The 30-second spot begins with Aaron Paul’s Jesse sampling some of the product –- in this case, PopCorners chips. Like the pair’s small-screen commodity of the crystal blue persuasion, PopCorners are “simple ingredients,” handled with care and precise attention to detail by skilled cooks. The show’s drugspeak – from “We don’t eat our own supply” to “Everyone’s going to want a taste” – marries with the delightful sight of seeing Bryan Cranston once again don the porkpie hat and Paul swim in oversized streetwear to deliver exactly the kind of cheeky ad that makes Super Bowl viewers hesitate to grab that bathroom break between plays.
But wait, there’s more!
Raymond Cruz returns as fan favorite Tuco Salamanca, the ruthless, sociopathic Mexican drug kingfish and primary distributor for Walt and Jesse’s illicit product. His signature “Tight, tight, tight!” phrase finds purpose in the new ad as he samples the PopCorners and declares them to be thusly so. Those wondering why his demands for seven flavors instead of the six originally promised was immediately met need look no further than “Breaking Bad” season one, wherein Tuco lets his fists do the talking. That said, there may also be the added threat of Tuco’s Juarez Cartel assassin cousins Leonel and Marco Salamanca (Daniel Moncada and Luis Moncada) to further quell any pushback from the cooks.
As much as the stars are there to push the product, you really need an enthusiastic salesman to truly hype it up beyond all the ingredient-speak, and few on the “Breaking Bad” series (save for the slick Saul Goodman, perhaps) have the acumen and volatile erraticism to hawk snacks with the right kind of sincerity needed for sports hooligans. Tuco’s tight delivery is the commercial’s greatest push to, as the tagline purports, “Break into something good.”