Breaking Bad creator admits he used El Camino to deal with his regrets from the celebrated drama
BREAKING Bad creator Vince Gilligan has admitted he used El Camino to deal with his regrets from the celebrated drama.
The Netflix film was released last week and picks up where the finale ended – as Jesse Pinkman escapes from a white supremacist compound where he was being tortured.
While Vince is extremely proud of the TV series, which aired for five seasons from 2008 until 2013, the film gave him chance to address one of his few regrets.
In the movie, a number of flashback scenes show Jesse with Todd Alquist, the sociopath who tortured him at the white supremacist compound.
While Jesse finally got revenge on Todd in the Breaking Bad finale, Vince was pleased to be able to explore more of Todd’s character in the flashbacks.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he explained: “We did talk a lot about Todd in the writers’ room. We were fascinated by his character and for my taste, we did not get enough Todd in Breaking Bad.
“I have to add that as a reason why I really was interested in doing this movie. Todd kind of snuck up on all of us writers.
“He is a character quite unlike any I’ve ever seen in a movie. He’s just a fascinating character.
“He’s the most weirdly likeable sociopath that I’ve ever seen.
“And the way Jesse Plemons plays him is so matter of fact and so perfect, that if I had any regrets at all at the end of Breaking Bad — and they were few and far between — but one I might’ve given voice to at the time was, ‘Man, I wish we’d seen a little more Todd, because this guy fascinates me.’
“And luckily, we were able to do that with this movie.”
One of the things Vince liked most about Todd was how different he is to how sociopaths are normally portrayed on screen.
He continued: “Usually when you have a sociopathic killer, there’s always some element, however subtle it may be, of mustache twirling.
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“The way psychopaths or sociopaths are very often portrayed in movies is that they get pleasure from killing and from torturing and from inflicting pain.
“There’s always some element of pleasure, some sly smile. It’s become such a trope.
“And the thing about Todd is: he doesn’t get any pleasure from killing people, but man, he’ll do it in a heartbeat if it serves his purposes.
“And he’ll feel bad about it, kind of like the average person might feel a little bit bad about killing an ant or a mosquito or something. But then he’ll instantly forget about it.”