I must admit to having some doubts when Vince Gilligan announced he intended to do a "spinoff" of his BREAKING BAD, which in my opinion is a legitimate contender for greatest TV show of all time. Anybody remember AfterMASH and JOEY; I didn't think so, and that's the point. But BETTER CALL SAUL is the example that disproves the point; after only two episodes, I am hooked on this show and I am not saying that because I am a BREAKING BAD fanatic desperate to return to the world of Walter White and Jessie Pinkman one more time. This show and the character of Jimmy McGill (aka Saul Goodman) more than stands on its own.
The series opens with a brief glimpse at Saul's grim life post Walter White and then flashes back years before BB when Jimmy McGill is a small time pubic defender in Albuquerque, representing bottom feeders for peanuts. He is a glib ambulance chasing hustler, quite the contrast to his older brother, who was once the top litigator in a very lucrative law firm, now a mentally ill agoraphobic. The plot of the first two episodes turns on Jimmy's attempt to land a potentially high profile (and quite guilty) client who has a stolen million stashed away. What is so great about this show is how one seemingly unrelated action snow balls: the scam with the red-headed idiot skate boarders to trap Mrs. Kettleman backfires and leads to a confrontation with BB drug kingpin Tuco Salamanca; ending up in the desert where Jimmy has to use his fast tongue to save his life. The final scene brings him right back to a new scam to get the Kettleman's ill gotten gains, only now Jimmy has to team up with Nacho, Tuco's #2 guy.
This is real storytelling, along with a lot of character development. The tone of the series is not nearly as dark as BB was in its later seasons, if it was, then everyone would be very dead very soon; instead there is a good balance between comedy and drama. And plenty of things to remind us that we are in the BREAKING BAD universe: that tense scene in the desert, where Jimmy has to talk his way out of a very bad situation echoes a dozen similar sequences in BB.
The acting is superb, starting with Bob Odendkirk as Jimmy/Saul, who dispels all doubts he and his character could not carry a show. Michael McKean, who was once Lenny on LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY way back in the last century, plays Jimmy's pathetic brother. Raymond Cruz reminds us why we remembered him so well from the early seasons of BB and seeing Jonathan Banks back as Mike Ehrmantraut, if only in a few scenes as a parking lot attendant who gives Jimmy a hard time, makes me smile. Michael Mando's Nacho is clearly a character to watch. But there are small performances that are perfect as well, such as Miriam Colon as Abuelita, Tuco's elderly SUV driving Grandma, and especially Daniel and Steven Levine as the two twenty something skate boarders.
BETTER CALL SAUL, like BREAKING BAD before it, is a show about Americans who have been consigned to the status of loser, and how they rage and fight against such a fate without any concern for the morality of their actions. They're not good people, but we understand them.
All thanks to Vince Gilligan for knowing what he was doing all along.
The series opens with a brief glimpse at Saul's grim life post Walter White and then flashes back years before BB when Jimmy McGill is a small time pubic defender in Albuquerque, representing bottom feeders for peanuts. He is a glib ambulance chasing hustler, quite the contrast to his older brother, who was once the top litigator in a very lucrative law firm, now a mentally ill agoraphobic. The plot of the first two episodes turns on Jimmy's attempt to land a potentially high profile (and quite guilty) client who has a stolen million stashed away. What is so great about this show is how one seemingly unrelated action snow balls: the scam with the red-headed idiot skate boarders to trap Mrs. Kettleman backfires and leads to a confrontation with BB drug kingpin Tuco Salamanca; ending up in the desert where Jimmy has to use his fast tongue to save his life. The final scene brings him right back to a new scam to get the Kettleman's ill gotten gains, only now Jimmy has to team up with Nacho, Tuco's #2 guy.
This is real storytelling, along with a lot of character development. The tone of the series is not nearly as dark as BB was in its later seasons, if it was, then everyone would be very dead very soon; instead there is a good balance between comedy and drama. And plenty of things to remind us that we are in the BREAKING BAD universe: that tense scene in the desert, where Jimmy has to talk his way out of a very bad situation echoes a dozen similar sequences in BB.
The acting is superb, starting with Bob Odendkirk as Jimmy/Saul, who dispels all doubts he and his character could not carry a show. Michael McKean, who was once Lenny on LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY way back in the last century, plays Jimmy's pathetic brother. Raymond Cruz reminds us why we remembered him so well from the early seasons of BB and seeing Jonathan Banks back as Mike Ehrmantraut, if only in a few scenes as a parking lot attendant who gives Jimmy a hard time, makes me smile. Michael Mando's Nacho is clearly a character to watch. But there are small performances that are perfect as well, such as Miriam Colon as Abuelita, Tuco's elderly SUV driving Grandma, and especially Daniel and Steven Levine as the two twenty something skate boarders.
BETTER CALL SAUL, like BREAKING BAD before it, is a show about Americans who have been consigned to the status of loser, and how they rage and fight against such a fate without any concern for the morality of their actions. They're not good people, but we understand them.
All thanks to Vince Gilligan for knowing what he was doing all along.