I Worry About The Red Head Meth Kid From Breaking Bad On A Constant Basis
I gotta be honest, I started this blog with like 500 words about my love of Breaking Bad and how much I watch it and this and that, and then deleted it. If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad by now, you’re doing yourself a disservice. It’s one of the greatest shows ever. Fuck, I’m literally doing it again. I legit just deleted a ton of whimsical words, waxing poetic about the show, and then when I started the blog again, I legit did the same thing again.
Ok so anyway, I’ve been rewatching Breaking Bad and last night I watched Season 2, Episode 6 “Peekaboo” again. And man, that fucking kid, it gets me every time and I never expect it. This is my 6th time watching the show and the little meth redhead kid destroys me every single time. Jesse seeing the conditions the kid lives in, seeing what the meth he is selling does to people, and the kid with his dirty face, his lack of food, inability to communicate, the padlock on his door so they can lock him in while they go on day/week long drug binges
it absolutely ruins me every single time.
I worry about this kid more than I worry about anyone in real life. I just want to know if he turned out alright. I mean, it’s unlikely, of course. What he’s seen, what he’s heard, being placed into the system, everything is working against him. But I want to believe. I want to believe that maybe something about that interaction with Jesse saved him. I don’t know. It’s such a crushing (no pun intended) episode that changes the dynamics of the entire series. We see good Jesse vs bad Jesse, and how complex the world he is living in truly is. He goes to the house to get his money, and is disgusted by what he sees, and flips back and forth between pointing a gun at Spooge and Skanks face while simultaneously worrying about protecting the kid. He’s not just a drug dealer, we see deep down he’s a moral person. So while Walt continues to break bad, we start seeing Jesse going in reverse.
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And I’ll say this- I think the internet romanticizes Jesse way, way too much. He could have stopped dealing meth at any point. He knew he was ruining people, ruining families, communities, getting people killed, all of it. And yet he always found reasons to continue. So I don’t buy the idea that Jesse was a “good guy”. Not even a little bit. But I appreciate the complexity of his character.
I did have a theory brewing in my head that the kid grew up to be Todd
But I was reminded that unless time travel was involved, that’s just literally impossible. I like to believe there is a connection there though. I’m still working through what that connection exactly is, but I think there’s something there.
I know this blog isn’t exactly “timely” per se, but Breaking Bad is consuming my brain at every waking second and Breaking Bad fans such as myself worry about that kid on a daily basis. Let’s just all agree he got placed in a good loving home, moved to California, and grew up surfing and had a nice, drug free life.