This article contains spoilers for Breaking Bad and El Camino.Aaron Paul’s iconic performance as the rebellious drug dealer Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad is undeniably one of the greatest characters in recent television history, which is all the more remarkable upon discovering that showrunner Vince Gilligan originally intended for Pinkman to be killed off during the first season. However, Jesse’s abrupt ending in the series finale left some fans disappointed, as they saw his heartfelt escape into the darkness as a fitting but unresolved conclusion for a character who’d endured such trauma over the past five seasons.
However, these qualms were resolved six years later with the release of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which continues the story of Jesse’s getaway exactly where the series finale left off. What’s unique about El Camino is the happy ending it allows its protagonist, who, unlike Walter White, is not far removed from the fiery but well-meaning kid at the start of Breaking Bad. No, Jesse stands apart from his counterparts through his steadfast refusal to compromise his values, which is what makes his sendoff in El Camino both warranted and satisfying.
El Camino Gave Jesse The Closure He Deserved
The Film’s Flashbacks Help Show Why He Deserved His Ending
After a brief flashback where Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) relays to Jesse how he’d start over in Alaska if he were a young man, El Camino jumps to the exact moment we last saw Jesse in the series finale, laughing and crying maniacally as he speeds away from Jack’s compound in the тιтular El Camino. From there, Jesse turns to the only two people he can rely on—his friends Badger and Skinny Pete, who help him ditch the car and get the cops off his trail as he plans his great escape from Albuquerque to “The Last Frontier.”
From there, El Camino fills in the blanks of Jesse’s imprisonment under the deceptively friendly Todd (Jesse Plemons), whose cold-blooded psychopathy cements him as perhaps the film’s scariest character. These recollections are one of the strongest elements of El Camino, since they both portray the intensity of the trauma Jesse has fought to overcome and offer insight into his character growth in the scenes featuring key figures from Breaking Bad, with Bryan Cranston even returning as Walter White in one flashback (sporting a hard-to-ignore bald cap that makes him appear like Megamind).
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie was legendary actor Robert Foster’s final movie role.
After successfully acquiring enough money to pay “Ed the Disappearer” (Robert Foster), Jesse’s story culminates with one last flashback after the fugitive finally arrives in Alaska, recalling the time when his deceased girlfriend, Jane (Krysten Ritter), encouraged him to forge his own path in life instead of resigning his fate to the universe. Smiling, Jesse thinks of her words as he continues down the Alaskan road toward a new beginning he not only earned, but deserved.
Jesse Pinkman’s Breaking Bad Ending Was Good, But El Camino’s Is Even Better
El Camino Tied Up Many Of Jesse’s Loose Ends
Though Jesse’s ecstatic drive into the darkness in the Breaking Bad finale is as iconic as it is powerful, El Camino offers a greater sendoff to the lovable burnout-turned-expert chemist we saw grow over five years of television. Simply put, Jesse’s story was incomplete—he was still deeply scarred from his imprisonment, wanted by both the cops and the DEA, and scrambling on the run without a clear path forward—far from a gleeful riding-off into the sunset.
Out of respect for both the character and the fans, Vince Gilligan used El Camino to tie up those loose ends, providing Jesse with something few people in his business achieved—a real happy ending.
In this sense, El Camino does right by Jesse by ending his story on a positive note, since out of all the characters on Breaking Bad, there was no one who carried more guilt and regret over their sins than Jesse, who—H๏τ-headed as he was—always tried to do right by the people he cared about, particularly children. Understanding this, El Camino provided Jesse with the ending he truly deserved, if for nothing else than his resilience during imprisonment and torture by Jack’s gang. Yes, Jesse deserved better, and through El Camino, Vince Gilligan made sure he found it.
