54 Time October 14, 2019
T
he lasT Time we saw Jesse
Pinkman, in the series finale
of Breaking Bad, he’d just
escaped a massacre. After
refusing to put a mortally wounded Wal-
ter White (Bryan Cranston) out of his
misery—an act that would’ve added one
more sin to the long list he’d committed
under the influence of the meth king-
pin who used to be his high school sci-
ence teacher—Jesse (Aaron Paul) drove
the nearest El Camino straight through a
chain-link fence, hit the road and never
looked back. His symbolic shackles bro-
ken, he laughed and sobbed, his grizzled
face filling the frame. By then, he was
a traumatized, nearly feral mess. But
he was free.
Unlike Walt’s inevitable death,
Jesse’s ending was morally ambiguous:
manipulated by a man who’d come to
represent evil incarnate but still per-
sonally implicated in horrific violence,
Jesse had also suffered terribly for his
transgressions. Like Dorian Gray’s por-
trait, his face registered the blackening
of Walt’s soul. So it seemed appropri-
ate that Jesse’s fate remained unsettled.
Sure, he made it out of five seasons
alive. Surviving much longer, how-
ever, would be a test of his intelligence,
resourcefulness and—most of all—his
determination to live a bet-
ter life.
Six years later, Break-
ing Bad creator Vince Gil-
ligan is back with the re-
sults. And for fans like me,
there’s something strangely
urgent about that update.
Jesse was the show’s audi-
ence surrogate, the tortured
conscience of a criminal
demimonde populated by milquetoast
psychos (Walt, Todd, Gus Fring) and
sad, irredeemably compromised men
like Saul Goodman and Mike Ehrman-
traut. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie,
which comes to Netflix and some the-
aters on Oct. 11, offers Jesse a chance
to start over. It’s the latest in a recent
with the same wistfulness that colors
our memories of friends with whom
we’ve lost touch. Film franchises based
on decades-old series with loyal fan
bases, from Star Trek to The Muppet
Show, can still be relied upon to rake
in millions. These new chapters can be
great, but only if they have something to
offer audiences besides nostalgia.
Deadwood, for instance, had unfin-
ished business. HBO canceled the bril-
liant western in 2006 between seasons,
before creator David Milch could wrap
up a series-long arc driven by power,
progress and greed. It took so long to
get this year’s culminating made-for-TV
movie made that Milch ended up set-
ting it a decade after the events of the
series finale, as older, more settled char-
acters reunited to celebrate South Dako-
ta’s statehood. The film left a few of the
drama’s best characters, like widowed
financier Alma Garret (Molly Parker),
with little to do. Yet new historical per-
spective and a poignant resolution for
Deadwood’s greatest creation—Ian Mc-
Shane’s Shakespearean saloon owner Al
Swearengen—made the ride back into
town worthwhile.
Spun off from shows that aired for
long enough to start repeating them-
selves, the Downton Abbey and Trans-
parent movies had less reason to exist.
The former, a glossy gown-fest con-
trived around the Crawleys hosting theTimeOff Opener
boom of TV-to-film adaptations of vary-
ing quality. For better or worse, these
sequels exist thanks to the devotion of
fans—and particularly the lasting bonds
we form with characters like Jesse.ObviOusly, El Camino and the rest of
this year’s many feature-length addenda
to popular shows— Deadwood: The
Movie, Transparent: Musicale Finale,
Downton Abbey, even Rocko’s Modern
Life: Static Cling—are in-
separable from the larger,
more established trend of
squeezing every possible
cent out of existing intel-
lectual properties. Stories
don’t end anymore. Cin-
ematic universes actually
do feel infinite. Forget the
Disney–Marvel–Star Wars
machine; even Margaret
Atwood’s literary classic The Hand-
maid’s Tale has a sequel now.
Yet there’s a unique potency to audi-
ences’ connections with characters on
TV, which at its best combines the viv-
idness of movies, the intimacy of books
and the seriality of comics. Sometimes
we remember these fictional people△
The film reunites Jesse with pals
Badger (Matt L. Jones, left) and
Skinny Pete (Charles Baker)There’s
a unique
potency to the
connections
viewers
form with
TV charactersTELEVISION
When the finale
isn’t final
By Judy Berman