Netflix's El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie Easter Eggs

The first cameo of the film came very early via a flashback scene of Jesse (Aaron Paul) and Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) discussing their plans for getting out of the three-ring circus that was their post-Fring meth business with Walter "Ticking Timebomb" White (Bryan Cranston). While Mike had no plans to leave town -- the presence of his granddaughter ensured he needed to keep his life in Albuquerque -- he told Jesse that the ideal fresh start would be in Alaska, "the last frontier." "Up there, you could be anything you want," he told him. Those words would ultimately resonate with Jesse and inform his exit strategy at the end of the film. (Note: Jesse also mentioned his interest in moving to Alaska in Breaking Bad's "Confessions," when he was awaiting pickup by the Disappearer in Saul's office. That scene would've taken place after this one, which takes place sometime before the moment in "Buyout" when Mike and Jesse tell Walt that they're both bowing out of the business.)

After escaping the compound and eluding authorities, Jesse turned to Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt Jones). Prior to Jesse's unexpected arrival, the two were hanging out in familiar circumstances; with a Big Gulp in the cupholder and video games on the TV screen. They were even wearing their signature clothing items from Breaking Bad: Skinny Pete's black beanie and Badger's patterned sweatshirt. As usual, the two came through for Jesse by giving him shelter, clothes, money, and going the distance (literally speaking) to help cover his tracks by way of a clever car switch plot that helped throw the police off his trail.

The DEA press conference which Skinny Pete and Badger watched was headed up by SAC Ramey (Todd Terry), who worked with Hank (Dean Norris) during a few key episodes in Breaking Bad. It's also worth noting that Skinny Pete has a picture of a lone wolf in the snow in his living room -- perhaps a nod to Jesse's future in Alaska.

Old Joe (Larry Hankin) was another familiar face to pop up in El Camino. Jesse turned to the junkyard owner to help destroy his escape car, the El Camino, because he knew it could be tied to his former captors. While Joe was willing to do the job for free because he considered Jesse a "good kid," and he even referenced their shared history with magnets, he soon discovered that the car was fitted with a tracking device and was being tagged by the police. Old Joe had been willing to stand up to lawmen in the past on Breaking Bad -- his knowledge of the Fourth Amendment certainly came in handy when Jesse was hiding out in the RV on his lot -- but this time, Joe decided to bow out before the heat arrived.

Todd (Jesse Plemons) became a central figure in El Camino's story. He appeared in flashbacks as the film revealed more about Jesse's time as a prisoner on the compound. Unsurprisingly, Todd was as soft-spoken and banal as ever, even as he committed horrific violence, like strangling his poor cleaning lady for accidentally finding his stash of money.

In one journey back to the compound where Jesse was held prisoner, the film reminded us of the picture of Andrea and Brock that Todd used as leverage to keep Jesse from trying to escape. In Breaking Bad, Todd murdered Andrea after Jesse's first attempt to leave, and in El Camino, when he brought Jesse out for a weekend of nefarious errands, he promised to pay "a visit" to the kid if Jesse tried to break free again.

The route to Todd's apartment brought him and Jesse to the intersection of Holly Ave. and Arroz Rd. Holly was the name of Walt's baby daughter in Breaking Bad. However, the intersection is also a nod to Vince Gilligan's longtime girlfriend, Holly Rice (arroz is rice in Spanish).

In Todd's apartment, Jesse spotted a tarantula in his bedroom. It's not clear if it was the same tarantula that belonged to Drew Sharp, but it certainly recalled the horror of the moment when, after the desert train heist, Todd decided to gun the kid down instead of finding out what he actually witnessed. The death of Drew Sharp was one of the turning points for Jesse's relationship with Todd, Walt, and the meth business as a whole.

When Jesse decided to scour Todd's apartment in hopes of finding his hidden money in El Camino, one of the first places he looked was underneath the kitchen sink. That was also where he hid his and Walt's meth stash during the events of Breaking Bad Season 2's "Mandala."

While rummaging through Todd's apartment in hopes of finding the money he'd bragged about hiding away, Jesse saw his own parents on the neighbor's news broadcast. He then tuned in at Todd's place to see them standing in front of their old home and encouraging him to turn himself into the authorities. During the interview, Jesse's dad also mentioned how well he could draw, a nod to several scenes in Breaking Bad which featured his imaginative childhood illustrations.

Among the wreckage of Todd's room was a Vamonos Pest Control shirt, a nod to the job Todd had before joining Walt's meth business in Breaking Bad.

Also spotted at Todd's house was a custom-made snow globe that looked to be a tribute to his strange, fawning relationship with Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser) -- check out the tea cup! Todd always seemed to have a particular fondness for Lydia in Breaking Bad, even if things never escalated beyond their professional relationship in the series. In another El Camino Easter egg, a news report revealed that a Houston woman connected to Heisenberg had been poisoned and was not expected to survive -- indicating that Walt's ricin dose was likely to do the trick and kill Lydia.

When Jesse returned to Todd's house to find his hidden money, he ultimately found it stashed away in the door of the refrigerator. The sight of it stacked up in that cramped space is somewhat reminiscent of when Walt hid his money behind the insulation in the walls of his home.

While most of Todd's uncle's crew didn't make it into El Camino, the film did feature the brief return of his second-in-command, Kenny (Kevin Rankin). The scene helped to establish the means through which the group made their lab into an inescapable prison for Jesse as he cooked for them: They hired a welder who didn't mind looking the other way as they taunted and tortured Jesse Pinkman.

Ed Galbraith, aka the Disappearer (Robert Forster), was the one Jesse turned to in hopes of buying his way into a new life. Although he couldn't remember the exact code Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) previously used to secure his services -- that'd be "a dust filter for a Hoover Max Extract 60 Pressure Pro" -- Ed ultimately agreed to help Jesse get out of town ... if he paid the $125,000 he owed him for the first botched extraction attempt in Breaking Bad plus another $125,000 for this one. Fans will recall that, in Breaking Bad, Jesse agreed to leave town at Walt's request -- nay, demand -- after being pinched by Hank (Dean Norris), but just as Ed was driving up, Jesse backed out. He realized that Saul had his henchman Huell lifted his pot from his pocket, which meant Huell probably did steal the ricin from him before, too, at Walt's behest. That revelation renewed his desire for vengeance against Walt, and he surrendered his one-way ticket out of town as a result. Luckily, Saul was wrong that Ed wouldn't ever give him a second chance, and he did indeed come through in getting him to Alaska -- after he got the rest of the money, of course.

Here we see Ed's old shop, Best Quality Vacuum Repair, looking exactly the same as it did before, with the same plain exterior and dumpy red minivan parked out back.

In an effort to get the rest of the money he needed for Ed, Jesse called his parents and tricked them into leaving their home so that he could break into the safe. In the course of the conversation, they also talked about Jake, Jesse's little brother. In Breaking Bad, Jesse's parents were very wary of letting Jesse have any contact with Jake, for fear that he might negatively influence the boy. But it was Jake who was hiding drugs in the house, and Jesse had to take the fall.

The person who accidentally discovered Jake's pot in Breaking Bad was his family's cleaning woman, and in El Camino, another cleaning woman found something she wasn't supposed to. Only this time, it cost her her life, as Todd decided to strangle her with a belt and have Jesse dispose of the body in the desert. Interestingly, strangulation is also the fate that would await Todd in Breaking Bad's series finale.

In Breaking Bad, bugs have always been pretty symbolic -- an entire episode was devoted to Walt's war with a fly, for crying out loud -- but beetles have particular significance for Jesse. His treatment of the animal proves that he has respect for life, even if he's still responsible for so many deaths. El Camino's inclusion of the moment featuring Jesse playing with a beetle is reminiscent of Season 2's "Peekaboo," when Jesse had to confront the methhead who robbed Skinny Pete. In the beginning of that episode he was playing with a beetle, but Skinny Pete came along and squished it without a second thought. At the end, Skinny Pete's attacker, Spooge, ended up having his own head crushed beneath an ATM machine. Although Jesse came in hoping for a semi-peaceful resolution, that didn't happen. Similarly, in El Camino, when Jesse came into Kandy's Welding Shop to get the extra $1,800 he needed for Ed's services, he asked nicely for it first ... but the situation still escalated to violence.

Perhaps the most anticipated character cameo of all came near the end when we finally saw a glimpse of Walter White with Jesse. In their El Camino scenes, the two were leaving a motel room, with their bullet-riddled RV still in the parking lot, before enjoying a diner breakfast with inane chatter about their next steps. They mentioned that the stash they've just made was worth about $1.3 million, which means that the scene took place during the events of Season 2's "4 Days Out," after they'd finished their binge-cook and escaped the desert and before Jesse dropped Walt off at the airport. At that time, Walt's health status would have been unclear, which is why Jesse's reassurance that his family would get his share would be so important to Walt. Their exchange in El Camino also reaffirmed his fatherly feelings for Jesse, as he tried to encourage him to consider going to college to pursue a career in business. The scene also included the one and only "Yeah, bitch!" of the movie, which was Jesse's signature catch phrase throughout Breaking Bad. Another Easter egg moment involving Walt happened when Jesse learned from a news broadcast that, yes, Walter White had perished at the compound and had a visibly conflicted reaction.

Here we see the RV parked outside of Walt and Jesse's hideaway diner, still boasting taped-over bullets in the door and long before Old Joe had to dismantle and destroy the roving lab so that the DEA couldn't get into it.

In one of El Camino's final moments, Jesse was shown giving Ed a goodbye letter to mail to Brock. Keeping Brock alive and free from harm by Todd was the sole prerogative for Jesse as he remained in captivity; Todd had previously gunned down the boy's mother, Andrea, after Jesse's first attempt to flee the compound.

The final cameo in El Camino was none other than Jane (Krysten Ritter), Jesse's former neighbor/landlord-turned-love interest who died by his side after relapsing and overdosing on heroin. Their scene calls back to a previous flashback in Season 3's "Abiquiu," when she and Jesse went to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum together and talked about the merits of her artwork. El Camino's scene with her is a direct extension of that discussion in which she rejects the notion that she should go where the universe takes her. Even Jesse's yellow sweatshirt is the same one from the original Breaking Bad scene.

Last but not least, the film also gave us one more glimpse at Jesse's 1984 Toyota Tercel for old time's sake. It may not have been the nicest car in the world, but it got him where he needed to go with a low enough profile throughout Breaking Bad. The car was also visible in the background of Jesse's opening scene with Mike, alongside Mike's car, in El Camino.