Originally written April 10, 2015
Better Call Saul is a prequel spinoff series to Breaking Bad that centers around the show’s crook lawyer, Saul Goodman. I generally just don’t care for spinoffs because you almost always compare them to the original show, and it’s always inferior. This is still the case for Better Call Saul, but I expected this because it’s being compared to Breaking Bad, which is one of my top 5 favorite shows of all time. And sure, while it is inferior so far, it’s still a damn good show and deserves to be watched. In fact, if we’re comparing the first seasons of both shows, I actually think Better Call Saul has a better first season.
But I digress. I’m going to stop comparing it to Breaking Bad past that point, because quite honestly aside from using some characters from Breaking Bad, the two are pretty different shows, and I find that if you’ll be most disappointed if you go in expecting it to be like Breaking Bad. Better Call Saul is much more of a light-hearted show in tone, although it’s not without its excellent dramatic moments as well.
Really the show is all about Saul’s origins, and to that point the show takes place six years before Breaking Bad, at a point before Saul was actually not known as Saul yet. Here he is simply Jimmy McGill, a young lawyer who is more or less just starting out. Jimmy used to live in Chicago and made his living by scamming people, but after getting arrested, he decides to straighten his life out and follow in his brother’s footsteps, becoming a lawyer. Season 1 more or less covers his struggles of starting out and trying to make a name for himself, as well as setting some key components in place for how he becomes the dirty lawyer that he’s most famous for. While I didn’t want to use anymore Breaking Bad comparisons, really Better Call Saul is the same kind of setup where we follow a man trying to be good and do the right thing, but circumstances cause him to do some bad things that will eventually pave the way into him becoming a criminal. And that’s really what season 1 is all about.
Aside from Jimmy, there’s surprisingly not that many other main characters to follow. The other biggest one is Chuck, Jimmy’s brother who is a famous lawyer that now has a condition where he can’t be exposed to electromagnetic fields, like the sun or even watches and cell phones. Jimmy takes care of Chuck, who tries to mentor Jimmy and keep him on the right path. Chuck is also a founder of a big lawyer firm, with another partner being Howard Hamlin, who is pretty much the dick of the show. Jimmy had wanted to work for the company in the past, but Hamlin never wanted him to, holding some sort of unknown hatred for Jimmy. Then there’s Kim, Jimmy’s friend that works for Hamlin and is really the only person other than Chuck that seems to care about him. And finally we have Mike, who’s the only other main character from Breaking Bad. He starts off the show just working at a ticket booth, but eventually becomes the Mike we all know and love.
I really did enjoy the first season of Better Call Saul. It does start off a little slow, but the second half of the season makes up for any boring moments in the first half (with 10 episodes total in the season). I really didn’t expect to like the show as much as I do, and I can honestly say I’m really excited for the next season. I know part of it is nostalgia for Breaking Bad, but there is more to Better Call Saul than just that, and it can definitely stand on its own. I am hoping season 2 has a bit more of a clear plot though, because this season kind of just felt like a series of subplots…which weren’t bad, but I’m not really sure where they’re going with it from here. Either way, it’s really great to be back in this world, and giving the character of Saul Goodman a lot more depth was an excellent choice. If I go back to rewatch Breaking Bad ever again, I won’t be able to look at Saul the same anymore after watching this show. Great start.
4/5
