Headscratchers / El Camino

• In the series proper due to the nation-wide media coverage that Walter White had gotten himself, Ed could not create a new identity for Walt and displace him like he normally would, instead resorting to having to have Walt hide out in a cabin completely off the grid. One would assume that the same would now apply to Jesse since he is now also all over the news and the last linked person to the "Heinsenberg Empire", and yet Ed manages to get Jesse a new identity and into Alaska without a hitch.
  • Granted, Walt was the subject of a nation-wide manhunt, with his face and name appearing in news feeds all over the entire world. Jesse's news coverage appears to have been limited to the Albuquerque area, and he was specifically wanted as a person of interest. Either way, Jesse probably insisted on being taken to live in society in Alaska even if the question of being put in hiding was brought up, to which Ed might've just shrugged and let him run the risks.
  • He is just an associate like Saul, except he didn't plaster his face everywhere. The manhunt also likely died down a bit after they puzzled out what happened so while still a wanted man, they know Jesse has little resources or intent to harm. Walt in the meantime confessed having killed two DEA agents during a phone call and kidnapped his daughter.
    • But Jesse is much more than an associate and Hank no doubt left plenty of evidence of the connection between Walt and Jesse and their activities in his files. It's also highly likely there's evidence that Hank and Gomez took Jesse to the fatal meetup or even if there isn't, after Walt gives the location, the Feds will definitely connect the Jack Pack to the murders. So, Jesse is a known associate of Walt since high school, has his own drug record, was working (even though a slave) for Jack, apparently freed by Walt during his attack on Jack's compound AND is likely the sole living witness and possible accomplice of the murders of two federal agents, they're going to be looking hard for him for a very long time.
  • Massive manhunts are expensive. The DEA might exert that expense for the kingpin, but a guy they suspected of just being a cook, who was probably being held as a slave? Yeah they're not gonna put a ton of money and time into that, especially since if they did lock him up after all that, the Bernalillo County District Attorney wouldn't be happy with "sent a guy kept as a slave by Nazis for two years to prison" on his record the next time there was an election.
  • Walt's also kind of more distinctive-looking than Jesse is, especially with the shaved head and beard, as well as his age range being slightly more notable to be on the lookout for. Jesse is both more "generic" of appearance (both as far as looks go and the range of ages he can pass for), but can also change his appearance fairly markedly just by shaving off his beard stubble and trimming his hair a bit (which would take a few minutes as opposed to the months it would take Walt to grow new hair, assuming he can). That probably factored into it a lot.
• After Jesse calls his parents in order to lure them away from their house so he can sneak in and steal the $1,800 he needs, they are followed by a detail of law enforcement upon leaving. The phone call was obviously being monitored by the police; wouldn't they have run a trace on the call and found out that Jesse was, in fact, waiting outside his parents' house and not in the faraway place where he claimed to be?
  • Given all the cops were waiting in their cars instead of inside they likely weren't monitoring the phone anymore, just having a look out. Jesse's parents probably didn't want them to listen to all their calls at some point.
  • It probably wasn’t long enough of a call to trace, and Jesse immediately snapped the phone after popping the battery out.
• How does Jesse end up being wrong about the false 911 call? His last part about 911 not letting you hang up on them is spot on. I can understand the response time as the cops being mobilized after Walt's situation, but that shouldn't make them violate protocol. The cops who do show up don't seem particularly agitated, they seem professional, so it's weird that it went that way.
  • They can't physically stop you from hanging up, and while they would call him back the car showing up under a few minutes imply they didn't bother since one was already nearby and took the dispatch. There is a huge difference between what is procedure and what the followers of said procedure end up doing instead.
  • Ed probably called the non-emergency number. Very different procedure.
    • It does appear he dials 911. There are five key presses and tones, perhaps the first to turn it on and the last to actually connect. The middle three presses look like 911.
• Why did they drive the cleaning lady's corpse all the way out to the desert to physically bury it? Why didn't they just bring the body back to the compound and do the tried and true method of dissolving it in acid as we've seen them do countless other times? Todd knew about the technique from helping get rid of Drew Sharp and Mike's bodies, and Jesse CERTAINLY knew how to do it. Wouldn't that have been an easier and more discreet way of getting rid of her?
  • A lot of it is probably down to Todd's twisted mentality: instead of being a true liability or a complete stranger who happened to witness a crime, the cleaning lady was known to Todd as being a good person who simply happened to find his money and he even expressed (what seemed for him) sincere regret at "having to" kill her. He probably imagined that the least he could do by way of a posthumous apology was give her a decent burial (complete with eulogy) rather than simply dissolving her body as though she were a complete non-entity (like Drew Sharp) or a legitimate threat to him. Plus, he was treating the whole experience as though it was some kind of special bonding time between himself and Jesse - it was implied in the series and all but outright stated in this that Todd genuinely considered himself and Jesse to have the capacity for friendship during Jesse's captivity, and he probably saw the weekend of "alone time" as being the perfect opportunity for furthering that friendship by taking Jesse fully away from the compound and trusting him with a certain amount of freedom (which also included not punishing him for taking out the gun).
  • Simpler explanation: The expert in making/handling the acid was Walt. Todd probably doesn't remember how to do it, so he just went with the more standard method of body disposal. (And if Jesse remembers how, he wasn't asked.)
  • Todd may have worried Jack would be angry for Todd murdering the lady for stupid reasons— leaving large amounts of money in an easily found location while having a cleaning lady.
• Has the Breaking Bad show itself ever mentioned that Jesse graduated from high school or at least got the equivalent of a GED? I thought Jesse flunked Walt's Chemistry class? Or was Jesse allowed to repeat Chemistry?
  • The series never made a definitive comment on whether or not Jesse graduated high school. There are times when characters refer to him as a "burn out" or "drop out" but it's never characters who would know for sure - it's always people like Hank or Skyler making judgements based on his lifestyle and behaviour. Like the characters, most people watching the show just made the assumption that he dropped out without the show or any of the creatives confirming or denying it at the time. As to how he was able to graduate, the only class we know he flunked was Chemistry; admittedly I don't know much about how American high school works but surely you'd have to flunk more than one subject to not be allowed to graduate..? In any case, the specifics of the situation are left ambiguous for the most part - Jesse says he didn't learn anything in Walt's Chemistry class and that Walt flunked him, so you could reasonably imagine that either his parents stepped in and made him see a tutor or he retook the class with a different teacher the next year and passed.
  • In the United States, high school chemistry is typically graded on a very generous curve and so Jesse might have repeated chemistry but without Walt that time, or better yet took a non-chemistry science class that has a lab component. In New Mexico, high school students must pass at least 2 science courses with lab. Or Jesse might have taken something easier than chemistry such as geology, earth science, environmental or ocean sciences to satisfy the 2 labs.
• Would Ed really have held Jesse to the extra $1800 (out of $250,000)? His word is his bond, etc, but it's hard to believe someone doing criminal work never bends their own rules. And as radioactive as Jesse currently is, sending Jesse out to scrounge for money is extremely risky and increases Ed's own risk. Ed could immediately take Jesse in. It's also implied that Ed is indeed feeling at least a bit of sympathy for Jesse.
  • Well as I wrote the question, a possibility occurred to me: that Ed was spooked by Jesse showing up and was worried Jesse might indeed be working for the Feds in a sting on Ed himself. After all, Jesse shouldn't have been able to find him. And Ed had disappeared Walter and Saul, and who knows who else over the years. Ed sending Jesse away may have been more so Ed could learn more about the situation before proceeding.