The return of Better Call Saul final season. When Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul's Better Call Saul cameos were announced, there was some trepidation about how they would work and whether they'd be required to wrap up the story of Jimmy McGill's transition into Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk). Thankfully, those concerns were addressed swiftly with three perfectly pitched scenes that helped Better Call Saul bring the story of Breaking Bad to a definitive close.
Now, a new commercial for Frito-Lay's PopCorners threatens to undermine Cranston and Paul's iconic characters. Created for 2023's Super Bowl, the ad reunites Walter, Jesse, and Tuco for a different take on Breaking Bad's first season. Taking place out in the desert, Walter and Jesse are hard at work cooking a batch of delicious PopCorners, rather than crystal meth. After taking them to drug lord Tuco Salamanca (Raymond Cruz), they're asked to come up with more delicious flavors for him to sell.
It's a decidedly PG-13 take on the plot of Breaking Bad, and one that takes away from the conclusion of Better Call Saul.
Walt & Jesse's Commercial Hurt Better Call Saul's Ending
The ending of Better Call Saul was a perfect reminder of how Walter White was a villain and not someone to be looked up to. In the years following the Breaking Bad finale, Walter was seen as an anti-hero whose image was plastered on t-shirts, plushies, and novelty doormats. Better Call Saul's Walter White cameos fixed this by reminding audiences how vain and arrogant Walter was. The PopCorners commercial undoes this by restoring him to the same pop culture icon that adorned novelty keychains. Similarly and sadly, Jesse is regressed back to the slightly moronic drug dealer that Walter first encountered at the start of Breaking Bad.
Audiences saw Jesse Pinkman routinely manipulated by Walter, until he finally took a stand, finally achieving a happy ending of sorts by escaping to Alaska in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie. Jesse arguably had the most important cameo in Better Call Saul's final season, in which he met Jimmy's ex-wife Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn) outside the offices of Saul Goodman. Their scene together emphasized how far Jimmy had fallen into criminality, while also revealing that Kim inspired a key Breaking Bad moment - the hiring of Saul Goodman by Walter and Jesse.
Do Walt & Jesse Need ANOTHER Return Now?
Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul resurrecting their iconic characters to sell chips is a disappointment. Cranston and Paul have a history of trading off their on-screen partnership, having previously founded the spirits' company Dos Hombres Mezcal, but were wise not to use their Breaking Bad characters to do so. The resurrection of Walt and Jesse for PopCorners may leave a sour taste in the mouth of Breaking Bad viewers, who may feel that they need one final appearance to rehabilitate their characters.
Thankfully, because it's a comedy commercial, rather than a canonical outing for Walt and Jesse, it's ultimately disposable. PopCorners' new "Break into Something Good" campaign will likely last for a few months before it's forgotten about. The legacy of both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul will last far longer than a silly parody ad for a line of air-popped chips. If anything, the PopCorners ad confirms that the characters of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman should finally be put to rest.