Breaking Bad extremely playful on set, with Aaron Paul describing him as "a kid trapped in a man's body". Gilligan originally intended for Aaron Paul's character, Jesse Pinkman, to be killed at the end of "Breaking Bad"s first season in a botched drug deal as a plot device to plague Walter White with guilt. However, Gilligan said by the second episode of the season, he was so impressed with Paul's performance that "it became pretty clear early on that would be a huge, colossal mistake, to kill off Jesse". Donna Nelson, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, checked
Walter White (Breaking Bad) since turned him into a monster were already in place." "New York" magazine writer Emma Rosenblum said Bryan Cranston "pulls off the unassuming White with flawless subtlety: a waxy pallor, a slump of the shoulders, and a sense of doom that is palpable". "The Hollywood Reporter" writer Tim Goodman praised as courageous Vince Gilligan's decision to transform Walter White into an unsympathetic character: "You don't take your main character and make him unlikable. You just don't. Nobody does that. Nobody has ever really done that to this extent." Robert Bianco of "USA Today" called Walt "one of the greatest dramatic