Better Call Saul

Yeah, I thought that, too. Iirc, they are estranged c. Breaking Bad, right? Like, he keeps his distance?

This show is so perfectly written, acted and directed, it makes everything else look bad. Even the way it takes place before Breaking Bad is perfect. We're not exactly sure how long before, and the pace is so slow and deliberate we have no idea how long it'll be before or even if it catches up. We know things end poorly for pretty much everyone involved, so that's always hanging over the story, but it builds and develops its own tension, too, over tiny details and character beats. Just perfect.

these guys sure know how to do the pre-credit intros. they're all perfect, just as they were in breaking bad.

The scales of justice as an ashtray was such a fantastic image.

I assumed she's trying to run a con on Mike to get him to pay for her lifestyle/housing upgrades. She knows Mike's granddaughter is his kryptonite, plays on safety fears.

Given her husband was murdered she's more likely to be genuinely paranoid and terrified. The Mike scenes in Breaking Bad suggested at a continuing relationship with her, but the whole story appeared to be a plot device to move Mike further into the drug world.

Yeah, I thought that, too. Iirc, they are estranged c. Breaking Bad, right? Like, he keeps his distance?

This hadn't occurred to me but if it is it might be the fallout from Mike's believed culpability in his son's death? I'm not sure if they were necessarily estranged though, it might just be that BB didn't see the need to delve too closely into his family life beyond including Kaylee as a humanising factor.

This series is also always otm tonally, like the confidence with which they transport broad sitcommy gags & characters into this patient drama

As I recall, Mike and Stacey were at least semi-estranged in BB, but not so much that she wasn't willing to accept financial help and let him do some Kaylee babysitting. I assume this season of BCS is setting up their BB-era relationship.

a strained relationship seems p natural given that she knows Mike is m/l responsible for her husbands' death and is also a murderer in his own right (something in which he has also made her complicit, after the fact)

Now that was much better.

Another vote for the daughter-in-law going round the bend, mentally.

If she was trying to con Mike into a housing upgrade, sure as shit Mike would detect that and call her out.

The show is taking place 6 years prior to BB, around 2002.

Well, he did hear gun shots when he was staking out in the car. That's when he took out his gun. Actually, maybe he shot/broke the wall to convince her and his granddaughter to move somewhere better!

He didn't hear gun shots. He heard newspaper delivery.

Put away your phones and watch the show, guys. She's totally trying to scam Mike for more money. The second he suggests moving her out to a new neighborhood, she walks away, satisfied. The "gunshots" were totally just newspapers. Unclear if she actually heard anything, or was just making it up. I doubt you'd actually hear newspapers hitting the ground from inside your house at all, much less think that they sounded like gunshots.

look they TOLD me to start my two screen experience now, i started my two screen experience now
no half measures

Two screens seems like a half measure. I'm sure they could get it up to four if they really tried.

The second he suggests moving her out to a new neighborhood, she walks away, satisfied.

I'd be satisfied, too, if I was afraid for my life in the place where I lived, because I thought I heard gunshots. What was she supposed to do, argue she should stay?

Regardless, I like how this show is keeping so much vague. Still, who confuses gunshots with newspapers? You mean Super Pro Mike confused gunshots for newspapers? Enough that he actually took out his own gun and made sure there was a round in the chamber? Pretty touchy for a ninja, Mike.

He heard popping sounds. He readied his firearm. He determined what the popping sounds were. He put his firearm away.

Dude should be able to tell a gunshot from a newspaper. And by "dude" I mean anyone.

Unless those paperboys have major league arms.

Putting aside whether the scene was unrealistic/out of character/badly conceived and written or not, that's what happened.

But do we know how heavy these newspapers were and exactly what sort of bag they were in? I ask because, depending on the composition of the paving material used on the driveways in that neighborhood, a particular combination of factors could certainly contribute to a sound something like a gunshot. It would've been helpful for the viewer if Mike could've spoken to himself about what sort of gun he imagined he was hearing and what caliber of ammunition. He's probably aware of a gun/ammunition combination that sounds like the newspaper/bag/pavement sound he was hearing, but without knowing his specific thoughts on the matter there's no way of researching to see if this was in fact sound reasoning on his part or a massive and inexcusable continuity error on the part of the show.

halfway through the first sentence I knew that was going to be a classic OL post

Back in Philly his partner was killed by a paperboy.

Should've given him the two dollars

Man, I love Mike.

Also loved that he didn't answer Nacho's question.

I was half expecting it to be Gus in that warehouse.

They're gonna take at least another season before they get round to Gus, I suspect. There are a fair few levels in the way first and they're only just getting involved.

yeah I'm not hoping for a WW cameo at all, but it does seem at some point that Gus is going to have to enter the picture

I also thought we might see Gus. And I think a WW cameo would be kind of cool so long as they keep it sort of peripheral/oblique.

This show is better than its predecessor but I do like the idea of it catching up with BB at some point so you could watch it in a loop. Is there any precedent for that in a spin-off?

afaict the approach of this show is def uncharted territory

there's really no reason WW would cross paths with any of these characters pre-cancer diagnosis, throwing him in would be cheap fan service imo.

But Gus clearly had prior relationship w Mike pre-BB

I think people are jumping the gun a bit with the 'better than BB' thing. They are good in different ways, aiming for rather different things.

BCS thing is a better thing

i'm just now watching the first season on netflix and i genuinely agree it's better than breaking bad. mostly bc it doesn't make me want to die from anxiety all the time

Breaking Bad seems to have suffered a bit of a backlash since it ended

frontin' imo

BB was great. this is better.

BB was a show with well-crafted stories that were ultimately about a bad person who did horrible things only for himself, with a little too much hope that he was still the protagonist

BCS is a story about a lovable two-bit con man who lacks a moral compass but really aspires to become a three-bit con man. Partially to spite his brother who doesn't want him to succeed, but mostly because it's all he knows how to be.

In this most recent episode I really did expect Chuck to be faking his disorder and the reason he didn't respond to Jimmy initially was because he was using a cell phone and he hid it under the blanket

Everybody has to remove their watch along with phones and electronic keys and such, yet Chuck was wearing a watch throughout that scene last night.

Yeeeah, I was trying to figure out if he has one that he winds by hand, or if it was an indication he's bullshitting

maybe he has a self-winding or wind-up watch and everyone else has quartz which is battery operated.

jinx

BB was all about forward-motion, tension and stakes constantly being raised by virtue of a self-interested protagonist addicted to high-stakes behavior. And it was very good at that, but it also means (for me, anyway) that after its over I really have zero desire to watch it again. Knowing how various conflicts get resolved removes the tension. There's still good/great characters and a lot of well-executed setpieces but it is lacking in a certain depth, I don't feel like I would be rewarded by repeated viewings.

But BCS is v different, so much more character-driven, and that makes it feel much richer.

I loved the moment a couple of episodes ago when jimmy answered his phone (that he clearly hadn't bothered to hand in before the meeting) to no reaction whatsoever from chuck

if you think of Hank as the protagonist of BB it becomes a lot darker

So the scared dude meeting with Tuco in the restaurant was Crazy 8 right? And the gun dealer was the same one who sold Walt his guns in BB.

Loved that final shot of Mike disappearing in a cloud of dust.

OH MY GOD, THAT WAS TOTALLY CRAZY 8. I knew he looked familiar. He looked so young and innocent, I hardly recognized him!

And the gun dealer was the same one who sold Walt his guns in BB.

The great Jim Beaver.