Rated El

It's been six years since the series finale of Breaking Bad perfectly concluded that show. So perfectly, in fact, that it seems like a risky proposition to even consider revisiting the story, as has now happened in the direct-to-Netflix movie El Camino.

El Camino picks up the action immediately after the finale, following Jesse Pinkman in the aftermath of his imprisonment as he evades law enforcement and struggles with his own PTSD. Intertwined with the action are flashbacks that fill in his year of captivity, demonstrating that as tortured and haunted as Jesse often was during the series, he is even more broken now.

It's likely that if Better Call Saul hadn't been running in the intervening years since Breaking Bad -- and proving to be every bit as compelling a series in that time -- the prospect of El Camino might not be welcome at all. But Better Call Saul built enough goodwill to change the math. Instead of fearing disaster, I went in assuming that creator Vince Gilligan wouldn't come back without good reason.

Watching El Camino, I suspect that reason was, above all, a desire simply to revisit characters he cared about, and reunite with actors he loved. I don't begrudge that, and indeed I share (to a lesser extent, surely) in the feeling. But the truth is that outside of nostalgia, El Camino doesn't offer all that much. It doesn't add a lot to the Breaking Bad story that you couldn't have conjured in your own imagination. It isn't essential or especially insightful.

That said, it doesn't mess anything up either. El Camino is like a jumbo-sized three part episode of the show (without commercial breaks). And though it doesn't rise to the lofty highs of Breaking Bad's finest hours, it does still feel warm and familiar. It makes you remember just how good the show was, and lets you bask in the enjoyment of it all. (If "enjoyment" is the right word to describe the complicated feelings you can have watching the morally ambiguous world of the series.)

It's actually a bit flippant to just call El Camino another "episode," though, because there are cinematic sensibilities about it. The movie is shot in a different aspect ratio than the series was made in, and uses different lenses. There's a lot more panoramic outdoor filming. It looks larger and more special, and if the events depicted don't necessarily seem to have grown to match that scale, perhaps it only feels that way because the show itself was already quite dramatic in scope, operatic with its characters.

It's a grand showcase for Aaron Paul in the role of Jesse. This hollowed-out version of the character calls for a different gear than Paul usually played in Breaking Bad, and he absolutely rises to the occasion. Meanwhile, a bunch of cameo appearances from actors who appeared in the show let you revisit characters you loved (or loved to hate).

I'd give El Camino a B+. If you're a Breaking Bad fan, you can watch it without any risk of damaging the experience of the show itself, or its fitting ending. On the other hand, "episode" or not, it's not likely to supplant whichever of the true episodes of the series was your favorite.