Alright! Today I'm reviewing Better Call Saul, the sequel series to Breaking Bad that revolves around Jimmy McGill's slow descent into Saul Goodman, a gimmicky con man turned lawyer that uses his knowledge of the legal system to legally disrupt the courts. Also here for the ride is a dual narrative featuring the rise of Gustavo Fring's drug enterprise, backed by Mike Ehrmantraut and featuring different adversarial Mexican drug lords. Breaking Bad is often regarded as the greatest television show of all time - so does Better Call Saul live up to that?
In a number of ways, Better Call Saul matches and improves on the quality of its predecessor. At the very least it's far more palatable - the first five seasons revolving around fun legal pranks were a lot more fun to watch than the soul-crushing depths of building a methamphetamine drug empire and the numerous ethical lines crossed to do it. However, the series is also reliant upon the viewers having seen Breaking Bad; without knowing why these people are important, I imagine it would be quite annoying to have half of every episode devoted to Mike Ehrmantraut and how he gets into legitimate drug business with Gustavo Fring, especially when the two plotlines only intertwine in the last two seasons.
However, the good news is that, like the lawyer parts of the show, the drug business here is much more cheery and easy to stomach than Breaking Bad, the predecessor that had corpses dunked in acid baths by episode two. The kingpins here are all intellectual and peppy, and the show, aside from two or three f-bombs a season and traumatic murders in the last season, could easily have been TV-14. The only real drawback is that the names of different attorneys, law firms, clients, and the minutiae of law might cause your head to swim after six seasons (It was helpful to read the Wikipedia summary after every episode).
Better Call Saul is filled to the gills with talented actors, truly proving that "there are no small roles, only small actors." From the subtle boringness of secretaries, partners, waitresses, con artists, restaurant clerks, and lower-class types, everyone is perfectly cast and amazingly naturalistic. Nothing feels overacted while every auxiliary/background character remains intensely important. I doubt anyone picks up the part of "Los Pollos Employee" with the hope it will be their breakout role, but they give it their realistic all.
It goes without saying that the main characters of the series - Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill, later Saul Goodman, then Gene Takavic, Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, Michael McKean as Chuck McGill, Patrick Fabian as Howard Hamlin, Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut, Michael Mando as Nacho Varga, Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Fring, and Tony dalton as Lalo Salamanca - were all perfectly cast. Everyone brings something different and exciting to the table, meaning that while the plots may not intertwine, they are always enjoyable and interesting to watch. If it was a stage production, I have no clue who would receive the loudest cheers - they were all fantastic.
However, if I had to choose the loudest cheer, Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler was absolutely perfect. No shade towards the rest of the cast, we'll get to them later, but the heart and soul of the show was always Kim Wexler. On the surface level, it's a very unforgiving role - she's emotionally restrained, always maintains a poker face, retains professionalism in both the business world and in her personal life, and speaks in a manner that suggests she would rather be listening. She's ethical and performs small cons; she's reserved and outgoing; she's a career woman who also maintains a healthy platonic and eventually romantic relationship with her best friend.
Speaking of which, seeing the development of Kim and Jimmy's relationship easily makes it one of the best marriages in media. Neither views the other as a romantic conquest, puts them on a pedastal of true love, or is defined by their relationship. It feels more like friends who enjoy spending time with each other naturally slipping into a routine and eventually romantic relationship. Jimmy's transformation into Saul Goodman and run-ins with the cartel are grounded by Seehorn's performance, showing the unsinkable Kim Wexler worry about the people around her and the choices they make, eventually losing them to their own decisions. Her performance in "Waterworks" is one of the most powerful pieces of acting we're likely to see this decade and I will be deeply upset if she doesn't end up with the Emmy.
Even more amazingly, they developed this hyper-competent romantic counterpart without overshadowing or belittling the titular character, rather complementing him and making both performances stronger as a result. Bob Odenkirk is still the star of the show, expertly delivering court jargon and performing schemes with a childish glee that takes a comedic relief character and turns him into one of the most tragic characters in television, slowly descending into the hell he creates for himself like a lobster in heating water. Better Call Saul is a slow burn - he doens't even begin to start using the Saul Goodman name until season four, but Bob Odenkirk expertly portrays the descent from public court altruism to gimmicky practices to outright illegal activites. It's not as drastic as Walter White's arc, but the uneven lulls and highs make it more layered than the simple degression that led to Heisenberg (By the end of episode one in Breaking Bad the audience knows Walter is doing it for himself - Saul Goodman's progression was unpredictable to the very end).
The supporting cast and villains of the legal side of the story are all great too; Michael McKean's turn from hilarious sympathy to outright jerk was fabulously portrayed, although I was relieved when the show dropped him as the main antagonist (Like Tuco and Ted Beneke, he had run his course). Patrick Fabian as Howard Hamlin was perhaps the most tragic character here, the only sane character dropped into a show of sycophants and psychopaths. It's a given fact that characters complete their arc by becoming either worse or better. Howard just happens to be here, but also feels like he's part of some other, entirely mundane show that has crossover episodes that he doesn't really like but is contractually obligated to do. It was the perfect feeling for the character. The only supporting character that didn't sit right with me was Don Harvey as Jeff's recast, who didn't have the off-putting presence that Pat Healy stole the show with.
The drug empire side of the show was equally stacked in its casting - Michael Mando is a darker, sadder, more professional variant of Jesse Pinkman, an intelligent and well-spoken man with a soul who was caught in an industry that crushes them. I understand why the internet is so keen that he return as the villain Scorpion in a future Spider-Man movie, despite the character's silliness. The other big player, Tony Dalton as Lalo Salamnca, was delightful in every appearance. He has a charismatic and likeable glee to him that so vehemently contradicts the awful workings of the cartel that made his character a superbly interesting - and fun - dichotomy.
Jonathan Banks is just as compelling as he was in Breaking Bad and his fleshed out backstory here not only clarifies his role in that show but also further propels its tragedy. The same goes for Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo Fring, who gets far more to do here and shows just how careful and intricate his plot was. While I wish the series had given him more human moments like the one we see in S6E9 "Fun and Games," seeing him at an earlier stage in his feud with the Salamancas was very interesting in origin regardless. The deep and carefully placed lore in place actually reminds me of The Silmarillion - pages upon pages of intricate detailing, legacies and enemies that last for generations, and then these two backwater amateurs drop in for the last two pages and blow everything up.
Better Call Saul loses some of the gimmicky 2000-ness of its predecessor and becomes a more focused 2010s show, which is somewhat evidenced by Jimmy's top-notch hair styling. His hair looks sharp and well defined here, as compared to the recessing mullet he sports in Breaking Bad's second season. It's a sharper, more focused show about legitimate suit-wearing businessmen pulling cons and devious acts of cartel treachery, sharing more visual DNA with Suits or Succession than the never ending breakfasts and marital problems of the White family. It's less of a family drama and more of a legal drama, a change that feels appropriate but also very 2010s.
There's one thing that both shows have in abundance, however - the silly little montages. Better Call Saul would have been an easy four seasons if they cut out even half of them. They had fun music choices, but more often than not were entirely skipabble. The black-and-white ensembles are also much less fun than literally every other character the series introduced previously, and that resulted in the only bad episode of the series ("Nippy"). That's really my only critique of the show - a lot of silly montages and bland black-and-white ensemble. Everything checks out, all the characters are strong, and everything is perfectly timed. The only other thing that I can possibly think of is that the Trial of Jimmy McGill probably could have been stretched out for a seventh season, but even then it's the perfect finale. Oh! And Aaron Paul is, like, 44 and healthy now? Please stop making him play the late-20s methhead.
Better Call Saul was also fantastically written - none of these performances would be as strong if they were not working with the absolute best of the best material, all of which is provided by the auteurs of television Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan. It's a slow burn and incorporates fan service to the point where it doesn't even feel like fan service, but rather a natural progression of events that make sense given the logic of the show. Adding Gustavo Fring into the mix would feel like a gimmick in anyone else's hands, but instead, like every character that returns, their roles are expanded, elevated, and they leave more nuanced than before. Fan service done right, yo.
It's insane just how well Jimmy is expanded here, making comedic throwaway lines from his first in Breaking Bad appearance downright heartbreaking. The finale (Which could merit a post of its own), from his plea deal, trial, and subsequent ending are all perfectly done, making it a wholly satisfying journey that gets everything right.
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