Better Call Saul

wife and I spent the last two weeks watching BCS from the beginning on Netflix and now we're caught up to real time. what an incredible show. BB was one of the best shows ever, but I figured this show was like some silly episodic Saul-helps-a-criminal thing (I'm pretty unimaginative). I know most of this has been said but:

- this is better written than BB in a lot of ways. way more character-driven, even more nuance. love how the characters don't follow a straight line in how they develop
- the visuals are excellent even though the show is much less action-driven. love the long shots of Mike in the desert, of characters doing mundane things. I'm usually too impatient for that level of indulgence in movies/TV but here it's endlessly watchable. there was a stunning shot a few episodes ago of a bridge at night and the lights in the background are out-of-focus and I was thinking "this is so showoffy but fuck it"
- so happy to have such a well-written major female character on the show, that was one of the weaknesses of BB. Seehorn is an amazing actress and by this point I'm most interested in seeing how Kim develops
- as the show widens its scope to include Gus, Lydia, and now Gale and others, I feel like it's losing focus a bit but this team has earned so much goodwill from me so far that I have total faith I'll enjoy where the journey goes

That was a season-long depression narrative which often came uncomfortably close to replicating the actual rhythms of depression.

The latest episode was really morose. Jimmy didn't even get to keep his cell-phone money. (Was the opening lifted right from Breaking Bad, or did all that happen out of view? Can't remember. I think it's the first actual overlap between the two shows.)

I look forward to this show like few others. It captures so much of the mundane aspects of being a lawyer, it is amazing.

A few calls:
- The person about whom Gale opines that he should "check his cookware" because of impurities - could that be Jesse, still working through his trademark chili powder added phase?
- I think Kim went to the courthouse out of an effort to become assigned to the public defender program more aggressively so she could eventually get Mesa Verde taken away from her while still saving face. This, of course, is NOT a good plan for her professionally...but I've seen worse career-minded moves.
- So good to see Francesca.

I thought this was the best episode of the season so far, certainly the most fast moving and entertaining. I see the point of them having made Jimmy so directionless, but it's kind of frustrating as a viewer.

I didn't buy the scene in the court bathroom with Jimmy and a cracked, broken and insomniac Howard tbh. I've always felt Howard is made of more sterner unflappable stuff than that. He falls apart at the seams because Jimmy tried a guilt trip on him over Chuck's death?! Seems a tad implausible to me

def the weak link of the episode, seemed a little too on the nose. Mostly I just fixated on how Howard was spending his entire time in front of the mirror fiddling with shit and never buttoned his collar + straightened his tie.

Howard had already guilt tripped himself pretty well, Jimmy just didn't offer him a lifeline. But yeah, his sudden weakness seems a little out of character.

it's clearly meant to be a contrast to Jimmy, who's basically in denial, but it seemed forced.

It's hard enough for me to remember to watch a show regularly--does Saul have a fixed place in the AMC schedule? It seems to bounce between Sundays and Mondays.

It only bounces between Mondays and Mondays.

I thought for sure that it was a Sunday when I watched last week...Not surprising, I guess; I had to stay up for the second airing because I'd checked F/X's schedule instead of AMC's.

Tonight's opening was powerfully sad. Don't know if I've ever empathized with Jimmy more--I'd also be the guy running the Oscar pool while all the important stuff goes on around me. Liked how Howard's self-pity snapped Jimmy out of his.

it didn't even click with me that that was Gale until I read this. fuck. it's been a while

I got the impression in the opening that Jimmy was pretending to be an idiot about law stuff while already studying hard secretly

The last shot definitely conveyed that he was studying on the sly, but I still found it sad because of the way that everybody either condescended to him or patronized him (especially Chuck, but even Kim). And he was doing something that was as vital to office morale as the cases Chuck was winning--things like Oscar pools are what make certain jobs tolerable.

I read the opening sequence as showing how much of Jimmy's law career has been driven by his need to impress Kim. She was the reason he started studying the law, he got into elder law after she suggested it, his whole motivation for resuming his legal career was so that he could set up a partnership with her, he even suggests desperately that they could go into criminal law together, when she talks about her plans to join a new firm. which tbh makes perfect sense for her, not so much for jimmy. they're on separate journeys now and he can't see it, and it's incredibly sad to see.

The gus/hector scenes are kind of a counter to the people who say that you should watch this series cold

In fact the more I think about it the more I think that suggestion is just a daft way of rephrasing the (very true) statement “this show is better than breaking bad”

I got the impression in the opening that Jimmy was pretending to be an idiot about law stuff while already studying hard secretly

Why would he pretend? Could just not say anything even if he had already been going into the chamber of law secrets prior to the lingering shot in which we see him do that.

The final shot on Hector's stationary hand felt like viewer trolling imo - ooooh maybe it moved a nanometer

I think it was just "this is the hand that will kill Gus Fring."

nice earl callback at the end

*huell

I needed Gus's tale to remind me what his motivations are. It's been a long time since the last season.

Why would he pretend? Could just not say anything even if he had already been going into the chamber of law secrets prior to the lingering shot in which we see him do that.

Certainly could be the case, there's not enough in that scene to know one way or the other. But I feel like it's very much in Jimmy's character to mislead people in order to shock them with a big surprise later. I think that's part of why Chuck is so floored when he finds out Jimmy has passed the bar

The thing I love about Jimmy--probably all of us respond to this--is the go-getter side of him. Whenever he starts to lapse into self-pity, he gets over it and rouses himself to do something. It was great when he chewed out Howard last episode. I mean, he's even sending clients Howard's way--he seems incapable of holding a grudge.

He's basically the exact opposite of me.

Pretty good? Basically, Jimmy and Kim drifting apart. I thought the opening was a bit too obvious about that--they were trying to do it in a creative way, and "Somethin' Stupid" was part of it, but it wasn't quite Charles and Emily Kane at the dinner table. I thought the later scene where Jimmy asks Kim to take on Huell's case, ending with a Godfather-like door-close, was the better version. I liked Burl Ives. Completely stumped on what Kim's plan Huell is, other than it's an ingenious plan predicated upon large amounts of stationery supplies.

Gus' monologue was way overlong for setting up a conflict we already know the resolution of. Mitigated by Esposito's wonderful reading.

Was the different colour t-shirt on Kim thing during the montage deliberate? Something about them growing so far apart taht they can't agre on details. I thought the rest of that was supposed to be parallel events at the saem time.

Caught up with last week's before watching the new one. Just thought it was kinda hilarious when I realized that the timeframe of the pre-credits scene should have featured a pre-Mr. Show-aged Odenkirk.

Did Saul ever make oblique reference to Kim in Breaking Bad? I don't remember anything, but then you wouldn't have necessarily caught it even if there had been. I'm wondering if they'll kill her off, or if Breaking Bad allows them to finesse that some other way.

I don't recall any BB reference to Kim, oblique or otherwise. I think she and Jimmy are headed for an epic falling out, probably after some shady scheme gets her disbarred or something, and I also predict that we will see her in the present day before the show is over.

That's close to what I was thinking of, that he may have alluded at some point to a former girlfriend, not named, whom he betrayed or let down. But again, I don't remember anything. (Kim disbarred trying to help Jimmy would be very apropos.)

He mentions an ex-wife, maybe more than one, in a sleazy Saul-esque way iirc but that could just be patter

Caught up with last week's before watching the new one. Just thought it was kinda hilarious when I realized that the timeframe of the pre-credits scene should have featured a pre-Mr. Show-aged Odenkirk.

Ha, right? Yeah, I know there were earlier scenes, chronologically. I just don't think the specific timeframe had occurred to me before. The Remains of the Day reference stopped me in my tracks, though. Like, dude...you should be Larry Sanders's hot young agent rn, not looking like Larry Sanders's much older brother.

was thinking today about how much I love this show and also how incredibly sad it is given that we know, ultimately, how it ends.

and consequently how sad it will be when this series ends. maybe they'll do a season that takes place after BB though.

I just hope Kim gets out alive tbh

otm

I'm not getting the chronology of the fast food place that was inserted in earlier seasons. When is that supposed to be. Saul gets locked out in the smoking space at one point etc.

the Cinnabon? those are future-saul bits from after BB i think?

I used to get stressed towards the end of every season for Kim not getting away from Jimmy, this year it’s every minute of every episode

make no effort to disguise his being played by a middle-aged man

They do put thicker wigs on him, and a bit more makeup, but yeah there’s no point pretending he’s Stevie Grant so why go over the top

that’s not Saul at the Cinnabon, it’s Gene

Yeah gene the thoroughly defeated, paranoid Cinnabon manager is the identity set up by Robert Forster when all the heat came down on the Heisenberg operation

The scam to get Huell off might have been the show's low point. It was so corny, and the idea that this D.A., who seemed so sharp previously, would fall for it seemed more than a little far-fetched. I don't know--maybe it's that burner-phones are so new, working such a scam would have been previously unthinkable. Jimmy's post-coital silliness almost made up for it.

One thing I've liked the whole way is the relationship between Mike and Ziegler, the rare person who seems to command Mike's respect. I laughed when Ziegler thanked someone for their "hospitility."

The judge's reaction didn't seem credible to me either. Previously, the one time we've seen him, he was coolly dismantling Kim with his Verdict bait. Suddenly he's in a panic because of these letters?

Was that Stereolab that Kim was listening to?

Yes! Loved that, and loved the POV shift indicated with the headphones. I also got a huge lol from the background car honk after Kim went Full Giselle. But I agree with clemenza that the con of the DA and judge seemed a bit forced.

yeah, that was def Stereolab that Kim was listening to... didn't recognize the song, but it's unmistakably the 'lab.

cons always seem a little "really?" - this one more than most, for sure - but I think also as a show like this progresses & the lives of its characters feel more real, it becomes harder to concede some gigantic hair-brained scheme. but honestly it's no less credible than the top-secret gigantic state-of-the-art meth lab in the desert built by world-class criminal architects, engineers and detonation experts, the whole BB universe demands that you just let 'em roll with some pretty absurd shit