**SPOILERS HEREIN**
Breaking Bad was one of
the of the most beloved and acclaimed continuing television dramas ever made,
and a rare one that pulled off an ending almost everyone liked. In fact, it
sort of gave us two endings: the blaze of glory in the series finale, and the
utter tragedy of “Ozymandias” two episodes prior (which I and others contend
would have also worked as an ending). Both were satisfying in different ways.
But while the show brought the
story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston) to a thorough conclusion, it didn’t quite
find time to do the same for Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Walt’s former student and partner
in crime—if never quite an onscreen equal to his old teacher, then at least the
second most important and compelling character—became scarcer in the final
season, and then drove off with little closure to his arc. Thus, we have El
Camino, a coda that I’m sure will colloquially be called a bonus episode by
many a viewer, but more accurately feels like a direct sequel. In any case, it’s
a worthy successor and denouement to one of the most masterful shows to ever
air.
The movie picks up immediately after
Jesse’s final scream cut off in the finale (before the cops arrive after Walt’s
massacre of the neo-Nazi gang, even), and extends it into a cry of anguish, not
one of victory like the last episode made it seem. The fairly triumphant tone
of the series’ final scene is absent and stays absent throughout, or at least
muzzled. I’m not sure how long creator and director Vince Gilligan had these
ideas in mind, but it seems appropriate that this final chapter comes a length
of time after Braking Bad finished. Big, explosive sequences that leave
an impression on viewers are more appropriate for final episodes. El Camino
is about the aftermath of those big moments, and where the survivors go from
there. It’s a similar vibe to the scenes of Walt’s exile in the show’s penultimate
episode “Granite State.”
The story follows Jesse, his partner
definitively dead and himself a fugitive, as he seeks out some money stashed
away by one of his now-deceased captors so he can buy himself a new identity
from Saul Goodman’s vacuum guy (Robert Forster). It’s a story that could have
been told in a normal-length episode, with enough time left over for a subplot
or two about the White family (none of whom appear, save for a cameo
from Walt). But it’s a masterfully slow burn, building the type of seething
tension one instantly recognizes from the show’s best moments. It plays like a sleek,
somewhat self-contained little noir film, and Scott MacArthur is an appropriately
mean foil. Not a Gus Fring or a Salamanca, not quite a forgettable one-and-done
bad guy-of-the-week, just a real simple and nasty low-level criminal.
It also pads the length out to
two hours with some overdue moments of mood and character. Jesse as a character
never took to the coldblooded parts of the drug trade like Walt did, and the
depictions of his damaged psyche (especially the season 4 scenes of him haunted
by his first murder) were forceful and unsubtle, and so effective for it. El
Camino tackles the trauma from his captivity at the hands of the Nazis (which
Breaking Bad had little time to grapple with) much the same way, through
pained silences that say so much, and flashbacks and apparitions that are
haunting and intense.
It’s here where we get much of
the character cameos, and surprisingly, it’s not all a load of fan service.
Well, Walt’s kind of is (despite some dialogue that’s relevant to the
proceedings, it feels like the most tacked-on of the bunch), but otherwise, they’re
all worked in organically and fit the narrative. None more effectively than Todd’s
(Jesse Plemons), whose horrific sequence plays like a black comedy with all the
comedy drained out. Even for this series and this era of mature content, that
might’ve been too much to show on basic cable.
It’s Aaron Paul’s show, however,
and he’s so arresting he could have carried the movie even without any
flashbacks bolstering or underlining his character’s mindset. Cranston was
often so phenomenal as Walt that one could forget that Paul was also pretty
excellent on the show as Jesse. With Heisenberg’s shadow absent in all but one
scene, that doesn’t happen here (and that one scene comes late, after Paul’s
been shining bright like a journeyman actor who knows this is a star-making role). Paul expertly
conveys a man broken by one injury or devastation after another, but also sort
of built up and made stronger by them.
But, not necessarily on the same
path to ruin as Walter White. The climax of El Camino lets Jesse play
action hero (or in this case, gunslinger) like his partner in “Felina,” but
much more understatedly. Subsequently, he gets an ending somewhere between the
two Walter got, melancholy but open-ended and contemplative. Jesse certainly
broke bad and did some terrible things, but he was never fully consumed by the
abyss like Walt. Maybe he has still a hope that his ex-teacher lost somewhere
along the way (or perhaps never had in the first place). And that ending is, in
its own way, very satisfying.
