Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul had a simple solution to replicating Walter White's baldness for Bryan Cranston's highly-anticipated cameo. Walter and Jesse return in Better Call Saul season 6, episode 11, which is appropriately titled "Breaking Bad." It's a nod to the spinoff's parent show, but also links back to Breaking Bad season 2, episode 8, "Better Call Saul", the events of which form the crux of Walter and Jesse's cameo in flashback. Viewers last saw Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul reprise their roles as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman in 2019's Breaking Bad spinoff movie El Camino.
El Camino followed Jesse as he attempted to escape Albuquerque in the immediate aftermath of Breaking Bad. It combined this story with flashbacks to unseen moments from the Breaking Bad timeline. One of these flashbacks saw Walter and Jesse have a rare heart-to-heart over breakfast. Due to Bryan Cranston's busy schedule, he didn't have the time to shave his head to reprise his role as Walter and had to use a slightly unconvincing bald cap. Better Call Saul avoids this issue with one very simple trick.
Better Call Saul's Walter and Jesse flashback takes place during their first encounter when they kidnap Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) in an attempt to silence their incarcerated dealer Badger. In order to put the frighteners on Saul Goodman, Walter and Jesse pull on ski masks and drive him out to an open grave in the desert. In flashing back to this particular moment during Better Call Saul's "Breaking Bad" episode, the show removes the need for Bryan Cranston to wear an unconvincing bald cap. All he has to do is roll up the ski mask and wear it as a hat, essentially covering up his real hair.
Why Bryan Cranston's Walter White Return Was So Good
Both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul ease back into their roles as Walter and Jesse in Better Call Saul. Their bickering about the RV's name and how best to drive the so-called "Crystal Ship" is hilarious and transports audiences back to more comic moments from earlier episodes of Breaking Bad. As actors, it must have been hard for both Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul to return to Walter and Jesse at an earlier point in their character arc, before the traumatic events of Breaking Bad's final episodes. None of this difficulty translates to the screen, however, and the performances from Cranston, Paul, and Bob Odenkirk aids Better Call Saul's perfect Walt and Jesse's return.
The return of early Breaking Bad's bumbling and amateur protagonists forms a neat continuity with amateur scammers Jeff and Buddy in Better Call Saul's Gene timeline. It also reaffirms how perfectly cast Bryan Cranston was in the role of Walter White. Like Bob Odenkirk, Cranston's background was in TV comedy and he perfectly deployed his career experience to amplify Breaking Bad's black humor. The quickfire comedic back and forth in Better Call Saul's RV flashback is a reminder of what a gifted comic actor Cranston is, perfectly playing the straight man to both Jesse Pinkman and Saul Goodman.
The lack of a distracting bald cap puts the focus squarely on Cranston's performance as Walter White. The return of Walter and Jesse in Better Call Saul isn't an empty piece of fan service, it helps to build upon Jimmy McGill's overall story. This narrative importance is backed up by Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul's committed performances in reprising their iconic characters. Having those performances cheapened by internet memes about Bryan Cranston's unconvincing bald cap would be an insulting distraction from Better Call Saul's final episodes.
New episodes of Better Call Saul air Mondays on AMC.