Better Call Saul

Yeah, he still doesn't want to admit to himself that Chuck's absence has any effect on him: the opener this week being all about the support and mentorship that Chuck did give him, once upon a time, suggests that Gould & al are pointing towards denial at the end.

exactly: the way he loses it in the car over a relatively minor thing is very much the way repressed grief can hit you

I love this show.

Struck me that it would be funny if somehow the rejected law student he gives a fuck-'em pep talk to somehow ends up, as an adult, recognising him and being the one who brings his post-BB life crashing down

A strong finale but this season was a little bit shapeless for me. I think the Jimmy-Chuck dynamic was my favourite aspect of the show and its missed that

I really enjoyed the Auf Wiedersehen, Pet homage of the German builders. It could easily have been the "How Jack got his Tattoo" storyline of the season, just filler to pad it out, but it ended up being genuinely interesting and sad.

incredible how much this show focuses on long set-ups and payoffs - the letter coming back into the plot, for ex. Amazing final scene, with Jimmy's transformation complete.

Gould and Gilligan are too good at storytelling to drop the rejected law student after a brief introduction, and good enough at storytelling that there's no telling whether she'll help or hurt him when she shows back up.

(It's down to one showrunner now! Gilligan didn't work day to day on this season.

― 16, 35, DCP, Go! (sic), Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:48 AM (two months ago) )

he directed last week though

I don't think it's necessary for her to come back -- her being a vessel for Jimmy to dump his petulance and entitlement onto this week was enough. If she were to find a way to cheat into lawyerhood, she still wouldn't be qualified until well into the Breaking Bad era.

She doesn't have to become a lawyer to show up again and affect Jimmy's life.

not everything gets a callback

I'd be v surprised if we get much more of Jimmy's post-BB life or any kind of real resolution there but who knows. I think another season of this means we learn Kim's ultimate fate and Jimmy does a lot of incredibly shitty stuff.

Gould still thinks a season of Gene is a possibility once they run out of Saul, but there is no long-range plan

Wow he really said that? Weird

yeah it was in an interview this week

Well that excellent finale more than made up for the sluggishness of the season as a whole.

You would have to re-cast, but you could probably do some good stories about Slipping Jimmy back in Chicago. It would be set in the 80s, right? Prequel to the prequel.

eh I'd rather see his live after BB. I'd be shocked if they didn't do a redemption story.

I pray not (redemption, that is). I'd want a Mad Men-type ending, where Gene relocates his inner Saul by pulling a fast one on someone.

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.

yeah this was the best part of this (dreary) season -- I was rooting so hard for mike to give him a pass and wept when I knew it wouldnt happen. he took it much more stoically than I'd have guessed

https://www.amc.com/shows/better-call-saul-employee-training

Watched a few eps -- it's good, but how can anyone stand to watch this dark, depressing stuff after a long stressful day at work?

yea. it's a dreary fucking show

That's why the only things I watch now are Shark Tank, the Profit and NBA.

OTOH, I don't know how anyone gets through an entire episode of Two Broke Girls without being swallowed by an existential void from which there is no escape.

Finished this last night after starting it literally months ago, the season really dragged and I just didn't have the enthusiasm to watch the next one. Then I shotgunned the final three in one night - there was a hell of payoff and suddenly there seemed to be a reason to keep watching them. Werner in particular was a terrific character.

But the rest, good god, stop making us work so hard. Jimmy's depression was necessary but dull, Jimmy selling cellphones was dull, the Nacho/Hector Salamanca stuff was really fucking dull. The first three-quarters of Mike's arc was dull. It's difficult to think of a character who feels more wasted in this than Gus Fring.

For a fundamentally character-driven show it feels largely unconcerned with developing most of characters in interesting ways. I started to wish they'd decided to focus on Jimmy alone and given him a wider circle of friends and acquaintances rather than just Kim, Howard and Chuck.

I don't usually disagree with you re tv but I really really do on this

finally watched all of this show after giving it a wide berth after being unimpressed with the start of the first season.

i have ended up enjoying it, but with so many reservations.

the idea that this is better than breaking bad, or even worse, "more character driven" is preposterous to me. the jimmy and kim romance is one of the least believable on-screen romances ever, why are they together? jimmy is a serial liar and conman who were are supposed to root for, a sort of grifter with a heart of gold who could have gone good given the right circumstances. i don't really think this comes off. he's a shyster, kim, though she likes to dip her toes into his world once in a while, is basically a goody-two shoes and it's taken far, far too much for her to grow sick of his frequently highly criminal behaviour if people think that the female characters in breaking bad are ... bad, and they are, then that's definitely repeated here, kim is very underdeveloped as a character. mike's turn to the criminal and total respect for fring really doesn't jibe with literally everything else we know about the character.

i also don't think i've ever watched a whole season of a show where main characters have little or no involvement with each other. why is mike in this show about saul? although i honestly enjoy mike's parts more than jimmy's.

chicks dig a bad boy

yeah but he's not sexy type bad boy he's slimy

well they're already in a relationship by the time the show starts so who knows. I thought the implication was that he cleaned up his act after the Chicago Sunroof thing, only to have Slippin' Jimmy slowly come back, driven by certain events. They worked in the mailroom together and neither of them seem to have any free time whatsoever. I had gotten the impression that those smoking breaks were the only time they had to really socialize with anyone.

I agree that Mike's motivations are a bit unclear, but that was a little odd in Breaking Bad too, why does he need to leave $25 mil to his daughter when realistically she'd be taken care of for like 2% of that. I see that as Mike needing something to do in retirement (he's got no other family, apparently) + respect for a man as meticulous and careful as he is.

also, I think the Mike/Saul thing is kinda cool, its neat that this is basically two separate shows that occasionally collide. I wonder how that comes off to people who haven't watched Breaking Bad.

btw I haven't seen S4 yet - its not on Netflix or Hulu...how are y'all watching it?

well they're already in a relationship by the time the show starts so who knows.

they’re long-time friends (who’ve probably had sex once or thrice) when the show starts, they don’t become a couple until a season or two in


btw I haven't seen S4 yet - its not on Netflix or Hulu...how are y'all watching it?

it was on TV six months ago!

ah, its on Prime. gotta pay for it but whatever, it's worth it

only up to E4 so I'm not totally caught up yet but a have a few stray observations. #1, Rhea Seehorn has a really great voice. #2, I love how this show (and Breaking Bad) handles injuries - when someone like Jesse or Nacho gets mangled, they gradually heal over the course of 3-4 episodes, instead of all at once like a lot of shows do. Jesse's face was messed up for like, 25% of BB. Can't think of another lead character getting his ass kicked so much

I am constantly surprised that people rate Breaking Bad as highly as they do, especially in comparison to Better Call Saul (which is one of my favourite shows ever, I think). I went back to rewatch a few scenes from Breaking Bad as a refresher, right when I was in the thick of BCS S3, and was stunned at how one-note a performance Bryan Cranston was delivering, and how completely inept Aaron Paul was as an actor, and how ham-fisted the writing was. In comparison, Chuck is one of the best characters I've ever seen on TV, both in the way he was written and McKean's performance

But whatever *jazz hands away*

i was a huge fan of BB but in retrospect it was def all DRAMZ! all the time.

I definitely prefer the more relaxed pace & slower burn of Better Call Saul.

I still haven't seen the most recent season of this, but the issue I had with "breaking bad" (which I loved) is that it's ott from the very start. Vats of acid and all that. So it really has nowhere to go other than "how will he get out of this mess and who will he take down with him?" Which is/was great! But it got ... yeah, just ott, almost to the point of campy at times, imo.

Breaking Bad was SUPER-FUN television, and "how will he get out of this mess and who will he take down with him?" was delightful to be stressed out by, and to feel horribly complicit in.

Better Call Saul is a different show. It retains the skill at making you feel invested in the success of horrible people, but spreads it across more characters and lets you hope for their redemption this time -- even though we know all along that Jimmy will only get worse, and the best we can hope for Kim is that she escapes his life and the series.

Saul is a better and richer story, but that doesn't retroactively make Breaking Bad crap for having not been trying to do the same things. Looking great and making the audience nervous are very hard things to do!

BB was far from crap! But BCS is better.

Better Call Saul is an incredibly subpar sketch comedy program compared to Mr. Show. Sorry that's just how I feel.

I... think Breaking Bad was really crap, in retrospect. I can't believe I watched a show for so many seasons with those six leads, bleah! Glad they made a spin-off show with the three best characters, though

I only finished S3 of BCS maybe last week and I'm just shocked about Chuck, and what an incredible character he is, and what an amazing performance.

I watched BCS first and then BB. It worked really well that way! Especially made Mikes death a lot more poignant.

fgti included tho I do think it was great trash

included = otm

You people are mad, BB is great.

otm

not about to go back and rewatch either show... but BCS leading by a hair for me. It may depend on how the hell they wrap it up.

anyone know when the next season starts? Have they said how many seasons they expect to make?

Yeah, shit talkers in this thread acting like producing five seasons of incredibly gripping drama with a constantly propulsive plot and continually raising stakes which actually comes to a satisfying conclusion, and doing all that with style and wit is somehow no big achievement.

Granted the acting is better and the characters perhaps more deeply drawn in BCS (which I like), but come on. A lot of it is treading water which BB never did for a second (YMMV on 'Fly').

xpost

Very different shows in terms of mood, like/love both. BCS is probably more consistent, but it does meander along at times; BB was all over the place, but at its best, pantheon.

love both of them in different ways

Well, apparently in 2019 shit-talking Breaking Bad is something that only happens in private conversation and over text-message and we're not ready to have The Talk in public just yet

BB was undeniably thrilling to watch week-to-week but of the canonical Great Shows it's the one I'm least likely to ever revisit.

The treasure of today is the trash of tomorrow.