Better Call Saul

I thought the first episode was pretty good. I'm going to give it eight out of ten

I'm curious what the dramatic arc of the show is going to be, considering that Walt fucked up a relatively stable criminal ecosystem. Tuco and Gus and Saul were all pretty established and safe in their power. I like the idea of the show as a sort of perverted Matlock, where Saul defends a series of mostly guilty people, but I'm not sure if that's what we're going to get.

I loved the comedy of it all, the way things were filmed fit that style perfectly. But if it becomes more dramatic, I'm not sure I will care.

cold open cinnabon was the best part

if this were actually good, what a coup . . .

it's a little goofy that he's doing exactly what he speculated he might be doing in his new life

I don't see this amounting to a hell of a lot but I'll prob enjoy it for a season or so.

but better call saul's a prequel, right? so that means in the last bit of breaking bad he was referring back to something that he used to do.

it's not exclusively a prequel. The first thing we see is chronologically after BB

xp haha no, that would be even sillier! "for my expensive new identity I'm just gonna go back to my old job"

actually no it would make more sense, you're right. But it's a flash forward in BCS

it's a little goofy that he's doing /exactly/ what he speculated he might be doing in his new life

I like the idea of him being 100% committed to a plan he made in haste. It just fits his character so well!

I still haven't had a chance to watch yet. Tonight!

Nah, it's silly. He probably couldn't choose, it's just tossed off line he throws off. Too much fan service for my taste. The ending with Tuco annoyed me as well. But inbetween, there was loads of good stuff.

I just took it as a joke/fan service, cause why not? I mean within minutes of starting his first jape he's ended up at __________ (removed for karl)

xp nevermind haha

"it's a little goofy that he's doing exactly what he speculated he might be doing in his new life"

I kinda took it was a business and ID that Saul had created in case anything got to hot, which it did. If I remember right, the scene when Saul tells Walter about Omaha and the Cinnabon is with "the cleaner" held up in that basement waiting to move on to next step.

I didn't even recognize tuco until I saw it mentioned somewhere else. there are bound to be things that this that will happen and I don't see why they shouldn't.

Anyone notice the little hat tip to the Wire in the courtroom scene? not sure if it was intentional or not.

Two associates of Jimmy coincidentally bumping into Tuco's mother (?) is not something that was 'bound' to happen, at least not on their very first day working together. It's an extremely big contrivance, just as it's a contrivance that Saul could have guessed/known/planned exactly what he would be able to do after the cleaner took over.

But so what, right? Well, for me, it takes the mystery out of the characters. The world of Breaking Bad was filled with mystery and danger at the beginning, but they really really killed that over the years. When Krazy-8 was killed, even crazyer Tuco took his place. When Tuco was killed, those weird cousins were sent to avenge him. And this mysterious guy from Chile who sold chicken seemed also involved somehow. But then the entirety of the cartel was nice enough to gather around and be poisoned by a single bottle of tequila, it turned out Gus was mainly motivated by the murder of his friend years ago, and the shadowy involvement of multinational companies in the drugdistribution? Turned out it was a rogue housewife, but nevermind, she had a bad cup of tea as well.

The whole world became so small and neat over the years, that it damaged my interest in it. And now you can't skate on the streets of Albuquerque without running into the Salamanca-family? How small is this city?

eh, i dunno, i don't see it as a problem thus far. so long as it doesn't turn into a 'league of extraordinary gentlemen'-style thing where all they do is give familiar characters walk-on parts. if this is a prequel, i expect to find out how Jimmy becomes Saul, how he meets Mike and why he decides to become a criminal lawyer. Tuco was one of my favourite characters in BB and it' shame he only lasted a handful of episodes, so bringing him back into the frame is a great idea in my book.

tuco's gun is comically large

that's what she... oh never mind

Lydia wasn't a "rogue housewife"

yeah, this was pretty good. i really liked that there wasn't much expository dialogue - the characters' interactions were enough to fill in the blanks.

i wonder if the black and white photography in the omaha sequence was a deliberate homage to / joke about alexander payne's nebraska?

were the flash forwarded sequences in BB b/w?

Did 'Chuck' ever get mentioned in BB? I take it he's Jimmy's brother? Or uncle?

So glad this isn't just a knockabout sitcom about a hapless lawyer though. I was always a Saul agnostic when he was in BB as he stood right on the edge between comic foil and slapstick sitcom buffoon. Plus it took me ages to stop thinking of him as Gob in Arrested Development, but as a lawyer instead of a magician. I like how Jimmy cuts a bittersweet, really quite dualised and tragic figure. One minute he's walking around in his suit, acting as though he owns the place; next he's returning home to an absolute hovel after having been talked down to and kicked in the nuts by life... It continues the double-act of WW/Heisenberg in that respect.

i might be out on this already, the tone just feels off to me; I bet there will be some inspired stuff but not sure I want to invest ~14 hrs or w/e

There will be loads of bb characters in this. Of course as Saul goodman he'll have good reason to come up against every scumbag in Albuquerque, and cops too

I mean, this is a breaking bad spinoff about Walter White's wacky lawyer; its very existence is fan service, however much prestigey ~darkness~ they inject into it.

I'm down cause I thought odenkirk was brilliant in bb

i loved the cold open so much

I enjoyed this a fair bit, just because Saul is a great character and it's good to spend more time with him. Wish the Tuco reveal hadn't come so early, because it's a fairly short line from him to Gus Fring, and really if this show is going to succeed on its own terms it needs to take time to do a Frasier and build its own universe of characters. The scenes with Chuck suggested that's in the plan, even if he felt miscast - I struggled to see him and Saul as actually related.

It's also showing us at least two Walter White-style descents into the underworld, and I love seeing people way way over their heads.

Like I think a constant parade of "hey look, it's Badger!" gratuitous fanwank would be the worst approach they could take and I more or less trust Gilligan not to take that road.

No they'll be careful not to make it constant I think

yeah i think i trust this team enough now not to make it shit

When you look at Odenkirk's career between his inspired turn as Stevie Grant in The Larry Sanders Show and his BB turn as Saul it is quite depressing, a lost decade and a half of mediocre writing credits and various atrocious comedy-fail shite. I think this being his stand alone big shot and Gilligan's nerviness at following up such a big hit might be something to do with the rocky start this series has made. I hope it gets better cos I always liked Odenkirk, but so far it all feels a bit stilted and predictable.

nah...

don't think i'd heard of odenkirk before BB though.

i think the broken windshield was a nice level of fan service callback

haha, what's that?

i.e. that walt's windshield was constantly broken and now we've had another two broken windshields already, the breaking bad universe is much like our universe but with way more broken windshields

xposts

Odenkirk did Mr Show between Sanders and Breaking Bad! And he was in Nebraska after BB, which was nominated for a Palme D'Or and a half-dozen Oscars. He will be fine if this tanks.

and fargo

Comedy-fail dross and an appearance in a Payneful, overrated movie might pay the bills but fronting your own series is a different matter and Fargo is also post BB.

Yeah, Odenkirk hasn't had the best luck making movies of his own but he's otherwise had a pretty solid (if generally low-key) career and a vast comedic community that rightfully respects the shit out of him. Plus he brought Tim & Eric into our hearts and homes. He's gonna do just fine.

Mr. Show = 'comedy-fail dross'. Okay.

ok whatever your assessment of his career or talents are - he understands the risks of Better Call Saul, he'll be fine if it doesn't work out, and it's not "his stand alone big shot".

The NYT interview seems totally level-headed:

“I was worried about what it would do to my family and worried about whether I would end up being the guy who” — um, screwed up — “the legacy of ‘Breaking Bad.’ ”

“And then I talked to my daughter, who is 13 and incredibly mature, she said, ‘It’s a big opportunity, we will be fine, and if it’s bad, really, how bad could it be?’ ”

“And I said well, it won’t be bad. It’s written by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould; the worst thing is it’s a really interesting misfire. If that’s the worst thing it is, I’d be more than happy to be part of that.”

There's a scene in Ep 1 at a security checkpoint where the guard waves the metal detector near a guy's privates and it goes off...the fact that McKean is in the cast made me think this was a homage to Spinal Tap

i loved the cold open so much

― gr8080, Tuesday, 10 February 2015 13:35 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Me too!

AAAAAAAAAAAA

That was some nasty comedy, it's rare I genuinely lol while cowering

The second half was quite okay.

Enjoyed this thoroughly. The vibe is hard to pin down; I can't think of many other things that hit this kind of dour anti-humor/slapstick balance. Reminds me of the book Miss Lonelyhearts more than anything, maybe a little Coen brothers too. The skitching/generic funk scene was a little cringe worthy but I'm excited for the rest.

I'm hoping we get to see more of what he's been up to post-Breaking Bad

Saul is sort of similar to Jesse in that he's basically a good person but poor choices mean that he gets involved in some really quite unpleasant situations

Jesse is a good person?

afaict the only good person in BB was junior

yeah, i hope there's more post-Breaking Bad stuff. Gilligan seems to like telling stories from opposite ends and flashforwards and stuff anyway, so might happen a bit.

Episode 2 is good - starting to gather pace.

lol:

credits shot of Saul staring balefully out across the North Dakota sunrise from his Cinnabon

― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, September 30, 2013 10:59 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whoops didn't c+p the whole thing:

was waiting for post-credits shot of Saul staring balefully out across the North Dakota sunrise from his Cinnabon

― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, September 30, 2013 10:59 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is all very enjoyable, though it does feel a bit like The Hobbit to BB's LOTR; everything is broader and sillier, and there's a little too much fan service. It should ideally be a show that someone who's never seen it's predecessor could enjoy perfectly well and I'm not sure it is. I am looking forward to the rest, the ripping off the embezzlers plotline has potential, and the standard of storytelling was obviously very high.

Jimmy's foray into the HHM offices (ep. 1) was hilarious, man. His second interaction with the older fella on the ground floor was classic, sort of 'why are we engaging in hand shake' "Right." "yes."

First part of his Network bit in the meeting room, he kinda channeled both Larry David and Daniel Day Lewis.

loved and hated the all that jazz homage

i really really hope we've seen all the tuco we're going to see

tuco was without a doubt my least favorite character in the BB universe and even if raymond cruz's acting chops were a little better in monday's episode than they were in s1/s2 of BB he still grates on me

hoping the county treasurer character gets fully developed like walt did (without totally mirroring walt)

Didja ever get your shit pushed in?

loving this. It is v much BB part 2 the sequeling, but in some ways I already like it more just because I love Bob Odenkirk so much

i hope the b+w cold open isnt the last we see of nu-saul, even if we have to wait for the s2 premiere or something

xp it's so exactly breaking bad as a comedy! Like how many times did we see an abject, desperate Walt trying to wheedle his way out of being killed? But it has a diff feel cause saul's dialogue & performance are so firmly in the comedy register (which is why so many find him jarring in breaking bad). The Saul-Walt parallels in this show are at absurd levels but it seems to be working at a level of its own. The violence is on the farcical bathtub of gore, zombie necktie level and I hope it stays there. I found the desert scene horrific & hilarious but the date scene was even worse/better, I was wincing & laughing so hard (plus blackmail tributes always get props from me)

tbh I think Saul was key to making BBad's tragicomic tonal balance really work. The series didn't fully click for me till he was introduced.

Oh yeah, so many ≠ me, I love Saul & always have. Always funny and his edginess was a great barometer for how real things were getting. Loved his sadsack exit also, which is why I kinda think any more Omaha stuff would be redundant

the corpse-fucking case seemed a *bit* much but everything that came after made up for it. lol'd at the gratuitous Network and All That Jazz quotes. the rhythms of the episodes, the way they are set up and structured, is so consistent with BB - the montages, the tense confrontations, the quieter, more elliptical exchanges between two characters.

paranoid delusion over a tiki drink date set to Esquivel was like "hi gr80 we wrote a tv scene just for you"

maybe the cold opens will be a linked flashforward story like they often were in BB?

prefer that he stay in stasis in the present tbh

probably they will - but Gilligan is so into playing with narrative and multiple timelines, plus fucking with/rewarding viewer expectations... I hope that playful fluid storytelling comes into play again (not necessarily overlapping with BB timeline, just in general)

I usually hate guessing, but in this case I'll take a stab. This season will be the story of how Jimmy became Saul, and if the show goes over well enough and gets picked up for another season, they'll jump to the present day.

only one season of backstory? seems kind of abrupt

will be interesting if they get around to writing/introducing any decent female characters (the main weakness of BB imo)

Without the guarantee of a 2nd season, I think they at least have to get the name change done. I mean, planting the seed for it in S1E2 is indicator enough of that for me.

Plus, the show's not called "Better Call Jimmy." But yeah, they could do future seasons of post-Saul/pre-BB story, no problem.

is this available for streaming with an amazon prime subscription? or is is the same $3/ep ; $25/season as iTunes?

I expect he's gonna debut the name-change within the next couple eps. As soon as he starts representing drug dealers, his bro's *really* not gonna want him to use the family name

Without the guarantee of a 2nd season, I think they at least have to get the name change done. I mean, planting the seed for it in S1E2 is indicator enough of that for me.

― you make me feel like danzig (WilliamC),

Second season has already been ordered, hasn't it?

it has, they committed to it as a two-season project to start

oddly, while it always seemed clear what the ending of BB was gonna be (ie Walt dies), here - even though it's all basically a flashback - how they might end it seems way more up in the air

xp -- ok, I didn't know that, carry on then

i could see one of the skate bros bein all "s'all good, man" after an apology from Saul.

yeah that pun's gonna have to figure into his name somehow

lol I had totally forgotten that Michael McKean had previously shown up on Mr. Show as a law school professor

i could see one of the skate bros bein all "s'all good, man" after an apology from Saul.

oh my god

Saul Goodman is the name of a protagonist (a private detective) from the Illuminatus! trilogy of books that came out in the 70's. Would be great if that's where he pulls the name from.

Being a fan of Robert Anton Wilson, Mr. Show and Breaking Bad, if they do this my head will explode.

lol I had totally forgotten that Michael McKean had previously shown up on Mr. Show as a law school professor

Professor Peens!

the direction is so very good
i kinda thought they were going to have to build a show around odenkirk but whaddayaknow, he actually brings the show up to his level
ryan, i gotta think they'll nod that direction if that's accurate

A guy at work yesterday told me that he'd heard about this new show on Netflix, Just Called Saul

Lol that post BB Saul Goodman disguised himself as pre BB Walter White

is this available for streaming with an amazon prime subscription? or is is the same $3/ep ; $25/season as iTunes?

it's like $2/$16 on amazon

Is this on tonight or tomorrow in the States?

tonight

It's on UK Netflix tomorrow morning

well i enjoyed that last episode

although i don't know how necessary it was to show saul arguing with mike over parking tickets again, since they had a five minute montage of this last episode.

Maybe they just have to give Jonathan Banks something to do to keep him under contract until Mike is properly needed in the story. I'm glad he's not a main character yet. I feel the same way about those scenes, btw.

The longer Mike has to endure them the more brutal the smackdown is going to be when it inevitably comes.

Nice twist in the episode but the clueless detectives didn't ring true

you don't think? i don't reckon they had much of a reason to believe Saul. Occam's Razor and all that.

<i>it took me ages to stop thinking of him as Gob in Arrested Development</i>

Er, you do know that is a different actor?

He was actually in one episode of Arrested Development mind

http://41.media.tumblr.com/eb120477683c6198733676cfd8e06ddc/tumblr_mrdvci5q6P1qcm16uo3_1280.png

Er, you do know that is a different actor?

― Chewshabadoo, Wednesday, February 18, 2015 1:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, obviously, and in retrospect they're not that similar at all, but my initial impression of Saul was that he was kind of a lawyer version of Gob; a slightly arrogant buffoonish character who narrowly gets out of self-inflicted scrapes. But it's clear that Saul has quite a few more braincells knocking about than Gob.

really enjoying a show with a similar aesthetic/general feel to breaking bad that doesn't depress the shit out of me/give me a heart attack every ep (yet). odenkirk is killing it, and i continue to think the show has a lot of potential

the episodes have been getting progressively better thus far, which is great, and while it probably qualifies as another brand of fan service it was so dope to see jonathan banks go full ehrmantrout

Now that I think about it, the thing with the police doesn't really make sense. They knew they were under investigation for stealing 1,5 million dollars, I don't get why it would be such a big stretch that they'd just wander off. Especially when that sign on their car showed them camping. It does seem rather clueless.

Other than that, the show continues to be very good.

i mean i think any cop that is confronted w a ransacked house and a suspicious vehicle (complete with blood stains) isn't going to jump to "secret faked kidnapping" just off the bat. cops aren't always as interested in the right answer so much as the expedient one

plus i would think the responsible course of action would be to rule out forceful kidnapping before entertaining other scenarios to ensure the safety of the missing

the only detective bit that bugged me was how they were all of a sudden in the middle of Mike and Saul after their parking lot altercation, that seemed kinda random/rushed to shoehorn Mike in there

They just seemed way too dismissive of the very possible thought, that the criminals hiding 1,5 mil might be interested in getting away. It doesn't seem as unlikely and against Occam's razor as the show presented it. IMO. The police was trying to force Jimmy into betraying his own client, right? That just seems... I don't know, perhaps it instead seemed too dumb that Jimmy could just walk out the door and find the family in the wilderness. Now I notice it, something seemed off.

But who cares, plot isn't important anyway. Mood was good, pictures were beautiful, it was funny. It's good.

yeah I am loving this series my quibbles are minor.

detectives going for the kidnapping explanation makes sense to me given they had a suspect who was casing the joint to kidnap the family. I mean, no cop is going to overlook that for some more complicated theory - occam's razor and all that.

and not a lot of comedy this episode but I didn't mind. only real lol was right at the end with Saul's "HEEERE'S JOHNNY!" entrance

the robot sex voice had me lolling hard.

and yeah the way he just gives up on using this elaborate homemade voice changer was pretty brilliant.

Yeah, but if someone is noticably casing a place, wouldn't it also make it more likely that the family would take off? I mean, it's not as if it was coincidental, the two things actually were connected (through Jimmy)

if someone was casing my home to rob it, no I would not leave - I would call the cops

If you had hidden 1,5 million you had stolen?

presumably if I had stolen 1.5 million I would not be stupid enough to hide it in my house, but fair point

Yeah, right, that is another thing, that family were dumb as hell, but the script did point that out. Oh well, it's a comedy, and it was pretty funny.

Took me out of it.

JUST KIDDING! Enjoying this show so far...

yeah i think it's important to remember that this is a slightly goofier proposition to BB at this stage, so hanging out in a tent with £1.5m cash is semi-plausible in this universe.

also - loved 'young' saul in the flashback.

i'm not really feeling this, i may circle back later. i just dont really like the constant stuntcasting of bb who's who, like there should be canned applause whenever someone shows up

i fucking love odenkirk though, no matter what

? only 2 BB characters have shown up so far, and it looks like Tuco's unlikely to reappear

and Banks was always known to be a series regular

i like it so far, although i'm with shakey on the less-than-tight plot of the third episode.

i'm sure i'm totally wrong, but i'm kind of viewing these first few handful of episodes as a prelude to the central plot progression. they have at least two seasons to work with, so they can stretch out a little bit. for now it's enough for me to get to know the other characters. i think the connection between saul and chuck has the potential to be amazing.

This last one was kind of a dud. But his rapport with Ermintrout is excellent and I can't figure why the latter doesn't have more of a role yet. Maybe even a dual-lead show with The two of them would work.

I really like McKean

Saul is basically Lionel Hutz tbf tbh

I loved the last episode. So many great images.

this was a slow burn episode but the reveals of each scam were nicely done

Seems like Saul has a much better W/L % than Lionel Hutz.

Some tension between "is this a scam" or "is this just something happening because something has to happen on tv shows"

McKean going outside was lol

yeah i loved when it snapped to the neighbor's view

really well set up with the glimpse of her through the window before the cut

slippin' jimmy's partner who said "butthole" a lot was great

"s'all good, man"

such fan service

(cracked me up)

yeah i loved when it snapped to the neighbor's view

― gr8080

This had me and the GF in stitches.

yeah e4 was so good for all the above reasons. i'm really enjoying this show.

Eldest Child thought the scenes with McKean outside were a rip-off from Sir Digby Chicken Caesar.

haha!

Oh man. I hope someone dubs the Sir Digby music over that and puts it on youtube.

Once you've seen Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, it's hard to ever view that particular camera technique as anything but Sir Digby-esque.

Finally, Ermintrout. Last 5 mins were the most interesting in the ep,which was the slowest moving and most directionless so far.

Myyk Ermintrout

This was the best episode

I love the pacing on this show. I recently rewatched Twin Peaks, and I'd forgotten how ridiculously and often uncomfotably long Lynch would allow some takes to go on. Didn't figure anyone would have the chutzpah to let things breathe like that in our modern tv era, so I'm pleasantly surprised. And I'm glad that its concerns are relatively low-key. It owes a clear stylistic debt to BB but it's its own show. Just remains to be seen if people will have the patience to let it be its own show.

I'm loving this show

I was gonna remark that a lot of the direction this episode reminded me of lynch's episodes of twin peaks! The composition of a lot of the shots, but also the old lady coming down on the stairlift was very much like the room service waiter

It also felt very Cohen Bros to me.

Sex toilet

the woman mike was stalking = his daughter...? My wife thought it was the woman w/the barrels of meth from BB but it looked like a different actress to me

it was def not lydia, daughter seems possible

did Mike have a cover story day job in the Breaking Bad days, or was he just a cuddly retired grandad doing magic crime guy stuff on the side?

he was on the books of los pollos hermanos as a loss prevention manager and did licensed P.I. gigs for saul

I thought it was his daughter. Didn't he leave all his money to his granddaughter and spend time with her at the playground? I'm guessing there's some storyline where he did some corrupt thing in philly and/or moved to the southwest to be around his estranged family?

yeah that's my guess

iirc Gomez and Hank detail what got him kicked off the force in BB at some point, when they're interrogating him

Sex toilet

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, 4 March 2015 16:32 (2 hours ago) Permalink

Came in here to say this

Caught up on this week's episode and can agree with some of the comments above - although it prob can't go on this way forever, at the moment I'm actually enjoying the slow pacing and (comparatively) low stakes of the show. The 'shaggy dog story' elements of BB were a big part of what I liked about it (and I'd guess I wouldn't be alone in that) but obv. in BB that was just one strand amongst many, whereas BCS is allowing that sort of vibe to come more to the forefront of things.

I don't mean to be a nerd about this but I miss Michael Slovis.

In other news I haven't watched EP 4 yet but I think it's moving along just fine. Jimmy's past and future have been revealed (I was just dying at how scared he was when he thought that guy in Cinnabon recognised him. We also we know how proud he is of his like as Saul from the videotapes. It's also been nice to be reminded how intelligent he is, tracking down the Kettlemans, and then the darker side of taking the bribe but using it to hustle one magnificent stunt making him a hero.
This is Saul on his own and I think the writers, actors, directors are doing a great job of keeping true to his character: the incredibly intelligent lawyer who will take a shot at doing the right thing but if that road is blocked, the he knows how to use the bad path to his advantage.

Yeah I'm liking the episodic nature of the show so far too. It's a lot of fun although e05 felt a little bit sparse or something? I felt a bit like Chuck's condition didn't need quite as much exposition after they'd so expertly built it up in the previous four episodes. Guess some things, like Jimmy's enablist tendencies needed to be addressed, but still.

The toilet thing was great, as was the Republican separatist loon and his cash.

One of the interesting things is saul's very apparent vulnerability as opposed to his persona in BB; I guess part of the journey of this series is seeing how he evolves that thick shell of bluff confidence.

I loved how in the ep before this one we got the smallest glimpse of saul-to-be berating dangerous criminals for their stupidity, before reverting back to mcgill

It sort of (deliberately?) echoes the Walt/Heisenberg dichotomy.

he was on the books of los pollos hermanos as a loss prevention manager and did licensed P.I. gigs for saul

We first see him working solely for Saul, though, the Los Pollos Hermanos gig comes only later, in fact I think it may have been a retcon or something? IIRC Vince Gilligan mentioned in some interview that Mike was only gonna be a minor character, but they liked Jonathan Banks' performance so much they decided to give him a bigger role.

Based on what we've seen here, it makes sense that it was actually Jimmy/Saul who gets Mike involved with organizes crime through his contacts. (Or gets him involved with it again, as there are some hints he might've been a dirty cop back in Philly, which got him fired, and the ticket booth job is him trying to stay straight.) So I guess it's possible Mike really was just Saul's "cleaner" until Gus took notice of him and hired him. This would make Mike's story kinda parallel to Walt's: he felt poor and powerless in his job, got lured in by money, thinking he could leave his family a proper legacy, but in the end he died alone and no better than before his criminal career.

I think it's interesting that they could've made Jimmy/Saul go through a similar classical tragedy arc as Walt and Mike, but they seem to have done something kinda different with him. Jimmy is not really the stereotypical sleazy and amoral lawyer, he's appears to be a somewhat decent person, just weak and lazy enough to take the easy opportunity when one presents itself. Like, we see him do some questionable stuff here, like the billboard stunt, but he also makes some moral choices he wouldn't have needed to, like saving the skateboard twins or warning the Kettlemans about the Orphan Black gangster guy. So he's not like Walt, who always takes the easiest route, regardless of the consequences for others.

And I think showing him with some essential morality deep down is in line with his Breaking Bad depiction, where in the end he's still helping Jesse and Walt even though he could've folded in a long time ago. So it makes sense that in Greek Tragedy of BB he's pretty much the only one who gets out relatively unscathed.

I think it's good that the last couple of episodes have upped the comedy stakes: the guy with his own money, the talking toilet guy, and the stairway lift granny provided some hearty giggles, and I liked how they were just these Coen bros style black humour vignettes without any larger part in the overall plot. The first couple of episodes felt too much like Breaking Bad Lite (with some added Tuco fanservice), but with the latest ep it felt like this series is finding a tone of its own a bit different from BB.

Millionaire secessionist comfortably in Coen Bros. territory. Can't wait to see this show as a Nic Cage reboot.

Nothing about tonight's ep? I thought it was the best yet, even if tonally dissimilar to what came before. I love Mike (still possibly my favorite BB character) and I'm glad we're getting so much Mike on a show ostensibly centered around another character I love. Hope the dude wins his Emmy this time around.

It was pretty strong, but I dunno, like I said in my last post, the previous couple of eps felt like BCS was finally doing something different from BB, but this one reverted right back to familiar territory. And yeah, Banks is so good he can carry the whole thing, you could basically build an episode on nothing but his gruff remarks and slow walk and old man skin... But it still felt like painting by numbers; after Mike was interrogated by the cops and after his first talk with the daughter-in-law, it was pretty obvious how the rest of the episode would play out. There were no unexpected turns, no punch-in-the-gut moments like BB at its best had, when it was mining the same vein.

I think the episode lacked those unexpected turns and punch-in-the-gut moments because, as you say, Better Call Saul is doing something different than what Breaking Bad did. It was familiar because it was a bit grittier, like BB, and it retained a lot of its predecessor's stylistic quirks, but it's approaching similar material in a different way. I don't expect to ever see another "Hank fights for his life in a parking lot" or "Fring go boom" scene on BCS. Consider how much higher the tension would've been ratcheted up if Mike's showdown with the cops would've happened on BB. The scene as it played was practically laconic in comparison.

Well yeah, but I didn't think it was particularly interesting either. Everything that had happened in Philly was easily inferred from the interrogation scene and Mike's talk with the daughter-in-law (why didn't they even bother to give her a name?), the shooting scene didn't really add anything, it was more like "guess we have to show this now that we've talked about it?". The final scene was really strong though, the emotional stuff was much more interesting than any Terminator antics by Mike.

I'm largely pleased that, in a single episode, we got to see a range of emotion from Jonathan Banks that was kept in check for years on BB.

the plot was reheated noir but banks is a treasure and endlessly fun to watch on screen

I honestly would've been just as pleased if an Ehrmantraut For Hire spin-off had been announced instead.

The Ehrmentrautzer

Last nights episode was amazing.

I thought the interrogation scene was a nice little character moment for Jimmy too. We see that he is smart enough to deduce Mike's whole story from what he hears in the interrogation room, and, having figured it out, he changes his mind and spills the coffee. It's pretty interesting how the show keeps examining his morality with tests like this.

I have been dispassionately watching this series so far, thought the first two were quite weak and subsequent episodes were incrementally improving. But this was a massive improvement - as in BB Banks brings much emotional heft and elevates the show above the morass of standard tv series shite, he is a fine actor.

I wonder what transpires between now and breaking bad where Mike is able to see Kaylee unsupervised but the mom won't even talk to him

well *someone's* gotta die in this show

I feel the opposite of xelab - first few epsiodes were great. These last two have felt much more slower paced; a different vibe, but not bad.

Well yeah, but I didn't think it was particularly interesting either. Everything that had happened in Philly was easily inferred from the interrogation scene and Mike's talk with the daughter-in-law (why didn't they even bother to give her a name?), the shooting scene didn't really add anything, it was more like "guess we have to show this now that we've talked about it?". The final scene was really strong though, the emotional stuff was much more interesting than any Terminator antics by Mike.

― Tuomas, Tuesday, March 10, 2015 8:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm largely pleased that, in a single episode, we got to see a range of emotion from Jonathan Banks that was kept in check for years on BB.

― Eggnog On My Kangol (Old Lunch), Tuesday, March 10, 2015 8:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Maybe I've been spoilt a bit by BB, but one of my main gripes to do with this show is it falls foul to some very obvious exposition in places, and this episode was no exception. Lots of back story being withheld for a while, before being explained away in one fell swoop in a single scene. Felt the same about Chuck's stint in hospital last episode. They'd spent a lot of time expertly gearing up to it, making you wonder exactly what was up with him before that whole scene spelt it out for you pretty much line by line.

As for Banks' range, he does the huffling penitent thing very well, but I felt like there was a degree too much 'ACTING' in the scene where he broke down about Matty. And yeah, the cop shooting scene was so matter of fact compared to BB that I think it was deliberately attempting to play down any shock and awe. Not like Tuco breaking the skateboarders' legs which was truly alarming.

yeah the back half of this episode felt p unnecessary. would've preferred more Odenkirk

this show is so fucking good

I wonder what transpires between now and breaking bad where Mike is able to see Kaylee unsupervised but the mom won't even talk to him

...he gets work as muscle for a meth lord?

Man I gotta stop reading these week to week TV threads. It's like reviewing a book chapter by chapter.

I thought overexplaining Mike's backstory would be too much but they really made it work. This show has actually been very good for the most part in avoiding the usual prequel pitfalls.

Man I gotta stop reading these week to week TV threads. It's like reviewing a book chapter by chapter.

You do realize that TV shows are generally designed to be watched in weekly installments? So it's not the same as reading a book?

Apart from all the books that were published as weekly installments

Yeah, great, thanks guys.

Gott Punch otm though -- TV threads have this really brainless tendency to discuss each episode as if it were a stopping point, much like running a review of a book after finishing a chapter. "I'm liking this book, but chapter 39 I don't really buy - Nancy eavesdrops on Fagin and Monks? Come on, Fagin checks every room twice before he even starts talking. Oliver Twist has totally jumped the shark, it was good while it lasted"

I don't really see any problem with it, speculating the stuff of weekly installments is part and parcel of serialized entertainment, and it's often even encouraged by the makers - that's the whole point of cliffhangers, which BB had, and Saul has too! If they didn't want viewers to speculate, they would have, say, ended the episode 5 with the Philly cops telling why they've come to interview Mike, instead of ending it right before we get the chance to hear what's going on. So the makers of BCS are actively encouraging crazy fan theorizing. And to me at least it's part of the fun of watching a series while it's airing! Like, when I was in junior high and Twin Peaks was on the Finnish telly, the next day me and my friends would gather during the first recess to make wild guesses about what's going to happen next, and it made the whole thing more special, like we were all sharing the whole ride while it was happening... I don't see message board discussions and speculations and nit-pickings as any different from that, it's part of being a viewer/fan of a series. If you want to treat some series like it's a novel and not a succession of weekly installments, then don't come to the thread until it's all over... But I don't really get what's wrong with other people wanting to share the experience like this?

i can understand where he is coming from. speculation of plot dev is totally fun and an enjoyable grp activity. dissection of the flaws of something you enjoy is often less so (esp so early in the life cycle as we are here). these threads are often much heavier on the latter than the former, which doesn't work for everybody.

tuomas otm

You do realize that TV shows are generally designed to be watched in weekly installments? So it's not the same as reading a book?

You are aware that there's an invention called television, and on this invention they show shows?

_I wonder what transpires between now and breaking bad where Mike is able to see Kaylee unsupervised but the mom won't even talk to him_

...he gets work as muscle for a meth lord?

last line of the episode was something like "you know what happened next, the question is can you live with it" -- so maybe she decides she can't?

Yeah, that was my though too... She knows Mike is absolutely dedicated to his family, so she still lets her look after Kaylee (makes being a single mom easier too), but after he revealed all that she can't bear to look him in the eyes anymore.

"so she still lets him look after Kaylee"

maybe those maxi pads weren't just* for the wounds, then

Felix will wash himself, but Oscar won't. He just won't!

that was the saddest ending for anything i've seen in a long while.

I feel like this show is waaaay better at dealing with the gray areas of ethics/morality, or at least the pull/descent of/into unethical/illegal behavior than Breaking Bad ever was. I mean, I never thought that was the point of Breaking Bad, but at certain earlier points it was, and many people seemed to think that's what the series was about.

^^^ thinking the exact same thing last night. In a lot of ways they've (oddly) made Saul a more sympathetic character, a human with actual ethical dilemmas in a way Walt never was beyond maybe the first couple episodes of BB

and I like how this isn't a show where every episode hinges on some sort of high-stakes tension/crisis that he has to weasel out of, it's much more subtle and character-driven than the sort of mechanical "how will they get out of THIS" constructs of so much of BB

otm. enjoying this show for that exact reason.

also the sex toilet scene.

curious as to where they're going to go over the next few episodes, as this last one seemed to wrap up a lot of the existing plot arcs.

Whatsisface the gangbanger will certainly rear his head in the next ep or two.

ya- i thought he was shaping up to be the main antagonist, but he's vanished completely.

Interesting that they still keep on depicting Jimmy as someone who does the right thing, in the end... I wonder what his point of no return will be, when he'll turn from "Jimmy" to "Saul"? The plot seems to be wired so that something will happen to Chuck, and that's when Jimmy is lost. Chuck is clearly set up as his moral anchor, Jimmy didn't even want him to find out about the billboard stunt, so I don't think he could become fully crooked if Chuck was still around. (Also, could he ever confess to Chuck he changed the family name they share into something Jewish-sounding just for profits? Though I guess there's still the possibility that big law firm will force him to change his name to avoid trademark infringement.)

well we know Chuck exits the picture at some point, so yeah I think you're right that how that happens is going to be a big turning point in the show and for Jimmy

well, this last episode the only reason he "did the right thing" was to help out his lawyer friend Kim. i was guessing that as soon as she leaves the picture, he'll have no motive to be a better person any more.

^^^ thinking the exact same thing last night. In a lot of ways they've (oddly) made Saul a more sympathetic character, a human with actual ethical dilemmas in a way Walt never was beyond maybe the first couple episodes of BB

Yeah but Jimmy has a future and Walt, even after remission, never really did. So, yeah, BCS will be a lot of grey area and what can I live with as opposed to BB, in Walt's case, being more of a the system fucked me over for 50 years and now I'm going to fuck with it. Jesse had a ton of moral grey area.

well, this last episode the only reason he "did the right thing" was to help out his lawyer friend Kim.

You could say that he helped the Kettlemans too, at least their kids, by forcing them to accept the deal... Though of course he benefitted from that too.

Walt, even after remission, never really did.

Was that really case? When the cancer went into remission, I don't think the doctor said that it will inevitably come back and that Walt will inevitably die within a couple of years. It felt more like that, after the remission, the "I have no future" thing was just something Walt kept telling himself so he'd have no reason to quit being Heisenberg. Wasn't there even some episode where Walt confessed that he felt lost, because with the cancer diagnosis he had a clear direction in life, and after the remission that direction was gone?

This show is great, I love the Kettlemans, apparently Albuquerque is full of inept would-be Walt & Skylars (and Jesse Pinkmans). You get the sense that BB Saul initially thought he was dealing with another pair of idiot clowns until things got real.

I'm enjoying the loose yet controlled plotting. It seems to be becoming a tradition to have the first act of each episode dealing with aftermath of the previous one, before moving on to its main storyline.

"The 25th Hour with Maude and Ned Flanders"

Also, could he ever confess to Chuck he changed the family name they share into something Jewish-sounding just for profits?

chuck suggested the name change in the first episode

or at least suggested jimmy not use the family name for his firm, same diff

Something about this latest episode tipped it over into "better than Breaking Bad" territory for me.

I was hesitant to say that but I am leaning that way too

it's pretty different, but in ways that are more appealing to me, I guess? And Bob is just killin it, he's created a character that's much more fun to watch than Walt

I would guess that the pacing is among the more common complaints that anyone complaining about the show might have, but I love it. Everything is given room to breathe as if it were a film from the '70s.

ha yes there is something v 70s-ish about it a la the Friends of Eddie Coyle or Charlie Varrick or something

Yeah, Charlie Varrick is a great point of comparison.

/well, this last episode the only reason he "did the right thing" was to help out his lawyer friend Kim./

You could say that he helped the Kettlemans too, at least their kids, by forcing them to accept the deal... Though of course he benefitted from that too.

/Walt, even after remission, never really did./

Was that really case? When the cancer went into remission, I don't think the doctor said that it will inevitably come back and that Walt will inevitably die within a couple of years. It felt more like that, after the remission, the "I have no future" thing was just something Walt kept telling himself so he'd have no reason to quit being Heisenberg. Wasn't there even some episode where Walt confessed that he felt lost, because with the cancer diagnosis he had a clear direction in life, and after the remission that direction was gone?

Well yeah that was a huge turning point when Walt went into remission. I'm not really talking about the cancer per se just that I never felt that Walt would be alive at the end of the series.

the final scene with jimmy kicking the door - i wasn't entirely sure i followed this. did losing the money from the kettlemans mean he wouldn't be able to afford his new office, or was he upset because his friend was staying with the rival company?

i took that to mean he couldnt afford the new office

kim had already politely declined his offer

Betsy Kettleman is such a great character.

"Don't look back, honey. Always forward. Always in life, look forward."

yeah, that was a great line. she's wonderful.

Something about this latest episode tipped it over into "better than Breaking Bad" territory for me.

eh this is crazytalk

I like this show a lot but it's still just breaking bad minus the leads at this point. 7 episodes in and michael mckean is the closest thing to a memorable character who wasn't in the original show.

pacing feels very different from BB to me

looking at wikipedia - only 1 out of the 7 episodes so far wasn't written by someone who worked on breaking bad

nobody is gonna want to fuck w/ the formula when it works, but if they really wanted to make a real break w/ breaking bad they shoulda put it in another city and not brought back mike as a lead

idg yr criticisms - it can't be better than the first series, because it's about the same people? no one's arguing that the show's not set in the same locale, with the same characters, etc. but it's tone and direction and the kind of stories/conflicts it's focusing on are pretty different. and like I said upthread, I prefer Jimmy as a protagonist to Walt, he's just more interesting/funnier/more nuanced. Walt was pretty one-note - and that was his main virtue! - but BB wasn't really interested in moral ambiguities the way BCS is shaping up to be.

'Walt was pretty one-note - and that was his main virtue! - but BB wasn't really interested in moral ambiguities the way BCS is shaping up to be.'

I don't even know how to answer this

IDGI either, the show is doing something vv different from BB, even if it's using some of the same visual language and is technically set in the same universe. It's primarily going for pathos and humor as opposed to tension (as opposed to the other way around), for starters.

anyway another issue w/ the show is that it kinda boxed itself in w/ the timeline - some stuff is gonna happen, jimmy will become saul, but there's kinda only so much that can happen. it's really hard to imagine this lasting for 5 seasons and not because 'it's not good' but just because we already now where it ends and it's not a particularly exciting place.

if it had been a sequel it would probably be harder to sell it as 'a different show' but the writers would have a lot more room to go wild w/ the character and locations.

It's primarily going for pathos and humor as opposed to tension (as opposed to the other way around), for starters.

yeah but the pathos and humor is exactly the same pathos and humor that the character had when he was on a show called breaking bad

if they really wanted to make a real break w/ breaking bad they shoulda put it in another city and not brought back mike as a lead

yeah: also not brought back Saul, and called it Better Call Saul

big mistake there, I bet they feel embarrassed

No there is def a different level of pathos to saul on this show

He was never shown wrestling w his conscience on BB

re: the timeline, I may eat my words later but I'm willing to bet the series catches us up to a certain point and then leapfrogs to after the events of BB

(I mean, it kinda HAS to at some point, given he flashforward that opens the series, but I'm hoping it does it significantly before the end of its run)

yeah: also not brought back Saul, and called it Better Call Saul

big mistake there, I bet they feel embarrassed

they probably don't feel embarrassed cause they were cool w/ the fact that a show w/ the same writers, producers, actors and characters, set in the same city was gonna end up a lot like breaking bad

while I'm complaining about a show that I actually do like - kim wexler feels like a totally empty character who got sucked into this universe from some later era l&o season or something.

Poorly written female characters v much in the tradition of BB

tbh can't wait for him to ditch his conscience, and by that I mean commit his brother and become a bus stop bench-advertising sleaze

"I'm not Slippin' Jimmy anymore!"

wait until he's into the Saul persona, has the ads, and has a nightmare with "Slippin' Jimmy" written on a billboard

Would love it if the last couple of seasons were just the breaking bad storyline told from jimmy's perspective.

iatee and Otic both very much off the money in this thread

That said kim wexler codes very similarly to Carrie Mathison in Homeland for me right now and I'm having the same disorienting effect as the first time I encountered Saul and had trouble separating him from GOB in Arrested Development as a character. It's not that any of them are the same, just first impressions and certain traits had me thrown at first.

how so? the whole Saul character did a lot of wincing and eye-rolling and hemming/hawing throughout Breaking Bad, and the entire setup of that show was that all of the characters, even the sleazy lawyer, had a conscience and background even if the show didn't spell it out. idk if it translates, but Saul's "jokes" about how in hiding he'd be working at a Cinnabon in Nebraska -- which proves true at the beginning of this series -- is an admission that his life is going to go straight to purgatory due to how he's lived. not hell, because he's schemed and bought his way through life, but he's not worthy of anything better due to some past actions and his BB lifestyle couldn't give him enough money to climb any higher.

I do feel bad for the Kim character so far, really does seem like an aspirational type ripped from a different show, where she might date a down-on-his-luck cop and not the future Saul

Saul and GOB are not at all alike other than being American, tallish, and having receding hairlines

DL is it possible that if two characters look vaguely similar and are american you think they're the same? You just pulled that trick with two blonde women.

you guys all look the same to me.

The actress who plays Kim does have a similar low voice as Claire Danes, but that's about it for their similarities. Also, I don't feel her character is out of place? BCS is decidedly more mundane and less OTT than BB, so a more down-to-earth character with normal aspirations fits, IMO.

Xps there was an interview ages ago with Gilligan or one of the writers that said the show would be set "before, during and after" BB. Tbh I hope they keep that to short flash-forwards, I'm not sure how much of gene I need to see.

Sorta get the impression that Walt & Jesse didn't take up a gigantic amount of Saul's time until the point they decided to go to war with Gus Fring, and then they basically ruined his life? So you would theoretically be able to run this concurrently with Breaking Bad, but I'm not sure how convincing it would be, and it would be virtually impossible to make it stand alone as its own show (as it more or less is up until now).

I don't feel like this is that episodic at present - the three main plot strands (Mike case, drug dealers, Kettelmans) all feel closely interwoven already.

would watch a serious dramatic spin off on how George Oscar became 'GOB'

another great episode; the direction/cinematography is consistently the best on tv.
Though it sorta cheats to get there, this feels like the most successful first season of any show i can think of.
Comparing BCS to BB is a bit of a fool's game for a dozen reasons, most notably that Saul hasn't really had time to prove itself but I'm inclined even at this early stage to say Gilligan has figured out how to achieve consistent excellence.
the major issue is that we know the outcome of all these character's arcs so there's a lot less at stake. gilligan's smart enough to take that into account, I'm looking forward to getting us back to post Breaking Bad life where anything's possible again in s.2

I really like the casual way the show reveals aspects of the backstory. We didn't have any *urgent* need to know how Kim and Jimmy know each other or why Jimmy's relationship with the firm is so poisonous, but finding that stuff out right now is particularly poignant.

copyroom scene with Hamlin was super well done imo
"you want this open or shut?"

I wonder what transpires between now and breaking bad where Mike is able to see Kaylee unsupervised but the mom won't even talk to him

Well I guess I got my answer tonight.

my dvr cut off during the previews for next week, but is Chuck better and outside of his house in that preview?

(I know he was outside the house at the end of the episode but it's not clear what happens next)

he's outside in the previews.
i took that (somewhat clunky) moment as the scene where he finally realizes this is in his head

loved the way jimmy croaked how he was watching the opera while covered in adult diapers

I think this was the episode where this show started to click for me as its own thing, enjoyable completely outside the bbad context

Seems like there's more comedy moments than in Breaking Bad

We pretty much knew that was going to be the case as soon as the show was green-lit.

Just watched last night's episode — this show is so good.

I am still kind of hoping for some "client of the week" type episodes where it's a straight-up farce

that doesn't look very likely

The last 3-4 ep's of this have been brilliant in particular, there needs at least to be one more series of this. I hope they don't kill off McKean/his bro in this one, because he is ace.

he was in breaking bad, so it's unlikely no?

I can't remember him in BB tbh and I watched it all, senility creeping in.

amc ordered two seasons to begin with, so I don't think you have to worry abt another season to come

mckean was not in breaking bad at all iirc

you know what, i think it's my senility. I coulda sworn he was in it but i can't find a link so i don't think it happened.

he and odenkirk have a really fantastic sibling dynamic imho

good use of galt macdermot this wk too

This was a good episode, I love how Jimmy's real strength is shown to be his dogged determinedness of getting results no matter how humiliating it is for him. I guess he wouldn't have gotten there without all those years of taking hopeless public defendant jobs...

One scene which I felt hit a false note was the one where Mike's daughter-in-law (IMDb tells me her name is "Stacey", but I don't think it's been mentioned in the show?) suggested she and Kaylee would need more money... I mean, she must realize what sort of things Mike would have to do to get some extra money, and nothing we've seen so far has suggested she's the sort of person who would ask Mike for that. And if this is gonna be turning point for Mike, the one thing that leads him back to a life crime, I wish they would've put more effort into fleshing out her character and her motivations for pushing him into it. I guess the biggest flaw in BCS so far is that the writers haven't been very good at writing the female characters, they've been relegated to fairly stereotypical gendered roles: the suffering widow, the loyal (ex) girlfriend, the manipulative shrew.

Also, as funny as the scene was, I don't understand why Jimmy was wearing a good suit when he went dumpster-diving? He knew what he was gonna do, so why not dress in some cheaper clothes?

Jimmy so clearly doesn't own anything other than cheap suits.

But didn't he use some of Kettleman's bribe money to buy himself a fancy "Matlock" suit so he would look good in the eyes of pensioners? It looked like that was the suit he was wearing in the dumpster.

And by "Matlock suit" I meant the white suit he bought, not the previous one he got to piss off the jerkass lawyer at his brother's company.

"Also, as funny as the scene was, I don't understand why Jimmy was wearing a good suit when he went dumpster-diving?"

Good to see that Tuomas never changes.

Kinda liked how abrupt the mike thing was

"Money's a bit tight rn"
*sigh* "guess I'd better join the criminal underworld"

When you've already gunned down two cops everything else is a pretty short step from there.

Oh I agree, that's why I liked it! Worth remembering that mike is unambiguously a bad guy in bb & it'd be out of character for him to be wrestling with his conscience

Mike is prepared to go all-in as he Breaks Bad, per his established 'no half measures' code, but I think he certainly wrestles with his conscience. It's one of the things that makes him a more emotionally complex character than Walter White.

the mike episode a couple/few weeks back was a stright up masterpiece, mike is so good, they shd have a mike show too

xpost There's a tension between his willingness to do what he has to do on his path to damnation and his general decency that's in marked contrast with Walt's scorched earth sociopathy.

mike is unambiguously 100% business and his business happens to be criminal at this point

no matter what position you put him in, he gets results

No one was getting past him without the right stickers.

I guess the biggest flaw in BCS so far is that the writers haven't been very good at writing the female characters, they've been relegated to fairly stereotypical gendered roles: the suffering widow, the loyal (ex) girlfriend, the manipulative shrew.

Tuomas otm here, and it was the same in BB imo

I get the impression that this may not be Mike's first foray into crime. Besides murdering those two police, we've already seen him help Jimmy break into the Kettlemans' house, and he seemed completely at ease with that. And there's a bunch of time between the end of his run as a cop and his moving to New Mexico, right? Who knows what he got up to during that interval.

Then again, that would've required him to be fully involved in crime in the same city where he'd been an officer, and doing so while his own son was on the police force. So maybe not.

While I'm speculating, I have to think that Mike was already working for Fring by around the time BB starts. I know that wasn't the original intention for his character, but he was eventually depicted as too important to the Fring operation to have just gotten involved with it sometime after his first appearance at the end of season 2.

thought it was p clear Mike was dirty/doin crimes while on the force in Philly

Mike was important to the organisation because the rest of the Fring muscle were all complete fucking cretins.

I'm not sure I find the story of Mike's sons murder entirely plausible (his dad was a cop also on the take--seems like there are many ways of playing this short of Serpico-ing him).

Am I the only one getting a blackmail vibe from Mike's daughter-in-law?

Not a blackmail vibe so much as a 'morality-clouding proximity to ill-gotten $$$' vibe, a la Skyler White or Carmella Soprano.

the mike episode a couple/few weeks back was a stright up masterpiece, mike is so good, they shd have a mike show too

― lag∞n, Wednesday, March 25, 2015 10:39 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed, getting the sense BCS is gonna be almost as much the mike ehrmantraut hour as it is the saul origin/conclusion story although saul will prob remain the primary focus

xp good comparisons

Not a blackmail vibe so much as a 'morality-clouding proximity to ill-gotten $$$' vibe, a la Skyler White or Carmella Soprano.

Yeah, that was my thought too, but at least Skyler they'd already established her as a complex enough character so we'd understand where she was coming from, whereas with Stacey it came out of the blue, because we don't really know anything about her.

this bathroom legal documentation to serve the corrupt retirement home owners is amazing, some tour de force legal work

Chuck looking like he's in a catatonic state until he calmly demands twenty million dollars

the sandpiper crossing attorney is Dennis Boutsikaris who Law & Order fiends will remember from many L&O/SVU/CI episodes, including at least one stone classic

mike is unambiguously 100% business and his business happens to be criminal at this point

no matter what position you put him in, he gets results

Like I said

I don't know what to make of this show but it certainly ain't bad

latest episode might've been the best since "five-O" (the all-mike hour)

"pimento is a cheese. some call it the caviar of the south."

Welp now we know what's in Odenkirk's Emmy reel

Fucking Chuck.

great episode.

Bob O has been stupendous in this so far, gilligan is like some kinda middle-aged comedian emmy whisperer

best episode yet

chuck's cruel speech at the end was so much like something walter white would say to crush jesse. monkey with a machine gun!

what a prick

That was heartbreaking. Chuck is a monster.

The quality of this show is amazing.

What is really hitting home to me is just how realistic this whole thing actually is. Chuck has the self-righteous importance of an accomplished lawyer and from that springs his belief that he can simply deem things to be so, and they will and they will be right. I have seen and experienced this FAR too many times to have any qualms about the portrayal's realism. This type of shit happens every day in law offices all over the country.

What I find to be so compelling is that Hamlin turns out to be not that bad of a guy, and actually may be somewhat of a good guy. From where he's sitting, he didn't need to give any more of an explanation to Kim or to Jimmy. Jimmy called him a pig fucker and declined the deal. But because of Kim's plea, he relented and convinced her to go and talk to Jimmy one more time to take the deal ($20k + whatever 20% of the final settlement would be - assuming $20m, that's $4m to Jimmy). The sigh and look he gave in his office after he just couldn't convince himself of his own bullshit was really telling. He demoted Kim because she fucked up with the Kettlemans. But he could have just let Jimmy stew and hate him and not done anything else. But (I think) he recognized that this was some class A lawyering by Jimmy (which it was, regardless of where he went to law school), and decided that he would do what he could to help Jimmy out.

This show is good like a good pair of broken in shoes or a car with a well-driven and well-maintained engine - nothing new, nothing novel, but it does everything right and fucks nothing up. I cannot wait for the finale, and for season two.

I didn't quite take it like that as far as Hamlin. I think he told Kim that it was Chuck's decision, and that's what convinced her to to try to get jimmy to take the deal. I don't think he was trying to help jimmy out of the good of his heart. I think Chuck just as likely convinced Hamlin to give him that good a deal.

That was heartbreaking. Chuck is a monster.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Tuesday, March 31, 2015 9:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've gone back and forth a bit about how much of a monster Chuck showed himself to be here.

On the one hand, he's got many years of experience with his little brother being a career con artist. And we know that he turns out to be somewhat right about what Jimmy might get up to with a law degree at his disposal.

But then again, of course, what Chuck did is probably the very thing that guarantees Jimmy will backslide. And he can't see that because his vision is obscured by snobbery and by the bogus belief that somehow only he has worked hard to get where he is.

That scene was totally heartbreaking. I love this show.

Re Hamlin: I disagree. At the very least, that's $20k gone. Any lawyer who is in business for themselves would never do something like that without some sort of motivation behind it. Now, it could be that his motivation was to keep Kim loyal and still on his side as an associate. That's a very real possibility.

What Chuck did was monstrous, definitely. I wouldn't give him credit for an accurate prediction on Jimmy backsliding so much as blame him for leaving his brother little other choice.

Sibling rivalry (you're not my peer) is a better explanation for his motivation than snobbery. Chuck's standards are high -- just because Jimmy has shown he can meet and even exceed them is no reason to believe they've actually been equals all along.

Chuck's psychosomatic illness fits that pattern. Jimmy is at his beck and call, but he's OK with that: Jimmy has enough compassion for his brother not to point out that catering to his sensitivities is a needless waste of energy and time. Chuck does nothing to return the favor. Now that he's getting better (still sweating under the tinfoil lining his suit jacket), he gets a hero's welcome for overcoming nothing more than the power of his imagination, while Jimmy gets to lug the boxes and buy the kerosene and probably hand-stitch the lining into his suit too.

Chuck is used to having the world revolve around him. Just to make sure that never changes, he stabs his brother in the back.

Re Hamlin: I disagree. At the very least, that's $20k gone. Any lawyer who is in business for themselves would never do something like that without some sort of motivation behind it. Now, it could be that his motivation was to keep Kim loyal and still on his side as an associate. That's a very real possibility.

Hamlin's moral code is a complete mystery which is why I love that character. At a superficial level he's a dick but his actions are basically rational and all a part of the gig.

In a town apparently full of would-be Walter Whites, they're setting Jimmy up as the anti-Walt in a lot of ways - we're seeing him pushed down his path through the tyranny of low expectations rather than Walt's own astronomically high ones. I suppose the journey from Jimmy to Saul is about how long he takes to be beaten down and accept them.

The scene with Mike in the car park was flat out amazing.

Was half expecting the pill buyer to be Gus; Nacho was my second guess.

Woah. Chuck's speech was absolutely brutal. Was not expecting that Hamlin's dickery was a front with Chuck pulling the strings; playing the part of a dick was all business.

Reckon's there are number of motivations for Chuck: self-righteous, snobbery and sibling rivalry, yes. One of embarrassment, too - that his fuck up little brother can go all the way from Slippin' Jimmy, work his arse off and then become his peer? And embarrassment on a superficial level - Jimmy's personality isn't what you call 'corporate'.

Mike's side story was pretty damn fun!

I am enjoying the surprising lack of cynicism in this show. It feels refreshing to have a lead character (especially compared to BB but also a lot of TV serials - Mad Men etc) who is drawn so sympathetically. If Walter White was a good baddy, Jimmy is a bad goody. Or is it the other way round? At this stage, Jimmy has something rare in narrative today: a social conscience and a drive that isn't necessarily about an end-game. Of course he wants to be successful and accrue wealth/status as a lawyer, but somehow his conscience still affects the way he goes about things. He's seems genuinely selfless in his regard of Kim and Chuck, his elder clients etc... He takes huge risks, but he's not an 'ends justify the means' sociopath in the guise of Walter White.

http://40.media.tumblr.com/160ad915f6cd4adf60ed417578088f8f/tumblr_nlezlz96ae1tqy47po1_500.jpg

Jimmy is a good baddy Yeah, I think we're invited to connect his idealism x shadiness, his struggle for balance, with Mike's honor-among-thieves lesson (J. really didn't want to take the Kettlemen pay-off at first, 'til Mrs. K. presented it as a consultation fee, not a bribe, but when he did, it was sooo useful). I figured there would be a moment of at least partial disillusionment (though he alwsys seemed to be trying to do right by all his BB clients, def. incl. trying to talk sanity to Walt and Jesse, finally saving Walt's ass as he saved his own) and/or turning aside from the obsession with The Firm But hadn't consciously expected this, although it makes total sense, soon as I saw Big Brother making that call, so difficult for him, I thought back to the jailhouse visitation room confrontation, where he looked like he wanted to puke the whole time. And of course, as Plasmon says, he was always the one to sit in his Fortress of Solitude, waited on by Jimmy and The Firm too'
But once Jimmy pulled him back into law, into life, he had his own struggle, his own balancing act. So he demanded that Hamlin pay Jimmy off, as a condition of bringing the case to The Firm (got enough heft, partnership-wise and psychologically, to make Hamlin think it was still Chuck's deal or no deal---he's not only Chuck's Big Bro). It seems like a very fair offer, though maybe he knew it was a gamble, nevertheless, he it was one that he had to make (that Jimmy would accept it; or could Chuck have turned the case over to H. on his own? Prob not without risking litigation from Jimmy, the principal and orig. attorney of record)
"On some level you know it's true!" And, also as prev. noted, Chuck and their Mom have been dealing with Jimmy all their lives, so we can't be totally confident in condemmning Chuck, can we? Of course, there's also ye olde matter of the self-fulfilling prophecy, and implications about the treatment of habitual offenders, esp. when they're trying to go straight. Still "Slippin' Jimmy I can handle, but Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree?!" Then yet again, comparison to a chimpanzee takes us to the somewhat familiar other side of fine concerns...

Wow, sorry how that looks; no more mad typing on the phone (maybe).

Walter White was unquestionably a horrible person, and the idea he is doing any sort of good or is at heart a "good person" is undermined in nearly every episode. He watches people die and doesn't help them, he orders others to kill people, he manufactures a drug few people would ever advocate for decriminalizing and shows no ignorance about who is buying the product. Unless you buy into the delusions of the character, there is no way you can see him as "good." In the end, he even faced the truth and admitted he did everything for himself.

The main issue addressed by both series is the idea, a very American idea, that personal worth is measured by the respect of important people and monetary success. The so-called American dream is that anyone, regardless of their past, is capable of this success through hard work. There's also the implication that everyone should strive toward something greater. At the beginning of Breaking Bad, Walt seems to be a pretty good teacher, he has a loving son and wife, and a fairly stable life. When he finds out he has cancer, he claims to himself that he wants to provide for his family, but the truth is that he wants success and money. And he gets it, by violent, criminal means.

On the flip side, Jimmy is pretty much the embodiment of a guy who had a shady past and, through hard work, tries to make it the honest way to success. But Chuck knows that's just bullshit, there is no American dream, that your work alone means nothing. Even though both McGills have passed the bar and are legal peers, Jimmy isn't a "real lawyer." Chuck went to the right schools, rubbed elbows with the right people, and it was a lot less about hard work than it was acceptance by the institution.

Walt went a criminal route because he wanted a shortcut, Jimmy is going to go the criminal route because he went the long way through and upon arriving was turned away.

great analysis.

Also, I think by now there's little doubt this show is the equal of BB; at least it is for me. The last episode was heartbreaking.

I haven't seen this latest episode yet (been camping in Big Sur) but looking forward to it. I wonder how Chuck is going to be removed from the picture, since that obviously has to happen at some point.

http://www.amctv.com/shows/better-call-saul/client-development-comic?startpage=20

go land crabs!

or better yet
http://www.amctv.com/shows/better-call-saul/client-development-comic

I wonder how Chuck is going to be removed from the picture, since that obviously has to happen at some point.

I hope he just starves to death because Jimmy won't bring him anymore food. This show must be really well written because I fucking hate Chuck right now.

Even if his law degree is mail-order and he's got a huge mouth, Jimmy is at least as good an advocate for his clients as Chuck and Howard because he always has his radar on and brain working -- loved that scene where he's walking away from Mrs. Intestate, stops, walks back and says "...allowance?" Him leaving and coming back is what makes it.

on one level the most obvious/melodramatic thing would be for Jimmy to have Mike kill Chuck for some reason. not that I think that that will happen but it's occurred to me.

That's kind of the other thing -- lawyers like Chuck go to nice schools and end up working for nice firms with conference rooms and clients with money or cases they can take on contingency. Successful people go to them because they know they'll get their money's worth.

Lawyers that poor people can afford... well, it's like the couple who embezzled the money said, "you seem like someone who represents people who are guilty." Rich people with nice lawyers are never truly guilty the way poor people are, even if the rich people embezzled millions of dollars and some poor guy didn't even commit the crime he was accused of.

For what it's worth, it's not just economics, but race as well. That's part of why OJ Simpson not being convicted of murder was such a landmark thing -- a rich black man was able to get out of being convicted just like a rich white man could have. Conversely, you can work your ass off, be really successful, and still seem like you must be guilty of something. Chris Rock sure does seem to get pulled over by the police a lot more than white people driving the same cars.

I haven't seen this latest episode yet (been camping in Big Sur) but looking forward to it. I wonder how Chuck is going to be removed from the picture, since that obviously has to happen at some point.

You'd think so, but it would be kind of great too if it just receded into the background as a constant source of anger and shame like Grey Matter

Wait isn't Chuck already removed from the picture? I mean what's left to keep Jimmy interacting with him at this point....

http://36.media.tumblr.com/a1aab1d70cf38c50d739c44d2497c297/tumblr_nm60z2OIlr1qh9fgxo1_1280.jpg

Very strong finale. This and The Americans are pretty unabashedly doing 70's-film Americana in long form which I am 100% into.

yeah, loved this as a wrap-up to the series so far, and as a tantalising frustration that I can't have MORE, NOW

The steady accumulation of shit leading to jimmy's inevitable turn towards criminality felt nicely organic, so I could have done without his "from this day forth, I vow never to have a moral objection to anything ever" at the end. He may as well have looked at the camera & said "I guess maybe it's time for me to... break bad?"

That said smoke on the water was lol

Yeah, it looked for a second like he was moving past the insatiable hollowness of his old buddy, who only had crime to provide The Purpose-Driven Life. But I guess now he can have be an ambulance-chaser, a mensch, a Robin Hood (Robin was one of the poor, so kept a Robin-determined, sliding-scale percentage of the goods), and do it in Duke, in Chuck's face, even if Chuck never gets near an operating TV again (so can't see the Better Call Saul ads). He'll hear about it from his delivery guy etc.

Can have it both ways, I meant: if he chooses to, fight the good fight for fellow underdogs, while getting money from the Establishment anyway he can (also providing shady services as well, like for Walt and Jesse). And pissing off Chuck in the process (yet tending to confirm and justify Chuck's opinion and screwing of him, because he, Jimmy/Saul, buys it too, now. Maybe he always did, either way was fighting the self-image, in trying so desperately to please Chuck)(also using Chuck to vindicate himself).

The coin scam scene was so great.

I felt this episode was perhaps dramatically a bit too neat (Marco just happens to die while their performing their last scam, Jimmy just happens to get an offer for a proper lawyer job just as he's contemplating what to do with his life, and of course his final speech to Mike was a bit too much of AND THUS SAUL WAS BORN!), but on the other hand the previous episode was the one that provided the real dramatic turning point of the whole season, and they managed to get there quite organically (Chuck's "you're not a lawyer" speech felt like an unexpected shocker, but it was totally in line of how his and Jimmy's characters had been established in the previous episodes, so it was really about as masterful as plot twist can be), so I could forgive them for wanting to tie up things neatly in the finale. I'm not sure what's left for the next season, though? Are we just gonna see the same kind of stuff as in BB, except from Saul's/Jimmy's point of view?

He is nowhere near the position we see him in in bb

There is a fair amount of space between deciding to be less scrupulous and being a money-laundering criminal defence attorney with ties to the meth business

He might just be thinking of taking advantage of his geezer clients at this stage

this show is so good

I liked how Mike was seemingly caught in between thinking Jimmy had lost it and thinking he was right.

Still wondering how much mileage they try to get out of pre-BBad Jimmy and how much time they'll spend with post-BBad Saul-Jimmy. And the best part is that I have absolutely no idea.

I've said it before but I really don't need to see any more post-bb Saul

In any case I don't think the whole show would jump to the gene part of the timeline cause that would mean getting rid of Jonathan banks

I agree with Tuomas that the finale felt too neat and contrived, narratively - but that doesn't bother me so much when the execution is this good and the details this rich. The scamming montage was incredible, like a live action version of Bart and Milhouse's squishee rampage.

I've said it before but I really don't need to see any more post-bb Saul

If they make it interesting sure, why not?

I thought it was a neat detail that the one thing that forced Jimmy to change his habits wasn't getting caught while scamming (which the previous episode lead the viewer to believe was the case), but getting caught while shitting inside his nemesis' car. There was some implication, though, that he'd had legal trouble before, but it still seems that his crooked life never gave him such pain and disappointments as his straight life, so it's not that surprising he'd return to it.

in the earlier episode when he's in jail it's explicitly stated that he's in for indecent exposure, not scamming

he uses the term "chicago sunroof" in that earlier ep too

his bingo meltdown was so good

Yeah, beautifully written and performed scene.

the big revelation for me there (apart from finding out what a chicago sunroof is, lol) was the suggestion that chuck deliberately got jimmy facing a harsher sentence so he could manipulate him into coming to new mexico with him

Was that really suggested? If Chuck was Jimmy's defense attorney, how could he make the prosecutor go for a harsher indictment?

re the gene years, it just feels redundant to me. I like the fact that we know how saul's story ends: he works a boring job, lives in fear of being recognised, that's it. I'm not interested in seeing him on the run any more than I want to see jesse driving around in an rv solving crimes

xp unless I'm misremembering, jimmy says in the bingo speech that chuck pulled strings

yeah just went back & checked, he says "chuck was connected, like cicero connected[...] he's got the DA saying 'indecent exposure'"

No, I think he said the guy in whose car he shat in pulled the strings?

Okay, maybe I misremember that scene.

It wasn't Chuck's car he shat in was it? It was confusing as he ranted on about how the car-owner was his worst rival and gave him a fake name that sounded similar to Chuck.

Also, fat guy having a heart attack at *that* moment was a bit hmm, as they've never really gone for the obvious soapy plot thing before. One of the most impressive parts of the last episode was Jimmy explaining how he rang the phone company to get details of calls made - would have been v easy (& lazy) to just have Jimmy check his 'dialled calls' settings and see lawyer guy's number pop up. Nice example of Chuck's slyness that he went through and deleted that manually after his phone call, despite not being shown onscreen.

It wasn't Chuck's car he shat in was it? It was confusing as he ranted on about how the car-owner was his worst rival and gave him a fake name that sounded similar to Chuck.

No, it was just some guy he hated called Chet, who'd apparently also slept with Jimmy's wife. Also, I checked that scene with the Netflix subtitles on, and this is the line Jimmy says:

Now Chet was connected,see? Like Cicero, connected.

Odenkirk says the name "Chet" a bit unclearly, so I can see why Wins misheard it as "Chuck". But it wasn't Chuck who got him the indecent exposure charge, it was Chet, which makes more sense to me than Chuck doing it.

Ahhh, I totally misread that scene as Chuck pulling the strings to teach Jimmy a lesson or what have you.

But yeah, since that scene has Jimmy rambling about both Chuck and Chet, maybe they could've given the car-shat guy a name that sounds a bit more different from his brother's.

(xpost)

This is why I always watch movies and series with loads of realistic dialogue with the subtitles on, even though my English is pretty good.

Chuck was a good brother and bailed him out, and Jimmy having some sense of obligation took the ultimatum to get his shit together seriously, to the point where he didn't even say hi to his friend when he was in town for a funeral a few years back.

It turns out Chuck had limits on how much he wanted his little brother to turn his life around, though.

xp my bad!

Terrific first season, but I didn't believe that payoff/turnaround in the last minute. If the point of the season was to build us up to an inevitable moment where Jimmy finally turns, it hasn't worked for me. Ultimately who cares, though, if the next season stays at this level.

The heart attack at that precise moment was a little too convenient, yeah (Gillgan's team can fudge the way from points A to Z sometimes, like how did Walt get anthrax or whatever into Lydia's untorn sugar substiute packets), but that goes with the scurry of their characters, after all. And they do get there, often enough.

I suspect that Mike, who is an old school expert at much deeper and darker shit than Jimmy's ever thought of ("That precinct was a sewer," says the older of the detectives from Back East, easing up to fellow vet M.), has something to do with his continuing education (although Jonathan Banks has just been quoted by Hollywood Reporter re Season 2, "I have absolutely no idea what will happen.")

Or maybe they lead each other down the road to BB.

Jonathan Banks has just been quoted by Hollywood Reporter re Season 2, "I have absolutely no idea what will happen."

Terrific first season, but I didn't believe that payoff/turnaround in the last minute. If the point of the season was to build us up to an inevitable moment where Jimmy finally turns, it hasn't worked for me. Ultimately who cares, though, if the next season stays at this level.

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, April 9, 2015 12:46 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah I didn't buy it. Felt unearned.

Re Mike and deep dark etc: maybe I'm just remembering the future of these characters, maybe he really does, so far, think in the terms of his little Sunday School lesson about how you can be a criminal without being a bad guy, maybe that's how he could have been a good cop who just took the bribes to fit in and stay alive. Then again, he's good at compartmentalizing: in the future, he can do dark shit before and after buying balloons for his granddaughter at the park. Still, even he may have a ways to go, BB-wise.

Agree with the A-Z fudging -- Walt's character was all over the map in season 2. Not so much a gradual descent as "oh, right, he's evil now."

I think the problem is, Odenkirk's so (surprisingly) good, so three-dimensional, that if the script has is motivation pivot in a sudden and cheap way, it's all the more noticeable. Whereas Walt was a mystery, even to himself, and his unexplained mood shifts worked well as part of his enigmatic character (rather than as signposts of rushed storytelling).

"has his motivation", I mean

tbh I would imagine Mike as a cop would do whatever it took if he knew someone was guilty, including planting evidence, setting them up to take the fall for something else, etc

My hope for next season is that Ermintrout gets more screen time.

I'm calling the Chicken Man showing up next season.

last episode could have used more Mike and I was actually surprised how quickly Jimmy turned at the last minute and didn't really buy that. Otherwise though everything about this show is great.

yeah that was an odd moment. hmm i am about to receive the legitimacy, respect, and career path that I have worked so hard for since turning my life around but wait I HAVE A GIFT MESSAGE RECEIVED THX GOD

My hope for next season is that Ermintrout gets more screen time.

Myyk Ermintrout

― oochie wally (clean version) (sic), Wednesday, March 4, 2015 2:47 PM (1 month ago)

There's been a lot of grumbling about Saul's turnaround at the end of the episode but I'd wager that his turnaround isn't going to be quite so quick when it's actually put to the test. He's made the decision to Break Bad but he's still a relatively moral character who's surely going to suffer some pangs of conscience on the way down.

It just means being a bit bent ie taking the Kettelman's cash etc, and we know Jimmy spent most of his youth like that. It doesn't mean going straight to representing meth kingpins.

I think people are putting too much stock into that last scene. I saw it as a sort of 'fourth-wall' moment, similar to the announcement at the end of the first series of Game of Thrones where the narrator said something like 'Do you want to see battles between dire wolves, dragons, zombies and giants? Then tune in next year for season 2', even though that season has very little of those mentioned.

Whoa, what version of Game of Thrones are you watching with narration?

it was only right at the end of the first ever series.

hahaha that never happened but i am loving the idea that it did

i'm sure i didn't imagine it. Maybe it was just a teaser tacked on the end of the version I saw.

that's got to be the case and i'm not popping shots at you DL it's just cracking me up
jon snow looks balefully into the distance beyond the wall, eddying winds swirl around his fur cloak, he dramatically turns and says "DEAR VIEWER: Do YOU want to see battles between dire wolves, dragons, zombies and giants?"

Nah, Daenerys turned to the camera and said it after emerging from the fire.

yeah lol it was totally off-tone and hollywood trailery IIRC.

I think people are putting too much stock into that last scene. I saw it as a sort of 'fourth-wall' moment, similar to the announcement at the end of the first series of Game of Thrones where the narrator said something like 'Do you want to see battles between dire wolves, dragons, zombies and giants? Then tune in next year for season 2', even though that season has very little of those mentioned.

That is how everyone else sees it too, ie corny and bad

I don't think anyone's really putting stock in it as a harbinger of s2

lol I don't think the show creators necessarily have creative control of what the network says in their bumpers

also HBO did not do that in the original US run

- that Bingo contraption looked a little like a methamphetamine still, and all that came out were little blue Bs. HMMMMMMM.

- sheepishly glad to see the actual Kevin Costner bit revisited. "If you build it, I will come ..."

- bugs me a little that all the money they use on the show is old money. New big portraits were introduced in 1998.

But hey, The Wire did that too.

I think Chuck will still be around, I'd have to think they will have to show why he broke down at some point in the series.

lol, i didn't get the "blue b" joke until you underlined it for me

New season starting this spring, right? Anyway, finally caught up with this and was a little surprised both how not like "Breaking Bad" it is and how much I absolutely loved it. So well written/directed/acted. Whoever upthread said it was like a good Coen Brothers movie was OTM.

I think the end of S1 made total sense, btw. After giving going straight a valiant effort, after working his ass off, after doing everything right on someone else's terms, he was no better off than where he began. I think he suspected the alleged job offer was a too good to be true favor pulled by his old coworkers, and he probably was sick of getting bailed out and ripped off by people with better cars than he has.

Heh. Better Car Saul.

Back in just over 3 weeks

!!!!!!

pumped

in a low key way

re-watched S1, confirmed that this show is probably better than Breaking Bad. It's less reliant on constant crises/cliffhangars and much more character-driven, it has a decently written female lead and the other three (Odenkirk, McKean, Banks) are all in top form.

hey! it's me! i got a new car!

are new episodes gonna be on Hulu? I'm getting kind of annoyed at how difficult it is to watch things as they air via Roku

or am I gonna have to buy these through Amazon like I did with Always Sunny

re-watched S1, confirmed that this show is probably better than Breaking Bad. It's less reliant on constant crises/cliffhangars and much more character-driven, it has a decently written female lead and the other three (Odenkirk, McKean, Banks) are all in top form.

'decently written female lead' you've gotta be kidding

nah she's good, I like the way her relationship with Jimmy is played out

certainly better than any of the garbage they gave to SKYLOR and Marie

yup. glad to have this back. definitely better than BB.

If breaking bad taught us anything it's that every single time you need to come up with a trait to round out your female characters, always default to "unexpected flair for lying"

Loved this btw. The grift was so good: "giselle", stock douche being a guy who actually says "wow. Just wow." to himself. Also loved the scene with the cops. And it looks fucking great.

the brief resurgence of slippin' jimmy

loved the DO NOT TURN OFF bit

and the rest

"unexpected flair for lying"

she's a lawyer

"Unexpected flair for lying" pretty much covers everyone in the entire Breaking Bad universe who isn't Walter Jr or already a drug dealer.

That isn't the case but it wasn't a serious post anyway, just thought it was funny as it seemed to be their go-to for "giving skyler something to do" (tho I liked that character more than a lot of people)

Slow burning opener for sure, lots of subtle character moments rather than big plot beats. Realised I can't remember much of what happened in the first season beyond Chuck screwing him over.

Like I've completely forgotten where the gangbanger guy comes into it.

short it. short it. short that shit!

really really good opener. not sure about 'better than BB' but certainly on a par.

toothbrush argument scene was so perfect

Finally watched this last night. Kinda feel like I need to rewatch s1 because, yeah, I forgot all about Nacho and the pharmaceuticals guy.

Can't believe no one mentioned this callback!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1H2jROgp-5k/UVz45AQrpWI/AAAAAAAAC4A/x5GmyJmw4WA/s1600/Screen+Captures1.jpg

Wow!

! Is that the same guy?

Yeah! I recognized him right away. So good at playing a turbodouche.

Oh wow, I didn't realize it was the same guy! So he got fucked by both Jimmy and Walt.

same actor plays a very similar character in the high school reunion episode in party down

The tequila that Ken buys is the same stuff that Gus used to poison Don Eladio

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0peM58AdgBM/UgZdy9ykyZI/AAAAAAAAzvw/sItpCBYE-YI/s640/breaking-bad-zafiro-an%CC%83ejo.jpg

~holy shit~

A+ spotting.

A+ episode. It's the artisanal slow food of TV.

Totally didn't realize that Ken actor also played the turbodouche agent on season 1 of Agent Carter.

Pretty sure Marvel's Turbodouche spin-off is in the works for Phase III.

The callbacks/easter eggs are cute and all but they're not at all what I love about this show

They're also massively subtle, so not distracting.

Wow I had no idea that was the same character! Cool.

Yeah i didnt catch any of that. Totally didnt impact how great the episode was.

I'd be perfectly fine with no easter eggs but as long as they continue to be subtle, as noted, I'll eat 'em up.

Bringing back a one-note bit player to do exactly the same thing isn't massively subtle but it's a level I'm happy with. I remembered the bb scene but never would have caught the tequila, that's nice. Considering they could have had jimmy going for an unsliced pizza with gale and everyone would be all These Breaking Bad Easter Eggs Will Blow Your Mind, I appreciate the light touch.

Also I keep saying this but I'm all for v minimal use of b&w gene stuff, I don't want whole episodes post-bb or scenes where he calls kim only to hang up without saying a word or any of that shit. Scenes with odenkirk playing a 5-year-old jimmy or whatever are fine obv

Idk if i'm down w odenkirk playing a 5yo tbh

Wet Hot American Saul

Also I keep saying this but I'm all for v minimal use of b&w gene stuff, I don't want whole episodes post-bb or scenes where he calls kim only to hang up without saying a word or any of that shit.

I think they could actually leave out the b&w scenes altogether! So far they've been the biggest Breaking Bad fanservice in the show, but they don't tie thematically to the rest of the show, and obviously anyone who hasn't watched BB will have no idea what they're supposed to be about. I too feel BCS has so far been even better than BB, so it'd be nice if it would stand on its own without any overt references to the parent show. Okay, Tuco's appearance was obviously a big nod to BB fans as well, but at least he made sense within this show too. I kinda doubt they're going to include a summary of all the events of BB in here, so the b&w scenes will probably remain fairly irrelevant, unless they'll come up some really clever way of tying them to the scenes set in the past.

Also, the nitpicker in me was super irritated by the whole "locked in the trash room" opening in the latest episode, because that door didn't make sense! Any doors that you can lock are always designed so that you can open them from the inside without a key, exactly so that people wouldn't get accidentally locked inside like Saul did. I get it that it was all supposed to symbolize the mundane dreariness of Saul's new life, but they could've come up with some other scenario that was less contrived.

It is a poorly designed system for sure but somehow not implausibly so

I think it's the combination of dreariness & paranoia that make its inclusion worthwhile, his reluctance to use the emergency exit was a neat way of showing that. Also think it's worth retaining some connection to bb and its endgame because it reinforces the sense that this is a story we've seen play out already - jimmy's pride & self-sabotage echoes walt's & can only end one way (and this makes the differences in their stories stand out also).

Would be cool if they pulled a fire walk with me & found some way to subvert the "known" ending

Would be audacious if they did a season or two which ran alongside the events of BB. I'm sure Saul had a lot of other unrelated shit to deal with along with those two clowns.

I think it's the combination of dreariness & paranoia that make its inclusion worthwhile, his reluctance to use the emergency exit was a neat way of showing that.

Sure, but again this enforces the idea of BCS as a mere BB spinoff: if you haven't watched BB, you won't know the true signifigance of that scene, why Saul is so paranoid. And IMO it would be better if this series would stand on its own, so they could've written some other scene that wouldn't require you to know anyting that's not in the series itself.

so they could've written some other scene that wouldn't require you to know anyting that's not in the series itself.

The scene as it is doesn't really though! It wouldn't take huge powers of deduction for a newcomer to figure out that Jimmy will one day have to flee to a much shittier life presumably because of his dodgy dealings. The exact circumstances aren't really relevant to the story we're watching now.

it... is a bb spinoff

it can stand on its own merits without having to appeal to some imagined viewer who has forgotten all the events of the hit series breaking bad

argh, wish i could recall what happened with turbodouche in BB now. love the very subtle easter eggs. what would be the point in setting them in the same universe if they didn't collide from time to time?

like wins says, it is a bb spinoff. if someone's that bothered by the odd reference here and there, they only need to do themselves the favour of watching it.

I think they could actually leave out the b&w scenes altogether!

They do one at the beginning of each season, any Gene-haters have to wait an entire year before you get to be irritated by one for 3-4 minutes again.

also, chap otm.

Also, the nitpicker in me was super irritated by the whole "locked in the trash room" opening in the latest episode, because that door didn't make sense! Any doors that you can lock are always designed so that you can open them from the inside without a key, exactly so that people wouldn't get accidentally locked inside like Saul did.

he's outside the door. that's the point. he's locked out. the inside is the mall.

I'm not really in any position to say so authoritatively, but I would assume that viewers who are coming to this show fresh wouldn't have any real problem rolling with the Gene scenes. They wouldn't need to know what went down on BB specifically to discern that something eventually goes south in Jimmy's life. It may prove ultimately frustrating to those viewers, though, that the chain of events that lead to him working in a Cinnabon will likely never be explained within the confines of this show.

But the garbage bins aren't outside, they're in a room within the mall. Otherwise he could just walk away.

(xpost)

(I kinda can't believe we're having this conversation but) dumpsters are sometimes kept in a room that's locked off from the rest of the business. So that, for instance, garbage collectors can collect the garbage without gaining access to the back of the store. It's entirely possible that Jimmy had a key but didn't think he'd need it for the two seconds he'd be in the room.

This is not a stretch on the level of 'how did Brock wind up eating the lily of the valley berries'?

This is just dumb/irrelevant. Maybe the door sticks, and he knows that, and that's why he's stuck? There, problem solved.

Yeah, but...how does he know that? Has he been stuck in there before? Or did he just hear about it happening to someone else? And what happened to the door to make it start sticking? I'm sorry, but I find these unanswered questions really narratively unsatisfying.

haha

i think i must have looked away momentarily during this bit cos i was confused about it too. why didn't he just open the emergency exit? did he not want to draw attention to himself?

i can imagine if it locks from the outside only, it's for security purposes, i.e. so burglars can't hide in the bins and sneak out after hours or something.

emergency exit -> alarms -> cops

If you really stop to think about it (which, why would you, but here we are) it is daft that the doors are set up so that it is incredibly easy to get yourself into a situation where the only way out involves contacting the police, but like I said it's daft in a way you would plausibly encounter irl

Also it is a good scene

that's how 90% of buildings in the us are designed, iirc

in the least convenient way, I mean

how does he know that? Has he been stuck in there before?

He's the manager! The way he races to the door indicates that, yes, he knows what will happen. Thousands of businesses no doubt operate with similar flaws and short-sighted shortcuts, from lights that "just never work" to chained exit doors to mysterious keys that fit no locks to sticky doors. I mean, this is an episode with a light switch in a top law firm that nonetheless has a hand-written sign taped on that says "never turn off!" or whatever. Why not fix whatever the problem is? Because we are people, and we are lazy/cheap.

So was the door stopper defective or just improperly wedged under the door? And if it was defective, a) who would have been responsible for replacing it and b) why had they shirked their duty? Was this an intentional act of malice on this individual's part? Did Jimmy know that the stopper was defective? Why didn't he have it replaced himself? Door stoppers can't possibly cost that much. It's almost as if he wanted to be trapped, using a door stopper which is clearly of such an inferior grade that it can't hold a door open for more than a few seconds. Did anyone catch the brand name of the door stopper? I think that's an important clue.

OL has this routine locked down

xpost Save it for the second spin-off.

The door stopper wasn't defective, because we see the janitor use it when he lets Jimmy out, and it works then. I guess Jimmy might've just put it under the door too carelessly.

...which I guess is symbolic of his character arc: no matter how high he aims, he always eventually fails because he doesn't consider all the contributing factors.

Tuomas also very locked down

But why was he so careless with the door stopper? Was he in a hurry to get home, or perhaps too concerned with his employees getting home safely? It seems possible that he was too focused on getting the trash into the dumpster. Or that he stopped to read some of the graffiti on the wall. There are any number of distractions that could've easily informed his carelessness. I'd like to think it was an entire gestalt of distractions fogging his mind in that moment. I think this will be explained in an upcoming episode.

I'm interested in the shirts worn at the Cinnabon. Are those authentic for the time period being represented? Was that actually their advertising slogan? Why don't I have a Cinnabon?

The shirts are period-accurate as they've been in continual use since 2009, but the cage that Jimmy put over the baked goods wasn't in standard use until late last year, which may be anachronistic depending on when the flash-forwards take place. Based on the version of the Cinnabon logo that we see and the hats that they're wearing, I'd place the Gene scenes somewhere around late 2013. I hope someone addresses this inconsistency on Talking Saul.

But what if those anahchronisms are intentional? What if the neo-Nazis actually caught and killed Saul in BB, and the b&w scenes are really his dying fantasy of how his life could've turned out? (Whereas the colour scenes are your typical "whole life flashing before ones eyes as one is dying" scene.) That would also explain why mall door doesn't work like real doors should, his brain is trying to tell him it's not real... Did I blow your mind?

This theory also explains why the younger Saul in the pre-Albuquerque flashbacks doesn't look like someone in his 20s at all, it's just the same middle-aged guy with more hair. Our self-image is always the same physical age as we are now, it's hard to change it into someone younger, so Saul is simply projecting his current self-image into scenes set in the past.

it is daft that the doors are set up so that it is incredibly easy to get yourself into a situation where the only way out involves contacting the police

The sign is almost certainly bullshit, or possibly once true but nobody bothers anymore (and this schrodingerian nature obv ties in with the light switch in the office) - but it's the chance that makes his inaction so poignant. It's probably fine to open it and go, if the cops were called they might not get there in time to even see him, if they WERE called and DID bother showing up and came FAST enough to find him and if he WAS questioned then his story of being a Cinnabon manager who got stuck in the bin room would check out immediately and entirely. It's that the chance of there being any police involvement at all is so minuscule that shows his sad conscribement, and sets up contrast with the desperate, rule-breaking (light switch! cucumber water for customers only! charge it to my room), changing-his-life-on-whim-after-whim Jimmy of the episode AND SERIES that follows.

(mind blown)

btw Years ago I and a colleague did once get stuck in a room in at the Brazilian Embassy in London, which was designed so as not to allow access to the rest of the Embassy. I can't remember the exact details now, but I and a colleague did end up having to call the Police. It was at the tail end of an evening reception and there seemed to be no one around. Alcohol may have been consumed.

did you call and tell them you were stuck in brazilian territory? sounds like a comedic entry point to a diplomatic incident

Schrodinger's Trash Room and Light Switch otm

Have also been stuck in a stairwell that had doors that could only be opened from the outside.

ditto

What you are all overlooking here is that doors in Scandinavian countries (genuinely) open the opposite direction, so cut a Finn some slack for his confusion.

Also My Mother never watched Breaking Bad, but she has somewhat accidentally become engrossed in this, all I needed to tell her about the Gene stuff was "Yeah, he becomes a sleazy lawyer for meth dealers and such, everything goes south and he has to go work in a cinnabun under a fake identity. No, I don't know what that is either, some American pastry thing I guess."

boston cream splat

Does this stick out so much from the landscape because (it's a desert, i mean) there's so little legitimate tragedy out there that isn't really something else - beautiful loserdom, exploitation, gore, just dumb, etc. - or do I have a greater taste for it because of the comedy and romance (if that's the word)?

People who come to this without watching BB must also bee nonplussed by the title, right? I mean, I'm more than a year into this show and nobody called Saul has even showed up!

He deploys the name in the "Slipping Jimmy" era flashbacks. S'all good, man!

hadn't connected his fear of pressing the bar on escape door where the (v possibly false) consequences are clearly labelled to his flipping a mystery switch in his new office for the hell of it

The world is a rich tapestry, my friends. But trust me, you don't wanna see it.

serviceable episode this one, but I think s2e01 is one of the best of the show so far.