El Camino, the rest of Jesse Pinkman's story -- A Friday Review by Mike N.

   I had a prolix piece about some October-seasonal series well under way, but decided it was too quickly knocked out and too under-edited to inflict on anyone. So, that's back on the shelf for at least a good editing session, and more likely to be split into several separate pieces as I don't seem to know how to be succinct about anything of interest to me.
  Instead, I'll talk about a single, recent Netflix arrival.
  Fans of Breaking Bad can now see the rest of Jesse Pinkman's story, who we last saw in the series finale -- just over six years ago! El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie dropped on Netflix October 11th.
  Note: If you haven't seen Breaking Bad, then set this aside. All the story details are here to be able to put the history together, but it'll waste far too much, and you won't appreciate key items as much as anyone in the audience should.
  Series creator Vince Gilligan returned to write and direct, so at the very least we knew this was all the real deal, and not just a network exec with licensing access coming to make a cash grab.
  Originally, with the conclusion of Breaking Bad, Gilligan was content with the idea of leaving it to the audience to speculate on what became of Jesse (Aaron Paul) after we last saw him insanely screaming, speeding away in almost incomprehensible freedom after having repeatedly come to believe his life was well and truly over. Over the next few years, though, the series creator found himself drawn back to rolling it over in his mind, and decided that he wanted to do something definitive about it.

  The movie does give us more of an ending, along with filling in some more of the backstory, including flashback scenes involving several other key characters who hadn't survived the events of Breaking Bad. Between the contemporary story and the flashbacks to new-to-us material, we get a little more of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), Badger (Matt Jones), Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), Todd (Jesse Plemons), Jane (Krysten Ritter), and the very recently-deceased Robert Forster, as Ed, the vacuum salesman who runs a covert side business in new lives, among other players. 

   The new, flashback scenes with Walter and Mike each bring us quiet moments, where the older men were each sincerely playing mentor to relatively young Jesse. Scenes with Todd show us a Stockholm syndrome dynamic that played out behind the scenes of the series between Jesse and his contemporary and slavemaster, Todd. Gentle, tragically hopeful moments with his departed girlfriend, Jane. Some time spent with old friends and an associate from his earlier life, where Jesse gets some sense of the legend that has grown up around him.
   Ultimately satisfying, this expanded coda for Jesse Pinkman did at times during the viewing feel very workmanlike, as if we were being forced to go through all of the details with Jesse. I didn't have much of a sense that any storytelling detail corners were cut, for good or ill, though I have subsequently found out that a letter that comes into being late in the story was originally supposed to form a closing narration. A note to an innocent victim of the chaos that had consumed Jesse's life, it was the first thing Vince Gilligan wrote on this project, before the screenplay itself. He made the decision to leave that bit to the audience's imagination, though -- so maybe another six years will loosen his tongue and it'll emerge as supplemental material. In the meantime, he's sworn Adrian Paul to secrecy about it.
   Unlike the still-ongoing Breaking Bad prequel series, Better Call Saul - which I was genuinely puzzled as to any necessity for when it was announced, but which turned out to be an essential bit of backstory  - this didn't feel quite as much that we would have really missed something vital had it not been done. However, it's nice to get more of an ending, especially given everything Jesse went through, and as I roll the film over in my mind I'm thinking more highly of it. I'm realizing that much of what I was feeling while watching it was mere impatience, as I wanted to see the long-tormented Jesse as quickly as possible through yet another trial, perhaps to get to as much of a happy ending as he'll ever allow himself to have.
   Jesse's moral restraint is all in play here, distinguishing him from too many characters who would have emerged from the brutal mill either full of vengeful fury or simply in a nihilistic zone where life had become meaningless. Instead, we have someone who has returned from a Purgatory he thought was eternal Hell, deeply scorched with the remorse. If cornered, he'll do what's necessary, but he'll go some distance to be reasonable. He's seen too many terrible, irrevocable things done far too casually by others to ever want to do the same.

     Apologies for not casting the wider net I promised last time. Schedules, and a week where new troubles arrived while none of the old ones departed, robbed me of time and energy.

                               -Mike N.

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