Snakes In The Ball Pit => How I choose to spend my time => TeeVee => Topic started by: Lemon on February 21, 2015, 11:14:39 am
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on February 21, 2015, 11:14:39 am
I expected to like this show. I goddamn love it.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Adam Bozarth on March 06, 2015, 09:57:59 am
More people should watch this show because it is its own show and a funnier show than Breaking Bad.
And Breaking Bad was hysterical.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on March 06, 2015, 12:01:42 pm
I'm an episode behind right now, but I'm curious to find out how much of the billboard con was premeditated, because the whole thing seems really convoluted. It seems like, if the end goal was to be portrayed as a hero, he didn't really need to do the dozen things before that.
And I totally agree with Adam above, it's a funnier show, and I think it's a comedy first, but in a really weird way,
PS The Ketelmans are total dicks.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Adam Bozarth on March 09, 2015, 10:55:48 am
To your point, Lemon, he's got to appear as though he was forced by Hamlin to take down the billboard, and it also showcases his blending of confidence tricks and legal expertise.
People really should get on board with it, because it's another great AMC show that isn't a dreary crime drama like Low Winter Sun or Rubicon. It's got some real laughs in it. Might be my favorite show airing at the moment. House of Cards is great and all, but it doesn't hook me like Saul.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Locclo on March 10, 2015, 01:15:17 am
I was very pleasantly surprised when I watched the first two episodes. I expected a show that was decent, but not nearly as good as Breaking Bad, and I got a show that is pretty much right at the same level of quality. I normally just wait until I can watch every episode of a season before actually watching it, but with this show I eagerly await every new episode.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on March 16, 2015, 10:31:06 am
I'm really enjoying how ballsy this show is, as far as withholding information from the audience. I spent at least half of the Five-O episode not knowing what was happening, or where in the relative timeline we were in anything being shown, but they still buttoned it up and made sense of everything by the end.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on March 20, 2015, 10:26:56 am
I'm failing to understand how the Ketelmans are attractive clients. All of the money they have is stolen and HH&M's recommendation is for them to return the money to the police and plea bargain. But if they return the money to the police, how much money would they have to pay the absurd legal fees? Even if the goal is for HH&M to have a high profile case, doesn't that kind of thing only work if your case actually goes to trial?
Also there's no way that entire bundle of cash is completely intact. And even if it was, upon that money's forfeit to the police... "Hey, there's $30,000 missing." "Oh yeah, we gave that to this lawyer who didn't represent us." "No they didn't." "Okay then, well, clearly these people are huge liars."
All the stuff with the Ketelmans was terrific. I really like watching this dogged determination to stick to a lie and not get broken by the idea that everybody knows that you're lying. Beyond reason and even beyond self-interest, I want this thing to be true so this thing is true.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Adam Bozarth on March 20, 2015, 11:52:12 am
They USED to be attractive clients, then after Jimmy finds out they did, in fact, embezzle the money into cash, he takes a bribe to keep quiet. Now, they are a loose thread. They strong-armed him into being his lawyer when they weren't satisfied with the answer.
The implication seems to be that the money hasn't been spent yet. The legal fees aside (they probably can afford it outside the stolen money), it makes HH&M look great as a firm if they can turn a possible 30 year sentence into 18 months. At least that's how it seems to me. Even if they did spend it, they can implicate Jimmy for their sudden disappearance and for obstruction of justice. Not that it would be something Jimmy couldn't get out of, but it would be a big news story at the very least. Plenty of reasons to not want to be accused of any wrong-doing of his own. It could tarnish his budding reputation and it could also lead to Chuck relapsing into his electromagnetism allergy.
The Ketelmans are great characters, and I think very indicative of the tonal shift this series takes. I really wish people were on board with this show now, because I think it deserves the same Breaking Bad level of adoration. Maybe not to the point where Saul is showing up in insurance commercials, but so Bob Odenkirk can make more movies.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on March 20, 2015, 12:04:45 pm
Maybe not to the point where Saul is showing up in insurance commercials, but so Bob Odenkirk can make more movies.
Melvin Goes To Dinner was... okay.
And the first like 2 Birthday Boys episodes were really good.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on April 01, 2015, 09:23:43 pm
This is probably the best thing Michael McKean has ever done.
That reveal in Pimento was heart breaking. That is the worst thing you could do to a person.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Adam Bozarth on April 02, 2015, 01:12:13 am
I want him to keep making movies because I want to see him make a really good one. I think he has it in him.
And yeah, that was a rough reveal. They are really stretching Odenkirk's and showcasing McKean's range. I think I like this show better than Breaking Bad because it's not so nightmarishly gritty, but they still can create real emotional cliffhangers.
Steven Ogg's cameo was a lot of fun.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on April 02, 2015, 09:22:44 am
Steven Ogg's CV is just a headshot with the caption "Crime ain't pretty".
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: znarf on May 22, 2016, 03:31:44 am
Did any of you watch season 2? Thoughts?
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Frank West on August 24, 2016, 09:08:47 pm
I started watching this recently and just finished season 2. This is a really captivating show for reasons that aren't totally clear, because it feels like it shouldn't be? There IS good acting, and the plot is interesting, but it feels like it's a plot-based show where not a lot happens each episode? The events of both seasons would probably fit into 2/3rds of a Breaking Bad season. As a result, it ends up with a lot of extra drama scenes where nothing much dramatic happens, and a lot of comedy scenes in which nothing much funny happens. Yet it's still really enjoyable and really captivating, for reasons I can't fully pinpoint?
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Amelia Blank on August 24, 2016, 10:02:21 pm
Yeah. It's super deliberate but compellingly so? I dunno. There's something to be said for having characters you love to see just be and breathe. I adore a show well crafted.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on April 26, 2017, 01:25:33 am
Michael McKean's moral indignation and Bob Odenkirk working at Cinnabon are two of my favorite things ever put on television.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Amelia Blank on April 28, 2017, 07:37:04 pm
Would you say Chuck is the main villain of Saul?
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: znarf on April 30, 2017, 05:08:43 am
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on July 02, 2017, 10:59:07 am
Christ I love that Chuck sued Hamlin Hamlin and McGill. It was perfectly within his worldview. Here he was a good, decent, honest man working to defend this company that he holds so dear, and then out of nowhere comes Howard's treachery. He really took his one and only choice after being mistreated by Howard like that.
Then later Jimmy comes by and Chuck gets to tell him just how unimportant he was. He pities Jimmy, you see. Jimmy doesn't have a moral center like Chuck does. Nor does he have the mental will to force himself to get over his very real illness all by himself without any help from anyone. What a magnificent individual.
This season has also been a bit lighter on Mike, which I think is a good thing. Yes, Mike is fun to watch, but I'm a little bored of all the 20 minute scenes where he's Mirror Universe Wile E Coyote and evey elaborate plan he has works out perfectly.
Also, I think it's pretty amazing that in three seasons, nobody has died.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Lemon on August 25, 2018, 01:12:08 pm
SEASON 4!
So right off the bat I'm very sad that Chuck is dead. The more he doubled down, the more sure he was of being the only moral person in an increasingly immoral universe, the more I loved watching him. He was a ceaseless methodical implementation engine of negativity, and a chasm of need that turns empathy into cruelty. I just loved watching it happen. I'm disappointed there won't be more of that.
I've also just grown accustomed to Mike being a wizard. It is canonical to the universe that Mike is imbued with magical powers where everything he tries to do goes perfectly, that's just the way it's supposed to go. In a show where everything goes wrong, he's the one person who does everything flawlessly. And you know what happens to him in the end regardless. Meantime, he's just going to continue to involve himself with his son's ex-wife who basically sees him as an ATM with arms and legs.
Speaking of which the Hummel robbery was, all things considered, the most effective crime ever committed in this series. They actually made it out with the merch, the copier guy didn't get garotted, and they didn't accidentally steal something the cartel wanted. Plus, good feelings at the end. Kudos all around, even if it was a crime that seemed low enough stakes to matter. Jimmy didn't have an immediate need for $2k, and Mike definitely didn't, so it was clearly only considered for the love of doing crime.
Nacho is still terrific. I like that, sort of like Jack Lemmon in Glengarry/Glenn Ross, they stop short of making him a fully sympathetic character. The situation he's got himself in is the result of a half-cocked attempt to protect his own father, but that doesn't mean he's able or willing to protect others.
And Kim is probably going to die this season. I'm not sure exactly why, but even with the busted arm things are going pretty smoothly for her, so I'm pretty sure that's gonna get severely disturbed.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: I Liked That Joke on August 26, 2018, 01:42:26 am
I don't see Kim dying. She's never near any real crime and Jimmy's arc seems to be less about the implicit dangers of crime and more about him cutting himself off from his emotions.
My theory: Kim confronts him about how weird he's acting about Howard's death, Jimmy explains that he genuinely doesn't feel any guilt, Kim is alienated and decides to get out of his life, and without any humanizing bonds left he goes full Saul. Kim moves on to a pretty normal law career, potentially leaving Albuquerque, but almost certainly cutting ties with Jimmy.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Frank West on September 05, 2018, 01:46:36 pm
I just finished season 3, I liked seasons 1 and 2 but like I said in my previous post, they did feel like they meandered around a bit, which was nice but also not that gripping. Season 3 kept my interest a lot more (it helps that both Mike AND Nacho had full storylines to go through, so we could switch over to them and not stop the plot cold.)
The portrayal of Chuck's mental illness is incredibly strong. Almost any other show would have had his illness be either "The main problem is that he believes this crazy thing, and curing him involves getting him not to believe this crazy thing" or "He believes this crazy thing, and also he's very very sad all the time" or "It's all in his head. Better Call Saul makes it clear that the electrosensitivity Chuck experiences is not only very real, from his perspective, but also only a symptom of his mental illness, not the cause. Very few shows are willing to show that people can just become miserable, and stay that way, and that when people develop mental illnesses it's not just "oh all their family members rally around them" because people with mental illnesses destroy their relationships.
The people who viciously hate Chuck remind me of the people who viciously hated Skyler: they're getting in the way of our noble hero so they must be a bad person. But this ignores that both of them are right: In Skyler's case, Walt was cooking meth and killing people, and in Chuck's case, he's right, Jimmy shouldn't have been hired by Hamlin Hamlin and McGill. He is, in fact, unable to stop himself from conning people, and he shows that by continually sabotaging his own business in ways that would absolutely hurt HHM if he was working for them. It's possible that Chuck could have (and probably should have) supported Jimmy and helped him become a better person instead of working against him, so I'm not saying Chuck is without blame, but it's honestly alarming to me how many people have decided that a man who is mentally ill and self-destructing as a result is this monstrous bad guy, especially considering that Chuck ends up intentionally throwing away his last lifeline, then killing himself.. To me, the main antagonist up against Jimmy isn't Chuck or HHM or the legal system or whatever: it's Saul Goodman.
I think maybe Howard and Francesca are the only moral people on the show.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Frank West on April 02, 2020, 12:55:02 pm
Hey are we all still watching this? The way the latest episode ended (JMM) is so, so good.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Adam Bozarth on April 18, 2020, 10:20:30 pm
Anna and I have been keeping up and are loving it. I am fairly certain that Kim ends up running the Saul Goodman practice with Jimmy and the final season shows how she pulls the strings and Jimmy is the face of the operation. He probably calls the vacuum salesman in the first place to protect her when the shit goes down in Breaking Bad.
I hope that Peter Gould and/or Vince Gilligan get another show, because "Saul" has remained so much fun to watch since it premiered.
We're also obsessed with the actor who plays Lalo, Tony Dalton. He's an amazing actor on "Saul" and is super famous in Mexico. We ended up finding this appearance he made on this strange Jackass-style show where he is completely wrapped in bubblewrap
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Frank West on April 19, 2020, 01:32:00 am
I've been pretty sure since season 1 that Jimmy will break up with Kim for her own good, as his final bit of transformation into Saul Goodman, and he'll end up meeting her again in the flash forward bits, or maybe that she'll end up dead somehow and that sends him into the final spiral of Saul. but I like your idea too now that I'm thinking about it.
Also I watched most of this season thinking it was the final season, which got increasingly confusing as I neared the end of it. I guess I just assumed it would have the same number of seasons as breaking bad? It's put a real fun spin on some of the events happening, every episode has been upping the ante enough that I kind of managed to convince myself they could somehow end it in the next few episodes. I kind of wish I'd kept thinking that until the season finale.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Adam Bozarth on April 19, 2020, 12:41:37 pm
We thought this was the last season as well, and realized there's been no Walt at all so far, but I honestly don't miss him. I thought they were building to a drama I forgot that this show moves at a really measured pace.
One thing I like about this show is that it feels like watching a real adults' show without the same goofy man-child baggage attached to Breaking Bad/Heisenberg. Like, there's not goofy merch or toys or t-shirts or whatever. Although, the comedy manchild in me was stoked to see Jay Johnston from Mr. Show show up this season.
Title: Better Call Saul
Post by: Frank West on April 21, 2020, 08:44:50 pm
That was a weird season finale, since the last three episodes all ended on something that could have been the season finale in it's own right. The Jimmy parts of this one felt largely like wrapping up some details and setting up for next season, while the Nacho parts were the actual climax, even though we know that Eladio won't die and there was no way they were going to kill Lalo, either. I'd say it was kind of a let down but I'm still really looking forward to watching Kim and Jimmy destroy Howard.