Loose Thoughts on Better Call Saul

15 August 2023

This post was originally made on Cohost.

Much like how i felt about El Camino, I think somebody needs to tell Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould that it's okay: they can actually just focus on character drama; they are in fact good at that, and we don't really need more Breaking Bad.

Like, it's okay Vince, it's okay Peter: You're actually really good at writing traumatized characters ramming into eachother at high velocity and fucking up eachother's lives. That's cool! Keep doing it! I know doing another Crime Guy is fun but we already had five seasons of that…

To me it feels like Better Call Saul peaked at season 3/4 when it was squarely about Jimmy's psychological collapse, and by the time we get to season 6 it's just kind of spinning its wheels. Similarly feeling to how in Breaking Bad, the shootout at the nazi ranch was cool and all, but the defining moment of the ending to me is Flynn yelling at Walt that he's disowned him because he's an awful dad and a bad person. The best part of El Camino is when it's focused on how Jessie is severely traumatized and fucked up by the end of Breaking Bad - and its really masterfully done for about 20 minutes before it becomes Crime Guy 2!

I guess it's just mildly disappointing that Better Call Saul, which started as a psychological exploration of a huckster (trying to prove himself under the shadow of his perfect older brother), just uh... becomes Crime Guy 3¹ for most of the rest of the runtime. Bahh. That said, pretty good ending all in all. He winded up exactly where he felt he had to.

1. It is really funny that in the Breaking Bad universe the chevron moustache is the Bad Guy Signifier though