Director: Vince Gilligan
Cast: Aaron Paul, Jesse Plemons, Krysten Ritter, Charles Baker
Have I Seen It Before?: Never, but one could have imagined large chunks of it.
Did I like it?: Yes. As the movie continues to simmer in my brain (as I type this, it’s been about a weeks since I watched it) I think I even like the parts I may not have been so sure about on first blush.
The predominant opinion I’ve seen put out in the world is that this dip back into the world of “Breaking Bad” is well made, but unnecessary. Naturally, this inspires more than a few entities out in the internet to insist that nothing is “necessary” save for political upheaval, healthcare, and tacos.
I tend to disagree with both camps when I say that after everything that happened to Jesse Pinkman (Paul) in the final season of “Breaking Bad,” his either success or failure at a redemption story is a missing, but vital part of his story. Sure, the catharsis on display as Jesse primal screams his way out of the white supremacist’s compound has some satisfaction about it, but when the story of the original series boils down to a fundamentally bad person—Walt (Bryan Cranston)—who occasionally did good things (largely in his past) and a fundamentally good person who has a habit of doing bad things, I still want to see who the secret hero of the series will become.
Necessary and unnecessary may be the wrong terms to fling around, but more Jesse is vital, and that’s why Gilligan decided to bring us back.
Now, the question becomes, does the film work? There is quite a bit of fan service, far more than “Better Call Saul” has ever been interested in. Some might see this as a weakness, and even I wonder if someone who had never seen the TV series would get much out of the film at all. But I did see—and love—the show, so the fan service works for me. Especially the brief interstitial moment where we see the fate of the storefronts for Saul Goodman’s legal practice and Los Pollos Hermanos. Cameos abound. The Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Baker) sitcom should be the next step in this saga’s evolution. Seeing Walt leap of a hotel room with that same shark-like gaze we followed against our better judgment for five years was a thrill. And it was fitting that one of the final emotional beats comes courtesy of Jane (Ritter). I can’t divorce myself from a fan of the show, so all of these moments are intriguing.
But the ending feels odd, from a pacing point of view. By the time the end credits snap into place, I think I literally asked out loud “Is that it?” I’m not sure why I felt so greedy, as any time with Pinkman was bonus time. Maybe I wanted him to have to fight through to his freedom until the last minute? More likely, I was so transfixed by the rest of the movie, I wasn’t thinking about where the end to the story should be. It’s rare that something could have demanded my complete and unadulterated attention from my couch like this. The last time that probably happened, now that I think about it, was the last time I saw Jesse Pinkman.