soooo what are your thoughts on ed as the ferryman? 👀
Do you know ( you can’t know) I’ve been working on organising my thoughts regarding that post you wrote about el camino since Friday 😅 but I’m very distracted by Life Stuff and it’s been hard to put them in some coherent order…. I’ve got a word doc sitting at 1300 words but I’m just gonna dive into this by the seat of my pants.
For me Ed represents something there ‘before’. Older than the criminal world Jesse has known, and enduring before the events of Breaking Bad— and, presumably, much of the storyline in Better Call Saul.
So he already has this timeless, stuff of legend patina about him. A Greek/Roman parallel to the Christian iconography used for Jesse. El Camino* seems more like a descent into the underworld, than a road to redemption film to me. And he service Ed provides, ferrying the desperate into their new lives, like Charon taking the dead across the Styx. All judgement withheld, as long as one pays.
Jesse’s in Ed world now, so he has to abide by his rules. He has to pay to get across the river, or risk wandering the (criminal)underworld riverbank in lack-of-new-identity limbo forever. Ed has an almost resigned attitude when Jesse asks if his word is his bond. Almost reluctant to admit it. Like he considers himself duty bound to be a guide, and there's something evocative of myth/fable with how strictly he adheres to his rule.
I have more thoughts about THAT exchange in the store, to be saved for another time.
[* and lengthy sidebar with some other El Camino thoughts I've been trying to work through lol.
I was wondering about how that Jesse/Jesus parallel is potentially skewed with Walt’s death. What purpose does Christ’s suffering serve if God is the one who dies in the end? I don’t know if that frees him from the constraints of the comparison, or is just… like you say thematic mess and I’m giving it more credit than it’s due lol.
El Camino, just from the title alone, feels like it should be leaning into the salvation or pilgrimage theme much more than events of the film suggest. Much of it is still in line with the Christ-like parallels: Jesse's escape from the pit as death (or release from suffering), the events over the next few days as purgatory/limbo, Alaska as resurrection... but the fact Jesse resorts to killing as a means to liberation, and with less hesitation than he showed in BrBa, reads a lot bleaker.
Mike kind of sets the tone by the river, reminding Jesse he can never 'put things right'. And retconned as that comment is, I can see it echoing in Jesse's head, compounding his guilt in the final season of BrBa. But again... bleak reading. I'm not sure 'you can't ever truly atone' is the read we're meant to have, but it's...sort of sitting there nevertheless.
Weirdly, considering I've been working on a more hopeful 'Jesse in Alaska' story for *gulp* six years, his escape to Alaska always struck me as rather bleak and I think he'd have a rough go of it up there. Beautiful as it no doubt is, can't ignore the long dark nighttimes of the soul playing out as actual long dark daytimes for months out of the year.
Perhaps El Camino is Doomed by the Genre to an extent. It's more of a western in style, and every western needs its climatic shootout. Maybe Vince et al just panicked when they realised they could never have Jesse end up in a prison cell and this was the only way they could see him get away lol. /end sidebar ]
At the end of the day, I am glad the movie exists, and I DO like it very much. It's thanks to the questions it raises that I got into the fanfic side of things with BrBa/BCS, so it's a heartfelt A- from me, if we're grading things.
