Television Better Call Saul | Includes Breaking Bad Spoilers

Mockney said:
He won an award for it recently and I was thinking, has he actually won it for the this? Or is it for the general character of Gus Fring? Cos he’s just kind of in this. Existing… for 3 seasons…

As you rightly point out, Mike is basically just repeating his arc over and over again - as is essentially Jimmy/Saul - but at least it is an arc, and you could quite plausibly say that Walt and Jesse repeated the same basic learning curves several times throughout BB…. And they did at least have a beginning and end. Gus has a beginning and end too, but they’re ALSO both in BB! So he’s just…. There, in this. Being kind of cool.

And anyone who says the little scene we got of him reflecting over a glass of wine and a brief bit of flirting is a better bit of character drama that teaches us more about him than seeing him meet the cartel, watch his lover die, and then risk his life for an immaculately plotted revenge against them all, years in the making, all in one episode is - let’s be honest - a massive lying ponce.
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Esposito won the Hollywood critic association award which were a bit of charity if you ask me given BCS itself "tied" with succession for drama award for "cable" shows whilst they had different categories for broadcast and streaming. Still I agree that it was a bit preposterous to award him for BCS, he should have won the Emmy for supporting actor for BB S4 ahead of Paul.

Characters unable to let go of their defining traits is a trope established since the days of Sopranos. I don't have an issue with it. Walt's inability to suppress his pride and and desire of being grandiose drove the plot of Breaking Bad. They key here is that BB burnt through a lot of plot despite making for room for episodes like "Fly and "Five days out", which were character studies mostly. After a while I tire out of shows like Mad Men which just keep hitting the same theme without any meaningful plot progress (after S5 specifically in case of Mad Men). I don't think Mike's storyline in BCS had any meaning after S3. We knew where he would end up at the start of BB and knew his back story. Everything else in between was just fan service of showing him use his Batman like skills to navigate one situation after another. I don't even have a take on Fring's story in BCS, if anything watching BCS before BB, takes away some of the subtlety and surprises the character throws up in BB. For example his scene of gutting his man in Box Cutter (S4 premier of BB) would not be as chilling after you watch him in BCS.
 
Amar__ said:
Yeah, Chuck's storyline is easily the worst part of the show. It doesn't help that he is not likeable at all, in hindsight if he was more likeable guy with tinfoil problem then he could be more interesting. But he was absolute robot.
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Hmm I don't agree with this. But then I am possibly the outlier who does not like the cartel stuff. I think Chuck's relationship with Jimmy is even more pivotal for the series than his relationship with Kim. Essentially the core question it poses is the age old one of nurture vs nature. Chuck believed Jimmy's very nature would always land him in some trouble one way or another. Someone else could argue (many fans do) that this kind of rigid thinking and specifically Chuck's inability to accept Jimmy as his equal played the pivotal role in his evolution to Saul. Initially I myself though the series was making the latter argument but ultimately I believe the series either willingly or otherwise makes the former.
 
Mockney said:
It’s hard to make these points without seeming to rag on the show, when I do think it’s largely excellent and the faults are just basically baked into it & they’ve done almost as well as could possibly have been done with a prequel that has so many BB characters in it. Other than just not have so many BB characters in it, I guess? But then, would we care as much? Questions questions…
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The problem is they changed their minds about the show a bunch of times.

It was supposed to be a Saul Goodman show, hence the name and the presence of Mike. But they changed their mind while writing the first season and devoted more time to Jimmy, though that season still ends with him "becoming" Saul. Then when they sat down to write season 2 they changed their mind again and reverted the season 1 finale. But they can't/don't want to fire Jonathan Banks because they changed their minds, so they just write a cartel plotline for him so that he has something to do. Nacho was also supposed to be a character more involved with Jimmy, they just moved the actor and the story to the 'new' plotline.

Most of this has been confirmed in various interviews, including a recent one where Vince Gilligan said:

In the early days, we talked about, “Yeah, he’ll be Jimmy for a while, but obviously, you can’t do a bait-and-switch with the audience! You can’t sell them a bill of goods. You’ve gotta give them Saul Goodman.” And damned if we didn’t wind up doing it! We did not start out that way to be perverse or mischievous. I think it finally dawned on us — but that thing about us only seeing two inches in front of our noses, that really holds true when you’re breaking a story like this. I think we finally came to realize that we know what Saul Goodman looks like. You saw him on a great many episodes of Breaking Bad, so we didn’t need to tell that story again, and we had all this really interesting story. We were fascinated by Jimmy McGill, by what would turn a guy like that, who’s basically a good guy, into a bad guy. And then we wanted to see more of Gene Takovic in Omaha, so we kind of ran out the clock without even meaning to, and then we realized, man, the first thing that could go was Saul Goodman. And that’s the name of the show!
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The Mike/cartel stuff is less satisfying because it's really, at its root, "jobs for people we know."

It's all well done, well acted, etc. it just doesn't add to a greater whole.
 
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Mockney said:
It definitely isn’t. I’ve never really got people saying that. And no one really does in the wider cultural landscape. It’s more of an “acshully guys” opinion… and I can sort of understand it in isolation. It is after all a largely much better made show, considering it’s produced by exactly the same people, all operating at a higher game than they were at the start of BB, and with more nuanced writing, but it also doesn’t really have any dynamic urgency about its storytelling on the whole..

BB, for example, had 5 very distinct seasons where you could not just point to the different arcs and tone of each one, but to the progression of each of the characters, whereas watching BCS is more like stewing in that world for a bit. Each season is kind of the same (at least until the last one) and Jimmy/Saul is relatively the same character throughout. You could’ve ended it after season 1 and it wouldn’t seem weird that Saul in BB was how he was. If anything the changes (which have been good outside of that context) have only made it weirder, as he’s mostly just flit between 70% Saul and 90% Saul at different points up until now, and even Kim’s descent only really kicks in S4 (it’s really about her, or his affect on her, if you’re looking for progression)

You got the Chuck stuff at the beginning and the Lalo stuff at the end to give it some identity and personality but it’s rather meandering by design. I can’t really remember what happened in the middle, and couldn’t point to “that moment in S2 or S3” for example as something to signpost it’s highlights. It does all build to a good final season crescendo, but a lot of it before then feels like a Breaking Bad VR experience at times.


Though weirdly unlike a lot of people I kinda like the weird stuff they’re doing at the end. It helps give it something to distinguish it. It’s bold, even if it’s a bit odd and slow so far (the show is slow. You’ve just gotta get over that. it is what it is.) Which was actually my only real gripe with how BB ended - that it was a relatively conventional finale for all the mad shit that happened before.

BCS is still a great show, but only an all time great on a mostly technical level.

It would be interesting to see if anyone watched this without seeing BB, and whether this last stretch makes any sense at all…
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Great analysis, I love BCS, but I think you’ve made some good points that I hadn’t really thought of.
 
I always find no long running show really ever has a good ending. I wasn’t disappointed per se, but I remember feeling the same about Breaking Bads ending at the time.
Felt quite hollow and unsatisfied, but over time I grew to just accept that they couldn’t really have done much better without it being super unrealistic or cringe for the sake of pandering to the status quo.

Like yeah I would have loved if Kim ending up doing some Judo-Law at that plea hearing, using some by-law to overtake Oakley as Saul’s council and then end up making Marie do the 190 years in prison while Kim and Jimmy ride off into the sunset with all of Sauls seized money.
Never gonna happen though.

I’ll probably look back at this as my favourite ever TV show in all seriousness. It had literally everything for me.
 
I thought it was a good ending in the context of the arc of Better Call Saul.

Almost all the time was spent with Jimmy who was shown as a redeemable character with moral flaws unlike Saul who was thoroughly morally corrupt. So giving Jimmy a grim ending or Saul a 'win' of sorts. A long prison sentence balances out the both version of the characters. Saul/Jimmy will seemingly have a relatively comfortable life in Prison but will never get to live as a free man again.
 
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A bit disappointed in the ending, but I think it will grow on me. All in all a fantastic show :drool:
 
Not a fan of the ending, or the last half season at all really. All the timeline switching got confusing and just seemed weird to have him, the slippery selfish lawyer, elect to get 86 years instead of the 7 on offer.

Still, a very sad and touching final scene.
 
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11101 said:
One of the best shows ever made. Slightly better than Breaking Bad, definitely better written.
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How so?
I'm generally not a TV kinda of guy, is it worth going through 60 something episodes for?

I mostly enjoyed bb even thought I watched it sporadically .
 
I think I kinda liked it. It was its own ending on its own terms….(assuming of course that you have to have watched Breaking Bad to understand any of it!)

I’d much rather that than it give our protagonists some kind of last minute dramatic win, which was never the point of the series.
 
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I’ve generally been of the view that this fell off significantly after Gus vs Lalo but I actually enjoyed that finale.

The scene with them sharing the cigarette was a really nice nod to them on the balcony all the time earlier in the show, and the u-turn made sense with him realising he could help Kim by throwing himself under the bus.
 
calodo2003 said:
Peak Caf right here.
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My opinions (outside of football of course) are always pretty garbage. But after being a bit meh about the last few episodes, I really loved the confession, and the shedding of Saul and the embracement of Jimmy. I can see why it’s had a mixed reception though
 
Mockney said:
yeah, this a is far more of a ‘problem’ continuity wise than the age or out of place-ness of Jesse IMO… the progression to this simmering sociopathic Saul works with how we’ve left him in prequel BCS timeline, but it doesn’t remotely chime with the intervening 4 years of outwardly breezy and cowardly under pressure Saul from Breaking Bad

The last time we see him in that, he’s slinking away from a confrontation with a defeated and dying Walt… the BCS Saul would’ve at least used the opportunity for a bit of verbal grandstanding. Which has always been a bit of a baked in problem for the show, as the lead started it as a mostly identical version of the character

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Whilst amusingly I used this scene only yesterday as an example of BCS not quite chiming with BB, I am glad they didn’t try and ‘retcon’ it… or try and make Saul a bit more consistent. That would’ve been cheap. He is definitely playing Saul from that era, for better or Ill. Which is consistent, in an inconsistent kinda way.
 
Not sure how i feel about the ending, anticlimactic yet it feels right? Interestingly I hated the BB ending which didn’t seem anticlimactic but wasn’t fitting imo.
 
100 said:
Not sure how i feel about the ending, anticlimactic yet it feels right? Interestingly I hated the BB ending which didn’t seem anticlimactic but wasn’t fitting imo.
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This is pretty much how I felt too… though I didn’t hate BBs, I just felt it was a pretty conventional box ticking finale. This wasn’t. Which is kind of why I’ve quite enjoyed the whole Gene thing. Whilst the Lalo-Gus showdown was great, it was very much in the comfort zone of an episode of Breaking Bad. It made a lot more sense for a show that was often lauded/criticised (including by me) as a much slower character piece, to end with a much slower character piece!
 
Mockney said:
This is pretty much how I felt too… though I didn’t hate BBs, I just felt it was a pretty conventional box ticking finale. This wasn’t. Which is kind of why I’ve quite enjoyed the whole Gene thing. Whilst the Lalo-Gus showdown was great, it was very much in the comfort zone of an episode of Breaking Bad. It made a lot more sense for a show that was often lauded/criticised (including by me) as a much slower character piece, to end with a much slower character piece!
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100 said:
Not sure how i feel about the ending, anticlimactic yet it feels right? Interestingly I hated the BB ending which didn’t seem anticlimactic but wasn’t fitting imo.
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I think Felina as BB finale episode has just too much crammed in a single episode for it to have the desired impact. BB's individual episodes were not fast paced as some remember it to be and for any other episode only one event out of - Machine gun climax, Lydia poisoning, Ransom heist - would have been enough and would have drawn better tension. BB also had its own version of character piece based climax in Granite State where Walt also comes close to turning himself to Police before his pride gets in the way again.

As some one who liked all the episodes from Gene timeline, including the divisive one in "Nippy", I thought the ending was fitting. Overall conclusion depends on your milage on accepting Saul/Jimmy confessing his crimes just so he can have some kind of relationship with Kim again even if it is a single face to face meeting.
 
Red the Bear said:
How so?
I'm generally not a TV kinda of guy, is it worth going through 60 something episodes for?

I mostly enjoyed bb even thought I watched it sporadically .
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It is a little slow but I think if you stick with it you can get very invested and there is a far better supporting cast than BB on a whole.

By the time I got to the 3rd season I think it had become my favourite show without me really realising it.
 
Personally thought it peaked around season three with the conclusion to the Chuck story. For some reason I never got as invested in Kim's character as many other viewers did. It maintained a high level but while I respect the boldness and originality of some storytelling choices in season six, overall I was a little underwhelmed. It's certainly not at the same level as BB, that's a hipster critic's opinion.
 
In retrospect, I do not like the whole Gene story. It is devoid of any inspiration and did not need to drag that long because they did not really have a good story to tell. But most of all, it was unrealistic and out of character.

Jimmy was a con artist, he could talk to anyone. He was able to find a proper job and he was not hiding, he worked in a mall. In real life, such a person would have a girlfriend (or two!) and he would have fun, he would not live as a recluse, there was no reason for that. It wouldn't be hard for him to rent a nice little condo with his girlfriend, and make new friends, and go to Las Vegas for some fun, and enjoy his life. Nothing flashy, a middle class life.

But then, BCS would not have this moralistic ending. It seems to me that the only reason for the Gene story is that Jimmy had to confess and go to prison forever. Which itself was silly, especially the way they did it. He did not save Kim. He did not really help anyone by going to prison forever instead of 7 years. All the killers and the dealers were already dead. So, why did he do it? Only to punish himself because he has been a ***BAD BOY***? The garbage bin, the old lady screaming "you are a bad man"!... Way too moralistic in my opinion.
 
frostbite said:
In retrospect, I do not like the whole Gene story. It is devoid of any inspiration and did not need to drag that long because they did not really have a good story to tell. But most of all, it was unrealistic and out of character.

Jimmy was a con artist, he could talk to anyone. He was able to find a proper job and he was not hiding, he worked in a mall. In real life, such a person would have a girlfriend (or two!) and he would have fun, he would not live as a recluse, there was no reason for that. It wouldn't be hard for him to rent a nice little condo with his girlfriend, and make new friends, and go to Las Vegas for some fun, and enjoy his life. Nothing flashy, a middle class life.
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I thought it was pretty clear all along that they didn't really know what to do with it. When I watched the first cold open back in season 1, I never really expected us to return. It felt like a an epilogue before the series began. Then we got two more in season 2 and 3 with nothing happening before a vague plot started materializing in season 4. Questionable decision to wait so long between season 5 pilot and season 6 endgame to return and some of the stuff recently has felt very low stakes for an ending run, particularly the heist episode, while amusing enough in its own right. The Kim one last week was good, though.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
It is a little slow but I think if you stick with it you can get very invested and there is a far better supporting cast than BB on a whole.

By the time I got to the 3rd season I think it had become my favourite show without me really realising it.
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Thanks, I'll give it a go, bob odenkirk is usually great so I'm guessing he's done a good job in this one as well.
 
I thought it was a bit odd when it turned out the Gene stuff was happening only a few weeks after the ending of Breaking Bad.
 
frostbite said:
In retrospect, I do not like the whole Gene story. It is devoid of any inspiration and did not need to drag that long because they did not really have a good story to tell. But most of all, it was unrealistic and out of character.

Jimmy was a con artist, he could talk to anyone. He was able to find a proper job and he was not hiding, he worked in a mall. In real life, such a person would have a girlfriend (or two!) and he would have fun, he would not live as a recluse, there was no reason for that. It wouldn't be hard for him to rent a nice little condo with his girlfriend, and make new friends, and go to Las Vegas for some fun, and enjoy his life. Nothing flashy, a middle class life.

But then, BCS would not have this moralistic ending. It seems to me that the only reason for the Gene story is that Jimmy had to confess and go to prison forever. Which itself was silly, especially the way they did it. He did not save Kim. He did not really help anyone by going to prison forever instead of 7 years. All the killers and the dealers were already dead. So, why did he do it? Only to punish himself because he has been a ***BAD BOY***? The garbage bin, the old lady screaming "you are a bad man"!... Way too moralistic in my opinion.
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They established in BB itself that Saul had to go in hiding due to the consequences of Hank's death and Walt's operation getting blown up. That combined with his mild popularity as an attorney with TV ads, meant he had to keep a low profile to avoid getting caught. Also the Gene period was only a few months post Felina I believe, so there was no time for Jimmy/Saul to establish a proper life there yet. He is purposely shown to still very paranoid that he would be caught to start over in that fashion again.
 
crappycraperson said:
They established in BB itself that Saul had to go in hiding due to the consequences of Hank's death and Walt's operation getting blown up. That combined with his mild popularity as an attorney with TV ads, meant he had to keep a low profile to avoid getting caught. Also the Gene period was only a few months post Felina I believe, so there was no time for Jimmy/Saul to establish a proper life there yet. He is purposely shown to still very paranoid that he would be caught to start over in that fashion again.
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Yes, of course. But since he was able to get a proper job, and as a manager not as a janitor, it means he had already established a new identity, with SSN and everything. He was working in a mall, he was not hiding. He could easily get a girlfriend.

On the other hand, if he was still scared and paranoid, there was no reason to get involved with the stealing identities stuff. He was angry they wasted "all that preparation" on the guy with cancer. Then this whole plotline (which is important because it led to his demise) is even more meaningless. He did not have enough time to establish a simple middle class life, but he had enough time to establish a stealing identities enterprise, without any prior background on that. It doesn't make sense. For me it is just bad writing.
 
The more I think about it, the worse it gets. The federals would definitely find out that Gene stole identities (because of the old lady and her son) and this establishes that he continues his criminal activities while hiding. There would be zero probability for him to get the "7 year deal".

It is really bad writing. They wanted a "moral" ending, and they did not know how to get there. They did not have a good story for Gene.
 
frostbite said:
Yes, of course. But since he was able to get a proper job, and as a manager not as a janitor, it means he had already established a new identity, with SSN and everything. He was working in a mall, he was not hiding. He could easily get a girlfriend.

On the other hand, if he was still scared and paranoid, there was no reason to get involved with the stealing identities stuff. He was angry they wasted "all that preparation" on the guy with cancer. Then this whole plotline (which is important because it led to his demise) is even more meaningless. He did not have enough time to establish a simple middle class life, but he had enough time to establish a stealing identities enterprise, without any prior background on that. It doesn't make sense. For me it is just bad writing.
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I don't think that part of the show was poorly written, perhaps you could argue some bits were rushed but overall i feel it was done well. In the taxi of the season 4 cold opening you see the driver who recognises Gene as saul goodman, or at least in Genes mind that is what he thought had happened. The start of the episode nippy we see Saul track down the mother of Jeff(taxi driver)this is how Gene gets involved in short cons again which ultimately leads to his arrest. In order for Jeff to turn a blind eye to him being Saul he has to find a way to implicate Jeff so he knows for sure there is no way he will ever tell anyone who he is. This leads to the mall scam where he helps Jeff and his friend steal goods from the Mall stores.This is where he should leave it but he doesn't and ultimately goes back to being Jimmy/Saul and gets caught out by Marion. You say he has established an identity stealing enterprise without prior background but you are looking at this as if Gene is some novice con artist who has never lived. Saul/jimmy even in the shows timeline has shown us what he is capable of in terms of scams, all the ones he has done with kim for instance and his nickname slippin Jimmy tells you everything about his character before Better call saul timeline. He knew countless criminals in breaking bad,i dont think knowing how to steal identities was above the realms of what he was capable of.
 
Just watched the finale, surely up there with the very best of all time. Pitch-perfect.
 
Ending was a bit of a let-down. Felt like he got the deal really easily & then gave it away equally easily. Not as good as BB's ending.

Lalo was the highlight of the season for me, great character.
 
2/3 of the finale was a trip down memory lane to show us how different characters thought he was money grabbing cnut(which we already knew, we didn't need Walt or Mike pointing it to us), and the rest of the episode was to show us he still has some good ideas(reducing the sentence to 7 years), only to finish it with him doing something really stupid only to show Kim that her opinion of him is the most important thing for him. Which is fine, because he always cared about Kim, he was always quite selfish cnut to anyone except her.

I liked the finale, even though it's maybe not the best writing you'll see, it's much better episode than the two before these.
 
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