A closer look
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan fully intended to kill off Jesse Pinkman by the ninth episode of the first season to show that no character was safe; the writers' strike of two thousand seven combined with Aaron Paul's surprisingly incredible acting performance forced the network to halt production and rethink the entire storyline, so the character they planned to violently murder in a drug deal gone wrong ended up becoming the emotional core of the greatest television drama ever made; it is a beautiful irony that a labor dispute meant to ruin the entertainment industry actually saved the life of a fictional meth dealer and secured millions of dollars in syndication money for everyone involved
