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
Granite State (Breaking Bad) would run for 75 minutes including 22 minutes of commercials. The episode title refers to the nickname of New Hampshire, which is where Walt is relocated upon being given a new identity. Parts of the phone call of Walter and Walter Jr. needed to be reshot, because during the transport a Boeing 737 rolled over the film. This episode marks the final appearance of Bob Odenkirk as a series regular, as his character, Saul Goodman, fled to Nebraska. Odenkirk returned as Saul in the spinoff to "Breaking Bad" entitled "Better Call Saul". The episode was watched by 6.58 million viewers