After years of rumors, we'll soon be getting a follow up to one of the greatest shows in
TV history.
El Camino A Breaking Bad Movie will debut on Netflix on October 11th and we have a few
ideas of what we'd like to see when it does.
Breaking Bad callbacks
First things first: if El Camino is going to truly satisfy fans of Breaking Bad, it
has to feel like an extension of the series.
The easiest way to do this would be through the use of callbacks.
Breaking Bad laid on the callbacks to previous episodes early and often, a practice which
continued in the spin-off series Better Call Saul.
The callbacks in Breaking Bad were wildly varied, from dialogue to clothing choices
to music, and were used for a lot more than just fan service.
"I knew this was going to happen.
I knew it.
I told you someday someone was going to come to our door."
"I am the one who knocks!"
El Camino will only have a couple of hours to tell its story, and we don't expect it
to spend its entire run time reminding us that, holy cow, we're watching more Breaking
Bad.
But deploying clever, subtle callbacks to the series is one way in which El Camino can
honor the show's legacy.
Saul Goodman
We get the feeling that El Camino won't feature too many returning characters from Breaking
Bad, for the simple fact that the majority of the more significant supporting players
are, well, dead.
But thanks to Better Call Saul, we know that "criminal lawyer" Saul Goodman got safely
out of town in the aftermath of White's downfall, and ended up exactly where he predicted he
would: managing a Cinnabon in some nondescript mall in Omaha.
Each season of Better Call Saul opens with a flash forward to Goodman's Cinnabon days,
and while it's safe to say he won't be getting sucked into the criminal underworld of Nebraska
anytime soon, that doesn't mean that El Camino couldn't see Jesse Pinkman pay him a little
visit.
After all, Goodman could always be depended upon to bail Pinkman and White out of seemingly
impossible situations, and just because he's laying low slinging cinnamon rolls doesn't
mean he's severed all of his ties to his former criminal associates.
Badger and Skinny Pete
If someone's going to fill in Jesse Pinkman on what's been going down in Albuquerque since
he split, we'd bet it'll be his old buddies, Badger and Skinny Pete.
We already know that at the very least, Skinny Pete will be involved in El Camino; the first
trailer to be released for the flick is simply a scene of the former drug runner being questioned
by authorities.
"No way I'm helping you people put Jesse Pinkman back inside a cage."
It's not yet clear if Badger will also pop up, but where one of these two goes, the other
usually follows - and the pair could serve a purpose beyond merely doling out exposition.
They're Pinkman's connection to Albuquerque, where his parents still live - as does Brock,
the young son of Pinkman's murdered girlfriend Andrea, and perhaps the one living person
he cares about the most.
Badger and Skinny Pete might also warn Pinkman of impending danger; White may have wiped
out the entirety of the Nazi gang that was holding his former partner captive in Breaking
Bad's final episode, but that doesn't mean said gang's associates won't be seeking recourse.
The new criminal element
White's utter destruction of that Nazi gang by way of automated machine gun is not the
kind of action that just goes unnoticed.
Whatever slimy characters that gang was affiliated with are sure to have taken notice of two
things: first, there's a void in the meth production game that will need to be filled.
Second, the two best meth cooks in New Mexico were present at the scene of that carnage
- and one of them is dead, but the other is most certainly not.
Which is to say, it may not just be the long arm of the law that will take an interest
in Pinkman in El Camino.
Breaking Bad gave us a long, harrowing look at how drug empires operate, and Pinkman has
seen it all.
He's been at the center of drug operations from Tuco's mini empire to Madrigal's international
drugs clearing house and as the New Mexico narcotics trade rebuilds itself in the wake
of Heisenberg and the Nazis' demise, there are sure to be several parties interested
in his whereabouts.
Peace for Jesse
Whatever road lies ahead for Pinkman, it won't be an easy one.
But we have to hope that it brings some kind of closure, some kind of peace, because if
anyone on Earth ever needed it, it's him.
Sure, he's done terrible things, but perhaps none of those things would have come to pass
if he had never been singled out as the ideal partner by his former teacher Mr. White.
And despite all of the admittedly terrible choices he's made, Aaron Paul's incredible,
soulful performance had a way of painting Pinkman as someone who always wanted to do
the right thing, but for whatever reason, always failed.
"I'm not coming back."
"I know."
Maybe he'll be given a chance to rectify the transgressions of his past in El Camino.
This should at least be easier now that White, who always seemed to be pushing Pinkman to
be the worst possible version of himself, is out of the picture.
Then again, if you're going to cook up a Breaking Bad movie, it'd be missing a key ingredient
if it didn't acknowledge Jesse's departed partner.
Walter White
He is the danger; he is the one who knocks.
Walter White is the black, infected heart beating at the center of Breaking Bad, and
however it has to happen, it sure seems like failing to include him in some capacity would
be doing El Camino a disservice.
It could be a flashback, or a drug induced vision; it could be a recording that White
made for Pinkman in the event of his death, or even a home movie that we see Skyler White
watching, right before she throws it in the fireplace.
There are a hundred different ways it could happen, but the subtitle of El Camino is "A
Breaking Bad Movie" and if you're going to offer us a continuation of one of the greatest
stories ever told on TV, you would be remiss not to offer us at least a glimpse of that
story's greatest character.
"Say my name."
"Heisenberg."
"You're god darn right."
Yes, El Camino is Pinkman's story, but the character's greatest tragedy is that his story
will forever, no matter how much he would will it to be otherwise, be intertwined with
White's.
Make no mistake: there are plenty of fans who would advance the theory that White didn't
really die at the conclusion of Breaking Bad, but we're not among them.
He is indeed dead, but the dark legacy that he created will linger; as far as Pinkman
is concerned, we can only hope that he's able to run far enough, fast enough, to somehow
escape it.
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