“Don’t let false arguments lead to an unfair fight. Hello! I am Saul Goodman and I will fight for you. There is no accusation too serious for me. When the law has you cornered… You better call Saul! Or rather, in its original language, Better Call Saul.” This was one of the videos that he recorded himself Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) in his golden age, the one that happened in breaking bad and that Gene (the Saul of the future in black and white) remembers minutes just started Better Call Saul in April 2015. In that video he was still selling the usual, no matter who you are, he was going to defend you. But this time he had to “defend” himself from himself. Seven years have passed since his debut and as Vince Gilligan, his creator, said, after this ending, nothing will be the same.
After six seasons and 63 episodes, one of the best drama series in television history said goodbye. And not a minor fact, it was born as a product to continue the experience of another excellently considered as breaking bad and very little time of its end. Nevertheless, Better Call Saul It started far from the crude police and family drama that its predecessor left behind, here it was closer to a comedy focused on the character of Jimmy McGill and his transition to Saul Goodman. Without losing the high level of writing and direction exhibited by the series starring Bryan Cranston Y Aaron Paulthe first two seasons of BCS presented a more introverted drama, far from the drug war (although already in the second chapter it connects with breaking bad) and more focused on a lawyer considered a “loser” by his peers and his closest environment.
However, that meticulous construction, sustained in details and good performances with very solid characters, little by little made the series starring Bob Odenkirk in a worthy prequel and spin-off of breaking bad. And when the characters already known from the previous fiction began to participate (Mike, Gus and other minor names) the base was already solid and the pillars of the story supported Better Call Saul By herself: Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, Patrick Fabian as Howard Hamlin and Michael McKean as the key player in the entire conflict in the role of Chuck McGill.
Attention: what follows is content with spoilers from the last episode of the series.
In the last episode of the series called “There is nothing left”, Jimmy gutted Saul Goodman live in front of the judge in a key confession about how we are going to see breaking bad now. He said: “I was indispensable. I kept Walter White free. I laundered his money. I was lying for him. I conspired with him and made millions. If he hadn’t walked into my office that day, Walter White would have been dead or in prison within a month.” In this way he not only killed Saul Goodman, the character he created to, forgive the redundancy, believe in himself, but also to free Kim Wexler of any guilt by assuming the death of Howard Hamlin as well. Finally Jimmy was Jimmy again taking the blame and making it clear that nothing we saw in breaking bad It would have been possible without him. And he did it in a very simple way: he confessed to all of Saul’s crimes, to go back to being Jimmy.
Jimmy/Saul/Gene defending himself, but in turn screwing up a practically won case by getting a 7-year sentence for everything he did, gives him closure away from the end of breaking bad and closer to the plant of everything Better Call Saul, which in the end was not a series about power as a central theme, but about love and trust or the lack thereof. And the closing has an even more nostalgic height as a worthy ending to a six-season fiction on screen with the flashbacks of him with Mike (in the desert in one of the best episodes of the series) and Walter talking about time travel and the regrets. It all comes from the same side, from his relationship with his brother Chuck.
Far from wanting to explain or overanalyze the entire series, it is better to remember that in this fine framework between Jimmy McGill’s personal drama there was also room to connect with the characters linked to drug trafficking in breaking bad, featuring brilliant characters like Tony Dalton’s Lalo Salamanca and beloved Michael Mando as Nacho Varga and his family history. But also giving more action time to Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring and Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut, two of the most remembered characters of both fictions. Without fear of being wrong, Better Call Saul became an essential part of breaking bad that absorbed it and made it its own. Will it be time to see BB again through the eyes of BCS?
