Television Better Call Saul | Includes Breaking Bad Spoilers

Same as you @Sylar: I almost completely forgot about BB so watching this show was really on its own merit. Even if there was no BB, this show would have still been this bad. It was boring in general, very little happening.

Cina said:
It certainly wasn't rubbish.
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I always have high expectations, unlike you my friend.
 
kouroux said:
I always have high expectations, unlike you my friend.
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If the 1st season of BB was rubbish, I'd hate to know what you think of other shows. You must positively loathe almost everything else.
 
I'm not sure exactly how to react to it. I mean I like the show, that much I know. I enjoy the characters and how they interact with each other. The criticism of the over-arching story not being up to much was always valid thought, though I thought it was coming together a bit after episode 9. This episode did feel a bit randomly tacked on.

Still I expect the second season to be better, so it hasn't put me off watching it or anything, but I doubt I'll be rushing to re-watch this season.
 
Rado_N said:
Yep, which was in the second episode!

Plus the fulminated mercury explosive at Tuco's office.

There's loads that happens in BB season one, and it was 3 episodes shorter than BCS as well.
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They're incomparable to be fair. Better Call Saul was good, as I said I enjoyed it. But it was... I don't know... Spurs good. Maybe Everton or West Ham good. Breaking Bad was United good.
 
I thought season 2 ending was rubbish compared to the rest of the show. Season 1 was intense and had so many awesome scenes. Walter shaving his head and then "bombin" Tucos office happened in season1 right? That was epic (as were other scenes)
"tiiiight, tight, tight tight yeah".

For me, BCS best moment / scene was when Jimmy got torn down by his brother in the penultimate episode but it didnt compare. Not to say it wont get better, imo Season 1 was a "foundation" (hopefully) for the rest of the series. But I really think Season 2 needs to balls to the wall however even if they dont, I feel BB fans will still watch and still rate it 10/10 on imdb lol
 
We need more Mike in season two. He's a far more watchable and interesting character to me. Make him the co-lead.
 
Foundation is a good word for this show I think. Hopefully season 1 is a foundation for the rest of the show. Worst case scenario, the whole show is simply a foundation for BB and it has little to offer in its own right. But I don't think they'll let that happen and it'll kick on from here.
 
Adebesi said:
Foundation is a good word for this show I think. Hopefully season 1 is a foundation for the rest of the show. Worst case scenario, the whole show is simply a foundation for BB and it has little to offer in its own right. But I don't think they'll let that happen and it'll kick on from here.
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I originally thought this program would be pretty much a comedy. having watched this season, it was a lot more brooding than I had anticipated.

However, the ending basically sets up the next season to be "monster of the week" comedy fayre - IF they want to take it that way
 
I like the concept in general and it could have legs, but it definitely needs to step up in the 2nd series, as another season of that will just be drab. It will certainly need to be more entertaining, as I think many people are on the verge of giving it up.

I have hope though that the 2nd season will become a lot more "Saul".
 
A fittingly meandering finale for a meandering show.

I didn't buy Saul's reasoning for breaking bad at all, even though it was set up painstakingly. The idea that he's 'chosen' to be this low rent scummy lawyer just doesn't really fly. I mean, he could still be a high flying scummy lawyer? It's not like doing the right thing is a pre-requisite of working at any level of lawyering, let alone the highest. Not being a lawyer at all would've been a more rational epiphany, not just triumphantly deciding to be a significantly less successful one!
 
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Mockney said:
A fittingly meandering finale for a meandering show.

I didn't buy Saul's reasoning for breaking bad at all, even though it was set up painstakingly. The idea that he's 'chosen' to be this low rent scummy lawyer just doesn't really fly. I mean, he could still be a high flying scummy lawyer? It's not like doing the right thing is a pre-requisite of working at any level of lawyering, let alone the highest. Not being a lawyer at all would've been a more rational epiphany, not just triumphantly deciding to be a significantly less successful one!
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Yeah it doesn't really make any sense unless he has some kind of plan in mind to cream more money than he'd get for taking the job with the other firm. I hope so because otherwise it just doesn't wash as a logical character arc. I guess they were trying to push the idea that he's thinking that by working for criminals there will be far more opportunities like the $1.6m Kettleman money.

SqueakyWeasel said:
I loved it … not sure what everyone expected from a show that will end with him being the lawyer that we all know from BB?

Great show!
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What's that got to do with the quality of the show?
 
SqueakyWeasel said:
I loved it … not sure what everyone expected from a show that will end with him being the lawyer that we all know from BB?

Great show!
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In fairness the show itself has showed some glimpses of how good it could be with some of the Mike episodes and the second last episode with Chuck v. Saul but on balance there were a few too many slower moving episodes. They are needed to balance the series and anchor it in reality somewhat but I think the ratio of average episodes to great episodes was off. The second last episode was great but the finale was a damp squib.

Realistically though, the pinkie ring and the fracture of his relationship with Chuck probably sets up the more devious side to the character so should allow more interesting escapades for the next series.
 
Mockney said:
A fittingly meandering finale for a meandering show.

I didn't buy Saul's reasoning for breaking bad at all, even though it was set up painstakingly. The idea that he's 'chosen' to be this low rent scummy lawyer just doesn't really fly. I mean, he could still be a high flying scummy lawyer? It's not like doing the right thing is a pre-requisite of working at any level of lawyering, let alone the highest. Not being a lawyer at all would've been a more rational epiphany, not just triumphantly deciding to be a significantly less successful one!
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This was definitely my biggest grip with the episode / finale. His decision when he got into the car park, and his conversation with Mike on the way out, didnt seem believable or rational on any level, really. He might as well have stayed in Chicago with his Slippin Jimmy routine.
 
Adebesi said:
This was definitely my biggest grip with the episode / finale. His decision when he got into the car park, and his conversation with Mike on the way out, didnt seem believable or rational on any level, really. He might as well have stayed in Chicago with his Slippin Jimmy routine.
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Exactly. The whole "I don't need my brothers approval anymore/Marco died happy doing what he loved" arc didn't actually tally with his decision at all. If he'd gone back to being a conman it might have, but all he's done here is turn down one job - the one he thought would make his brother proud - for a lower paid, lower status version of exactly the same job. No one would do that!

CassiusClaymore said:
Yeah it doesn't really make any sense unless he has some kind of plan in mind to cream more money than he'd get for taking the job with the other firm. I hope so because otherwise it just doesn't wash as a logical character arc. I guess they were trying to push the idea that he's thinking that by working for criminals there will be far more opportunities like the $1.6m Kettleman money.
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It seems like retroactive mythmaking on the part of the writers to me. "If Jimmy turns down success to deliberately become the Saul everyone loves, that makes his Saul-ness even cooler!"..Only it doesn't, because it's weird and illogical. It's always nice to have the main character make some kind of 'choice' so he can be proactive, but they seem to have crow barred it in at the cost of logic.

We also know he doesn't succeed if his plan is to become more successful on the criminal side, so there's not really anywhere to go with that as a plot. He's turned down guaranteed money for possible money. Which sadly kinda makes me look back on Breaking Bad Saul as a bit of an idiot. I always thought of him as someone who wanted to be taken seriously, or at least rich, but was doing the best with what he had. Now I'm forced to see him as some kind of masochist in it for the kicks of low rent criminality, because..."..hey, it worked for Walter White?"
 
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I liked the show. But that's about it. I didn't love it. i was very excited about where it was heading after about 3 episodes but it failed to build. Even when some of the early episodes were slow, I was ok with it because I thought it was building to something. But it didn't really and it felt like a season of filler. It was a story arc that could have been covered in a few episodes and really we're not much further along. It certainly doesn't have me waiting on the edge of my seat for season 2. But I will, of course, watch season 2.
 
Mockney said:
Exactly. The whole "I don't need my brothers approval anymore/Marco died happy doing what he loved" arc didn't actually tally with his decision at all. If he'd gone back to being a conman it might have, but all he's done here is turn down one job - the one he thought would make his brother proud - for a lower paid, lower status version of exactly the same job. No one would do that!



It seems like retroactive mythmaking on the part of the writers to me. "If Jimmy turns down success to deliberately become the Saul everyone loves, that makes his Saul-ness even cooler!"..Only it doesn't, because it's weird and illogical. It's always nice to have the main character make some kind of 'choice' so he can be proactive, but they seem to have crow barred it in at the cost of logic.

We also know he doesn't succeed if his plan is to become more successful on the criminal side, so there's not really anywhere to go with that as a plot. Which sadly kinda makes me look back on Breaking Bad Saul as a bit of an idiot. I always thought of him as someone who wanted to be legit, or taken seriously, but was doing the best with what he had. Now I'm forced to see him as some kind of masochist in it for the kicks of low rent criminality, because..."..hey, it worked for Walter White?"
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Exactly. Walt really has no other option so his choice to 'break bad' makes sense. This doesn't.

I still suspect the angle they'll go with is that Jimmy/Saul expects more Kettleman style opportunities by doing things his own way but things don't work out as planned for him as he gets mixed up with more and more unsavoury characters. Mike will probably get him out of a scrape or two.
 
Mockney said:
Exactly. The whole "I don't need my brothers approval anymore/Marco died happy doing what he loved" arc didn't actually tally with his decision at all. If he'd gone back to being a conman it might have, but all he's done here is turn down one job - the one he thought would make his brother proud - for a lower paid, lower status version of exactly the same job. No one would do that!



It seems like retroactive mythmaking on the part of the writers to me. "If Jimmy turns down success to deliberately become the Saul everyone loves, that makes his Saul-ness even cooler!"..Only it doesn't, because it's weird and illogical. It's always nice to have the main character make some kind of 'choice' so he can be proactive, but they seem to have crow barred it in at the cost of logic.

We also know he doesn't succeed if his plan is to become more successful on the criminal side, so there's not really anywhere to go with that as a plot. He's turned down guaranteed money for possible money. Which sadly kinda makes me look back on Breaking Bad Saul as a bit of an idiot. I always thought of him as someone who wanted to be taken seriously, or at least rich, but was doing the best with what he had. Now I'm forced to see him as some kind of masochist in it for the kicks of low rent criminality, because..."..hey, it worked for Walter White?"
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I'm not sure how I feel about how it ended, but I think Chuck kinda imploded the dream of Jimmy the big time lawyer, that job in the other firm was a poisoned chalice the moment that rant left his lips, even if Jimmy had been a success, he'd have gotten in via the back door and not had to earn it in Chuck's eyes. Which is what it was all about in the first place, Jimmy wanted to prove his brother he'd changed/ make him proud, but no matter what he did it wouldn't have mattered to Chuck because, to him, the methodology is as important as the end goal, which Jimmy fundamentally neither agrees with nor understands.

Sure, he'd have gotten the money, the expensive stuff and the status but he wouldn't get the validation from his brother that he craved, also he'd have been bored shitless in about 3 months.

The criminality might be low rent, but the kicks are about selfworth, every time he cons someone he's proving himself to be smarter than them, to him a shortcut is better cause it's faster. He cons the system with his skill set as a lawyer which provides the validation.

I suppose in that way he is similar to Walter, who was all about the power and pride, the money seemed important to him, but wasn't really, he kept coming up with rationalisations for ever higher numbers.
 
Lastwolf said:
I'm not sure how I feel about how it ended, but I think Chuck kinda imploded the dream of Jimmy the big time lawyer, that job in the other firm was a poisoned chalice the moment that rant left his lips, even if Jimmy had been a success, he'd have gotten in via the back door and not had to earn it in Chuck's eyes. Which is what it was all about in the first place, Jimmy wanted to prove his brother he'd changed/ make him proud, but no matter what he did it wouldn't have mattered to Chuck because, to him, the methodology is as important as the end goal, which Jimmy fundamentally neither agrees with nor understands.

Sure, he'd have gotten the money, the expensive stuff and the status but he wouldn't get the validation from his brother that he craved, also he'd have been bored shitless in about 3 months.

The criminality might be low rent, but the kicks are about selfworth, every time he cons someone he's proving himself to be smarter than them, to him a shortcut is better cause it's faster. He cons the system with his skill set as a lawyer which provides the validation.

I suppose in that way he is similar to Walter, who was all about the power and pride, the money seemed important to him, but wasn't really, he kept coming up with rationalisations for ever higher numbers.
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But all that is assuming being a big time lawyer is devoid of scheming and conning, when it's not. It's the same job. This show seems to have mistaken lawyers for aid workers. Most of the big firm peeps he encountered in the show itself where just as slimy and conniving, only in slightly nicer suits. So the main thing he seems to get out of this decision is a laxer dress code.

If anything working as a small time crook lawyer is far harder work because he's defending people with a far longer rap sheet who are obviously guilty, so it's not exactly a short cut either.

If he'd gone back to being a conman, cool, it works. But he doesn't, he just does exactly the same thing, only for less reward. It seemed more like a trite way of making him a bit more like Walter White than anything plausibly arrived at from his experiences.

Not to mention he's back in exactly the same position as he was at the start of the season, when he was trying to get the skateboarders to con the Kettlemens. He went from A to B and back to A again. So there's feck all progression too.
 
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SqueakyWeasel said:
Sorry, wasn't aware that I had to limit my comments to the "quality" of the show.

Was just stating my personal opinion … no offence meant, it won't happen again.
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:lol: Weirdo.

You're the one that made the sweeping statement about what everyone was expecting. Of course we're debating the quality of the show because (duh) we already know the ending.
 
I don't want any of my criticism to seem like I hate the show or anything, it's a fantastic show in many respects. Even the common criticism of "the writing" isn't quite true, because the dialogue is still largely excellent. The bingo scene initially annoyed me with it's cliched "B is for Brother, B is for Betrayal" bit, but the whole shitting in a sun roof thing was great. It's the story plotting that's a let down for me. Which is only one facet of an otherwise excellent slice of televsion, but unfortunately quite a big facet. And since the other, quality facets are all operating at the highest standards, I have to judge the faux pas by the same yard stick.

It's still probably better than 87.2% of everything that's on telly, but it's got some glarring faults that stop it being in the big boy bangerang league.
 
I thought that this episode was awful. Comfortably the worst episode of this season.

Not sure that I am gonna watch the next season.
 
Nothing important has really happened but I still enjoyed this season a lot, mainly down to the characters. I have high hopes for season 2 now that it has opened the gate for Saul to do more criminal lawyery stuff. When this got announced i was expected lots of great courtroom drama with Sauls comedic touch and has been completely lacking other than the first scene i think?
 
Mockney said:
I don't want any of my criticism to seem like I hate the show or anything, it's a fantastic show in many respects. Even the common criticism of "the writing" isn't quite true, because the dialogue is still largely excellent. The bingo scene initially annoyed me with it's cliched "B is for Brother, B is for Betrayal" bit, but the whole shitting in a sun roof thing was great. It's the story plotting that's a let down for me. Which is only one facet of an otherwise excellent slice of televsion, but unfortunately quite a big facet. And since the other, quality facets are all operating at the highest standards, I have to judge the faux pas by the same yard stick.

It's still probably better than 87.2% of everything that's on telly, but it's got some glarring faults that stop it being in the big boy bangerang league.
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The writing itself is good (although I think it's a level below BB and other great shows), but the problem is - as you say - that there's practically nothing to back it up. There's a good line here and there, but almost every scene is dragged out so far that it sort of drowns in nothingness. The bingo scene is a great example with the Chicago Sunroof (which he actually mentions in the 3rd episode when he needs Chuck to defend him for doing just that) - it's a pretty funny sequence, but the problem is it's one of very few (if not the only) in a scene that's almost 8 minutes long. And by the time it happened, I just wanted that scene to end. The coin-scam in the next scene is pretty decent as well, but that whole scene (from when Jimmy arrives outside the bar in a taxi till the whole scamming-montage starts) is about 12 minutes long. That's 20 minutes of a season finale spent on two scenes. As I've said before, it honestly feels like they just didn't have enough ideas, which is why every scene seems to be dragged out as far as possible and there's very little overall plot progression.
 
BigDunc9 said:
Nothing important has really happened but I still enjoyed this season a lot, mainly down to the characters. I have high hopes for season 2 now that it has opened the gate for Saul to do more criminal lawyery stuff. When this got announced i was expected lots of great courtroom drama with Sauls comedic touch and has been completely lacking other than the first scene i think?
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Agree with you. Especially on the last bit, I completely got it wrong in terms of what I expected from this show, in retrospect I dont know why as it is quite similar to Breaking Bad and that makes a lot of sense, but I thought it would be quite different, I was expecting a completely different structure, half hour episodes, each one about a different case, much more explicitly comic, almost like My Name Is Earl or something like that... looking back I have no idea why I thought that. Im not disappointed though, I feel like I enjoyed this show more than a lot of people on here did despite the lack of anything of note happening.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
Exactly. Walt really has no other option so his choice to 'break bad' makes sense. This doesn't.

I still suspect the angle they'll go with is that Jimmy/Saul expects more Kettleman style opportunities by doing things his own way but things don't work out as planned for him as he gets mixed up with more and more unsavoury characters. Mike will probably get him out of a scrape or two.
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Actually within the context of the character, I think it's less illogical than it seems; he had already 'broke bad' before even becoming a lawyer and is sole objective of becoming a lawyer was to achieve his brother's praise and acknowledgement. After all that, when his brother still does not accept him as an equal he decides to go back to what he knows. That being said, he's still cutting his nose off to spite his face so it's still pretty dumb.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
Exactly. Walt really has no other option so his choice to 'break bad' makes sense. This doesn't.

I still suspect the angle they'll go with is that Jimmy/Saul expects more Kettleman style opportunities by doing things his own way but things don't work out as planned for him as he gets mixed up with more and more unsavoury characters. Mike will probably get him out of a scrape or two.
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I'm guessing this is his mindset. As well, the job with the other law firm wasn't guaranteed (unless I'm mistaken,) so perhaps he was wary of having to jump through hoops again, only to face last-minute letdown like he did at HHM.

In any event, I enjoyed the show. I found the finale a bit underwhelming, but there's enough going on that I'll definitely be checking in for the second season.

One thing about this show, and Breaking Bad to an extent, is that there is the sense that Gilligan and co might not know exactly where they want to take the plot. Gilligan admitted to as much when discussion the plan for the final Breaking Bad season (which was very good, but marred by a howler of a finale.)
 
Just got around to watching the finale. What a let down. I just feel that every episode was pointless after that. The bingo scene summed up the season for me. I think a lot of people realised early on that this was going nowhere but I didn't expect it to end like that. It's been watchable but there's no direction.

I guess next season could get better but I won't be holding my breath. You have to compare it to BB because it is living off of that world. I think it deserves better tbh.
 
Poor end of a season, and very average season overall. Three, maybe four good episodes and that's about it.

I think I would rather watch Walter White chasing a fly than most of episodes from this season, so it's fair to say that it doesn't look to be nowhere near as good as Breaking Bad.
 
I didn't mind it that much tbh. Sure, I was disappointed about the lack of events in a season finale, but other than that, they have certainly setup the next season. I expect a big improvement though.
 
Watched the finale last night, what a complete let down :lol: Only two good episodes throughout the season imo, the rest were completely forgettable.
 
Watched the first three episodes, enjoyed it so far. Saul's carrying the show very well on his own. Obviously got plenty of humour, but he's got enough depth as a character and is complex enough to be a lead.

I enjoyed seeing Tuco, but did anyone else almost feel like he was a bit of a different character? I mean, he's still a scary bastard and completely brutal, but he seemed more menacing here than outright mental like he was in BB. Maybe it was the presence of his mother or whoever the old lady was that made him tone it down a bit and be more restrained.

Hoping to see more of Mike as well, but enjoyed his cameos so far and his dynamic with Saul. He'll probably start taking on a bigger role now he's directed Saul to where the family would be hiding.

Hoping the show gets more of a direction in general too. It seems to be going somewhere, with Saul becoming more of a criminal lawyer, but I don't think the over-arching plot is that gripping right now - the characters are the more interesting part thus far, mainly Saul himself.
 
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