Jesse Pinkman isthe most loathsome and pathetic, yet celebrated sidekick in television history. What this whiny little cretin deserved was to spend an eternity as a meth-cooking indentured servant, not a leisurely drive into the Alaskan sunset. El Camino should have been about a reckoning, not a reward at the end for a duplicitous, cold-blooded murderer. When we first meet Jesse in Breaking Bad, he is a dope-smoking, meth-cooking, functionally illiterate slacker with nothing but prison or a shallow grave in his future. Everything that brings about Walt's demise, including the deaths of Hank and Steve, has Jesse's fingerprints all over it. He only got involved with Gustavo's super lab because he threatened to become a rat. Hank was murdered by Jack as a direct result of Pinkman becoming an informant. Walt brought everything on himself, but at least he owned who he was. He accepted it. And he suffered the consequences. A lot of good people died as a result of Jesse's not being able to own his actions. And his only punishment was a few months in purgatory. Pinkman was originally slated to be killed of in Season One. The BB universe would have been much better off. Had the creators gone with their original idea, perhaps the BB universe might have ended with a bang.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Breaking Bad Universe Ends With A Whimper
20 March 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Jesse Pinkman is the most loathsome and pathetic, yet celebrated sidekicks in television history. What this whiny little cretin deserved was to spend an eternity as a meth-cooking indentured servant, not a leisurely drive into the Alaskan sunset. El Camino should have been about a reckoning, not a reward at the end for a duplicitous, cold-blooded murderer.
When we first meet Jesse in Breaking Bad, he is a dope-smoking, meth-cooking, functionally illiterate slacker with nothing but prison or a shallow grave in his future.
Everything that brings about Walt's demise, including the deaths of Hank and Steve, has Jesse's fingerprints all over it. He only got involved with Gustavo's super lab because he threatened to become a rat.
Hank was murdered by Jack as a direct result of becoming an informant.
Walt brought everything on himself, but at least he owned who he was. HE accepted it. And he suffered the consequences. A lot of good people died as a result of Jess's not being able to own his actions. And his only punishment was a few months in purgatory.
Pinkman was originally slated to be killed of in Season One. The BB universe would have been much better off. Had the creators gone with their original idea, perhaps the BB universe might have ended with a bang.
Last Call
(I) (2021)
A Pointless Non-Comedy
20 March 2021
The audience seems to be divided into two camps: Friends and family of the director and/or cast, who shamelessly give this "movie" a 10, and everyone else, most of whom begrudgingly give it a 1, because ZERO is not an option.
Jeremy Piven should have taken Ari Gold's advice to Vincent and read the script before taking this gig. But maybe he couldn't, because THERE WAS NO SCRIPT. Just bad improvisation. His character sums it up perfectly near the end of this arduous slog: "The fish stinks from the head down." Everything about Last Call stunk. Originally titled, Crabs In A bucket, I think someone realized that the plot, such as it is, didn't really reflect a grasp of the metaphor. But changing the title was merely putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. What they really needed to do here was write a script. Cobbling together a collection of drunken montages punctuated by cringe-inducing ad-libbing and bad Irish accents is not comedy, it's painful. The actors, from Jeremy Piven on down seem completely lost in the absence of both written dialogue and direction. This would have been cheaper and much funnier to just point a camera inside a real life bar. And far less insulting to a viewing audience.
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