TV #36 of 2019:
Better Call Saul, season 1
This is my first time rewatching this program from the beginning, on the heels of my first time going back through its parent show. And overall, I really think I prefer this one. Breaking Bad is an amazing piece of television storytelling on any number of levels, but its central character is pretty flat from a personal growth perspective. (Complex and interesting, yes. And his situation changes dramatically over the course of the series. But Walter White is fundamentally the same person from earliest flashback through bitter end, a corrosive element that becomes more widely recognized by himself and others without ever altering in any meaningful way.)
Better Call Saul, by contrast, is all about change. And choices. Its own protagonist is actively seeking to be a better person, only for a cruel universe to strike him down for it again and again. There’s great dramatic irony in this being a prequel, since the audience knows Saul Goodman as the jaded figure he’ll be in 2008 when his storyline intersects with White’s. But when we meet him here in 2002, he’s still going by the name Jimmy McGill, and he’s so much more earnest and decent than anyone could have imagined. True, he’s already bending the truth as well as the law, but he continually surprises us with hidden depths and the lengths he’ll go to on behalf of his loved ones and clients.
After all, this is also a story about the grind, about putting an unfathomable amount of effort into a task in the hopes of achieving some sublime reward. That’s true in a macro, thematic sense of the hero’s futile journey toward self-improvement, as well as in the smaller moments of hustle that we get to see him employ. Jimmy is willing to do the work, even while he’s hindered by his own worst impulses and the people like his brother who can’t see beyond his past as a small-time con artist.
I’m giving this debut season a rating of four stars instead of five, but only because I know how the story improves from here and gives its supporting cast more to do. Kim, Mike, and Nacho all have compelling grinds of their own ahead, but they’re largely an afterthought to the Jimmy show for now. His is such an unexpectedly rich piece of characterization that it’s more than capable of sustaining these first ten episodes, but the narrative grows deeper and even more entwined with the original series as the focus shifts to encompass his fellow travelers as well. I can’t wait to see it again with fresh eyes.
★★★★☆
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