WARNING: The following contains spoilers for El Camino, A Breaking Bad Movie, now streaming on Netflix.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie brings back many faces from the acclaimed AMC drama, as writer/director Vince Gilligan chronicles Jesse Pinkman's (Aaron Paul) attempts to gain freedom from the meth business. In doing so, Gilligan drops some intriguing Easter eggs to the original series, which ended in 2013.
One of them pays tribute to one of the show's funniest, and most-memed, scenes, which has grown to become an iconic yet troublesome sequence.
In Jesse's flashbacks after escaping the Nazi gang that imprisoned him in Season 5, we see his time in captivity prior to the finale, "Felina." Todd (Jesse Plemons) offers him a break by taking him to remove the body of his housekeeper Sonia from his apartment for burial in the desert (she had accidentally discovered Todd's money stash).
However, Jesse finds a gun in the glove compartment, which results in tense stand-off in which he demands his freedom. Todd defuses the situation by telling Jesse this is a boys' road trip, and he was going to treat him to pizza and beer so they could celebrate together as brothers.
A nervous Todd asks Jesse what kind of pizza he'd like, to which Jesse says "pepperoni." Todd replies, "Pepperoni, sure, classic. I like that too," which leads to Jesse handing over the gun. With Brock, the young son of his ex-girlfriend Andrea (killed by Todd in Season 5), facing reprisal from the gang, Jesse is left with few options. All is seemingly forgiven, and Todd and Jesse continue on their way. But that "pepperoni" comment ties into Walter White's meltdown in the Breaking Bad Season 3 episode, "Caballo Sin Nombre."
There, Skyler (Anna Gunn) learned about Walt's meth business, and kicked him out of the house, eventually asking for a divorce. Walt showed up in this episode after picking up a pizza for their son, Flynn (RJ Mitte), and expects Skyler to take him back, at least long enough for family dinner. However, she rejects his self-invitation, and as an enraged Walt storms off, he hurls the pizza onto the roof of the house.
A symbol of Walt's frustration, it become one of the most memorable comedic moments of the drama -- so much so that Breaking Bad fans would throw pizzas onto the roof of the house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gilligan had to plead with them to stop. Fans were drawn to the location like a shrine, to the point the homeowners wanted to build a security fence.
Of course, having to clean pizza off the roof would have been annoying, as Walt found out later on when Skyler let him back in for the sake of their son. So one can't blame the actual homeowners for taking issue. The "pepperoni" gag also reached Jesse's friends, the junkies known as Slim Pete and Badger, who discussed whether it should be sliced or unsliced. Aas Walt's pizza demonstrates, Albuquerque serves it unsliced. Jesse and Todd didn't get that far in, though, but as El Camino illustrates, pizza is always something up for discussion, even if it's with a cold-blooded killer as you bargain for your freedom.
Written and directed by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie stars Aaron Paul. The film is available to stream now on Netflix, with a later release scheduled for AMC.