The new Breaking Bad movie, El Camino, tells the story of what happened to Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) in the immediate aftermath of the show. Now, writer and director Vince Gilligan has revealed two alternate endings that would have wrapped things up quite differently.
MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EL CAMINO FOLLOW BELOW THE IMAGE!
El Camino ends with Jesse successfully and murderously raising enough money to pay Ed (Robert Forster) for a one-way ticket to a new life in Alaska. Gilligan told Entertainment Weekly that one alternate idea he had was for Jesse to get caught by the police.
“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,” Gilligan said. “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?'”
Gilligan’s girlfriend, Holly Rice, told him that was a bad idea. “You cannot have Jesse Pinkman get busted at the end of this thing. You cannot go that route,'” Gilligan recalls Rice telling him. “And I said, ‘Okay. All right, honey.'”
As for the other El Camino alternate ending, Paul said Gilligan thought about having Jesse read his letter to Brock as part of a voiceover that would end the movie. Paul said he was “really crushed” that this idea was scrapped.
In the actual ending, Jesse hands the letter to Ed to deliver to Brock. It’s strongly suggested that the letter would have been Jesse’s way of trying to explain to Brock about all of the horrible things that happened in his young life that Jesse was in part responsible for.
“That letter to Brock was the very first thing that Vince wrote when writing this script,” Paul said. “Once he completed that letter, he started the script. Originally the voiceover of that letter was how the movie ended–just driving through Alaska and you could hear what was inside of that letter…. It’s heartbreaking, it’s beautiful, just honest. But Vince just thought, ‘You know what? Maybe it’s best left unknown.’ And we don’t need it. He was right. But I love knowing what was in the letter.”
Paul said he is sworn to secrecy, so he doesn’t ever plan to reveal the contents of the letter. “But… [Jesse] just could not be more open and honest. It’s just really him saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ and that’s it,” he said.
With El Camino now available on Netflix, what will Gilligan make next? After Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and El Camino, Gilligan recently explained that he wants to make an entirely new show.
Source: Gamespot El Camino Alternate Endings Revealed By Writer-Director [SPOILERS]