EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE Almost Had a Very Different Ending For Jesse Pinkman

Netflix recently released Vince Gilliigan’s El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and I thought it was fantastic! It was quite an emotional and intense ride. Just being reminded of all the insane shit that Aaron Paul’s Jesse Pinkman went through in the series. This poor guy deserved a proper ending to his story and I’m happy that Gilligan gave him that.

If you haven’t seen El Camino yet…

The ending we got in the movie wasn’t the original ending that Gilligan had in store for Jesse. He was planning something very different and I’m glad that Gilligan had smart people around him to tell him it was a bad idea.

During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Gilligan talked about the ending of the series, explaining, “I thought it was up to the audience to figure out how Jesse got away, but that it was enough to see him driving off into the night victorious.” He went on to say that as the years went by he started to wonder about Jesse:

“But then as the years started to pass, I found myself wondering at idle moments, ‘How exactly did he get away? Because that’s no easy feat! And what if he didn’t get away? What if he got busted right around the next corner?’”

Turns out his original idea for the film’s ending involved Jesse getting busted at the end of the movie!

“I even played with telling that story in a movie, and luckily smarter brains prevailed. The people that I love and trust, starting with my girlfriend Holly, said, ‘You cannot have Jesse Pinkman get busted at the end of this thing. You cannot go that route.’ And I said, ‘Okay. All right, honey.’ [Laughs] I’m glad I listened to her and I listened to [Breaking Bad executive producer/Better Call Saul co-creator] Peter Gould and the Better Call Saul writers.”

Good thing he listened! It was a relief to see Jesse get away to start a new life in Alaska. After the horrific experience he went through, he needed to find peace! The fans would’ve been pissed if he would have got caught!

Turns out, Aaron Paul never knew about this ending until he was told about it in this interview. When asked about it, he said, “He never said that to me. Wow. That’s so interesting.” He went on to add:

“I mean, I’m happy that he’s not caught, you know? I’m happy that he got away. There’s some things like as a fan — the parents of the boy who was shot on the bike, I wish they knew what happened to their kid. There’s little things like that that I would love their family to find out. But also, it’s so perfect and that’s what really tore at Jesse. He’s an emotional creature. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and he cares about people and cares about kids and their well-being.”

What did you all think about El Camino? Did you like the ending that Pinkman got, or is there another way you would have liked to see it play out?