Oh wow, I only just realized that was the finale. This show started strong, but fizzled for me…
After the last two amazing episodes I think the finale was bound to disappoint. I liked the bingo scene, and him running his cons with his old drinking buddy, but the rest wasn’t very good. However, the final scene with Mike really clicked for me, and it really explains the evolution of Jimmy into Saul brilliantly.
I loved the final scene. It made the first season a self-contained character arc, detailing how he went from being a guy who returned the money to a guy who would never return the money. It was the story of a man struggling with his sense of integrity and finally deciding to let go and just cash in.
And it was certainly a better way to end the season than by throwing out some contrived cliffhanger. Better Call Saul could just stop right now and I’d be immensely satisfied.
-TomI didn’t realize it was the finale as well. It’s nevertheless satisfying because it certainly did end on a dramatic note and there’s a feeling of closure because you know that Jimmy and Chuck parting ways is a major step in Jimmy’s transformation to Saul.
BCS kept defying my expectations as it went along. Based on Saul’s whacky/comedy factor in Breaking Bad I’d have thought BCS will overall be more zany. It’s not, and I’m fine with that. It’s also a continuous personal story rather than a one-case-per-episode thing. I thought they’d insert more ties to Breaking Bad, but BCS does fine standing on its own legs. I like the character ensemble as well as the pacing. I liked seeing Mike again. I understand how it’s not moving along fast enough for some, but I enjoy that it takes as much time as it does.
In Breaking Bad, it always felt to me like Odenkirk’s Saul stepped in from another show. I never would have guessed the show would be as smart, deliberate, and heartfelt as Better Call Saul.
I’m almost dreading the inevitable Breaking Bad fan service tie-ins. To my mind, the series as a whole should end the moment Saul meets Walter White.
-Tom
Yeah, I loved the whole episode, a much as it broke my heart that Jimmy still had a chance to “go legit” toward the end of the episode.
Remind me, how was the scam in the alley supposed to go? I’m trying to think back–is the “dead” guy just supposed to be in a drunken stupor or what? And then they find the “Rolex watch” and the scam-ee gets to keep the fake watch but only if he coughs up another couple of hundred bucks on top of what was in the honeypot wallet?
Yeah, that’s the scam. Alley guy is blackout drunk, Jimmy goes through his wallet, splits the cash with his mark. Then Jimmy takes the watch, mark recognizes it’s a Rolex ostensibly worth a lot of money. Mark offers the wallet cash plus whatever he’s carrying in exchange, that bit less the cost of the fake watch being the net profit of the scam.
I agree that show should end when he meets Walter White. But if the show takes many many years to reach that day, I’ll be a happy camper.
I read an interview w/ Odenkirk suggesting that the show may eventually jump ahead to post-Walter White. If you recall, the opening scene has present-day Saul working in a Cinnabon in some mall.
I wouldn’t mind seeing that either. Maybe he could start over with his practice in Omaha?
This, this, and this.
The show is far better than I expected and very touching, but the most tragic thing about Saul Goodman isn’t his betrayal by his brother, his constant search for a big legal score, or even the fact that he succumbs to temptation and becomes a criminal. The real tragedy of the Saul Goodman character is that for all his wit and cunning, he gets pulled into Heisenberg’s wake and becomes a side story in Walter White’s need to feel big.
He’s a good person who’s frustrated because he’s not a successful good person. He’s a guy who wants to reap some reward from his hard work and determination to do the right thing, but he ends up getting bullied and on the run because he couldn’t stay away from the big Heisenburg money.
No matter how long the show runs, that writing will always be on the wall.
I wondered where that scene fit in. I just watched the whole season last night (so wiped today!).
So it’s a future shift? The future shifts were better done in BB. I remember watching those pants float down from the desert sky and thinking, WTF is this, and then how satisfying it was once I realized what was going on. In BCS, I’m constantly thinking, Wait, what? For example, there was a scene early on with Mike looking at his daughter in law as she passes in the car. She slows and stares at him, then drives on. When did this scene in the cars happen? It had to have been after she called the cops from Philly, but it comes right after Mike goes home from his night shift in the booth. The cops come to his house and the show ends. But he wasn’t in “the outs” with his daughter in law yet! That doesn’t happen until the cops come and Mike goes to her and realizes she called the cops, resulting in his confession that he was the killer, seeking revenge for her husband’s death!
Or I don’t know – maybe that look they shared in their vehicles was for something else?
In BB, I always seemed to get it. In BCS, I’m a little less capable.
But, hey! S’all good, man!
This reminds me of the stuff Mike says about good criminals and bad criminals. I loved the look on the guy’s face when he claims to be a good man. And then Mike’s friendly reminder about criminality.
Which would be an ideal time to reconcile (to some meaning of that word) with Chuck, whose actions over the four years from mail room to job offer, drove Jimmy to become the person Chuck decided he was.
It was more than 4 years, right? I don’t know how long, but I got the sense he was working on that distance degree for a long time.
I was referring to the point in time when he got his degree (working in the mail room) when Chuck screwed him over the first time, to point in time where he got the job offer (that he walked away from at the end of the episode) after Chuck screwed him over the second time.
As for known dates… the time from when he left the bar as the sex offender his brother got him painted as, to when he returned to the bar and woke up his sleeping and ill-fated friend Marco, was “ten years in the desert”. His mother “passed away three years ago”. I guess I mistook the mother’s death with when he got his degree. I’d hazard he got the degree sometime after his mother’s death, which would put Chuck’s meltdown less than three years ago as well.
I’m curious about the gaps. How did Jimmy come to leave HHM? Why did Chuck meltdown? It could be some post-degree “Slippin’ Jimmy” escapade instigated by Chuck’s first screwing of Jimmy. That’d reconcile with “Slippin’ Jimmy” escapades throughout the season making Chuck regress into full space blanket mode.
IIRC, when Jimmy hands off the care and feeding of Chuck to HHM, Howard remarks “You’ve been doing all of this every day. For over a year.” That would put it at over a year but probably well short of two years. If it was closer to two years, most people would tend to say “For almost two years” rather than “For over a year” if they were trying to be complimentary.
Bump! Season two starts Monday!
-Tom