Well, you’re hiding cash in random hidey-holes in the house, you like your El Camino SS, it’s really easy to steal. Why not splurge a little?
Plus, it seems exactly the kind of thing a guy like Todd would do. I mean, he bought an 80’s El Camino in the first place. If I had meth gangster money, I’d get one made before '72.
And now, I’m thinking “Am I any better than Todd with his demented '80s car lust?” And the answer is, “Yes. But not by enough.”
Yeah, I prefer the 69-70 El Caminos but Todd’s was old enough to be interesting, appeared to be in excellent condition, probably had a small V8 and was probably fun to drive. It was his baby and I wouldn’t be surprised at all that he’d put a Low-Jac in it. Living in a milieu populated by thieves and other assorted criminals and druggies it would make sense.
That made me think of something. Since Todd had his cash stashed in random places, it’s plausible he had some hidden in his El Camino, too. Like maybe inside the door panels, or under the bed liner, or stuffed inside the spare tire. And hense the Low-Jac to locate not just the car,* but the money hidden inside it. I mean if I were him I wouldn’t hide all of it in one place.
*Or is it a truck? I’m never sure what to call an El Camino.
My initial guess on the Lo Jack thing was that maybe one of the AB assholes was actually working for the FBI/DEA and had put one on all of the vehicles at the compound along with an inventory of all of the vehicles in the hands of law enforcement. So after a day or so of them working the scene they figure out what was missing from the scene and go looking for it. But it’s more likely that Todd installed it, and after they ID’ed his body at the scene they figured out what car(s) he might have owned and activated the device when they learned it had one.
LoJack wasn’t that expensive back then. Todd loved the car, it was obviously in really good shape.
Todd killing his cleaning lady because she found his money is believable, that’s something that character would do, but Todd even having a cleaning lady isn’t.
Just saw it, enjoyed it a lot. Liked the fact that Todd remains an enigmatic character and they did not just indulge in scenes of him acting sadistic / violently insane…his personality remains consistent with how it was written in BB, oddly polite and soft-spoken, childlike, and deceptively slow-witted while still being cutthroat. Loved the Disappearer. Loved the Fiero (I suspect this movie will have raised some interest in this still-affordable 80s relic) and the Land Cruiser at the end. (Don’t really care for El Caminos to begin with, and thought the topper made it look even worse.)
This movie demonstrated to me that the team of people involved in the creation of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have nailed the art of making a stylistically and thematically consistent product. I hope they continue.
I’m not convinced he got fat. I think he bulked up. It was very evident in his role in Fargo, where he was possibly more ripped. I did wonder how they’d do it if he was appearing, and they didn’t, they only partly showed him at first, hiding his body shape change.
I just noticed something while I was poking around the Internet Movie Car Database. Badger had apparently already been shown driving the Fiero in a couple of scenes in Breaking Bad. Which means they didn’t just decide to have him driving it for the El Camino movie. They actually remembered or went back and checked what Badger drove in BB, and went through the effort of getting the same car for El Camino.
Man, Vince Gilligan is nothing if not a stickler for little details like that. I mean, only the most obsessive Breaking Bad fan would have remembered what car Badger drove. All of us obviously didn’t. They could have used something else and most of us wouldn’t have noticed. But they didn’t. They actually got the same car they used in Breaking Bad. Now that is attention to detail and continuity.