El Camino: A Break­ing Bad Movie

Some TV series are a bit like sum­mer flings. You set­tle in for a sea­son of cosy nights togeth­er enjoy­ing mild flir­ta­tions and a few good cliffhang­ers, but you’re left indif­fer­ent as to whether you’ll be tun­ing in for more next year. Oth­ers feel like your first real love – the ones you pine for and live to see week­ly. The ones that, when men­tioned, still bring a twin­kle to your eyes.

These are the kind of shows that became so much more than sea­son­al flings – they were deep, required patience and com­mit­ment. After hav­ing tak­en up so much of our emo­tions, they leave a mas­sive hole in our hearts – and our week­ly watch­ing menu – when they come to their nat­ur­al – or pre­ma­ture – end.

Break­ing Bad was a first-love kind of show, one that was mourned by huge and diverse fan­base when its final episode aired in Sep­tem­ber 2013. The whole world became involved in the destruc­tive rela­tion­ship between chem­istry teacher turned meth king­pin, Wal­ter ​“Heisen­berg” White (Bryan Cranston) and his for­mer stu­dent and cook­ing-mentee, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).

After five strong and cap­ti­vat­ing sea­sons that gave us leg­endary char­ac­ters such as Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Gus (Gian­car­lo Espos­i­to) and, of course, (Bet­ter Call) Saul (Bob Odenkirk), their sto­ries reached – most­ly – sat­is­fac­to­ry con­clu­sions. Though many view­ers prob­a­bly would have expe­ri­enced great schaden­freude in see­ing Jesse pull the trig­ger on the man that played such an impor­tant and dev­as­tat­ing part in his life, most of us found peace in his walk­ing away to let Heisen­berg die slow­ly and on his own.

Revis­it­ing old char­ac­ters by ways of remakes or movie spin-offs has become a dan­ger­ous trend that often ends in dis­ap­point­ment – espe­cial­ly when series cre­ators and writ­ers strain too hard either to steer away from or stick to the orig­i­nal for­mat. The bal­ance needs to be just right and, for­tu­nate­ly, cre­ator Vince Gilli­gan has nailed it with El Camino. The long-await­ed fea­ture-length fol­low-up to Break­ing Bad brings us up to speed with Jesse’s jour­ney since we last saw him bro­ken, scream­ing and dri­ving towards uncertainty.

The film starts where the show left off. Ter­ri­fied and exhaust­ed, Jesse escapes a scene of total car­nage and ends up at the only place that’s safe, with the only peo­ple he can trust. Bad­ger and Skin­ny Pete, friends who knew him from before he had ever even enter­tained the idea of becom­ing one of the men behind America’s biggest meth-amphet­a­mine ring. It becomes clear from the very moment they see his marked face and tor­tured body that he will nev­er be the same again. Here is a man who had already giv­en up on life through­out the last sea­son, one who has lost more than he could have ever gained from cre­at­ing an empire. And sud­den­ly, he is giv­en anoth­er chance.

El Camino is a slow-burn: qui­et­ly action packed and true to the expres­sion­ist style of sto­ry­telling that glued so many view­ers to Break­ing Bad. Like its pre­de­ces­sor, it often speaks through the New Mex­i­co land­scapes and the char­ac­ters’ body lan­guage loud­er than it does through words (think, ​‘Fly’; sea­son three, episode 10). There is no need for Jesse to ver­balise his trau­ma. It is writ­ten on his face, grad­u­al­ly build­ing in his body and man­i­fest­ing in a strength that can only be sum­moned in sur­vival situations.

His flash­backs, by ways of min­i­mal ver­bal infor­ma­tion and plen­ty of visu­al cues, reveal the humil­i­a­tion and phys­i­cal pain he lived through at the hands of the Welk­er gang’s men – orig­i­nal­ly hired by Heisen­berg, to kill him. Even more so, these heart-wrench­ing images empha­sise how nor­malised this bru­tal­i­ty and cold-heart­ed­ness becomes to those in the busi­ness of build­ing drug empires. How easy it becomes to kill to silence.

“Life is what you make it,” Todd (Jesse Ple­mons), one of Jesse’s for­mer cap­tors, tells him after forc­ing him to bury anoth­er body in the mid­dle of the desert. And while we can all agree that Jesse made some poor choic­es in his life, par­tic­u­lar­ly where Heisen­berg was con­cerned, we know the life he led – the life he is still lead­ing now – was nev­er part of his orig­i­nal design. Jesse was always the moral com­pass of the series, and even now, after hav­ing been kept in a cage and tied to a chain, we can still feel the taint­ed puri­ty radi­at­ing from his bro­ken heart.

El Camino is nei­ther a full movie nor an extend­ed episode. Think of it more as a love-let­ter to a char­ac­ter who is as beloved as the series as a whole: a hope­ful man now known as Driscoll, try­ing to make a new life.