BEST OF 2017: BETTER CALL SAUL

7.  BETTER CALL SAUL (AMC)

For its third straight year, Better Call Saul continued its “How To Do A Prequel That Isn’t A Huge, Disappointing Waste Of Everyone’s Time While Also Somehow Diminishing The Original Thing Even Though That Shouldn’t Technically Be Possible Since The Thing Still Exists In Precisely The Same Form” clinic.  It even managed to work in a significant appearance by Gus Fring, which perfectly exemplifies the tightrope it walks with such practiced ease. It’s a decision which seems at once like a no-brainer (what kind of prequel is not going to take the opportunity have the original's most iconic villain reappear?) but is also nearly impossible to pull off organically (because that villain was defined entirely by being too much of a professional to expose himself to a cheap grifter like Saul Goodman).  And the show had the patience to withhold it for the entirety of its first 2 years, essentially only dipping into that well after it had established for good and all that it didn’t need to, not really.

 

The self-control required to pull that off demonstrates an enormous degree of confidence, the type that usually only comes paired with a stultifying sense of self-importance.  But part of what made Breaking Bad so special was that even when it was playing with Big Ideas and Dark Turns, it always maintained its wicked sense of humor, and never betrayed a feeling that it was too good for its genre roots.  To that end, Saul's ethos is split between that of its two diametrically opposite leads.  In presentation, it is Jimmy McGill, who recognizes the value of a flashy visual to hook people (just look at those suits) and does not so much think of himself above an honest day’s work as he is pathologically unable to resist gilding every lily with as much showman’s flair as it can possibly bear.  But under the hood, its storytelling is all Mike Ehrmantraut: patient, precise, never seeming to move above a tortoise’s pace but somehow leaving all of us hares perpetually struggling to keep up.  

Saul has, from the start, had the confidence to devote more time to the slow destruction of Jimmy’s relationships with his (hitherto unseen) brother and love interest than to building up his connections to the cartel, despite all the flash and fan-service associated with the latter.  But it also has the willingness to indulge in suspense sequences as intense as anything its predecessor produced, without ever feeling like it is placing itself into direct competition with it.  If Jimmy McGill could have managed living in his elder sibling's shadow with half as much aplomb, his career, his relationships, and even his name would be very different.   

But that's not how this story goes. We know that, and it is apparent that this is a show that knows where it’s going, how to get there, and how to make every step count.  Most prequels only know one of those things.    

Watch It For:  “Chicanery”, which is such a dramatic, directorial and performance powerhouse that I can totally forgive the central conceit that somehow an ethics panel convened specifically to review Jimmy’s honesty and integrity would be swayed in his favor by a stunt involving his secretly hiring a pickpocket to tamper with an opposing witness's person, in the courthouse, during the proceedings.  That’s like my wife accusing me of cheating with her sister and my deciding to have my actual mistress call to vouch for me.