and as toxic is we know in the show. By keeping Jesse around, Walt gets to have the sense of recognition that he always wanted.