Breaking Bad

Awesome.

Should el Camino discussion go in Live-action film?

It's a sequel to Breaking Bad so I think it belongs here. Mods might want to chime in.

Another trailer.

Poor Jesse.

So I wonder what's going to happen to Jesse Pinkman at the end of this movie. Will he finally earn his bittersweet ending, or will something worse happen to him?

• We see Jesse in the house where he and Walt did their first cook, I think.
• We see a picture of Brock and... Brock's mom
• We see Jesse go back to his shaved head
• Badger and Stinky Pete will appear
• What exactly is Jesse doing? Living? Recovering? He's in the desert planting vegetables. Saul is at a Cinna-Bon somehwere. The only people relevant to Jesse's existence are either dead, have disavowed him, or are in the wind.
• Who exactly is Jesse's opponent we see at the end there in some kind of Mexican stand-off. As much as Breaking Bad plays with the Wild West tropes - Mike alluding to Walt thinking of himself as Jesse James at one point - I can't really see Jesse in that sort of situation.
• Who would Jesse's opponent be? He has no remaining connections to the cartel (Mike, Lydia, the Salamancas, and Gus are all gone). The police are looking for him, but it seems odd to introduce some new, proactive policeman taking a vested interest in hunting down Jesse, and the relevant police characters are all dead. The Neo-Nazi's are all dead.
• What does the title "El Camino" mean?

Edited by Soble on Oct 1st 2019 at 4:53:54 AM

Skinny Pete not Stinky Pete!

The Chevrolet El Camino is the car with the truck bed Jesse drove off in at the end of the series. Notably, he originally wanted to buy one way back in Season 2.

It means 'the road' in Spanish, appropriate since he'll definitely be spending a lot of time on it.

Edited by Alycus on Oct 3rd 2019 at 9:52:32 AM

Neat.

Edited by Soble on Oct 9th 2019 at 11:24:23 AM

Well El Camino came out today.

After watching it I checked the cast list, and I was surprised to find out that Robert Forster (who played Ed the vacuum guy) died today, when this movie premiered. What a morbid coincidence, huh?

I finally watched it, I was really happy to see Jesse get his happy ending.

And the end credits theme song got stuck in my head.

Static on the radio...

El Camino:

• It never occurred to me the sort of mental scarring Jesse must have had, or the duration of his imprisonment.
• Badger and Pete are bros.
• That look Jesse gave Todd when they were fixing up the car.
• How many burner phones does Jesse buy throughout this movie?
• I can't believe they actually gave us a Mexican Standoff scene.
• Well. That ending certainly happened. It ends exactly how you'd predict yet it's done with such sincerity it's hard to dislike.
• I love how casually and quickly we get those flashbacks.

Done. Enjoyed it. See, this is what an "epilogue" for a TV series should be - returning faces, familiar locations, some plot holes filled in, and a sense of conclusion.

El Camino is what Twin Peaks The Return should have been. Not every actor did or even had to come back, but it was nice to see the few who did.

Edited by Soble on Dec 7th 2019 at 7:45:34 AM

So I’ve been watching the whole show over the past few weeks and it’s great. I can’t wait to see El Camino.

One thing that's occurred to me is that if I could rewrite any scenes from Breaking Bad, there are many plot points that I think should have been subtly introduced well before they became relevant to the story. For instance, in the actual continuity, Madrigal makes its first appearance in the legalese at the bottom of the Los Pollos Hermanos commercial at the start of "Kalfkaesque" in season 3. Then in season 4, they're revealed to be a conglomerate that clearly funds Gus's operation. And in season 5, they finally show up in person. Or the fact that Tuco mentions the Cousins in "Grilled" in season 2, a season before they show up.

There are several other elements of the show that in hindsight could've been hinted at before they became relevant to the show. Like, have Saul Goodman benches/commercials appearing well before his first episode. Have something with Los Pollos Hermanos before "Mandala", like have Gus make an appearance in the DEA office while Hank is debriefing his superiors about Tuco's death. Have one of Jack's Neo-Nazi accomplices be one of the skinheads that Badger sells meth to in Season 2. Or have Hank bring up the altercation between Tuco and Mike from Better Call Saul when interviewing Mike in "Madrigal".

Also, with the benefit of El Camino for hindsight, I'd entertain maybe consolidating Jane and Andrea into a single character. Both of them are very important girlfriends to Jesse, but based on El Camino, Jane was much more important to Jesse than Andrea was.

And in "Felina", maybe do more than give that subtle nod in response to Walt’s nod to him, in their final scene together. I wanted some words to be spoken too. As it were, that part kind of worked for me because they had already been through so much together so there was nothing more to say, but I wish they had come to some closure, whether it was bad or good.

Edited by dmcreif on Apr 10th 2020 at 5:06:58 AM

I realize a lot of that probably would be hard to do, seeing as Vince Gilligan and co. were freestyling most of the work. But the fact they were able to take the offhand reference Saul makes to "Ignacio" and "Lalo" in his intro episode and create two full-fledged characters out of it for Better Call Saul, or expand Mike (who was eleventh hour casting because Odenkirk wasn't available) to a main character, shows that it would probably be within their range.

Watching the first season and am liking it so far. One thing though:

Why did Jesse try melting the body in the bathtub if that would just cause a hole in the floor?

Because he ignored Walter's advice, and didn't think it would do that? That's the whole point of the scene.

Edited by Chortleous on Jul 18th 2023 at 2:58:41 PM

So basically, it happened because he is stupid then

He asks Walt about why he needs a plastic tub and Walt just blows him off. Yeah, he's stupid, but Walt's attitude doesn't help.

Episode 3 - Wow, Krazy-8 was this close to getting out of there, but decided decided to act on petty revenge like that and fell to his doom. He could have easily just walked out of there after convincing Walt to let him go, but screwed that up.

“Write you a check”, yep, a bullcrap check.

I’m def liking the start of Breaking Bad season 3. Jesse isn’t being as much of “punkboy” and I don’t have to hear Walt and Skyler argue with each other as much anymore. Good first impression.