Rarely has there been this much
anticipation for a spinoff of a successful show and what’s even rarer is the
spinoff being anywhere as good as its predecessor but with Breaking Bad creator
Vince Gilligan and Philip Gould at the helm and off the first outing of Better
Call Saul, It’s already quite clear that it won’t go the way of other spinoffs.
The show doesn’t have ounce of
fat on it as it focuses tightly on our protagonist who is present in just about
every scene. In the first episode, we learn more about Saul Goodman A.K.A James
McGill than we did in the character’s four season run as Walt and Jesse’s
wisecracking “criminal lawyer”. In stark contrast to the upbeat and glib charm
we come to know and love Saul for in breaking Bad, he cuts a forlorn figure
before and after the events of Breaking Bad as we see him working at Cinnabons
and watching over shoulder his in fear of reprisals.
His supposed fall from grace is
hammered home as we follow him home to decent but eerily empty abode where
pours a mix of Drambuie and Dewar White Label and watches his old cheesy
commercials a picture of sorrow and regret. These short but depressing few
scenes at the start of the episode reveals to us not only his fall from grace
but a man stripped of purpose and on a road to self-destruction which makes for
a compelling but ultimately sad spectacle especially in light of what we knew
of him before.
We flashback to his life before
he met Walt and Jesse and to some extent it’s kind of hard to say which part of
his life was more depressing: his life before or after the events of Breaking
Bad. We once again learn more in a scene than we did in his whole run in
Breaking Bad as we see Saul, now going by the name James McGill, holding up a
court trying to get his closing argument down pat.
This small scene is pretty
great as we learn all his charm doesn’t come from natural charisma but from
bloody hard work. Throughout this episode, Saul (I find it difficult to refer
to Saul by his real name), is portrayed as a lonely and severely insecure man
looking to prove himself and failing at every turn but in the scene in the
bathroom where we find him going through his closing argument in his head to
when delivers it perfectly in the courtroom, we know it’s not for a lack of
trying.
There’s a great comedic moment
when Saul rips through his great closing argument in defense of three teenage
boys, the prosecution simply goes across the room, drags a nearby television
hooked to a VCR in front of the jury and pops in a tape that shows Saul’s
clients sexually molesting then cutting of the head of a dead corpse.
The video pretty much kills his
case as we find Saul remonstrating with a court receptionist over his measly
pay as a public defender demanding extra for representing three defendants.
What this short but telling scene revealed is that Saul from the outset could
care less about the guilt or innocence of his clients. It also reveals that he’s
no fan of his current position as public defender as the last case showed, most
of them are unwinnable. We find out later in the episode that Saul was morally
corrupted back in his teens but in this short scene and in others in the
episode, we see that it wasn’t going to take much to corrupt him later on.
Another
short scene right after shows us Saul’s uncanny skill for deception as he impersonates
an Irish assistant supposedly working for his firm on the spot. We’ve already
seen Saul is a pretty good at working a crowd but his skill for on the spot deception is outright criminal genius. In that
same scene we see him pull up at a tool booth and from a voice off screen we
instantly realize that this is Saul’s first encounter with Mike. Jonathan Banks
was excellent as the deadpan and no-nonsense hitman and it’s great to see that
he’ll be playing him in future episode which already makes my anticipation for
the next episode that much unbearable.
In the
next scene, we find Saul at the four O’clock appointment setup by his “Irish
assistant” in a diner with a couple once again showing his great ability to
pitch. His ability to pitch is even more highlighted by the awkward
conversation about the case which reveals the couple’s guilt and, once again,
Saul’s indifference towards the guilt of his prospective clients.
So far,
we’ve seen Saul frustrated by his legal career and thanks to the treasurers’
wife, he suffers another setback as she stops her husband from signing a letter
of engagement at the last minute. Gilligan and Gould make a great choice of
focusing on Saul’s face watching the treasurer almost sign on the dotted line
before his wife stops him as one frame on Saul’s face shows us the desperation
and over-eagerness of a man looking for a break and the dejection when that
break turns into a false dawn.
The time
we’ve spent with Saul has been one disappointment after another as life is
handing one lemon after another and they keep on coming as two twin scammers
try to pull one over on Saul as one jumps upfront of Saul’s car while the other
twin ramps up pressure on Saul with a camcorder that just happens to be handy
when his brother is “unfortunately” run into.
However
their misfortune is compounded by the fact that Saul has their number as while
Saul initial reaction of blind fear is real, he relaxes when they bring up the
issue of compensation. After the twins settle on $500 being the number that
“make(s) things right”, Saul proceeds to cut through the act and then rips them
for their poor choice of victim with a great line about his car “only being
worth $500 with a $300 hooker sitting in it”.
That
great line is one of the few lines that made me laugh out loud in this episode
which wasn’t particularly funny. This is not bad thing as I’ve found the best
comedies don’t make you laugh but when they do, it’s worth remembering. The
episode wasn’t funny because Gilligan and Gould can’t write comedy (they
clearly can as Breaking Bad would have been an unbearable watch if they
couldn’t), it’s because Saul’s life is more tragic than it is funny. We’ve seen Saul get poorly compensated for
taking unwinnable cases, get rejected by drop dead guilty clients and chase off
twin scammers for trying to get one over on him, none of which is funny to him
or would be funny to us if we were in his shoes.
If
there’s any comedy in Better Call Saul, you’d better believe it’s down to the
great lines and comic timing of Gilligan and Gould and a stand out performance
from Bob Odenkirk (whose been great in everything we’ve seen him in post
Breaking Bad from the Oscar nominated Nebraska to the brilliant and award laden
TV reworking of the classic 1996 Coen brothers’ film Fargo) because it’s
certainly not coming from the events taking place in Saul’s life.
In the
next scene, we see why Saul’s “Irish assistant” set up a meeting at a diner
rather than his office as his “office” is basically a spare room at the back of
nail and pedicure joint. Again we see
traces of his insecurity as he hesitates to check his messages fearing he has
none, his fears are realized when the answering tells him what he already knows.
Saul files through his mail then opens up a letter from Hamlin, Hamlin, and
McGill (HHM) with a check made to James McGill for $26,000 which Saul, after a
beat, rips into pieces.
In the
next scene we get to see why as he makes a visit HHM. From his interaction with
just about everybody outside the main office, he’s not exactly man of the year
as while the staff there remember him, it’s palpable they don’t remember him fondly.
We get an even greater sense that his presence is not welcome when he makes his
entrance into a partners meeting to discuss the check in mail which he empties
out of his palm onto a finely polished table.
We
learn through his conversation with one of the partners that the check wasn’t
for him, it was for his brother, Saul clearly thinks his brother is being
shortchanged and wants HHM to buyout his share of firm but it becomes clear
that Saul doesn’t have the authority to make such a demand on his brother’s
behalf. Saul then threatens to take HHM to court then exits the office but not
before his best impression of Ned Beatty’s performance in the classic 1976
Paddy Chayefsky satire “Network”.
All
we’ve seen all episode is Saul suffer one knock back after another but the one
that clearly hurt him the most was seeing the treasurer and his wife in the
foyer of HMM chopping it up with the senior partner we saw earlier in the main
office. As he exits the elevator we see Saul lets go of all his frustration as
he wails on a nearby bin with a barrage of kicks. This is telling as lets out
all the choked back anger at his situation and the cosmic joke that has become
his life. We got none of this in Breaking Bad as more often than not, Saul
always had some semblance of control.
In the
next scene we follow Saul home and find that his house is powerless but not
empty as we hear a voice off screen. After Saul lights a lantern and puts
groceries in an ice bucket, we find Saul’s brother Chuck at a typewriter. The
conversation between the two is the first conversation between that wasn’t purely
business or outright adversarial as Saul clearly cares for his brother and vice
versa.
The
love between the two is palpable when Saul insists that Chuck quits HHM and his
brother also determined to prove he can get back in the game but with his fear
of electromagnetism (hence the powerless house), Saul’s not so sure. However,
Chuck proves himself to be a great debater as he swiftly cuts through his
brother’s arguments regarding his career as he rightly points out that his
arguments are built on false principles but Saul counters with an argument
built on a principle that’s hard to falsify: economic reality.
Saul informs
Chuck that he’s broke and while Chuck argues that money is “beside the point”,
Saul counters that “money is the point” which reveals a sharp philosophical
break between the two. From what we’ve seen so far, Chuck is clearly the more
patient, intellectual, and therefore the more successful of the two while Saul,
driven by his insecurity and lack of success in spite of his sharp mind, is
overly concerned about the result of his actions which makes the continual cosmic
setbacks harder to take on the chin.
In the
scene with Chuck we find out that Saul only took public defender work because
of Chuck’s insistence of its nobility and the precious experience he would gain
which again brings into focus the philosophical difference between the two as
Saul, less than impressed with monetary results never mind the unwinnable cases,
is clearly not convinced that public defender work is either noble or the
experience of doing it enlightening.
However,
Saul soon found out that his impassioned argument to get his brother to cash
out of HHM was to come to naught as the firm was already sending Chuck checks
he was more than happy to accept due to his insistence he will resume work at
the firm. Saul, flabbergasted, thinks HHM are taking advantage of his brother’s
optimistic assessment of his health but is shut down by Chuck’s insistence that
he will get better. Saul has spent the whole day suffering setback after
setback but when Chuck hands him the matchbox he gave to the couple earlier in
the episode and suggests he changes his name ”to build his own identity”, we
see that this was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as Saul
playing by the rules.
While
we know later that Saul took Chuck’s advice wholesale down the line, right now,
blinded once again by his anger and insecurity about his life and now HHM
taking advantage of his brother’s naivety, all he can fathom is a certain sense
of betrayal and a major hard on for poking HHM in the eye.
Saul
plan to poke HHM in the eye is crudely simple by potentially effective as he
recruits the twin scammers to play the same hustle they tried on him on the
treasurer’s wife so that he can come to her rescue and possibly steal the
treasurer’s embezzlement case from HHM. Not a bad plan but, as with all plans,
good or bad, they are useless when the variables they’re based on suddenly
change or were faulty in the first place. The twins are on the right street and
target the right car but clearly the wrong driver as instead of getting out of
the vehicle to see if their “victim” is
ok, the driver speeds off. While Saul rightly tells the twins, now following
the car, that the hit and run is a good thing as it gives them more leverage.
However,
this makes the twins greedy as they figure they could shake down once they
catch up with the driver and demand compensation. They ignore Saul’s wise
advice to hang back which they ultimately pay for as they roll up on the
driver, an elderly but stern looking Hispanic woman, and demand, through a cursory
understanding of Spanish, compensation. However, the old lady, certainly nobody’s
fool, sees right through the twins and invites them into their home and calls
out for her son in Spanish which would have sent a red flag among the twins if
they understood a word of Spanish beyond the terms that sound similar to their English
equivalents.
Their
greed also drags Saul into the same quagmire as he spots the twin’s skateboards
and headgear on the old lady’s lawn which should have sent a massive red flag
but with Saul working on his pitch to reel in the treasurer’s wife, he’s too
focused on cashing in to register any danger. However, Saul inability to register
danger is soon addressed as he gets a 45 Magnum Revolver stuck in his face by
none other than Tuco Salamanca who drags Saul into his house.
In Tuco
we see another face we recognize from Breaking Bad and s sure to feature
heavily in the show and probably might explain how Saul got connected with Gus
Fring and in the New Mexico underworld in general. In any case, I trust
Gilligan and Gould’s ability to tell a story as if the first episode is
anything to go by, it might just match its original inspiration for greatness.
In sum,
“Uno” was a great episode as it was brilliantly written, directed, shot and
acted and if Gilligan, Gould and Odenkirk keep giving us episodes and
performances like this, all three are shoe in for Emmy consideration not only
from the good will garnered from their magnum opus but from the quality from
their current work of art.
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