Yes, it was a little distracting. I saw a meme the other day with a picture of a very gaunt Joaquin Phoenix, mentioning how he lost 50 lbs for his role in The Joker. The split photo showed Todd in a scene from El Camino which was captioned “Jesse Plemons found it.”
I, uh… thought it was boring? Kind of contrived?
To be honest, I was not the biggest Jesse fan anyway, so I never needed his story resolved. I just assumed that he escaped and is living in some mobile home next to a lake in the Ozarks or some shit. Alaska? Sure. I’ll buy that.
*Every *character recurring from BB to Better Call Saul got fatter (and/or balder) except, curiously, Huell, who got thinner.
Hey give props to Badger! He thinned down!
It’s weird to watch Aaron Paul now that I know him as Todd from “Bojack Horseman”. Todd and Jesse are very different characters (but with the same thread of cluelessness).
I liked it a lot. I was really touched by how kind Skinny Pete and Badger were to Jessie. They’re not just goofy meth addicts, but are genuinely kind.
It made sense to me that the vacuum cleaner man would make a deal over $1800. He’s a stickler for details and his word is his bond. If he’s expected to keep his word to every last detail then he expects the same of his clients. It probably also helps to make sure his clients stay quiet and don’t implicate him in any way. That was a nice touch with him quizzing Jessie about his new identity before saying goodbye at the end.
I do wonder if the purpose of this show is to show is connected to Better Call Saul. Is there a story line coming that involves Jessie so the writers closed the loose end? That way it might make sense what Jessie’s situation is.
I’d be surprised if that happened, but I guess I wouldn’t rule it out. He knows that Saul, Jesse and Walt all know each other. He’s likely smart enough to make sure they can’t find each other, even if they try.
However, Better Call Saul happens before Breaking Bad. We may very well see Jesse in BCS, but it would either happen before he started making meth or when he brought Mr White there.
Honestly, I think a lot of people wanted to know what happened to Jesse and everyone involved had the time, money and interest in the project, so it happened. There’s not a whole lot of overlap between BCS and El Camino, so at least the actors weren’t tied up working on BCS. Even Vince, who wrote and directed El Camino is pretty hands off when it comes to BCS. He doesn’t do much of the writing or directing leaving a lot of the heavy lifting to Tom Schnauz and Peter Gould.
Yeah, but every season of BCS starts in the “present” with his fake identity as a Cinnabon manager. These intro scenes have gotten longer and longer each season which makes me think they intend to complete Saul’s story. I know it’s a long shot on a cross over, but Saul’s cover was nearly blown last season so he may end up on the run again and then who knows…
Looks like I’m not the only one thinking about the connections between El Camino and Better Call Saul - The Hollywood Reporter just posted an article:
The short answer is that there is a relationship. Mainly the El Camino people didn’t want to break anything that the Better Call Saul people were planning for the end. And, there’s always a possibility that elements (including the welders) introduced in El Camino will play a future role in BCS
I think we need a thread to talk about this openly now that a few have had the chance to see it.
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I thought it was a long and detailed epilogue for a beloved character, but not necessarily a “movie” in the usual sense. At least, not a stand-alone; it’s more of a BBC Christmas Special. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it. I just can’t imagine it being of interest to any non-BB devotee.
Did I miss the scene, or did they edit out the Skinny Pete interrogation scene that was shown in the Trailer? I’m pretty ticked off about that, but I was also walking around baking, so maybe I missed it.
I watched it back-to-back with the final episode of Breaking Bad so the Brotherhood compound scene was fresh in my mind. This really did pick up right where that ended.
I was trying to figure out the timeline and how much time passed between events. There was the shoot-out, Jesse fled with the El Camino passing the police who were arriving at the scene, and went directly to Badger & Pete’s house where he crashed till morning?
So, overnight the police identified Todd, figured out what kind of car he drove, activated the lo-jack, and raided his apartment and then abandoned it? That’s some brisk police work for just arriving at a multiple homicide scene.
I think it was a couple of days. I think the Skinny Pete and ____ house scenes are 2-3 days at least. The PTSD and exhaustion took him out of commission for a few days at least.
I understand that Kandy Welding connection, but I don’t understand why Jesse wasn’t more livid at the welder who actually did the work!?! Or why that welder didn’t know better what was going on? Surely he would have immediately recognized Jesse.
My favorite scene was definitely the shootout. 1. Jesse not playing by the rules and having two guns showing that he learned “Walt’s” lessons well. 2. But they didn’t really clearly show the 2nd gun and what had happened- so they called back to it with the “you’re on fire”. 3. After the first shot the lack of accuracy and aiming resulting only finally in a lethal hit. 4. Jesse got what he came for so he let the others go- including the welder- as he just wanted out. And he only wanted the $1800 to start. 5. The explosion- totally unnecessary and over the top (Gus Fring face-like and the bathtub dropping through the floor).
The refrigerator introduction was also genius- “oh, truly a bachelor pad with no food”, but I picked up immediately that it was Chekhov’s gun. There was a bit of car fun with the Fiero and El Camino as well.
But I think it was the BBC review that said, “Breaking Bad hasn’t aged well in this time of the anti-hero… this would have been much better if they had given us Skyler’s story instead of the obvious easy one.” and I agree. Following Skyler’s life would have been a much better character piece. How much did she know? How much of it did she help build? Would she see through the donation to Walt Jr.? Would she become an empire builder of her own? What was she capable of?
Instead we only get one female character, the one who ODed. And another embodied in a snowglobe. I liked it more while I watched than in retrospect as it didn’t go anywhere new… or interesting.
psssst… Jesse shot the guy who did the welding work. The welder had cut his hair and shaved between doing the work and meeting Jesse at Todd’s apartment. The guy with long hair Jesse let go had nothing to do with Jesse.
Blowing up the yard? Why not? I’d want to destroy the kind of place that was knowingly doing that kind of shitty work for the Ayran Brotherhood. If I was a criminal running from the law that had just shot two guys in a shootout, why not? If nothing else, it would make it more difficult to find my fingerprints at that crime scene.
I read the review on the BBC that also wished the movie was about someone else. Ehh, sorry, but Jesse was the character the fans wanted to know more about at this point. Additionally, you’d have to work really hard to make Skyler’s life after BB interesting in the same way that a bunch of criminal’s lives seem, unless she broke bad herself. But, I somehow don’t think that’s the plot arc these criticisms are aiming for.
So, in the end I feel it was a pretty good two hour BB episode. It had pacing issues, and could have been lit a bit better in some scenes, but it was far from the worst episode.
We also have seen Skylar’s life post Walt. Yeah, he stopped by for a little before the shootout, but I don’t think that would have affected her much more than the events of season 5. Her story was already concluded.
Honestly I was more less interested in Jesse’s escape story than in Jesse in another ten years. He’s not really concluded in my mind.
Skylar’s future arc holds no interest to me at all. I’m more interested in how her now widowed sister Marie’s future play out than in Skylar’s.
I’m the opposite. I think there could be an interesting story arc for Skylar. The problem is that would likely include Flynn. I don’t want that. I have no desire to see Marie.
Skylar has already shown she could be creative when it comes to Breaking Bad. The Fed likely seized all of her assets. She has to dig her way out of that hole somehow.
The most interesting arc is partially being done already. Saul Goodman. It’s all well and good on how he became Saul Goodman; but I could watch a series based on the court cases where he sleazily works as Saul too. I’m assume the Better Call Saul series will pretty much be over once he completes the transition; which is too bad.
When BCS started, a lot of people were asking when Walt will show up, will Jesse be in the show, when does he change his name to Saul. At some point Vince explained that once those wheels are in motion, BCS is basically over so maybe we shouldn’t be hoping for it to happen too soon.
This other threadis pretty far gone on the spoiler front. So I’ve asked the admins to just add spoilers to its title and merge it with this one. Please put any further posts over there until they get around to it.
It makes perfect sense to me. His encounter with Jesse was becoming a cascade of exceptions. Doesn’t know the password, doesn’t call the phone per protocol, already had his chance and blew it off - isn’t supposed to have another one coming. Lou has to maintain strict control or his services are useless. And he had to regain control over Jesse.
Plus, he was going to be leaving Jesse without even five bucks for gas. Hardly an auspicious beginning. By forcing him to go out and get more he assumed Jesse would come back with more than the minimum, which he did.
Honestly, the one thing that struck me wrong was Jesse forcing himself into that tiny space in the U-Haul. Anyone could see why it was necessary, but I don’t think a man with his layers of abuse could have made himself do it, much less willed himself to remain silent in there. Prisoners who spend too much time in isolation forget all about filtering the noises they make.
Let’s not start body-shaming. Actors are actual humans.
[Moderating]
Since this has apparently morphed into a spoilers thread, I’m reflecting that in the title. And I’m also merging in another thread started by TruCelt, who didn’t realize that this thread was already getting spoilery.
The usual practice, though, would in fact to be to start a new thread once folks start seeing it and wanting to talk about spoilers.