![]() ![]() Every aspect - the writing, directing, acting, production and costume design - has been rendered with tremendous precision, but the series still feels like an independent organism going in surprising directions all on its own. Still, whenever I come back to it after a between-season hiatus, I’m astonished all over again by how well it’s crafted on every single level. I am well aware of what a fantastic, thoughtfully crafted piece of television Better Call Saul is. On multiple occasions, otherwise banal objects - a dropped ice cream cone on a sidewalk covered in ants, a single drop of liquid falling from the lip of an empty beer bottle the morning after a night of drinking- are captured in close-ups that convey there’s something rotten taking over this fictional version of Albuquerque. That’s apparent in the circumstances Jimmy creates and/or unwittingly finds himself in, but also the smaller moments the gifted makers of this series choose to place in sharpest focus. But now that we’re closer to the end of Better Call Saul - season six will be its last - there’s an even stronger sense of foreboding hanging over the show. We know what lies ahead for Jimmy based on Breaking Bad, and the post- Breaking Bad-timeline flash-forwards that have opened each season, including this one, which begins with a sequence implying that future Jimmy, living under the alias Gene, is on the verge of getting his cover blown. But at this point in Better Call Saul, you could say we’re finally starting to see him break … even worse? In season five, which began Sunday night on AMC and will be followed Monday by the premiere of episode two, that line becomes clearly delineated again as Jimmy - who has now officially adopted the Saul Goodman identity we know from Breaking Bad - starts to take on new clients, including one who draws him into the world of the Salamancas and Gus Fring. But the line that connects these two narratives was dotted, and sometimes non-existent, in the seasons that followed. The second is a crime series that follows fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and his dangerous entrenchment in the local activities of a Mexican drug cartel.Ī link between the two was established in season one, via the attorney-client relationship between Jimmy and Mike and, obviously and more importantly, by Breaking Bad, the series that inspired this prequel. The first is a character study focused on the increasingly unscrupulous lawyer Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) and his relationships with his girlfriend, the straighter-and-narrower attorney Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and his brother, the mentally ill, once-brilliant law firm partner Chuck McGill (Michael McKean). ![]() During its first four seasons, it has also increasingly functioned as two shows packaged into one. Photo: Warrick Page/AMC/Sony Pictures Televisionīetter Call Saul has consistently been, and still is, one of the best dramas on television. ![]()
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