#jake pinkman

[jesse-pinko]

Thinking ab Jake Pinkman in this Chili’s tonight… does he resent his brother for what he put their family through? Does he blame him for the additional pressure their parents put on him? Or does he blame them for what happened to Jesse, for making their children feel like they had to earn their love? Or maybe he blames himself… maybe if he hadn’t let Jesse take the fall for him the last time they ever saw each other, none of this would have ever happened. Does he tell his parents, afterwards, that it was his weed, or does he carry that with him for years? Does he get into fights at school over the things they say about his brother, or does he double down on playing the golden child, terrified of what will happen if they find out he isn’t perfect? Does he remember Jesse as the only person who ever loved him unconditionally?

[kylejsugarman]

actually the immediate aftermath of the news breaking is just as fascinating in a sad, twisted way. jake has to come back home and go back to school like everything’s normal, even though his entire city and eventually the whole country can’t stop talking about the chemistry teacher turned meth distributor and his presumed dead junkie accomplice who spent his final months living in a hole in the ground. they’re still showing photos of the cage (furnished with shackles, slick with his brother’s blood) on CNN when jake walks into homeroom. his parents are smothering him at home, but there’s a glaring space now between himself and everyone else. a few of his teachers take him aside, ask him how he’s doing and if he’s ok; other teachers look at him strangely, as if trying to determine from jake’s face alone his criminal potential. does it run in the family?? a few students greet him normally, but some whisper behind his back or tag him in facebook and twitter memes about the crime as a cruel joke. some of his friends start avoiding him altogether, later messaging him to admit that their parents told them to stop talking to jake. like it’s contagious. like it runs in the family. jake’s brother is gone in every sense of the word, only he’s everywhere, from the untouched bedroom next to his to the comments about what the nazis might’ve done to jesse under every post. “he got what he deserved.” jake wants to be completely alone, away from all of this for just a fucking second. he unknowingly sits in the same place under the back porch that his brother did a few years ago to smoke, listening to music and trying to sink into the dark. there’s a plastic bag of blue rock candy taped to his locker the next day.

[jakeplaysoboe]

real talk. was jesse a theater kid?

Well I don't remember a lot from when we were younger, but a do vaguely remember he wanted to be in a play or something? but he was worried about the other kids being mean to him.

[colorcodedbeanies]

S1E4- "Cancer Man"

I try to pick the funniest screenshots in any given episode and to me. It is very funny that this conversation about Walt's impending mortality is had with Hank in his swim trunks.

TW: Misogyny, harassment

I've been very gentle on Domingo, I do want to make it clear I'm not walking around with some perception of him as a noble hero. Dude sold his cousin into prison, presumably to try and take out a competitor. But the active disdain the DEA shows for its informants is pretty telling to me. In theory, the arrangement for informants is information in exchange for some kind of protection. However, it's clear Hank and co. don't really give a shit if Domingo lives or dies, just how inconvenient that death might wind up being for them.

Hank makes a point to bring up that Walt's highgrade meth didn't come from "some super lab in Mexico" but "right here in the Land of Enchantment". It's an accurate assessment of the situation but to me it emphasizes the horror element that Breaking Bad holds for a lot of its viewers, especially at time of airing. Rather than all this death and destruction being visited on the neighborhood by an outside force, this chaos came right out of your own backyard.

I'm noticing Hank tends to make a LOT of insistent sex jokes whenever Junior's around, not to mention taking a particularly keen interest in his romantic life. I don't think this inherently has to imply anything inappropriate, but I do think its a form of social regulating. Junior admires his uncle and tends to emulate him. Hank makes a special point to impart his own particular brand of crass aggressive masculinity.

I promised I wouldn't linger too much on gender in Breaking Bad since I feel that analysis has been adequately covered elsewhere but in this particular case, it's linked to both criminality and Walt's self-identity. Marie jokes off hand that Hank's repeated attempts at courtship were "before they tightened up the stalking laws", with Hank giving a very forced fake laugh afterwards. While clearly the two have gone on to forge a relatively loving relationship, I think making a point to bring up a legal element is notable. In reality crime is something of a spectrum. Hank was insistent in his courtship, ignoring multiple nos until he finally got the date he was after. We don't get Marie's perspective, its possible for her this was just some cat and mouse flirtation. Had she BEEN more negatively inclined towards him, though, this could very well have been criminal harassment. Not to be a broken record but again: the White-Schraders do not see themselves as criminals. Their actions can always be extended the benefit of the doubt, a grace they do not extend to others.

Skyler is 38 currently. Assuming they were dating+married for a couple of years before having Junior, she would have been around 19-21 when they met, with Walt being 31-33. The age gap between Skyler and Walt is only a little smaller than the age gap between Skyler and her son. This isn't just creepy on the face, but establishes Walt as having a history of seeking out younger partners. He seems to be attracted to a mentor position with the people he loves, and a large age gap allows for him to take that on more easily. This adds further layers to Walt and Jesse's relationship that is only further coded by Jesse covering bruises with foundation and claiming it was the bathtub that did it.

Speaking of Jesse. We start to drill into Jesse's paranoia in this episode. I think it's notable, though, that his drug induced hallucinations aren't the cops coming to catch him, but two big scary bikers. I think we can see something about the subconscious associations Jesse makes between the law, crime, and fear here. Despite being more connected to crime than Walt his subconscious still defaults to extremely suburban fears. This is further drilled down on by him returning to his parent's home, seeking the safety of an upper middle class background.

The relationship between the Pinkmans and their eldest has the kind of complications that are naturally going to arise with a family member dealing badly with addiction. Going off the framed childhood art and the way he interacts with his mom I think its fair to say that Jesse was a relatively indulged child. However, there's a transactional nature to the way his parents engage with him. They expect better behavior in exchange for the work of raising him for 20 years. Its notable to me that Jesse gets them to not talk to him by setting the table. It's a small, almost childish contribution, but it seems to be a way he's found that works for him. Show some gratitude, do a few chores, and they'll leave you alone. At the risk of sounding like the guy trying to convince you asking him to do the dishes is "boss coded", you can make a lot out of this as a reflection of capitalist framework that views children as an investment. You put x amount of money, care, and education into one, and what's supposed to come out the other end is a credit to the family. This has influence on the way he engages with Walt, Gus, and Mike. Jesse uses service as a currency to acquire love, or at least as a way to be left to his own devices, and it rarely winds up working in his favor. It's perhaps why Walt's big red "RIDICULOUS! APPLY YOURSELF" note impacts him. He craves a way to earn approval after spending so much time as the disappointment.

We don't see a lot of Jake after this but I think he's a useful counterpoint through which to examine Jesse. On the surface he's the golden boy, the brilliant socially conscious honors student with musical gifting. However, even before the reveal that he's somehow purchasing weed and smuggling it into the house its clear something's amiss. He reacts with skepticism when Jesse describes him as the favored child: "you're basically all they talk about". One visual detail I noticed in his room is the clothes spilling out of his drawers. Jake's crammed himself into a little box, but its insufficient containment. Also notable is him storing weed in Jesse's room, presumably because anything found there will be assumed to be his burnout brother's. Jesse and Jake are varying degrees of successful at earning and selling their parent's love, but both seem to fundamentally understand that its a trade.

The weed is discovered by the Pinkmans' brown housekeeper. Another POC playing a background role in the lives of our leads. Remind me to circle back to this whenever I get to El Camino.

Returning to the Whites, I think its notable that Skyler's first vocal reaction we see to Walt's cancer is to try and find a manager she can complain to (namely, Walt's old factory job). I don't mean that to be inherently derisive. In situations like this its natural to try and seek out some kind of blame or control. Additionally, you know, holding your job accountable for potential medical conditions their improper equipment may have caused is a good thing in general. But the specific means through which Skyler attempts to gain control is through a form of punitive justice. Someone has to be punished for the fact that her husband is dying, otherwise how can the world really be fair? A lawsuit that won't do anything to cure Walt's cancer is the first thing she thinks of. This is a view of justice heavily seeped in Americana.

Last note on law enforcement for this chapter, I wanted to touch on this in my pilot notes but ran out of space, so its coming up again here. Walt has a conception of law enforcement as potentially all-knowing. When sirens come running during the RV chase he immediately assumes they've been discovered. When a cop following behind him turns on the siren he assumes he not only knows about the roll of bills, but where the money came from. The American police state tends to encourage a feeling of total surveillance. You never know who might be watching, and if they see you they'll come get you and take you away. This isn't reflective of reality. Even in a heavily surveilled state they still need to be able to see or hear something before they can know there's a crime. But with each successful "escape" Walt becomes a little more convinced of his own power. If he's outsmarted one of the highest powers in the land, who can hope to touch him now?

[bookofmajora]

Imagining Jake Pinkman’s life…is he still just as driven academically and pressured by his parents to be perfect? Or does the disappearance of his brother derail his life? I imagine him learning the from truth of what the media knows about what happened to Jesse..Jake never believed his brother was dead… but seeing the VISCERAL TRUTH aired on the news as casually as the weather maybe settled deep in his brain and never let up. He sees how it tears up his parents, he knows they received a call from Jesse and something in him is jealous that he didn’t get to speak to Jesse himself. 

I can see Jake, still putting effort into his studies, but in his free time so much of his and thought process into thinking about his brother. What if Jake becomes obsessed with finding him? It would be damn near impossible, but…what if, years later, he somehow got a hunch about Alaska. And Jake is now in his early twenties and he should be focusing on his studies, it’s what his parents want but…he thinks of his brother making him lunch on a Saturday when they were younger, when Jesse was still living at home, now that he older he realizes that all the favoritism he had attributed to Jesse was actually his parents worrying about him. Jake knows they love him, but their love can be smothering, pressuring, they want him to be perfect because they feel like Jesse was a failure. So he goes to Alaska on summer break, on a whim. Maybe he’ll ask around…it’s a bust of course, the last frontier is about a third the size of the lower 48 and even if the third hand rumor of a rumor he heard was true he’d have to search for much longer than he can afford to stay here. So after a few weeks he starts to head back…he stops in a small town for breakfast at a diner he read on yelp had great reviews.

It can’t be. The man in a booth of the other side of the diner, he’s sitting with a woman and a small child…the man’s eyes…he knows those blue eyes anywhere. He sees scars across the man’s face but his eyes are smiling at the child, a little girl, she’s giggling at something the scarred man said.

And Jake’s heart rate has skyrocketed…it’s him, it has to be. If is hard to tell if it’s fate or a miracle or blind luck…but undoubtedly Jesse Pinkman, or at least the man that used to be Jesse Pinkman, is in the diner Jake happened to stop at for breakfast.

And Jake is torn, his brother, who I pictured for so long either in chains or as a mugshot, looks so happy. And Jake has not intentions of blowing his cover or turning him in. But it will eat at him for the rest of his life if he got this close and didn’t at least let Jesse know he had grown up ok and he didn’t hate Jesse and…before he knows it he’s going over to the table. And he chickens out, “can I borrow your ketchup?” is the first thing he’s said to his brother in almost 7 years. And Jesse looks up at him, “sure, uh here you go.” And he hands him the bottle and Jesse notices him for the first time. Jake walks away briskly, setting the ketchup on his table and walking into the men’s room. A few seconds go by and Jake’s heart is beating faster than he thought possible, his breathing is shallow and he’s splashing water on his face and then the door opens. It’s him. Of course it is.

“Jake?” His voice is the rare form of sweet it would be when Jesse would comfort Jake after a nightmare. Jesse reaches to lightly place a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Jake sees himself in the mirror, sees the hand on his shoulder, the peekaboo hint of a scorpion tattoo hiding under long sleeves. He sees his brother’s reflection behind him, he sees just how much he has grown to physically resemble Jesse and he also sees the tears in both of their eyes. Jake turns to face him… “you’re alive!” Without a second thought, with no explanation, Jake embraces his brother. Where once Jake may have resembled the brother of the proverbial prodigal son, now Jake can’t help but relate to the father. He never thought he would see Jesse again….and in a way the man who is smoothing the back of his hair with his tattooed hand isn’t the same Jesse he knew. “How did you find me?”

“I didn’t. I heard some third hand rumor in the internet that maybe you’d fled to Alaska and I came up here for summer break. I’d given up trying to find you…I just happened to come here for breakfast. And the I see you so…happy…and I didn’t want to take that away so…”

Jesse nods. “I’m pretty happy. I just try to live a quiet life up here with my wife and kid. But I’d be lying if I said it was always easy…and I’d be lying even more if I said I’d don’t think I about you and mom and dad like, all the time. I’m…so sorry, Jake.”

“And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was mad at you for a long time. And that I would worry about you…and I’d imagine you in…like what they were showing in the news…and I’ve wanted to find you for so long just to see if you were ok.” He started crying again.

And they just kind of stay like that for a few minutes muttering apologies and comforting one another. “Hey, do you want to come over to our place? You can stay for dinner.” Jesse offers.

“What? Really? What will you tell your wife?”

“She knows. She knows I’ve been through a lot and she’s so sweet and more kind than I ever thought I could deserve. And I told her who you were before I came back here. You wanna go finish breakfast? They’re gonna start wondering where we went.” His tone is soft, almost cheerful but the hint of melancholy is there. Jake nods, they both dry their eyes and head back out to the booth at the diner.

[buttonmcthickums]

So I finally set up the big playpen for the babies!!

But the big babies love it just as much, lol.

[theqhreator42]

+ Cheryl is familiar with Liberian English slang, which freaks out Liberian Americans

+ Cheryl's son, Bryant, went to school with Jake Pinkman, Jesse's brother

+ Cheryl is tucking me into bed right now

(meme from the server)

So far on the BCS rewatch server we have ascertained:

+ Cheryl is a pediatric oncologist

+ Cheryl (like Howard) is bisexual

+ Cheryl and Howard have a son

+ Cheryl was absent for the majority of BCS's run because she was engaged in a Doctors without Borders tour in Liberia

+ Cheryl can speak four languages: English, Cantonese, Mandarin, French

+ Jesus can walk on water, but Cheryl can swim through land

Come join us at @normalaboutbcs for more stunning 100% canon lore about characters who show up for 15 minutes in a 63-episode series!

[whrsluca]

my favorite boys ♡

[kingoftheu]

My favorite trope is when the irresponsible one has to be the responsible one and hates every moment of it.

[badgersblog-yo]

this guy gets it ^^^^

do you like dnd? you seem like you would.

fuck yeah!! Skinny and Jesse say it’s nerd stuff tho :(

[kylejsugarman]

also btw it is so fucking wild to imagine what jake pinkman’s life is like. pushing aside the encouragement to succeed and remain engaged in Good extracurriculars and present well (a clear sign of his parents trying so hard not to have a repeat of jesse and keep him occupied and surveilled), jake saw his brother fight with his parents and come home high and eventually not come home at all because he was staying with their aunt ginny. suddenly, his brother just didn’t live with him, even though he was still in town and still occasionally came to the house. jesse is still funny and cool and interested in what jake’s up to when they do see each other, but it’s not Right. it’s not like that’s his brother; they’re cousins or friends in different states, distanced by something that’s not distance. then jesse stops coming to the house altogether after the joint debacle (jake has trouble sleeping that night even after his parents stop talking in hushed voices downstairs and go to bed) and then time passes and then jake comes back from his band trip to the news stories about his brother. the photos of the pit, the mug shot on TV, the memes passed around about the meth empire. when jake sees the mug shot, he realizes for the first time in a long while that he’s looking at his Brother, the person who never Expected anything of him. never Wanted him to be a specific thing, pursue a specific goal. that’s his brother and jake is never going to see him again. he can’t take the fall for the joint in this situation. he can’t ever say he has a brother ever again.

jake sleeps in jesse’s bed that night.

[jakeplaysoboe]

I'm not sure if there's lasagna in the sims, so Jesse and I are making spaghetti

[kylejsugarman]

You asked, you shall receive:

Imagining Jake Pinkman’s life…is he still just as driven academically and pressured by his parents to be perfect? Or does the disappearance of his brother derail his life? I imagine him learning the from truth of what the media knows about what happened to Jesse..Jake never believed his brother was dead… but seeing the VISCERAL TRUTH aired on the news as casually as the weather maybe settled deep in his brain and never let up. He sees how it tears up his parents, he knows they received a call from Jesse and something in him is jealous that he didn’t get to speak to Jesse himself.

I can see Jake, still putting effort into his studies, but in his free time so much of his and thought process into thinking about his brother. What if Jake becomes obsessed with finding him? It would be damn near impossible, but…what if, years later, he somehow got a hunch about Alaska. And Jake is now in his early twenties and he should be focusing on his studies, it’s what his parents want but…he thinks of his brother making him lunch on a Saturday when they were younger, when Jesse was still living at home, now that he older he realizes that all the favoritism he had attributed to Jesse was actually his parents worrying about him. Jake knows they love him, but their love can be smothering, pressuring, they want him to be perfect because they feel like Jesse was a failure. So he goes to Alaska on summer break, on a whim. Maybe he’ll ask around…it’s a bust of course, the last frontier is about a third the size of the lower 48 and even if the third hand rumor of a rumor he heard was true he’d have to search for much longer than he can afford to stay here. So after a few weeks he starts to head back…he stops in a small town for breakfast at a diner he read on yelp had great reviews.

It can’t be. The man in a booth of the other side of the diner, he’s sitting with a woman and a small child…the man’s eyes…he knows those blue eyes anywhere. He sees scars across the man’s face but his eyes are smiling at the child, a little girl, she’s giggling at something the scarred man said.

And Jake’s heart rate has skyrocketed…it’s him, it has to be. If is hard to tell if it’s fate or a miracle or blind luck…but undoubtedly Jesse Pinkman, or at least the man that used to be Jesse Pinkman, is in the diner Jake happened to stop at for breakfast.

And Jake is torn, his brother, who I pictured for so long either in chains or as a mugshot, looks so happy. And Jake has not intentions of blowing his cover or turning him in. But it will eat at him for the rest of his life if he got this close and didn’t at least let Jesse know he had grown up ok and he didn’t hate Jesse and…before he knows it he’s going over to the table. And he chickens out, “can I borrow your ketchup?” is the first thing he’s said to his brother in almost 7 years. And Jesse looks up at him, “sure, uh here you go.” And he hands him the bottle and Jesse notices him for the first time. Jake walks away briskly, setting the ketchup on his table and walking into the men’s room. A few seconds go by and Jake’s heart is beating faster than he thought possible, his breathing is shallow and he’s splashing water on his face and then the door opens. It’s him. Of course it is.

“Jake?” His voice is the rare form of sweet it would be when Jesse would comfort Jake after a nightmare. Jesse reaches to lightly place a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Jake sees himself in the mirror, sees the hand on his shoulder, the peekaboo hint of a scorpion tattoo hiding under long sleeves. He sees his brother’s reflection behind him, he sees just how much he has grown to physically resemble Jesse and he also sees the tears in both of their eyes. Jake turns to face him… “you’re alive!” Without a second thought, with no explanation, Jake embraces his brother. Where once Jake may have resembled the brother of the proverbial prodigal son, now Jake can’t help but relate to the father. He never thought he would see Jesse again….and in a way the man who is smoothing the back of his hair with his tattooed hand isn’t the same Jesse he knew. “How did you find me?”

“I didn’t. I heard some third hand rumor in the internet that maybe you’d fled to Alaska and I came up here for summer break. I’d given up trying to find you…I just happened to come here for breakfast. And the I see you so…happy…and I didn’t want to take that away so…”

Jesse nods. “I’m pretty happy. I just try to live a quiet life up here with my wife and kid. But I’d be lying if I said it was always easy…and I’d be lying even more if I said I’d don’t think I about you and mom and dad like, all the time. I’m…so sorry, Jake.”

“And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was mad at you for a long time. And that I would worry about you…and I’d imagine you in…like what they were showing in the news…and I’ve wanted to find you for so long just to see if you were ok.” He started crying again.

And they just kind of stay like that for a few minutes muttering apologies and comforting one another. “Hey, do you want to come over to our place? You can stay for dinner.” Jesse offers.

“What? Really? What will you tell your wife?”

“She knows. She knows I’ve been through a lot and she’s so sweet and more kind than I ever thought I could deserve. And I told her who you were before I came back here. You wanna go finish breakfast? They’re gonna start wondering where we went.” His tone is soft, almost cheerful but the hint of melancholy is there. Jake nods, they both dry their eyes and head back out to the booth at the diner.

[jakeplaysoboe]

I wish mom would let me get a pet.

One of my friends has a cat. They're really soft.

I really want a bearded dragon or something too, but mom thinks they're gross