Entertainment

Dark passage

Tomorrow night’s season finale of “Breaking Bad” plunges a red-hot dagger into the heart of darkness that’s been this show’s calling card since its premiere in early 2008.

“There’s definitely a lot of ‘Oh my God!’ moments in the finale,” says Aaron Paul, who won an Emmy in 2010 for his portrayal of Jesse Pinkman, Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) meth-cooking partner-in-crime on the AMC series.

“At the end [of the episode] your jaw will be dragging against the floor for the next few days thinking about what just happened,” Paul says. “This is the most intense roller-coaster ride yet.”

And, as usual, Paul’s Jesse is front and center. In tomorrow’s season-ender, he and Walter continue their dramatic cat-and-mouse game with fried-chicken czar/drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) — who they failed to kill in last week’s penultimate episode when Fring foiled their assassination plot.

“I think he must have read something in Jesse in the little chapel in the hospital,” Paul says of a scene in which Gus has an intense, face-to-face discussion with his employee. “He could sense that something was wrong.”

The fact that Gus was even speaking to Jesse is a thematic microcosm of how Paul’s character has grown this season — from a slacker following Walter’s lead to becoming a leader himself after passing Gus’ test of cooking his own high-quality meth in a grungy Mexican lab.

“Jesse is finally in control of his bearings,” Paul says. “He’s just been beaten down by everyone in his life, especially Walter White this season, but he’s taking control of his life . . . especially after going down to Mexico — he was terrified, but he was like, ‘Wow, I can actually do this, I’m good at this.’

“He always thought he was good at this, but when Mr. White came into the picture, it proved Jesse still had a lot to learn.

“But after that cartel ‘cook,’ he kind of stood up and said, ‘You know what? I can do this. I have control over my life.’ ”

Just how long that “control” can last — Jesse has relapsed into drug abuse before — remains to be seen.

And now that AMC has announced that “Breaking Bad” will end after next season, its fifth, Paul says he has “no idea” where Jesse is headed in the final 13 episodes.

“I always think I have some sort of grasp on where the stories are going, but it always goes in such a different direction, or in the direction I was thinking it could go, but in such a different way,” he says.

“Hopefully, Jesse and Walt are back together cooking again, you never know, but I do know that next season Jesse is going to have a lot more confidence. He wants to believe in Walt, and he wants to trust him because [Walt] is one of the last mentors that Jesse has left.

“He literally has no one else . . . there’s always a glimmer of hope for him, but then that glimmer is just violently taken away.

“I think we’re going to end on a very interesting, explosive note.”