I find it a bit pointless to do an entirely spoiler-free review of something like El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. It is a movie that functions as a sequel to a TV show, and so giving it a spoiler-free recommendation like I usually would in a review is mostly pointless. If you’ve never seen Breaking Bad, then you have no business watching this until you do, because it will be completely lost on you. If you have seen Breaking Bad, then I don’t think you need me or anyone else to sell you on this. Since Breaking Bad was one of the best TV shows of all time, you already know whether El Camino is going to be up your alley or not. My quick, spoiler-free recommendation is to watch El Camino if you loved Breaking Bad, because it’s a satisfying addendum to the series. This review would be pretty much be over now if I chose to go spoiler-free, so I think it would be best to use this review as a discussion on things that transpire in El Camino, from one Breaking Bad fan to another. So, be warned, the rest of this review will contain spoilers for both the Breaking Bad TV series, and for El Camino.

All right, so the Breaking Bad series finale was one of those really satisfying finales that feels like it ties up all of its loose ends pretty nicely. The only real wild card there was Jesse Pinkman. Now it can be extrapolated from the finale that Jesse has a happy ending for himself, escaping his prison and driving off into the night. However, it was kind of left to the viewer to decide what happens to Jesse after he drives off. El Camino decides to be an entire movie based around what actually does happen, so that we have a satisfying, concrete conclusion to Jesse’s character. Unsurprisingly, most of El Camino deals with Jesse’s PTSD of being imprisoned for so long, while also having to flee from the police.

I think that the most surprising thing for me with El Camino is how necessary it ended up feeling by the end of it. Don’t get me wrong, we were all sad to see Breaking Bad end because of how amazing of a show it was, but I feel like it would have completely ruined the series to have brought it back for a new season. The ending was just so definitive, and so continuing the show from there just felt wrong. However, I never really realized how much I wanted to see more of what happened to Jesse, and El Camino provides that. It feels like a very organic coda to the series finale, just giving you enough of a mini-story to make it feel like it belongs with the show. El Camino never attempts to be some big return for Breaking Bad. It’s actually quite small-scale when it comes down to it, but it’s part of what works so well about it.

I think that my favorite thing about El Camino is that it manages to continue the story, while also bringing back some characters that we want to see. We have people like Mike, Todd, Jane, and even Walter White himself appear in never-before-seen flashbacks, and their presence is always welcome. Most of them play very minor roles, only being in the movie for a scene or two each, but it was just enough to feel like it belonged instead of just feeling fan service. That’s the other thing, too, is that these flashback scenes actually do feel like they matter in the movie. They tie into the overall narrative, and so it was a really clever way to bring back characters that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see, given their deaths in the series.

Jesse’s story from after he escapes the neo-Nazis is also very satisfying. Like I said, it is really small-scale, but that’s a compliment, not a bad thing. When you take out the flashback scenes from the movie, the plot here essentially boils down to Jesse getting a car from Badger, getting money from Todd’s apartment, getting a gun from his parents, killing the new bad guys, and then getting a new identity from Ed. When it comes down to it, that’s actually not that grand of a plot, especially considering this was the much-anticipated return for the series. However, its execution is so well-done that it feels just as amazing as you would expect from Breaking Bad. I was really happy to see where Jesse ends up, and it feels like a better end to his story than he got in the series.

Really, though, when it comes down it I mainly just loved El Camino because it allowed me to live in this world one more time with characters that I love. I was really reminded of this during key moments during the movie, such as the flashback involving Walter White. This scene really isn’t that consequential to the movie when it comes down to it, but seeing Bryan Cranston reprise that role one more time just gave me a real feeling of excitement. This basically sums up my feelings as a whole, where I was just happy to have the opportunity to experience a little bit more of Breaking Bad, and to have it be as satisfying as it was. I’m just grateful that this movie ever got made, because it was a welcome return to one of my favorite shows of all time.

4.5/5