Better Call Saul

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.