Breaking Bad Movie Has A Sneaky Los Pollos Hermanos Easter Egg
El Camino: A Breaking Bad movie is full of Easter eggs and references to the original TV series, including a cool nod to Los Pollos Hermanos.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie sneaks in a Los Pollos Hermanos Easter egg, calling back to Gus Fring’s famous chicken restaurant. El Camino follows almost immediately on from the final episode of Breaking Bad, continuing the story of Jesse Pinkman as he seeks to escape the authorities and start a new life away from meth, Walter White and Neo-Nazi enslavement. Predictably, there are a whole host of Easter eggs for Breaking Bad fans to unearth in the sequel film, including a tarantula that belonged to one of Todd’s murder victims, a creepy allusion to Lydia, and various familiar visual cues.
Another subtle reference is made to Breaking Bad‘s Los Pollos Hermanos. In the revered television series, the fast food joint is owned by the villainous Gus Fring, who uses it as the legal front for his international meth empire. Despite (or perhaps because of) the seemingly innocuous setting, several memorable scenes take place within the walls of Los Pollos Hermanos, including Walt’s tense first meeting with Gus and a showdown with the Cousins. The restaurant and its ironically comedic logo became famous images among Breaking Bad fans and although Gus is long dead when El Camino takes place, the memory of Los Pollos Hermanos is cleverly honored in the movie.
In El Camino‘s establishing time-lapse scene, a restaurant called “Twisters” forms part of the scenic Albuquerque montage, and Breaking Bad fans might recognize its famous castle-like roof as the former building that, once upon a time, was known as Los Pollos Hermanos. Although seemingly of little importance, this brief shot actually serves a dual purpose. Firstly, Twisters is the real-life restaurant that doubled as the location for Los Pollos Hermanos during the filming of Breaking Bad, meaning El Camino is paying tribute to one of its most famous locations.
However, the Twisters reveal also has in-story ramifications. At the time of El Camino, Gus Fring has been dead for over a year, killed by Walter White and Hector Salamanca in the classic “Face Off” episode. The visual of the Twisters restaurant allows fans to draw their own conclusions as to the fate of Fring’s criminal empire, but it’s heavily implied that Los Pollos Hermanos has been closed down, forensically examined as a crime scene and then been sold on to a new owner that doesn’t have a side business as an international drug lord. The fact that the new name is the real-life restaurant is just the icing on the blue cake.
While the ultimate fate of Los Pollos Hermanos is irrelevant to the plot of El Camino, it’s details such as these that contribute to the intricate world building Vince Gilligan and Breaking Bad are known for. Showing the audience that Los Pollos Hermanos has changed hands helps color the setting of the post-Breaking Bad world of El Camino, letting viewers know that New Mexico has moved on from the dominance of Gus Fring using only a few frames, typical of Breaking Bad‘s economical storytelling.
