Breaking Bad re-watch: Season 3, Episode 13: "Full Measure"

It should be noted that up to this point, Jesse (Aaron Paul) hasn’t killed anybody. He’s come into contact with death a few times in the series (and was notably horrified by it), but it was always someone else who did the killing. He came close last episode with the two dealers, but Walt’s (Bryan Cranston) Aztek intervened before we got to see if he would have actually pulled the trigger, or instead would have hesitated long enough to be killed himself.

Attempting to take out the two dealers wasn’t the only time that Jesse’s been acting more criminal-like this season. There was also the attempt to sell meth stolen from the superlab to his fellow recovering addicts in therapy. Pretty evil. But the romance with Andrea (Emily Rios) that he got out of it showed that he still had some of his humanity left, at least.

It’s not until the final scene, tearfully holding a gun to Gale’s (David Costabile) head, that we get to see the real Jesse. Clearly, in spite of everything he’s been through, he’s still not like the hardened killers around him.

It’s a heartbreaking scene. Partly because for a meth cook, Gale seems like a very nice guy, though seeing him go is not too upsetting since he’s only in a few episodes. It’s more painful for Jesse, who has managed to remain a somewhat good person in such an evil world. But because he got too far into that world (and probably because of some manipulation from Walt, as well), he has no choice but to take a life to save his own. And it’s all the end result of him trying to do the right thing. Jesse would likely have to kill someone sooner or later to stay alive, but this irony makes his first kill sting a little stronger.

Up until that point, the episode is a gem of slow, relentless tension, though it’s broken a little by Mike’s (Jonathan Banks) sidestep into the chemical warehouse to play the geriatric action hero (and setting up the conflict with the Cartel for next season). But the closing scene is the episode. The echo from the gunshot will linger around Jesse’s soul for a long time, and seems to stick around in your head until you start season four.