Breaking Bad went out with a bang almost a year and a half ago. Its brand-new successor, the Bob Odenkirk-driven Better Call Saul, is already shaping up to live up to what Vince Gilligan and his crew established when he took a plucky druggie and his former chemistry teacher on a journey to create a drug empire.
Here’s what The Emerald’s Craig Wright and Eder Campuzano thought of “Uno,” the pilot episode of Better Call Saul.
Craig’s take:
Better Call Saul begins with a silent black-and-white intro of Bob Odenkirk as a faceless Cinnabon employee with nothing in the world.
Obstructed camera views and out-of-focus shots follow Odenkirk home where he sits in a recliner living through his “Better Call Saul” VHS tapes. The cherry on top of this intro is that in this new, hopeless life post fall of the Heisenberg empire is that he is dressed as Walter White.
Even though Walter ruined Saul’s life and forced him to live a life of obscure anonymity, the desire to live with any attachment to White is all he has left of his previous identity.
The show exists in the Breaking Bad universe. It acknowledges the fact that Breaking Bad came first and Gilligan hints at what is yet to come. After losing a hopeless trial as a public defender, Jimmy McGill retreats to his beat up rust yellow Suzuki Esteem, parked in the shadow of a white Cadillac DeVille, the kind that Saul Goodman will one day “LWYRUP” in.
Breaking Bad’s pilot began with a flash, but in reality, it was probably one of the weaker episodes of the series as it evolved into something exponentially better. Saul is already intriguing after one episode.
It is clear that Saul will share the character development and superfluous schemes of Breaking Bad.
In co-creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould’s world, characters cannot begin as the hero. They have to evolve from a down-on-their luck ordinary guy before transcending into the antihero.
Jimmy McGill starts as an out-of-luck loser desperate to make a new life for himself, much like Walter. The difference is that Walt always had at least a partial answer to every problem he faced.
It already appears as if Jimmy is going to face problems he can’t overcome. With Gilligan at the helm, anything can happen.
This is good news for everyone suffering from Breaking Bad withdrawals.
Eder’s take:
The opening of Better Call Saul might just be more heart-breaking than most anything that happened on Breaking Bad. The decline of the Heisenberg empire turned Saul Goodman into Walter White.
Over the course of six years and five seasons, we became accustomed to Walter elegantly bumbling through his rise as a drug kingpin. Sure, he had the textbook know-how to make the best damn meth on the planet, but Walter’s shortcomings as a businessman and criminal, were evident the moment he had to resort to chaining Crazy 8 to a post in his basement with a U-Lock.
You could write novels about the trials and tribulations that Jesse Pinkman faced as he went from thug to semi-reputable businessman.
Not so with Saul Goodman. He had everything figured out. When Walt and Jesse had Saul at gunpoint in the middle of the desert, the shifty lawyer called their bluff. He knew how to launder their money. He knew his shit. James McGill doesn’t.
When we meet the man who will become Saul Goodman, he’s driving a shoddy, yellow Suzuki Esteem. His office is the boiler room of a nail salon (The very same nail salon he tries to convince the Whites to use as a means to launder Walt’s drug money.) But he’s got that Saul Goodman spirit.
He may not know exactly how to employ his knowledge of the judicial system quite yet, but ol’ Jimmy’s trying to figure it out.
And that is a pretty good way to describe just how Better Call Saul is doing after one night on the air. As soon as the music starts on the black-and-white opening of “Uno,” the pilot episode, it’s painfully clear that this is a Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould production. His signature style is imbued in every shot, every line of dialogue, every scene. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from its parent show.
That doesn’t mean that it’s not good by any measure. No, Better Call Saul is shaping up to be pretty freaking great.
The fact that Jonathan Banks only shows up in a minor scene in the first few minutes of “Uno” says a lot about what Gilligan and company are trying to do with this show. It’s flashes of Breaking Bad that skew more toward the eccentrics perpetuated by the titular shady lawyer.
Stray observations:
• Mike is a parking lot attendant. A parking lot attendant. Oddly fitting.
• “The only way that hunk of junk is worth $500 is if there’s a $300 hooker sittin’ in it!”
• Hit and run or bailed ahd whaled?
Better Call Saul airs at 10 p.m. on Sundays. The second episode of the two-part premiere airs Monday, Feb. 9 at 10 p.m. AMC, sometimes we will never understand why you do things.
Follow Craig Wright (@wgwcraig) and Eder Campuzano (@edercampuzano) on Twitter.