Better Call Saul

What’s it about?

Better Call Saul follows a struggling lawyer’s sly, dangerous transformation into a criminal attorney.

Starring

Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael McKean, Tony Dalton

An Introduction to Better Call Saul

Better Call Saul opens with a stark black-and-white look at Breaking Bad‘s illustrious lawyer, Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) in later life. He now works in a bakery in a shopping centre, watches old ads starring his former public persona, and seems to be living under an assumed identity. The mood is quiet and solitary, and the humour has a tinge of existential dread.

The story then returns to colour, and we are introduced to Jimmy McGill, the man Saul used to be. He’s a poor, broke public defender representing three very foolish young clients. Jimmy is full of nerve, full of improvisational talent, and nearly destitute. His law practice takes place in a small office behind a nail salon, lending his career the feel of a storage closet with a business license.

The opening sets up Jimmy’s main issue: he can see all the shortcuts, but he can’t get respectable success. His older brother Chuck (Spinal Tap’s Michael McKean) is a successful and respected lawyer who has stepped back from public life because he thinks that electro-magnetic fields are affecting him. Jimmy regularly looks in on Chuck to offer help, in spite of Chuck’s regular disdain of Jimmy’s abilities as a lawyer.

The episode also introduces the uneasy relationship between Jimmy and the legal establishment, his wary relationship with fellow lawyer Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and his ability to bend a situation before it breaks. The result is funny, sad, and often slightly alarming. Better Call Saul starts with a man desperate to follow the legitimate path, but his instincts are always suggesting more interesting options.

Summary

Better Call Saul is a spin-off series from Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, with many call-backs and easter eggs. Having said that, it also stands alone as a fantastic, character-driven drama with outstanding framing and camera-work. The show follows Jimmy McGill (Saul’s real name), a small-time lawyer with a big personality and even bigger personal problems. Years before the forming of the notorious Saul Goodman, Jimmy is attempting to establish himself in a career in Albuquerque while living on modest fees, improvised schemes and verbal stamina. He’s aiming for respect from his clients, colleagues and family. He also wants the funds to stop needing to treat every minor expense as a personal referendum on his future.

Unfortunately, Jimmy’s most valuable attributes are also dangerously close to being his most potentially destructive ones. He is creative, convincing, hilarious and very good at seeing the angle that no-one else has spotted. Those skills assist him in navigating courtrooms and challenging clients. They also lure him into taking shortcuts that seem innocuous until they have consequences.

Better Call Saul opens the lid on the machinery of professional respectability. There are rules, hierarchies, and private hypocrisies within law firms, family businesses, criminal organisations, and even in simple friendships. Jimmy continues to find that those who say they are principled are often very selective in the use of those principles. He responds with charm, misdirection, and at times a bit of nonsense, all of which make him fun company but a questionable life coach.

Better Call Saul also tells the quieter histories of those around Jimmy. Kim Wexler is an ambitious lawyer whose discipline contrasts with Jimmy’s improvisation. A former police officer who has been laid off, Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) is a man whose job continually leads him into Albuquerque’s criminal underworld. Their stories take the series beyond a simple origin story, and allow its moral complexities to breathe.

The show moves at a patient pace and allows awkward silences, petty rivalries, work place grudges, and small acts of kindness to matter. Better Call Saul finds drama in paperwork, parking tickets, family squabbles and negotiations by people who know exactly how much they are pretending. It’s a character study of ambition, loyalty, reinvention and the cost of being admired for the wrong reasons. Better Call Saul is a show that takes the idea of transformation slowly, built from decisions that appear smart, funny, or perfectly justifiable at the time.

Check out the Season 1 Trailer here: